Werewolves,Witches, and Wandering Spirits: Traditional Belief and Folklore in Early Modern Europe (review)

This collection of articles is a good read and a useful tool. The essays are well written, well edited, and very informative. They cover many different aspects of the phenomena mentioned in the title. Moreover, they present much useful bibliographical information, which means that they effectively serve the expert who looks for new information while assisting the neophyte who seeks introduction and a guide to further reading(s). Finally, the geographic coverage (Western Europe) helps to make clear, once again, that the interaction with and reaction to werewolves, witches, and ghosts differed greatly depending on region and culture. The attitude of poor and wealthy alike toward "Living with the Dead" in early modern Bavaria (Lederer) contrasts sharply with the juridically reasonable reaction to occult phenomena in Italy, Spain, and Portugal (Schutte). Lederer's essay also effectively points to the upsurge in the belief in ghosts, treasure hunting, and conjuring as a result of the famine and death brought on by the wars of the seventeenth century.

Moreover, the essays try to do away with two still widely accepted popular misconceptions: the association of the witch phenomenon with the Middle Ages (it was an early modern problem), and the assumption that the Inquisition was instrumental in witch persecutions (witches were generally tried and convicted by lay courts). Very interesting to the modern reader is Nalle's essay on the Las Germanias uprising in sixteenth-century Valencia and the emergence of the Hidden One, a messianic figure that appeared out of nowhere promising relief and redemption to the poor. According to Nalle, Valencia still had a large number of Muslims whose agricultural skills served the wealthy to the chagrin of their Christian peasant neighbors. Furthermore, conversos, Christians of Jewish descent, had led Valencia to establish an office of the inquisition.

When it came to alleged witch activities and changes of humans into werewolves, people had long memories. Once tainted, a family often bore the burden of possible accusations for generations to come (Briggs). Still, witches and werewolves that haunted the minds of French demonologists such as de Lancre and Bouguet causing fear among rich and poor alike, lost some of their potency. During the mid-seventeenth century French courts refused to impose death sentences and instituted procedures based on rigorous demands for proof (Ferber, Krampl). The collection concludes with Midelfort's enlightening essay on Freud's reading of early modern demonologists, specifically Johann Weyer, the sixteenth-century physician, defender of witches, and believer in Satan. The review of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century thinking about the kinship between psychoanalysis and demonology reconnects the collection to the first essay on the psychological implications of shape shifting and fantasy (Briggs), which moderns might explain as psychological and physiological disorders (sleep paralysis).

The collection is knowledgeably introduced by Edwards, whose excellent editing skills make this a very readable and informative book. Two caveats might be raised: it is by now accepted as scholarly orthodoxy that the Malleus Maleficarum was written by Kramer (Institoris) alone without the help of Sprenger (Behringer, et al, 2000). Also, the volume's usefulness would have been increased had a bibliography been added. Neither of these suggestions does, however, detract from the collection's overall quality.