Strange Histories: The Trial of the Pig, the Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds (review)

Oldridge had the genial idea that with a series of studies of events or patterns from late medieval or early modern European history, he might persuade the "general reader" that strangeness is in the eye of the beholder. He argues that our sense that people in earlier times believed the weirdest things, behaved cruelly, and could not have explained themselves if they had tried is based on our self-congratulatory ignorance. In Oldridge's view, witch hunting, voluntary suffering (by saints or by ordinary people), and the judicial trial of animals—to take three prominent examples—all made good sense in their time, even if they no longer do. To argue this case, he presents ten chapters that highlight the bizarre, the alien, and the unconventional.

His general point is well taken and well worth explaining to general readers. Most historians would agree that our own culture and that of others, in other places and in other times, do (and did) have the power to make many things seem normal and rational that appear indefensible if measured by other standards. Thus, he describes the physical reality of demons and angels; souls that walk the earth after separation from the body; the reasons why animals might be held responsible for crimes; the evil magic and supernatural deeds of supposed witches; the belief in werewolves; the belief in raptures, inspiration, and demonic possession; the notion that suffering might be beneficial; and the reasons for killing heretics. In many of these cases, the strangeness that Oldridge describes derives from biblical literalism, a stance that he assumes (wrongly) cannot be found in the world of today. But in this form, Oldridge has constructed an argument that general readers may find attractive and understandable.

Unfortunately, for the scholarly reader, Oldridge is often too vague, too general, or too self-contradictory to be fully convincing. This problem derives in part from treating the period from 1100 to 1700 as an undifferentiated unit, but also from a bland assumption that "most Christians" accepted what a few dogmatic theologians may have asserted. As Oldridge probably knows, it is hard to know what "most Christians" thought. Another difficulty stems from Oldridge's desire to describe all of premodern Europe. Virtually all of his sources, however, are English translations, and the bulk of them derive from England. Even with his English sources, moreover, he sometimes seems to think that Puritan theologians spoke for everyone. Even if the redoubtable William Perkins (1558–1602) had a broad influence, he was surely not a generic or representative Christian.

Another problem depends upon the author's frequent failure to recognize that many supernatural topics provoked debate in early modern times and were not simply sources of uniform conviction. In fact, there were few topics on which everyone in early modern Europe agreed. For example, not everyone in the sixteenth century accepted the flight of witches. Indeed, the tradition of the venerable tenth-century "Canon episcopi" was strong enough to provoke vigorous debate on just this point. Nor did everyone accept the efficacy of maleficium (harmful magic). Certainly jurists did not all agree on the punishment of felonious animals. Even when he treats well-known skeptics, Oldridge oversimplifies. Johann Weyer did not really leave "the foundations of witchcraft intact" (93), unless he merely means Weyer's belief in the devil. Similarly, when dealing with the early-modern Christian belief that suffering might be good for the soul (Chapter 8), Oldridge mixes evidence from Catholic practices of self-mortification (for example, extreme fasts and self-flagellation) with Protestant beliefs that if God caused difficulties, Christians should accept them as a needed chastening. To regard [End...