Customer Reviews

Witches and Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Robin Briggs' Witches and Neighbors can be both fascinating and irritating at times throughout the book (and often both at once). It is narrowly focused on his own geographic area of expertise, which is the border regions between France and Germany, so readers interested in a pan-European or British examination of witchcraft will have to look elsewhere. For the area that it does cover, it is minutely thorough. This can be both good or bad as there are many, many anecotes used for evidence of the various themes covered in the book but there is no broad perspective presented and defended. The author makes clear his intention to show the complexity of the social construction of witchcraft (which is good) by presenting all of these individual incidents showing that every case can be different from every other case (this can be frustrating for the reader as no general theme emerges to place all of these anecdotes within an historical wev). This book will give the reader some new insights into the complexity of the situation as he tackles other books on similar topics. A fine, yet narrow handling of the social and cultural framework necessary for the growth of the belief in witchcraft.

I'm going to have to review my European history, which is well worth doing before tackling this book. As the title indicates, Briggs examines the history of witchcraft persecution in Europe from a socio-cultural standpoint, taking into account the vast social changes taking place during the early modern period. He is especially thorough in dealing with the meeting of the medieval mind and the modern one, and what conflicts could arise from that meeting.

At the same time, Briggs addresses the notion that witchcraft persecution owed its pervasiveness to some kind of conspiracy conceived and imposed from above. Actually, as he points out with numerous examples, this kind of thing was quite rare, with authorities for the most part reluctant to give credence to such claims. Presenting a very clear picture of life in the early modern village, he shows how the beliefs of the general populace provided fertile ground in which suspicions could grow into full-blown accusations.

My only real criticism is that some of his examples are hard to follow; in some cases it's difficult to determine who did or said what in a particular case, especially since the genders associated with many names aren't readily apparent to this American reader. Nonetheless, this is a minor complaint relative to Briggs' extremely thorough analysis and painstaking research.

And lest we think ourselves beyond such forms of persecution today -- well, have a look at the news over the last few years. Now, as then, witch-hunts seem to consist primarily of looking for someone to blame

Ths book is packed with enthralling detail from begtinning to end. All sorts of msiconceptions I had previously held about the subject were blown away by this marvellous book. For instance, it is evident that recent writers on the subject have wildly exaggerated the numbers of people put to death as witches, it is often given as several millions, whereas Briggs shows that the actual number is about 40,000. Also another misconnception, that withces were always female, whereas in fact of those put to death about 20% were men, in some areas, men were in the majority of those killed. Also, most of the accusers tended to be women themselves, contrary to the feminist fantasy that it was all about wiched men persecuting women etc. Another fantasy, that midwives were persecuted as witches, weheras in fact when midwives were involved in witchtrials it was generally as inspectors of the accused, to look for suspicious marks on their bodies. There isn't a dull page in this enthralling book.

I chose to review this book because of a movie I saw about ten years ago I rather like Jack Nicholson's role as a little demon in the movie "The Witches Of Eastwick" Particularly as he waxes sanguine about witch burning starting in the 14th century as a professional jurisdictional dispute between doctors and midwives. That led me to thinking that it would be nice if someone wrote a serious book about the social construction of witchcraft. Well some did and I finally found it and added it to collection of the literature of the professions.

Robin Briggs' Witches & Neighbors: The Social And Cultural Context Of European Witchcraft (copyright 1996) is a reinterpretation of the witchcraft fears and persecution that deviled Europe, particularly from the 14th through the 17th centuries, offers the first general history of witchcraft to be written by a historian with specialist knowledge, which makes the subject come alive. In authoritative and rich detail, Briggs chronicles the brutal inquisitions, the trials, and the practices and beliefs of this minority. Complete with Woodcuts, illustrations, and maps Witches and Neighbors, a remarkable history of European witchcraft, explores the persecutions against its supposed Practitioners in the late Renaissance era.

Even at the time, writes Robin Briggs, many thought the inquisitions against witchcraft absurd; a chronicler of the time asked "whether the evidence be not frivolous, and whether the proofs brought against [alleged witches] be not incredible." Despite such objections, thousands died, mostly women, mostly poor. Examining contemporary accounts and court records--300 from the duchy of Lorraine alone--Briggs notes that the inquisition heightened divisions between the educated and the uneducated classes, "as their world views polarized to the point where vast areas of what had once been common belief were stigmatized as superstition.

There is still a lot of work to be done in this area. Most of our readers do not remember Stalin's purge show trials in the 1930's, or Wisconsin's own tail Senator tail gunner Joe McCarthy wrecking havoc upon the Army, State Department, and the rest of American Society. Joe was really only stopped when he went after President Eisenhower. I can assure that Those who do not remember history are according to Harry Truman doomed to repeat it. Here doomed is used in the Old English Sense meaning fated

Philip Kaveny, Reviewer

I'm currently reading this book for a graduate school class. I've read many books, some of which have been bad. This one has got to be the worst book I've ever read. I don't look forward to reading this. He lacks a central point. The book simply rambles on from one case example to another....don't waste your time with this it will drive you nuts.
-1/2 a star

Robin Briggs promises an intriguing concept-- social history of witches-- but fails to really deliver. This book is overly anecdotal, rambling, and too long. Occasionally, Briggs starts to sketch a reasonable and viable hypothesis about the topic at hand, but then inevitably veers off into a loosely-related anecdote or another topic altogether. If you have no background in European history and know nothing about the witchcraft trials outside America, this book would be acceptable. However, if you would like to learn more, this is NOT the place to start.

The author's book is not well-documented (compared with others such as Barstow and Larner) although it superficially appears to be so. His introduction explains this in an off-handed way that I interpreted as a desire not to let the facts get in the way of his theories.

It's too bad if this is the first book anyone reads about the witch hunts because it tries to normalize a mysoginistic, killing climate into a comparatively unremarkable human social event. He attempts to "contextualize out" the significance and potential lessons that could be learned from this time in human history.