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

Briggs, Robin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670835897 ISBN 13: 9780670835898

Publisher: Viking Adult, 1996

Synopsis

Chronicling the brutal inquisitions of suspected witches in European history, a thorough social study includes details about the accused, their prosecutors, and how such trials set a cultural precedent for America's own Salem witch hunts. 20,000 first printing. $20,000 ad/promo.

About this title

Review:

This remarkable history of European witchcraft explores the persecutions against its supposed practitioners in the late Middle Ages. Even at the time, writes Briggs, many thought the inquisitions against witchcraft absurd, but still thousands died, mostly women, mostly poor. Examining contemporary accounts and court records -- 300 of them 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."

About the Author:

Robin Briggs is a senior research fellow of All Souls College and a university lecturer in modern history at Oxford.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0670835897
• ISBN 13: 9780670835898
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480