Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages PDF
Preview Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages
Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages THEMIDDLEAGESSERIES RuthMazoKarras,SeriesEditor EdwardPeters,FoundingEditor Acompletelistofbooksintheseries isavailablefromthepublisher. Witc hc r a f t a nd M a g ic in the Nord ic M idd le A g e s Stephen A. Mitchell university of pennsylvania press philadelphia . oxford Publicationofthisvolumewasaidedbyagift fromtheRoyalGustavusAdolphusAcademy. Copyright(cid:1)2011UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsusedfor purposesofrevieworscholarlycitation,noneofthisbook maybereproducedinanyformbyanymeanswithout writtenpermissionfromthepublisher. Publishedby UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Philadelphia,Pennsylvania19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Mitchell,StephenA.,1951– WitchcraftandmagicintheNordicMiddleAges/StephenA.Mitchell. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN978-0-8122-4290-4(hardcover:alk.paper) 1.Witchcraft—Scandinavia—History. 2.Magic—Scandinavia—History. I.Title. BF1584.S23M58 2011 133.4(cid:1)309480902—dc22 2010022016 (cid:1) o my very supportive family and friends This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Introduction 1 Chapter1.WitchcraftandthePast 16 Chapter2.MagicandWitchcraftinDailyLife 41 Chapter3.NarratingMagic,Sorcery,andWitchcraft 74 Chapter4.MedievalMythologies 117 Chapter5.Witchcraft,Magic,andtheLaw 146 Chapter6.Witchcraft,Sorcery,andGender 175 Epilogue:TheMedievalLegacy 201 Notes 207 WorksCited 297 Index 353 Acknowledgments 367 This page intentionally left blank Preface Thisstudyexaminestheresponsesinthelegal, literary,andpopularcultures of the Nordic Middle Ages to the belief that there existed people capable of manipulating the world through magical practices. To date, there have been nocomprehensiveevaluationsofNordicwitchcraftbeliefsbetween1100and 1525, whereas studies of Scandinavian witchcraft in the eras both before and after this period abound. The reasons for this situation are many. In large part, itisexplainedbythetendencyformanyofthelatemedievalmaterials, such as the Icelandic sagas, to be appropriated to discussions of the much earlier Viking Age; moreover, there is a view among some specialists that nothingmuchhappenedwithrespecttoScandinavianwitchcraftbeforecirca 1400.1 I argue, on the contrary, that much was happening and that an evalua- tion of this important meeting ground of church doctrine and vernacular belief systems in the period between the Viking Age and the early modern erahaslongbeenadesideratum,bothforthestudyofwitchcraftinScandina- viaitselfandforthestudyofwitchcraftinEuropemorebroadly.2Thecurrent workthuspresentsanaccountofdevelopmentsinwitchcraftbeliefsthrough- out Scandinavia in the later Middle Ages, of how elite and nonelite, native andimportedconstructionsofwitchcraftevolvedduringthecenturiesbefore the Reformation, an era of profound and widespread changes that set the stagefortheearlymoderncrazes. A phrase like ‘‘Nordic witchcraft,’’ especially when framed by specific dates, suggests a highly bounded entity, a set of orthodox views held by a homogenous culture,butnothingcouldbefurtherfromthetruth.Whatwe know and what we can reconstruct about the world of Northern Europe from the early Iron Age through the Middle Ages says that it was always a heterogeneousanddynamicworld,and,importantly,seenfromtheperspec- tiveofthepeoplewetendtothinkofas‘‘Scandinavians’’or‘‘proto-Scandina- vians,’’ a world in which their neighbors, the Sa´mi, with their shamanic
Description:The list of books you might like
