HIS-1700 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Cunning Folk, Charivari, Counter-Reformation
Document Summary
Challenge to long-standing traditions: social relationships, communal calendar, spiritual safety nets. Urge for community purification: from within, from above. Tolerant of popular culture from a distance. Popular religion (mixtures of catholicism and local pre-christian traditions) Social control (e. g. , charivari, skimmington: charivari banging pots and pans while a married couple consummates the marriage on their wedding night. Change in traditional social obligations (e. g. , master/servant relationships, harity, hospitality ) Both authorities and common folk believed that the supernatural was real and that satan was active in the world. Magical practices: (cid:862)high magic(cid:863): astrology (connection between the stars and us) and alchemy (turning base metals to gold) White magic: healing, identifying magical activity, divination (foretelling the future), finding lost or stolen goods (cunning folk) Black magic (witchcraft): maleficium (causing harm with magic, pact with satan (crime for which witch was executed) Witches prosecuted in middle ages (by both catholics and protestants)
