Becoming a Witch
Women and Magic in Europe during the Middle Ages and Beyond
edited by Andrea Maraschi and Angelica Aurora Montanari
Hardback (Published)
(September 2023)
ISBN: 9786156405647
5.79 x 8.23 inches
Price: $105.00
In stock
Becoming a Witch explores the feminization of what civil and religious authorities defined as “magic” in medieval times. It looks into the complex connections between women, the natural, the supernatural, and the tragedy of existence.
This book is not about witches. First of all, because it focuses on the Middle Ages. And, despite common misconceptions among the general public, the figure of the witch as a woman who seals a pact with the Devil is not a “medieval” invention. Becoming a Witch explores the feminization of what civil and religious authorities defined as “magic” in medieval times. It looks into the complex connections between women, the natural, the supernatural, and the tragedy of existence. The chapters in this book span from the far north of Europe to the Mediterranean area, and investigate topics such as divination, erotic “magic”, flying and dancing bodies, cannibalism, milk-stealing witchcraft, the circulation of “superstitious” knowledge among women, Otherness, agency, and, last but not least, contemporary representations of the witch in books, TV series, and cinema productions. From whom did women learn their beliefs and remedies? Were they really in contact with demons? Were they a social threat? And, most importantly, should men fear and stop them?
Witchery 101. An Introduction Andrea Maraschi CHAPTER 1. Religious Cafting and Subversion: Women and Magic in Early Medieval Iberian Sources Lilian R. G. Diniz CHAPTER 2. Women and Magic in Early Medieval England: Terms and Material Traces Gwendolyne Knight CHAPTER 3. Women's Sexuality as Threat: Erotic Magic in Burchard of Worms' Corrector sive medicus Larissa de Freitas Lyth CHAPTER 4. The Discourse of Wounding: Witchcraft and Ethnography in Burchard of Worms' Decretum Chris Halsted CHAPTER 5. Medieval Canon Law Scholarship and Its Repression of Magic Practices: A Cultural Premise of Early Modern Witch-Hunting? Federica Boldrini CHAPTER 6. Udder Calamity: Dealing with the Milk-Stealing Witch in Medieval Iceland Beth Rogers CHAPTER 7. Women's Magical Knowledge and Its Gendered Circulation in Late Medieval Exempla Andrea Maraschi CHAPTER 8. "Divergent" Orchestic Formae: Traces in Italian Preaching (13th - 15th Century) Angelica Aurora Montanari CHAPTER 9. A Few Remarks on Witchcraft and Medievalism Francesca Roversi Monaco End-of-Term Party: Old and New Witches Angelica Aurora Montanari Notes on Contributors
- Edited by Andrea Maraschi
- Edited by Angelica Aurora Montanari
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