The Night Battles. Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Carlo Ginzburg with a new preface translated by John and Anne C. In The Night Battles, Carlo Ginzburg looks at a small group of northeastern Italian people from the area of Friuli who claimed to be ‘benandanti.’ The benandanti. The Night. Battles. Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries. Carlo Ginzburg. Translated by John & Anne Tedeschi. On 21 March.
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The book contains four chapters and an appendix with a few of the transcripts included for reference.
The most fascinating part of the book, which by far takes up most of ginzburh content, is what happens when this cult meets the Catholic Church in the form of the Inquisition. Interesting survey of the evolution of a complex of myths in Italy. Often times they would question them and then let them go. Set up a giveaway.
The Night Battles: Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries
There is simply no way to know if the benandanti were only saying what they felt needed to be said, or if they actually accepted it as truth.
We use cookies to give you the best possible experience. This book had a bit of an uphill battle against expectations: Of their mental world we know next to nothing, and most of what we do know comes from a single source: Although gaining some initial support from various historians, her theories were always controversial, battpes under early criticism ginzbjrg experts in the Early Modern witch trials and pre-Christian religion.
As the trials progress, however, we hear less and less about this aspect of their calling, and more and more about their powers as healers, as the undoers of the spells cast by witches.
And yet it is certain that not every case began and ended with torture, and at times even the inquisitors were at odds about a certain potential heretic. For the well read on witchcraft this is a must read, but for the novice this book can not stand alone. In the case of the benandantiwhat the Inquisitors wanted to know, what indeed they seem to have set out to establish, was the association between these supposed anti-witches and the witches themselves.
Amazon Second Chance Pass it on, trade it in, give it a second life. Chapter one introduces the benandanti, their beliefs, and the inquisitors; chapter two describes the benandanti who associate with the dead and traces possible links of origin; chapter three returns to the benandanti and the inquisitors, and to the evolution of the benandanti niight and chapter four sees the conclusion of the benandanti fitting themselves into the accepted mold of witchcraft.
The Night Battles : Carlo Ginzburg :
hinzburg I have been working in this direction for some time and on the basis of such an inquiry I think that it will be possible to provide an answer to the question Pagden raises about the significance of these beliefs. The Triumph of the Moon: One can see the trouble such statements would have given the inquisitor.
As time progress they were associated more and more with witches and they could end up being imprisoned or tortured. It sheds light on the nature of the witch hunts and trials, and the confessions rendered.
In Ginzburg’s analysis, the benandanti were a “fertility cult” whose members were “defenders of harvests and the fertility of fields. To the inquisitors, however, there were good Christians, and there were people who were magically transported to nighttime gatherings, and one could not possibly fall into both categories.
The book did not have a gunzburg c So, I’m no historian to start with; I read this out of curiosity.
If the witches one it ginzbhrg be a year of abttles if the Benadante won then it would be a bountiful year. When the Calabrian peasant or the Asturian or the Sardinian or the Polish, for the story is repeated again and again who, on being asked by a Jesuit missionary how many Gods there were, replied that he was uncertain but he thought possibly nine, he was not asserting his belief in an ancient polymorphic mystery cult.
Italian history History of religion. Customers who viewed this item also viewed. The methodology does have its flaws, but overall this is a valuable and interesting look into seventeenth-century religion.
Night Battles: How the Benandanti Fought Witches During the Sabbath
Lists with This Book. It was supported by Eliade. Would you ginzurg to tell us about a lower price? Armed with fennel sticks the Benadante were ready to defendmean while the witches were armed with Sorghum sticks. The International Journal of Pagan Studies. Showing of 25 reviews. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
It seems connected with the Witches sabbat where ginzbirg a goddess like Diana in Italy or Hulda or Perchta led a procession of fairies or souls of the dead.
The Night Battles : Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
It may be a long time before we find satisfactory answers to questions of meaning. This was true throughout Europe and even the Middle East, however the specifics of the superstition; whether it was a good or bad omen, tended to vary from region to region. Was it that they became convinced of their own evil, battlles simply became indoctrinated out of fear and insistence to change stories to fit what they knew the inquisitors wanted regardless of what they knew to be truth?
Giulio EinaudiRoutledge and Kegan Paul.
