Strange Histories: The Trial of the Pig, the Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds [Hardcover]

Darren Oldridge (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415288606 | ISBN-13: 978-0415288606 | Publication Date: December 2, 2004

Strange Histories presents a serious account of some of the most extraordinary occurrences of European and North American history and explains how they made sense to people living at the time. 

Using case studies from the Middle Ages and the early modern period, this book provides fascinating insights into the world-view of a vanished age and shows how such occurences fitted in quite naturally with the "common sense" of the time. Explanations of these phenomena, riveting and ultimately rational, encourage further reflection on what shapes our beliefs today.

What made reasonable, educated men and women behave in ways that seem utterly nonsensical to us today? This question and many more are answered in this fascinating book.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Despite the spooky title and cover art, this is not a collection of Gothic ghost stories or fireside tales. These accounts of pre-modern beliefs (spanning the late Middle Ages to the late 17th century) employ serious scholarship. Oldridge contends that examining the so-called "strange" beliefs of the past can help us achieve a richer understanding of history. "If we can begin to understand why a French judge warned people about demonically possessed apples in 1602," he writes, "we might start to unravel the intellectual context in which he lived." But more importantly, Oldridge hopes that grasping the context of these beliefs will encourage readers to take a critical look at their own preconceived ideas. If the book suffers from anything, it is an intellectual earnestness and over-seriousness most evident in Oldridge’s constant insistence that the majority of the people he writes about were acting with "good intentions." For example, in a chapter on the rationale behind the execution of heretics in Medieval times, Oldridge notes that "the pious desire to retrieve souls from damnation could, of course, conceal more worldly motives for suppressing dissent, but it would be unduly cynical to assume this was normally the case." In moments like this, it seems that Oldridge’s single-minded adherence to his thesis—that "bizarre" past behavior and beliefs are entirely rational when taken in context—blinds him to the instances when people may very well have had impure motivations. That said, this is still a fascinating historical study that encourages self-reflection.
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Review

'In his lively and slightly ironic account, Darren Oldridge ... finds nothing unreasonable in prosecuting horses, witches and wolfmen ... Strange Histories is more than an entertaining catalog of oddities.' - Shepherd Express: Milwaukee

'A well-researched book, full of snippets of old text, diaries and manuscripts, there is much here for the scholar.' - Fate

'An entertaining book.' - The Medieval Review

'a fascinating book... [which offers] excellent, up-to-date summaries drawn from the recent scholarly literature. - Central European History

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (December 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415288606
• ISBN-13: 978-0415288606
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,598,913 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating look at beliefs of the past, April 9, 2005

By 

L O'connor (richmond, surrey United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Strange Histories: The Trial of the Pig, the Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds (Hardcover)

This book explains clearly and convincingly why the people of the medieval and early modern periods believed in things that seem to us biazarre and irrational. If you want to understand why people believed in witchcraft,werewolves, the persecution of heretics, the trying of animals for crimes against humans etc, this book explains it all. It clearly shows that the beliefs of past times were no more irrational than our own, given the way people knew the world to be. If you read this book you can understand why, for instance,in 1545 it seemed reasonable to the townsfolk of Saint-Julien-de-Maurienne in France to sue a plague of flies for destroying a vinyard.

More disconcertingly, the book also shows that our own modern beliefs are often no more rational than the beliefs of the past, and that for instance the same reasons that led people to accept the truth of confessions of witchcraft, led people in modern times to accept the reality of Satanic abuse. If you pride yourself on being more rational than folk in past times, your opinion may be shaken by this book. The book is written in a lucid, witty style that makes it pleasantly easy to read for the unscholarly (like me), and should be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in history and why people believe what they do.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A smart, fun book with an excellent (if surprising) point, May 12, 2005

By 

R. Stout (Minnesota, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Strange Histories: The Trial of the Pig, the Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds (Hardcover)

Here we have a fun, fascinating, and insightful book which starts out strong -- but which REALLY hits its stride and makes its point in the final two chapters. From witches and werewolves to demons and walking corpses, this is an illuminating romp into the medieval worldview.

So what exactly is Oldridge's point in writing this book? Simply this: The people of the medieval and Renaissance worlds were not ignorant, superstitious, irrational, bestial, or stupid. They had the same brains and intelligence that we have. Their actions and beliefs, far from being irrational, were perfectly sensible given their worldview. Furthermore, we are no better: The modern West has plenty of irrational beliefs and habits of our own!

Thought-provoking, honest, and exceedingly readable, Oldridge has produced a work which educates, entertains, and gently rattles about our assumptions of our own superiority. I highly recommend this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Eye-Opening Scholarly Work, March 23, 2005

By 

G. Poirier (Orleans, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Strange Histories: The Trial of the Pig, the Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds (Hardcover)

This book puts into perspective the way we modern humans think about the world. In pre-modern times, educated people thought very seriously about such things that today most of us would consider absurd, e.g.., werewolves, witches, walking dead, etc. Also, in those olden times, people thought rather differently about God, angels, saints, demons, demonic possessions and the devil than most of us do today. Intelligent, educated thinkers of pre-modern times had a way of looking at things that may seem strange to us yet were perfectly in line with their times. The logical arguments that they used to address their contemporary problems had common sense structure - only their starting assumptions were vastly different from those we would use today. One can only guess at what humans living, say, a thousand years from now will think about our own ways of viewing the world. Through discussing specific cases and quoting contemporary writers, the author of this excellent book does a commendable job of illustrating the above. This book is hard to put down and I heartily recommend it.