Abstract
To understand the witch trials it is, of course, necessary to understand broader developments in European society at the time, and, in this respect, general historical accounts of early modern history proffer a fascinating paradox. The period from the mid fifteenth to the eighteenth century was a period of considerable development in science, technology and educational schemes. In the long run, living conditions changed for the better even for the commonalty, no matter how selective and sporadic the enhancement. Up until the early twentieth century, some writers, influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, were bold enough to label this development as ‘progress’ and the course of history was seen to be a progressive advancement.1 Later generations, though, became much more cautious in attaching value judgements to historical occurrence, especially after the two world wars and other atrocities of the twentieth century. However, notwithstanding the fact that the word ‘progress’ appears little in current academic writing, many still see the improvement of social conditions and the development of western democracy as a progress incomparable with earlier centuries. To a great extent, European historiography can be seen as a grand narrative showing European nations’ — or Europeans’ — route from the supposed ‘Dark Ages’ of the medieval period, towards a modem society which we consider, despite its apparent shortcomings, superior to the living conditions of earlier centuries.2
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Notes
For a classic example, see J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into its Origin and Growth (London: Macmillan, 1920). With a more relative point of view, see G. G. Iggers, ‘The Idea of Progress in Recent Philosophies of History’, Journal of Modern History 30 (1958) 215–26; Iggers, ‘The Idea of Progress: A Critical Reassessment’, American Historical Review 71 (1965) 1–17.
Many writers in the era of the Enlightenment produced ‘Enlightened’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ narratives of European development. However, their ‘mindless and overweening’ confidence in progress has been overemphasised, if not caricaturised by later writers. According to Johnson Kent Wright, the belief in historical progress was by no means representative of all writers of the era. Wright states that ‘legends about Enlightenment faith in historical “progress” persist against all evidence’; Wright, Historical Thought in the Era of the Enlightenment, in L. Kramer and S. Maza (eds), A Companion to Western Historical Thought (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 123–4, 132–41, citation p. 140. It seems, though, that Roy Porter, in his The Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (London: Penguin Press, 2000), pp. 424–45, sees progress as a justified concept of the Enlightenment — at least in Britain, where both the proper notion of the Enlightenment and the idea of progress seem to have had more practical essence than on the Continent. The more or less explicit idea of progress was prevalent to many influential writers of national histories in the nineteenth century, among them Jules Michelet, Thomas B. Macaulay and George Bancroft. See T. N. Baker, ‘National History in the Age of Michelet, Macaulay, and Bancroft’, in Kramer and Maza, A Companion to Western Historical Thought, pp. 185–201. Present historical writing is by no means free of the idea of a teleological development of the nations or Europe; see Baker, ‘National History’, pp. 200–1.
See Diarmaid MacCulloch’s sarcastic comment on the ‘modern liberal academic historians’ who have taken an interest in writing the history ‘from below’, but who feel little sympathy for and no sense of kinship with contemporary popular culture; MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided (London: Allen Lane, 2003), p. 592. For a consistent overview of the period, see Euan Cameron (ed.), Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
See R. Po-Chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe 1550–1750 (London: Routledge, [1989] 1992), p. 122, passim; MacCulloch, Reformation, pp. 591–600,633–4,672–3.
For a modern-day classic on the slave trade, see S. M. Elkin, Slavery: A Problem of American Institutional and Intellectual Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, [1959] 1968). For a different approach see R. W. Fogel and S. L. Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (London: Wildwood House, 1974).
Robert Muchembled, ‘Satanic Myths and Cultural Reality’, in Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen (eds), Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, [1990] 1993), p. 153. See also Muchembled, ‘The Witches of the Cambrésis: The Acculturation of the Rural World in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, in J. Obelkevich (ed.), Religion and the People, 800–1700 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979); Muchembled, La roi et la sorciere (Paris: Desclee, 1993); Muchembled, La sorciere au village (Paris: Gallimard, 1979); Muchembled, Sorcieres: justice et société aux 16e and 17e siecles (Paris: Imago, 1987); Muchembled, Les derniers buchers (Paris: Ramsay, 1981).
Robert Muchembled, Popular Culture and Elite Culture in France 1400–1750 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), p. 269. Originally published in French in 1978.
On the ‘Porsnevian thesis’, see W. Schulze, Bäuerlicher Widerstand und feudale Herrschaft in der fruhen Neuzeit (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1980), pp. 27–37, 141–2; Gunter Vogler, ‘Bauerlicher Klassenkamp als Konzept der Forschung’, in W. Schulze (ed.), Aufstande, Revolten, Prozesse. Beitrage zu bauerlicher Widerstandsbewegungen im fruhneuzeitlichen Europa (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1983), pp. 23–40. Some of Porsnev’s writings are attainable in German: ‘Das Wesen des Feudalstaates’ and ‘Formen und Wege des bauerlichen Kampfes gegen die feudale Ausbeutung’ are published in Sowjetwissenschaft Gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Abteilung 2 (1952) 248–77; 3 (1952) 402–59.
Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (London: Longman, 1987), pp. 89–90; Levack, ‘State-Building and Witch Hunting in Early Modern Europe’, in J. Barry, M. Hester and G. Roberts (eds), Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Studies in Culture and Belief (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 96–115.
J. Delumeau, Catholicism between Luther and V oltaire: A New View of the Counter-Reformation (London: Bums & Oats, 1977), pp. 159–61, 175–202, 225. Originally published in French in 1971. See also Delumeau, ‘Les Réformateurs et la superstition’, Actes du colloque sur l’Amiral Coligny et son temps (Paris: Societe de L’Histoire du Protestantisme Francais, 1974), pp. 451–87.
Stuart Clark, Protestant Demonology: Sin, Superstition, and Society (c. 1520-c. 1630), in Ankarloo and Henningsen, Early Modern European Witchcraft, pp. 46–7.
C. Lamer, Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland (London: Chatto & Windus, 1981), pp. 1, 5, 25, 157ff.
N. Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-Hunt (New York: Basic Books, 1975); R. Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials: Their Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300–1500 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976).
Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 510. See more generally chapter 34, ‘Acculturation by Text’.
Neither is there more on this issue in his other works. See, for example, his ‘Lay Judges and the Acculturation of the Masses (France and the Southern Low Countries, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries)’, in Kaspar von Greyerz (ed.), Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1800 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984).
On this, see also E. Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Muchembled considers this a matter of fact; Muchembled, Popular Culture, pp. 189–96, 233. See also J. Klaits, Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch Hunts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), pp. 48–85.
However, ignoring other than diabolical witch trials has possibly led to the overrating of the role of women in witch trials. In many areas, trials other than diabolical panics were perhaps less often related to women than Sabbath beliefs. See Marko Nenonen, Noituus, taikuus ja noitavainot (Helsinki: SHS, 1992), pp. 31, 313, 437 (summary); Nenonen, ‘Historiankirjoittajien paholainen. Noitavainojen uusi kuva’, in S. Katajala-Peltomaa and R. Maria Toivo (eds), Paholainen, noituus ja magia (Helsinki: SKS, 2004), pp. 250–3, 281 (English Summary: ‘The Devil in the Historian’s Mind: Witch-Hunt Stereotypes in European Historiography’, pp. 317–20).
On the old schools of acculturation theories, see M. J. Herskovits, Acculturation: The Study of Cultural Contact (New York: J. J. Augustin, 1938), pp. 2ff., also pp. 33ff., where the author reviews some influential works in the field. On modern approaches see N. Wachtel, ‘L’acculturation’, in J. le Goff and P. Nora (eds), Faire de l’histoire. Nouveaux problemes (Paris: Gallimard, 1974), pp. 124–46; on terminology see pp. 129–34.
J. Wirth, ‘Against the Acculturation Thesis’, in von Greyerz, Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe, p. 67. See also Stuart Clark, ‘French Historians and Early Modern Popular Culture’, Past and Present 100 (1983) 62–99.
Peter Burke, Sodology and History (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1980), p. 101. His later book History and Social Theoiy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992) covers much the same issues; on acculturation, see pp. 125, 155–7; N. Wachtel, La vision des vaincus. Les Indiens du Pérou devant la Conquéte espagnole 1530–1570 (Paris: Gallimard, 1971), pp. 24–6, 32, also passim; Wachtel, L’acculturation. Burke has suggested that the term ‘acculturation’ should be replaced with the idea of ‘negotiation’. According to him, acculturation inadequately describes the mental bargaining process through which individuals consider their position and the possible benefits of the reforms; P. Burke, ‘A Question of Acculturation?’, in Scienze, credenze occulte, livelli di cultura (Firenze: Olschki, 1982), p. 204; Burke, History and Social Theory, p. 87. It seems to me, however, that it is only a question of a word and, therefore, does not lead us much further.
On Gramsci’s theory, see R. Heeger, Ideologie und Macht. Eine Analyse von Antonio Gramscis Quaderni (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1975), esp. pp. 69ff. and pp. 117ff.
Acculturation as an explanatory factor has often been used when encountering minority groups in European societies. ‘The others’ include, for example, the Lapps in Northern Europe (see E. Asp, The Finnicization of the Lapps: A Case of Acculturation (Turku: Turun yliopiston julkaisuja, 1966) and rural population under the pressurised circumstances caused by the conflict between the declining rural culture and expanding urban culture (see Peter A. Munch, A Study of Cultural Change. Rural-Urban conflicts in Norway, Studia Norvegica 9 (Oslo: Aschehoug & Co., 1956)). Regarding the weight of anthropological inspiration, emphasised much in many witch-hunt histories, it is noteworthy that for example Max Marwick’s compilation Witchcraft and Sorcery (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970) is influenced not only by anthropology but also sociology.
Muchembled, Popular Culture, pp. 2, 3; R. W. Scribner, ‘Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Europe’, in R. Po-Chia Hsia and R. W. Scribner (eds), Problems in the Historical Anthropology of Early Modem Europe (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1997), pp. 13–14. See also Wirth, ‘Against the Acculturation Thesis’, pp. 66–78. See also Pierre Bordieu’s Algeria 1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1963] 1979), which considerably influenced the French intellectual climate in the 1960s and later.
Lamer, Enemies of God, p. 50. The themes of the 1960s and 1970s can also be seen in Lamer’s other works. See Lamer, The Thinking Peasant: Popular and Educated Belief in Pre-Industrial Culture (Glasgow: Pressgang, 1982), reprinted in Lamer, Witchcraft and Religion: The Politics of Popular Belief (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984).
P. Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (revised reprint, Aldershot: Ashgate, [1978]1994), pp. 58–64, 113–15, 207ff.
See, for example, R. Briggs, Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft (London: Penguin Books, [1996] 1998), p. 402.
See, H. E. Næss, Trolldomsprosessene i Norge pa 1500–1600-tallet (BAstad: Universitetsforlaget, 1982), pp. 17–18, 372–3; Levack, Witch-Hunt, pp. 19–21; R. Golden, ‘Satan in Europe: The Geography of Witch Hunts’, in M. Wolfe (ed.), Changing ldentiries in Early Modern France (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997), pp. 220–1; W. Behringer, ‘Neun Millionen Hexen. Entstehung, Tradition und Kritik eines popularen Mythos’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 49 (1998), pp. 664ff.
A. Wesselski, Versuch einer Theorie des Marehens, Prager Deutsche Studien 45 (Reichenberg i. B.: Franz Kraus, 1931), pp. 10ff., 144ff. Wesselski criticised ‘the Finnish school’ of ethnography which tried to trace the genuine origin and then chronologically and geographically follow its diffusion and transform into more sophisticated — or possible more vulgarised — versions (pp. 144, 157). See also C. Zika, ‘Appropriating Folklore in Sixteenth-Century Witchcraft Literature’, in Hsia and Scribner, Problems in the Historical Anthropology of Early Modem Europe, pp. 175–218. Zika, from a slightly different point of view, supports Wesselski’s idea, though without mentioning him.
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Nenonen, M. (2007). Culture Wars: State, Religion and Popular Culture in Europe, 1400–1800. In: Barry, J., Davies, O. (eds) Palgrave Advances in Witchcraft Historiography. Palgrave Advances. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230593480_7
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