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Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria: Popular Magic, Religious Zealotry and Reason of State in Early Modern Europe (Past and Present Publications)

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This book is an English translation of Behringer's most important study "Hexenverfolgung in Bayern. Volksmagie, Glaubenseifer und Staatsräson in der Frühen Neuzeit", published in Germany 1987 (3. verbesserter Auflage 1997). In this southern part of Germany 900 witches were executed, and many more tried for witchcraft, between 1560 and 1730. Behringer finds that most trials occurred during years of particular dearth and famine. One of his conclusions is that every major persecution in this part of Germany was rooted in agrarian crisis. His book should be read by anybody who only knows about witch-trials from English-speaking countries. There are almost 500 fascinating pages in his book.

Written originally as his doctoral dissertation, Behringer has done a remarkable job of compiling thousands of court, archive and church papers, documenting the hideous massacre of thousands of women accused of witchcraft during between 1300 to 1800, though the majority of the executions (usually by burning at the stake) took place between 1586 and 1630, years of great hardship, weather abnormalties and famine.

Since I live in Garmisch Partenkirchen in southern Bavaria, this topic is very interesting to me. I recently completed the translation into English of a small book on the same topic: "Witch Trials in Werdenfels" and noted that this author, Herr Behringer, had used this book as a source.

To quote Behringer's Preface: "Witchcraft beliefs evoked bitter debates, since three essential, early modern 'world views' collided on that very point: a traditional folk culture of magical beliefs, a new, fanatical, religious zealotry stemming from the Reformation/Counter Reformation, and an equally new secular rationalism, an early modern reason of state."

The old vs the new has always created problems but rarely with such devastating results to so many women and the families they left behind. When strange weather patterns resulted in crop failures and famine, when Inquisition techniques traveled across the mountains from Spain and Italy and when the local Church authorities began losing power, who better to blame than women... who might have been engaged in the healing (though suspect) arts, or who had a "witch's mark", or God forbid, who had red hair?

And once imprisoned and tortured (often repeatedly with terrible devices), the victims accused others: sisters, cousins, friends, mothers. I suppose one would ... just to get the pain to stop.

Though scholarly in approach, Behringer has created a very readable book in spite of the difficult subject matter. Many maps, charts and drawings illustrate the grim realities. Anyone interested in European history will want to read this book. Anyone interested in women's issues should read this book.