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“Not only does Lucy Císař Brown make a major contribution to the rise and then decline of witch crazes, but she also offers an important extension to Norbert Elias’s theory of state formation and civilising processes.”
—
Stephen Mennell
, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University College Dublin
“This remarkable study offers the most convincing explanation to date of how the 'witch craze' emerged, why it varied dramatically between England and Scotland, and why it eventually declined. Brown’s pathbreaking analysis will reshape scholarly debates about gender, religion, and state formation in early modern Europe.”
—
Professor Jason Hughes
, School of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leicester
This book addresses the long-standing theoretical gap regarding the concepts of gender and religion within Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process. In doing so, it not only revisits the evidence used by Elias in his original work but also introduces an alternative lens through which to view this long-term change: the rise and fall of witchcraft prosecutions. Through a comparative and detailed study of witchcraft prosecutions in England and Scotland, and their presentation within the public sphere, Lucy Císař Brown develops a greater understanding of long-term transformations in the early modern period. The first consideration of this book is the centrality of religion to both medieval individuals and societal structures and their long-term transformation across the early modern period. The second consideration is whether the transformative processes of sociogenesis and psychogenesis can be applied in the same way to women as to the wider patriarchal society. In many respects these figurations are interdependent, both with each other and with the development of modern society, requiring a reassessment of the theoretical assumptions presented within The Civilizing Process. While detailed and comprehensive in many aspects of social development, the limitations of Eliasian social theory informs the fundamental character of this figurational analysis of early modern society.
Lucy Císař Brown
is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Czech Academy of Science.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. The Medieval Mind: Women Violence and the Church.- Chapter 3. Characterising the Witch.- Chapter 4. Social Regulation and the Charismatic Individual.- Chapter 5. Law, Bureaucracy and Process.- Chapter 6. God, the King and the crone – the monopoly of violence.- Chapter 7. The Decline of Witchcraft.- Chapter 8. Concluding Thoughts.
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Lucy Císař Brown
is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Czech Academy of Science.
Zusammenfassung
This book addresses the long-standing theoretical gap regarding the concepts of gender and religion within Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process. In doing so, it not only revisits the evidence used by Elias in his original work but also introduces an alternative lens through which to view this long-term change: the rise and fall of witchcraft prosecutions. Through a comparative and detailed study of witchcraft prosecutions in England and Scotland, and their presentation within the public sphere, Lucy Císař Brown develops a greater understanding of long-term transformations in the early modern period. The first consideration of this book is the centrality of religion to both medieval individuals and societal structures and their long-term transformation across the early modern period. The second consideration is whether the transformative processes of sociogenesis and psychogenesis can be applied in the same way to women as to the wider patriarchal society. In many respects these figurations are interdependent, both with each other and with the development of modern society, requiring a reassessment of the theoretical assumptions presented within The Civilizing Process. While detailed and comprehensive in many aspects of social development, the limitations of Eliasian social theory informs the fundamental character of this figurational analysis of early modern society.
