Ecclesiastical Tribunals and “Superstition” in Early Modern Europe (Fifteenth–Nineteenth Centuries)

Dear Colleagues,

The editors of this volume seek to invite contributions about the ways in which Christian churches (both Protestant and Catholic) in Europe dealt with what theologians defined as “superstition”.

This is a term that cannot be included sic et simpliciter in our historiographical lexicon as it expresses a (necessarily relative) judgment of value: for Calvinists, for example, the adoration of the holy host is “superstition”, if not outright “idolatry”, while for Catholics it is a perfectly orthodox devotional practice. By "superstition", therefore, we mean the forms of religiosity judged to be out of line with the standards imposed on clergy and laity in the age of "confessionalization"—an age also defined as the Counter-Reformation when referring to the Catholic world. Regarded until recently as a symptom of a superficial Christianization (Delumeau) of the masses, or even of paganism, "superstitions" are nothing more than what historians and anthropologists have called, for lack of a better definition, "popular culture" (Burke) or " popular traditions ".

The first objective of the volume will be to focus on the differences in the approach to “superstition” by the authorities in charge of controlling the religious behaviors and beliefs of the Europeans. Editors will welcome contributions discussing the prosecution of "superstitions" for either doctrinal or legal reasons by all types of courts. This includes the Inquisition (Roman, Spanish and Portuguese), which has been overrepresented in recent scholarship, as well as the tribunals deriving their power from an "ordinary" authority (as defined by Catholics), such as those of the bishoprics, and other tribunals still, such as the secular courts tasked with this charge in the Protestant countries, often in in collaboration with the universities’ faculties of theology.

The second focus specifically concerns what the judicial sources document, often beyond their scope: trial records in fact reveal stories and descriptions of devotions, rituals, charms, spells, and exorcisms which are precious testimonies for scholars of popular traditions. Some of those customs were recorded eventually, with small differences, in the reports of nineteenth- and twentieth century folklorists who gathered them for purposes that differed totally from those of ecclesiastical judges (Ginzburg, "The inquisitor as anthropologist").

This is precisely the third focus of the volume: investigating the changes that turned the "fight against superstitions" of the early modern period into the "recovery of popular traditions" which began throughout Europe in the late eighteenth century. Even such recovery, however, did not exclude forms of repression of popular culture, albeit in the name of modernity and reason, as evidenced, for example, by the surveys of the Napoleonic administrations in the early nineteenth century.

Bibliography

Bailey, Michael. 2007. Magic and Superstition in Europe. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Burke, Peter. 1978. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. New York: Harper & Row.
Cameron, Euan. 2010. Enchanted Europe: Superstition, Reason, and Religion, 1250-1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Delumeau, Jean. 1977. Catholicism between Luther and Voltaire: A New View of the Counter-Reformation. London- Philadelphia: Westminster Press.
Ginzburg, Carlo. 1989. “The Inquisitor as Anthropologist”. In Id., Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ginzburg, Carlo. 1983. The Night Battles: Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Goodare, Julian, and Martha McGill, eds. 2020. The Supernatural in Early Modern Scotland. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Ostling, Michael, ed. 2018. Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stokes, Laura. 2011. Demons of Urban Reform: Early European Witch Trials and Criminal Justice, 1430-1530. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tausiet, María. 2014. Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Thomas, Keith. 1971. Religion and the Decline of Magic. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Dr. Guido Dall'Olio
Dr. Matteo Duni
Guest Editors

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• religion
• superstition
• popular culture
• witchcraft
• magic
• folklore
• Catholic Church
• Protestant Churches
• inquisition
• tribunals
• ecclesiastical