Contesting Orthodoxy in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Approaches to Magic, Heresy and Witchcraft in Time, Space and Faith

   • Louise Nyholm Kallestrup, Raisa Maria Toivo

   Pages 1-13

3. Heresy

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 15-15

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   2. ‘Night is conceded to the dead’: Revenant Congregations in the Middle Ages

      • Nancy Mandeville Caciola

      Pages 17-33

   3. Heresy and Heterodoxy in Medieval Scandinavia

      • Stephen Mitchell

      Pages 35-56

   4. Caught Between Unorthodox Medicine and Unorthodox Religion: Revisiting the Case of Costantino Saccardini, Charlatan-Heretic

      • David Gentilcore

      Pages 57-68

4. Magic

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 69-69

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   2. Angel Magic and the Cult of Angels in the Later Middle Ages

      • Richard Kieckhefer

      Pages 71-110

   3. Polyphony and Pragmatism in Scandinavian Spells c.1300–1600

      • Leif Søndergaard

      Pages 111-126

   4. The Divining Rod: Origins, Explanations and Uses in the Thirteenth to Eighteenth Centuries

      • Johannes Dillinger

      Pages 127-143

   5. Ignorant Superstition? Popular Education on Magic in Early Seventeenth-Century Confessionalist Finland: The Case of Mary and the Rosaries

      • Raisa Maria Toivo

      Pages 145-163

5. Witchcraft

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 165-165

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   2. The Witch of Endor Before the Witch Trials

      • Charles Zika

      Pages 167-191

   3. Preaching on Witchcraft? The Sermons of Johannes Geiler of Kaysersberg (1445–1510)

      • Rita Voltmer

      Pages 193-215

   4. Law, Nature, Theology and Witchcraft in Ponzinibio’s De lamiis (1511)

      • Matteo Duni

      Pages 217-232

   5. The Infected and the Guilty: On Heresy and Witchcraft in Post-Reformation Denmark

      • Louise Nyholm Kallestrup

      Pages 233-254

   6. The Laughing Witch: Notes on the Relationship Between Literature and History in the Early Fifteenth Century

      • Willem de Blécourt

      Pages 255-277

   7. Images, Representations and the Self-Perception of Magic among the Sami Shamans of Arctic Norway, 1592–1692

      • Rune Blix Hagen

      Pages 279-300

6. Back Matter

   Pages 301-349

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This book breaks with three common scholarly barriers of periodization, discipline and geography in its exploration of the related themes of heresy, magic and witchcraft. It sets aside constructed chronological boundaries, and in doing so aims to achieve a clearer picture of what ‘went before’, as well as what ‘came after’. Thus the volume demonstrates continuity as well as change in the concepts and understandings of magic, heresy and witchcraft. In addition, the geographical pattern of similarities and diversities suggests a comparative approach, transcending confessional as well as national borders. Throughout the medieval and early modern period, the orthodoxy of the Christian Church was continuously contested. The challenge of heterodoxy, especially as expressed in various kinds of heresy, magic and witchcraft, was constantly present during the period 1200-1650. Neither contesters nor followers of orthodoxy were homogeneous groups or fractions. They themselves and their ideas changed from one century to the next, from region to region, even from city to city, but within a common framework of interpretation. This collection of essays focuses on this complex. 

• Religion
• Heterodoxy
• Christianity
• Reformation
• Popular beliefs

“The strengths of the book is the way in which the contributors highlight the beliefs and practices which fell into grey areas between acceptance and condemnation. … the book … offer a wide variety of case-studies of the ways in which orthodoxy and unorthodoxy interacted across the period.” (Catherine Rider, English Historical Review HER, Vol. 134 (566), February, 2019)

“The volume can be recommended, first of all, to researchers of religious and intellectual history, folklore, the history of magic and witchcraft. Moreover, it can bring new perspectives for understanding the genesis of western science and early modern state-building as well asto the field of border studies.” (Vitali Byl, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, Vol. 45 (3), 2018)​

• Department of History, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

  Louise Nyholm Kallestrup

• University of Tampere , Tampere, Finland

  Raisa Maria Toivo

Louise Nyholm Kallestrup is Associate Professor in Early Modern History at the University of Southern Denmark. She has published widely on Danish and Italian witchcraft.

Raisa Maria Toivo is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Tampere, Finland. She has published widely on witchcraft, gender and the Reformation.

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