The Enchantment of the Alien: Metaphysics and Marginality in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

The Enchantment of the Alien:
Metaphysics and Marginality in Late
Medieval and Early Modern Europe
Bernd Roeck*
*
Historisches Seminar, University of Zürich, Karl Schmid-Str. 4, CH-8006 Zürich.
E-mail: roeck@hist.unizh.ch
This article investigates why magical powers were ascribed to social out-
casts in late medieval and early modern Europe, or why they were placed
in transcendent contexts. Taking its cue from ethnological approaches
(Geertz, Douglas), it proposes a model of a complex cluster of factors,
which could vary from region to region, from society to society. Single
instances, such as dealing with fire, with ’unclean things’, or the carrying
out of nocturnal tasks, do emerge more distinctly when a comparative ap-
proach is adopted. This phenomenon assumed a special importance during
the era of the counter-reformation, which the author interprets as an epoch
of battles for the ’monopoly of magic’and for the formation of a theocracy.
A chronicle of the sixteenth century tells the following story. A group of
travellers gets caught in a storm in the South German Swabian region of
Ries. The situation appears menacing, when suddenly a ghostlike figure
with a fire shining around him comes to the group’s rescue. Later, a
mysterious stranger meets the group and shows them the way to the next
inn. One of the travellers invites him to join them for a meal, but it turns
1
Chronik des Georg Kölderer, Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg, 2 Cod: 42, fol.
108; Bernd Roeck, Eine Stadt in Krieg und Frieden, Studien zur Geschichte der
Reichsstadt Augsburg zwischen Kulenderstreit und Parität, Göttingen, 1989: 433f.
at SIMON FRASER LIBRARY on June 13, 2015
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out that the helpful stranger is the knacker of a village nearby. ’Whoever
he may be’-the traveller is quoted as saying-’after all, he has brought
us help and relief.’2 In the end the knacker is given some money as a gift.
This episode leads us to the core of the subject with which this essay
deals. It shows an outcast of pre-modern European society, with whom a
person of status would not sit at the same table. In fact he is fobbed off
with a gift as soon as his identity becomes known. What matters is the
fact that the man comes to be perceived as being associated, admittedly
in a nebulous sort of way, with some higher power that emerged as a
’fiery ghost’.
The narrative of the chronicler cited here is not the only source which
sheds light on such beliefs. Many other sources reveal that a number of
contemporaries in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries perceived the status
ofbeing socially outcast as tied up with the supernatural. At times outcasts
too saw themselves as possessing a special relationship to the realm of
the metaphysical. The ’magical powers’ that were ascribed to the execu-
tioner during medieval times, together with other related examples, such
as the alleged ability of gypsies3 or of the so-called ’sorcerous whores’
to perform magic,4 can be explained in this context.’ It was further
2
Ibid., ’Er sey, wer er wölle’—’so hat er uns doch trostlich geholffen’.
3
Rainer Walz, Hexenverfolgung und magische Kommunikation im Dorf der frühen
Neuzeit, Paderborn, 1993: 215-17; Roeck, Eine Stadt
: 99; Hermann Arnold, Zigeuner:
Herkunft und Leben der Stämme im deutschen Sprachgebiet, Freiburg, 1965: 34f., Ernst
Schubert, Fahrendes Volk im Mittelalter, Bielefeld, 1995: 308. In a source of the second
half of the sixteenth century the gypsies appear as ’thievish/naughty and as magical
beggars’ (’diebisch/unartig und zauberisch bettelvolck’). Finally, on the history of the
gypsies, See Maria Helena Sanchez Ortega, Dieser wichtige Zweig der Landesordnung
... Zur Geschichte der Zigeuner in Spanien bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts. Dars-
tellung und Dokumente, (ed.) Roland Schopf, Frankfurt, 1993.
4
Werner Danckert, Unehrliche Leute: Die verfemten Berufe, Bern, 1963: 159; Peter
Schuster, Das Frauenhaus: Städtische Bordelle in Deutschland, 1350-1600, Paderborn.
1992: 92f., 137.
5
Jutta Nowosadtko, Scharfrichter und Abdecker: Der Alltag zweier ’unehrlicher
Berufe’ in der Frühen Neuzeit, Paderborn, Munich, 1994: 28-31, 178-94; Wolfgang
Behringer, Hexenverfolgung in Bayern: Volksmagie, Glaubenseifer und Staatsräson in
der Frühen Neuzeit, Munich, 1987: 197; Sigmund von Riezler, Geschichte der Hexen-
prozesse in Bayern: Im Lichte der allgemeinen Entwicklung dargestellt, Stuttgart 1896,
(rpt) Aalen, 1968: 172; Günter Voß, ’Henker-Tabugestalten und Sündenböcke’ in Bemd-
Ulrich Hergemöller (ed.), Randgruppen der spätmittelalterlichen Gesellschaft. Ein Hand-
und Studienbuch, Warendorf, 1990: 104; Danckert, Unehrliche Leute 39f., 43; Fritz
Treichel, ’Beiträge zur Geschichte des deutschen Scharfrichter-und Abdeckerwesens’,
in Johann Glenzdorf and Fritz Treichel (eds), Henker, Schinder und arme Sünder, vol. 1,
Bad Münder, 1970: 113-15. Also Gisela Wilbertz, Scharfrichter und Abdecker im
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believed that Jews were ’highly infamous owing to their knowledge of
all kinds of witchcraft and devilish arts’,’ that blacksmiths possessed
magical powers’ and that gravediggers practised sorcery.’ Such examples
can be multiplied.
Attempts to explain the phenomenon that postulated a particular
relationship between members of marginal and outcast groups and the
supernatural in late medieval and early modern European societies are
fraught with evident difficulties. Documentation with regard to this area
of beliefs is fragmentary, compounded by the equally problematic char-
acter of sources concerning the fate of outcasts and marginal groups.9
ochstift Osnabrück: Untersuchungen zur Sozialgeschichte zweier ’unehrlicher’ Berufe
im nordwestdeutschen Raum vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, Osnabrück, 1979: 69.
Wilbertz admittedly states for her era of research that the application of superstitious
practices ’only occurred rarely’. Cf. further Fritz Byloff, Hexenglaube und Hexenver-
folgung in den österreichischen Alpenländern, Berlin, 1934: 47; and Albert Hauser, Was
für ein Leben: Schweizer Alltag vom 15. bis 18. Jahrhundert, Zurich, 1987: 127.
6
Wilhelm Heinrich Soldan, Heinrich Heppe, Max Bauer, Geschichte der
Hexenprozesse, 2 vols, Hanau 1912, (rpt) 1976, vol. I: 490, vol. II, 94. Fundamental is
the unusual case of a witch-accusation of a Jewess: Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, The Myth of
Ritual Murder: Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany, New Haven, London, 1988;
also Karl E. Grözinger, ’Jüdische Wundermänner in Deutschland’ in his Judentum im
deutschen Sprachraum, Frankfurt, 1991: 190-221. In ethnology there are many examples
of outcasts who were regarded as possessed or ensorcelled. Cf. R.W. Wyllie, ’Introspective
Witchcraft among the Effutu of Southern Ghana’ in Man vol. 8(1), 1973: 77; J.M. Lewis,
’A Structural Approach to Witchcraft and Spirit Possession’, in M. Douglas (ed.), Witch-
craft Confessions and Accusations, London, 1950: 294.
7
Danckert, Unehrliche Leute
: 172 f., 269; Mircea Eliade, Schmiede und Alchemisten,
Stuttgart, 1960 (Forgerons et alchimistes, Paris 1956).
8
: 50f.
9
Schubert, Fahrendes Volk
: 22-28; about fortune-tellers, magicians, ’devil tamers’
(persons who can banish the devil) and givers of blessings: 294-310 (esp. 302f.). See
Franti&scaron; ek Graus, ’Randgruppen der städtischen Gesellschaft im Spätmittelalter’ in ZHF
4, 1981: 385-437. Cf. further, Wolfgang Hartung, ’Gesellschaftliche Randgruppen im
Spätmittelalter: Phänomen und Begriff’ in Bernhard Kirchgässner and Fritz Reuter (eds),
Städtische Randgruppen und Minderheiten, Sigmaringen, 1986: 49-114; Bernd-Ulrich
Herge-möller, ’Randgruppen der spätmittelalterlichen Gesellschaft’; Ernst Schubert,
’Mobilität ohne Chance: Die Ausgrenzung des fahrenden Volkes’, in Winfried Schulze
(ed.), Ständische Gesellschaft und soziale Mobilität, München, 1988: 113-64; Otto Borst
(ed.), Minderheiten in der Geschichte Südwestdeutschlands, Tübingen, 1996; Bernd
Roeck, Außenseiter, Randgruppen, Minderheiten: Fremde im Deutschland der frühen
Neuzeit, Göttingen, 1993; Wolfgang von Hippel, Armut, Unterschichten, Randgruppen
in der friihen Neuzeit (Enzyklopädie Deutscher Geschichte, vol. 34), Munich, 1995:
88-101. For the most recent literature, see the review article by Karl Härter, ’Bettler-
Vaganten-Deviante: Ausgewählte Neuerscheinungen zu Armut, Randgruppen und
Kriminalität im frühneuzeitlichen Europa’ in Ius commune XXIII, 1996: 281-321.
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This means that it is next to impossible to quantify this phenomenon; in
other words, to determine the extent to which marginality was located
within the domain of the supernatural, or to ascertain which social groups
were responsible for such ascriptions, and the terms in which the self-
image of those at the receiving end came to be defined.’° The sources do
show, however, that not all outcasts or marginalised persons in general,
were associated with ’magical attributes’ in an unbroken sense. Indeed,
marginality as such is not an attribute that can be pinned down to a par-
ticular social group or individuals, ~ ~I
So the question is, how can the ’metaphysical dimension’ attributed
to marginalised persons be determined? The most distinctive case and a
criterion for extreme marginality was the charge that the person in
question was an associate of the devil or possessed by demons. Records
of some witch trials reveal this pattern of thinking,&dquo; which was then
transferred to other groups on the margins, such as Jews&dquo; and gravedig-
gers.’4 According to a source dating to 1433, the Jews, the Tartars, wizards,
witches, executioners and knackers were all accused of bringing about
floods through their use of magical powers.&dquo; Second, the ’magical com-
petence’ ascribed to the social outcast is not far removed from the sus-
picion of witchcraft. In the eyes of many contemporaries, social outcasts
controlled knowledge of magical cures and related practices. Third, it
was believed that certain individuals belonging to socially outcast or
10
It is not surprising that the belief in magic and the effectiveness of magical practices
within some marginal groups was widespread. It is also not astonishing that, in fact,
many such persons resorted to these practices. Cf. Roeck, Eine Stadt
: 99, 447-52; K.E.
Grözinger. ’Jüdische Wundermänner in Deutschland’; Jutta Nowosadtko, Scharfrichter
und Abdecker.
11
Cf. Von Hippel, Armut, Unterschichten, Randgruppen.
12
A significant case was the one of the vagrant family, Pappenheimer, who was in-
volved in a witch trial in 1600; cf. Michael Kunze, Der Prozeß Pappenheimer, Ebelsbach,
1981.
13
Cf. Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, The Myth of Ritual Murder.
14
Cf. Danckert, Unehrliche Leute
: 50f.; Karen Lambrecht, ’Jagdhunde des Teufels:
Die Verfolgung von Totengräbern im Gefolge frühneuzeitlicher Pestwellen’, in Andreas
Blauert and Gerd Schwerhoff (eds), Mit den Waffen der Justiz: Zur Kriminalitäts-
geschichte des späten Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit, Frankfurt, 1993: 137-57.
Gravediggers were depicted as sorcerers and originators of the plague through dancing
in the graveyard at night.
15
W.H. Soldan et al., Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, vol. I: 231 about a ’Schwarz-
künstler’ (black magician) who was believed to be the cause of hailstorms, and who was
exposed to brutal aggression (1277), Schubert, Fahrendes Volk im Mittelalter
: 297f.
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marginal groups were surrounded by demons. The incident mentioned
at the beginning of this article is one example of this belief. Such ascrip-
tions were often tied to the places where the individuals in question lived
or practised their trade, such as the gallows hill, the knacker’s yard, or
the burial ground. Finally, it must be borne in mind that certain outcast
or marginal groups came to be so designated owing to attributions in a
seemingly opposite direction, the direction of sacredness. This applied
to those who saw themselves as having received ‘enlightenment’, who
believed that they possessed divine abilities or direct links with the super-
natural world, or those who claimed to be able to heal body and soul.
Their position as social outsiders was a product of their deviant behaviour,
expressed through states ranging from extreme asceticism to ecstatic
rapture.16 Unlike the sorcerer or the ’wise women’, these individuals
strove more or less explicitly to pursue the ’career’ of a saint.&dquo; They
therefore oriented themselves along pre-figured patterns of sanctity
consecrated by literary and other traditions. Their endeavours were aimed
at obtaining public approbation and sanction of their position through
the authority of the Church and the state, which, however, many were
16
Examples by Donald Weinstein and Rudolph M. Bell, Saints and Society: The Two
Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000-1700, Chicago and London, 1982: 150f., 277;
Jean-Michel Sallmann, Naples et ses saints à l’âge baroque (
1540-1750
), Paris, 1994.
A significant example of the thin line between sorcery and saintliness is that of the
animal healer Caspar Fischer. Cf. Roeck, Eine Stadt
: 80, 101, 106, 423, 450. Also Richard
van Dülmen, ’Prophetie und Politik: Johann Permeier und die "Societas regalis Jesu
Christi" (1631-43)’, ZBLG, 41, 1978: 427-74, also in idem, Gesellschaft der frühen
Neuzeit: Kulturelles Handeln und Sozialer Prozeß. Beiträge zur historischen Kultur-
forschung, Wien and Köln 1993: 157-93.
17
Example of a ’prominent’ midwife of the sixteenth century is given by Behringer,
Hexenverfolgung in Bayern
: 182f. Concerning the notion of ’magic’, see Dieter
Harmening, ’Magie im Abendland—Stichworte zu ihrer Geschichte’ in his Zauberei im
Abendland: Der Anteil der Gelehrten am Wahn der Leute. Skizzen zur Geschichte des
Aberglaubens, Würzburg, 1991: 9-20; idem, Zauberinnen und Hexen—Vom Wandel des
Zaubereibegriffs im späten Mittelalter
: 40-59; Schubert, Fahrendes Volk
: 296; further,
Hans G. Kippenberg and Brigitte Luchesi (eds), Magie: Die sozialwissenschaftliche
Kontroverse über das Verstehen fremden Denkens, Frankfurt, 1987; Mary Douglas, Ritual,
Tabu und Körpersymbolik. Sozialanthropologische Studien in Industriegesellschaft und
Stammeskultur, Frankfurt, 1974; idem, Reinheit und Gefährdung: Eine Studie zu
Vorstellungen von Verunreinigung und Tabu, Berlin, 1985. An overview of ethnological
approaches towards the understanding of the early modem societies is given by Walz,
Hexenverfolgung und magische
: 16. However, it appears to me that researchers have
hardly drawn any methodical consequences, even though they have occasionally cited
the works of Douglas.
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unable to achieve.&dquo; Their intention was to advance within a system of
norms that transcended the borders of the human world, in pursuit of
which they very often arrived at its edge in the physical sense. Such a
constellation becomes apparent in the life of a hermit: was he not too,
like Christ in the desert, surrounded by demons?&dquo; The sources do not
often make room for a distinction between charlatans and pious persons.
Like the shaman2° and the magician, the saint functioned as a mediator
between the earthly and the supernatural world. He was reputed to dispose
of powers that brought about the good and ensured protection against
evil. His mortal remains, especially his body or individual parts of it,
were believed to be a repository of such powers, thus ensuring the preser-
vation of his charisma.&dquo;
Now the body of the saint and that of the hanged man are in fact the
same, in other words, corpses. While touching the body of the saint would,
it was hoped, lead to salvation, contact with the body of the hanged man
could allegedly bring in its wake serious negative consequences. 12 There
18
Example by J.M. Sallmann, Naples et ses saints. The ’private’ character of the
adjuration, already for the Babylonian time, is emphasised by Egbert von Weiher,
Spätbabylonische Texte aus Uruk, part II, Berlin, 1983: 6f.
19
Cf. Jean Delumeau, Angst im Abendland: Die Geschichte kollektiver Ängste im
Europa des 14. bis 18. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols, Reinbek b. Hamburg, 1985: 372-86. Piero
Camporesi (
Das Brot der Träume: Hunger und Halluzinationen im vorindustriellen
Europa, Frankfurt and New York, 1990) gives too much importance to the physiological
causes for the belief in spirits and demons during pre-industrial times, but his scenario
might be applicable for some individual cases. Cf. also Michael J. Harner, ’The Role of
Hallucinogenic Plants in European Witchcraft’ in idem (ed.), Hallucinogens and
Shamanism, London, 1973.
20
Cf. Mircea Eliade, Schmiede und Alchemisten
; Mihály Hoppál, Shamanism in
Eurasia, Göttingen, 1984; Ivan Myrddin Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism
and Spirit Possession, London and New York, 1989; Gábor Klaniczay, Heilige, Hexen,
Vampire: Vom Nutzen des Übernatürlichen, Berlin, 1991: 29-50.
21
On the notion see Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, (ed.) Johannes
Winckelmann Tübingen, 1985: 245f.; Edward Shils, ’Charisma, Order and Status’, Ameri-
can Sociological Review vol. 30(2), 1965: 199-213; idem, ’The Dispersion and Concen-
tration of Charisma’, in William John Hanna (ed.), Independent Black Africa, New York,
1964: 389-406; Clifford Geertz, ’Centers, Kings and Charisma: Reflections on the
Symbolics of Power’, in idem, Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretative Anthro-
pology, New York, 1983: 121-46. Cf. also Carlo Ginzburg, I Benandanti: Stregoneria e
culti agrari tra Cinquecento e Seicento, Torino, 1966; and Wolfgang Behringer, Conrad
Stoeckhlin und die Nachtschar: Eine Geschichte aus der frühen Neuzeit, Munich and
Zurich, 1994.
22
A good example can be found in Franz Irsigler and Arnold Lassota, Bettler und
Gaukler, Dirnen und Henker. Randgruppen und Außenseiter in Köln 1300-1600, Köln,
1984: 243f.
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prevailed nonetheless a widespread belief that bodily remains of executed
persons, from the ’schädelmoos’ (skull-moss) to the toenails, were vested
with healing powers.&dquo; It is further possible, in some few cases, to,prove
that the executed and even the executioner were bestowed with a status
of sanctity.24 Thus convergences did exist, though unexplained, between
the world of the saints and that of the executioners, and these did not re-
main concealed to research for long. The case of the executioner espe-
cially, whose relationship to magic is the most significant phenomenon
in the context of this paper, has been given special attention.&dquo; This par-
ticular aspect of his existence seemed to provide an explanation for the
epithet of ’dishonesty’, generally applied to the executioner. Werner
Danckert’s study, attempting to explain the phenomenon of infamy in
general-though particularly focusing on the social position of the execu-
tioner-has received both attention and critique. The executioner is seen
as being heir to pre-Christian, ’primordial sacral and cultic patterns’ which
were banned to a zone of infamy and exclusion by victorious ecclesiastical
belief.26 Danckert offers a monocausal model for a legal-cum-social cat-
egory, that is, infamy, associated with the figure of the executioner which
became more pronounced by the later Middle Ages. Here, however, ’add-
itional’ explanations-like social envy-appear likely to have played a
part. More recent regional studies have argued that the ’magical aura’ or
even the whiff of sacrality that enveloped execution grounds and the
gallows could serve to strengthen the argument that the alleged infamy
of the executioner must be seen against a religio-historical background.2’
How then can the ’taboo’ which surrounded other ’dishonest’ persons,
for whom a magico-sacral connotation can only be established through
far-fetched presumptions and conjectures, be explained?&dquo;
23
Kathy Stuart sees a correlation between relic-cults and magic with body parts of
executed persons: Das Konzept der Ehre in der friihen Neuzeit, Diskussionsbeitrag,
Augsburg, 1995.
24
Cf. Roeck, Eine Stadt
: 755; Danckert, Unehrliche Leute
: 30.
25
Cf. the literary references under n. 2; also Wolfgang Oppelt, Über die’Unehrlichkeit’
des Scharfrichters: Unter bevorzugter Verwendung von Ansbacher Quellen, D.Phil.
dissertation, Würzburg, 1976.
26
: 13f., who actually extends a thesis of Karl von Amiras,
Die germanischen Todesstrafen, München, 1922. Critical on this score is Jutta Now-
osadtko, Scharfrichter und Abdecker
: 29f. I want to remark that I, against the observation
of Nowosadtkos (
ibid., 64), have not absorbed this ’extreme variant on his theory’ at all.
I am only of the opinion that it shows some accurate aspects. In any case, they seem to
be worth discussing.
27
Nowosadtko, Scharfrichter und Abdecker
: 28.
28
Cf. Nowosadtko’s critical remarks, ibid.
; also Bernd Roeck, Außenseiter, Randgrup-
pen, Minderheiten
: 113-15.
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It is not the object of this study to present a new theory about the
sources of dishonesty within the social systems of pre-modern Europe,
despite the fact that the ’magical powers’ ascribed to outcasts and fringe
groups are apparently linked to their so-called infamy. Rather, we should
first address the question as it has been posed by Clifford Geertz: what is
it that induces some people to perceive the transcendence of others, and
what is it exactly that they see?29 The studies of Max Weber and Edward
Shils suggest that magical charisma is located in social and cultural
contexts. Shils postulates a connection between the symbolic worth of
an individual and his relationship to the active focal points of the social
order.10 Such ’centres’ comprise not only the institutions of worldly and
clerical power;3’ rather, they extend to include those specific areas of
life whose social contours are more or less clearly definable.;2 The prox-
imity to the ’centre’, the ruler, the supernatural world, God, the saints,
and perhaps even the devil, is constitutive of the charismatic attributes
ascribed to certain persons and things. Yet, these attributes cannot be
viewed as given, they would get constructed from the perspective of the
particular social configuration in relation to which the centre is located
and focused upon.
There is no doubt that the late medieval and early modern world could
in many respects be characterised as an ’enchanted’ one. Belief in the
agency of God, of the saints, the devil and other demons was evidently
widespread, as was the perception that humans could reckon with the
powers of these spirits, and therefore address them in different ways,
such as by pleading, imploring and even coercing .13 Literature on demon-
ology, an expanding field since the fifteenth century, furnishes evidence
29
Geertz, ’Centers, Kings and Charisma’: 122.
30
Shils, ’Charisma’: 201-4 and idem, ’Dispersion’.
31
Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft
: 688-726.
32
Geertz, ’Centers, Kings and Charisma’: 123. ’Charismatic figures can arise in any
realm of life that is sufficiently focused to seem vital .... Charisma does not appear
only in extravagant forms and fleeting moments but is an abiding, if combustible, aspect
of social life that occasionally bursts out into open flame.’
33
Cf. Marcel Mauss, Soziologie und Anthropologie, vol. I: Theorie der Magie, Soziale
Morphologie, Frankfurt, 1978,: 52-58; H.C. Erik Midelfort, ’Witchcraft, Magic and the
Occult’, in Steven Ozment (ed.), Reformation Europe: A Guide to Research, St Louis,
1982: 183-209; E. William Monter, Ritual, Mythand Magic in Early Modern Europe,
Athens and Ohio, 1983; Lynn Thorndike,
A History of Magic and Experimental Science,
8 volumes, New York, 1923-58. A survey of new tendencies of research is offered to the
readers by H.G. Kippenberg and B. Luchesi, Magie
; Mary O’Neil, ’Magical Healing,
Love Magic and the Inquisition in Late-Sixteenth-Century Modena’, in Stephen Haliczar
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47
of the conviction among contemporaries that they were surrounded by
spirits, both sinister and benevolent-evidence further corroborated by
countless diaries and chronicles.&dquo; Moreover, for many people even
outward appearances of both living and inanimate nature could have
metaphysical dimensions. This suspicion could never be completely ruled
out, not even in the instance of what appeared to be most insignificant
objects. Nothing did merely ’exist’ as itself, everything was subject to
the presumption that it possibly embodied a special force which could
under certain circumstances be magically activated.3s
Difficult as the task of locating this world-view socially and of quan-
tifying its significance may be, one particular attitude appears to stand
out among countless sources, an attitude familiar from ethnological field
studies carried out in other cultural contexts. People during the pre-
modern era visualised themselves as existing within an imaginary mag-
netic field marked by negative and positive forces, and believed that
they had to protect themselves against the ’radiation’ of evil, which
(ed.), Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe, Totowa, NJ, 1987: 88-114; Keith
Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, London, 1971; Daniel P. Walker, Spiritual
and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella, London, 1958; Noel Brann, ’The
Conflict between Reason and Magic in Seventeenth Century England: A Case Study of
the Vanghan-More Debate’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 43, 1980: 103-26; Richard
Kieckhefer, Magie im Mittelalter, München, 1992; Clyde Kluckhohn, Navaho Witchcraft,
Boston, 1967 (comparison to the Navaho culture). Forces can be unleashed even by
glances. Cf. Thomas Hauschild, Der böse Blick: Ideengeschichtliche und sozialges-
chichtliche Untersuchungen, Berlin, 1984: 16-26; and finally, Christoph Daxelmüller,
Zauberpraktiken: Eine Ideengeschichte der Magie, Zürich, 1993.
34
Cf. Heinrich Grimm, ’Die deutschen Teufelsbücher des 16. Jahrhunderts’, Archiv
für Geschichte des Buchwesens, 2, 1960: 513-70; Keith L. Roos, The Devil in 16th Cen-
tury German Literature: The Teufelsbücher, Bern and Frankfurt, 1972; Max Osborn,
Die Teufelsliteratur des XVI. Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1893, (rpt) Hildesheim, 1965; Dieter
Harmening, ’Teufel, Sündenfall und Zauberei—Dämonologie und theologische Anthro-
pologie der christlichen Hexe’, in idem ’Magie im Abendland’: 29; Jean Delumeau,
Angst im Abendland, passim; Anton La Vey, The Satanic Bible, London, 1969. An es-
pecially impressive example for the demonic hysteria of the epoch is offered by the
Bavarian Aegidius Albertinus: Johannes Janssen, Culturzustände des deutschen Volkes
seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters bis zum Beginn des dreißigjährigen Krieges (Geschichte
des deutschen Volkes, vol. VI), Freiburg, 1888: 482f. (Further, 463-508 for a richer
means of evidence.) About the influential attitude of Luther (who saw storytellers or
lansquenets near to the devil), see Rainer Alsheimer, ’Katalog protestantischer Teufel-
serzahlungen des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Wolfgang Brückner (ed.), Volkserzählung und
Reformation: Ein Handbuch zur Tradierung und Funktion von Erzählstoffen und
Erzählliteratur im Protestantismus, Berlin, 1974: 417-519, 432, 435, 496.
35
Cf. Hans Blumenberg, Die Lesbarkeit der Welt, Frankfurt, 1981.
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48
allegedly came even from the airiest of phenomena such as a simple
gaze.36 Under all circumstances the wrath of God had to be avoided.
Mechanisms of salvation available through official religious practice,
but also the medium of sorcery, the secret knowledge of ’wise women’,
or particular rituals practised unobtrusively, all were believed to help in
one way or the other.37 What appears evident is that such a metaphysical
component was far from being alien to the mental horizons during these
centuries, and carried on well into the early modern period. The super-
natural world was close to that of everyday life, the frontiers between
the two were permeable, the possibilities of communicating with the
other world, or even entering it, were diverse. Who or what, in this magical
world, could come under the suspicion of transcendence, must have
depended on various circumstances, many of which can no longer be
reconstructed or whose specific significance was far from being stable.
The imagined construct, the ’witch’ could serve here as an example to
illustrate the genesis of the ’charismatic individual’ in the Geertzian
sense.38 Structural and accidental factors formed a precondition: these
included the prevalence of specific mental patterns, the predominance
of a magically connoted world-view, in itself one that unfolded against
36
Cf. Hauschild, Der böse Blick. Analogous to the opposite point of view of holy
representations: The ’Spiegel des sunders’ of 1475, for example, is against the idea that
pictures possess an inner, magical ’virtus’ that has an effect on the outside. Cf. Bob
Scribner, ’Das Visuelle in der Volksfrömmigkeit’ in idem (ed.), Bilder und Bildersturm
im Spätmittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit, Wiesbaden, 1990: 16f; idem, ’Cosmic
Order and Daily Life: Sacred and Secular in Preindustrial German society’, in idem,
Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany, London, 1987: 12
(on a ’sacramental’ perception of images).
37
Cf. Robert Muchembled, ’Sorcellerie, culture populaire et christianisme au XVI
e
siècle (principalement en Flandre et Artois)’, Annales E.S.C., 28, 1973: 264-84; Heide
Dienst, ’Lebensbewältigung durch Magie: Alltägliche Zauberei in Innsbruck gegen Ende
des 15. Jahrhunderts’, in Alfred Kohler and Heinrich Lutz (eds), Alltag im 16. Jahrhundert.
Studien zu Lebensformen in mitteleuropäischen Städten, Vienna, 1987: 80-116; Roeck,
Eine Stadt: 433-76; Edward E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among
the Azande, Oxford, 1937; about the discussion on Evans-Pritchard’s book, cf. H.G.
Kippenberg and B. Luchesi, Magie
; also Robin Horton, ’African Thought and Western
Science’ Africa vol. 37(1): 50-71 and vol. 37(2): 155-87; Monica Wilson, Good Com-
pany : A Study of Nyakyusa Age-Villages, London and New York, 1951; John Middleton,
Lugbara Religion: Ritual and Authority among an East African People, Oxford, 1960;
Mary Douglas, Ritual and idem, Reinheit.
38
Cf. Bernd Roeck, ’Wahrnehmungsgeschichtliche Aspekte des Hexenwahns. Ein
Versuch’ HJb 112, 1992: 72-103 and idem, ’Säkularisierung als Desensibilisierung.
Der Hexenwahn aus der Perspektive der Sensibilitätsgeschichte’, in Sönke Lorenz and
Dieter R. Bauer (eds), Das Ende der Hexenverfolgung, Stuttgart, 1995: 169-82.
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49
the background of a specific sensibility. Societal tensions were an added
factor of significance in the crystallisation of the construct; and finally, a
series of special and individual circumstances such as an ugly appearance,
a curse, a refused gift-all of which were not always sufficient conditions
for the creation of the criminalised figure of the ’witch’, but in some
cases did form the necessary basis for this process. The fact that the
characteristics attributed to a person suspected of witchcraft often over-
lapped with the conditions that pressured some persons into societal mar-
ginality, takes us back to the issue of the alleged transcendence of social
outcasts.
The existence of such an association, that of transcendence with
marginality, as can be concluded from the reflections outlined here, was
only conceivable through a mode of thinking that tended to transpose
the most ordinary everyday occurrences into metaphysical contexts. We
are thus confronted with a way of thinking that understands the world as
a system of signs. Humans as well as objects were conceived of in terms
of their proximity to the ’centres’ of this world-the thrones of God as
also of the devil. 39 Charismatic features and magical potential were
brought in association with humans and objects. The continuing faith in
miracles, the ’wundermentalität’ ,40 which was specifically characteristic
of individuals throughout the early modem period, makes the ascriptions
of transcendence understandable. If a cluster of clouds could turn into a
sign of the wrath of God, an old woman into a witch, or a haggard hermit
into a saint, if one was prepared to accept the healing powers of a piece
of bone, then the realms of fantasy which the sudden appearance of a
group of gypsies or the horror-filled profession of the executioner could
open up were limitless.
As opposed to the monistic view put forward by Wemer Danckert, it
would seem more appropriate to pose the question of whether ascriptions
of transcendence, that is, the beliefs in the ’powers of enchantment’ of
39
Jan M. Lewis, ’Spirit Possession and Deprivation Cults’, Man, N.S. 1, 3: 307-29. It
would be worthwhile to analyse the extent to which the thinking of early modern humans
was dualistic, if humans of that time conceded a real power of the devil and not only the
ability to act ’with divine allowance’.
40
Cf. Frantisek Graus, ’Mentalität—Versuch einer Begriffsbestimmung’ in idem (ed.),
Mentalitäten im Mittelalter: Methodische und inhaltliche Probleme, Sigmaringen, 1987:
15; Roeck, Eine Stadt
: 367f., 523; Rebekka Habermas, ’Wunder, Wunderliches, Wunder-
bares : Zur Profanisierung eines Deutungsmusters in der frühen Neuzeit’, in Richard van
Dülmen (ed.), Armut, Liebe, Ehre. Studien zur historischen Kulturforschung, Frankfurt,
1988: 38-66.
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50
outcast persons, were not rather a subsidiary factor. In other words,
whether such attributes were most likely a simple outcome or at times
even an accentuated form of social marginality, rather than its precon-
dition. The attribution of charismatic features could often get added on
to other factors that effected the marginalisation of individuals and social
groups. The collective criteria for the constitution of marginality could
differ considerably from case to case, the attribute of transcendence may
or may not have belonged to it. At times, as in the instance of gypsies,
magical powers came to be more of a label that was included in the cata-
logue of stereotypes that constituted this group. The notion that connota-
tions of magical prowess reflect the fear of the alien andunknown is in
itself a plausible one, though one that can be in the last resort explained
only through psychological considerations. The world of itinerant people
and of the executioners, the Jewish ghettos and alleys, where strange
rites were alleged to have been performed and where life in general was
believed to have been lived in ways alien to the Christian mind, were all
perceived not only as being ’different’, but also mysterious. Dark secrets,
in particular, could then give birth to spirits and ghosts.&dquo;
Intercultural comparisons are useful here in that they point to conditions
as heterogeneous as those that prevailed in Europe during the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. The position of being socially outcast was neither
necessarily nor uniformly connected to the exercise of specific profes-
sions, and ascriptions of transcendence were far from being a universal
feature of marginal or outcast positions.42 The case of blacksmiths is a
well-researched area.43 In some societies members of this profession were
regarded as eminently respectable and even occupied positions held to
be sacred; elsewhere they constituted a despised group and were treated
as outcasts. The evident proximity between the activity of forging and
shamanism cannot be overlooked. In the case of European society the
best-known piece of evidence suggesting ’magical forces’ linked to the
forge can be found in the Bavarian Hexenmandat, or mandate on witch-
craft, of 1611. This document exhorts the populace to beware of persons:
41
The antique parallel is very interesting: Von Weiher interprets Accadic conjurations
against wizardry and ban. These were directed against the consequences of ’human be-
haviour’ as a means to solve interpersonal conflicts which consisted of the ’otherness’
of other individuals; Egbert von Weiher, Spätbabylonische Texte: 11f.
42
Cf. Mary Douglas, Ritual
: 91; Monica Wilson, Good Company: 192; Nowosadtko,
Scharfrichter und Abdecker
: 25f.
43
Cf. n. 7.
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51
who presume to possess divine or soothsaying powers (Artis Divinandi)...
or those who are given to spread superstitions and myths through customs,
words or blessings (...), to watch out for the message-carriers and their
companions, equally for the old women from whom advice is sought in many
matters, and also those blacksmiths in the country as well as in the towns,
who sometimes display and use strange arts .....
This piece of evidence however is an isolated one, as far as I can see;
even more seldom do we encounter direct proof of dishonesty or justifi-
cation of the inferior status of blacksmiths in the social complex of urban
or rural artisans. The same can be observed for midwives, barbers, linen
weavers and other artisanal groups; only in certain regions or towns were
they branded as infamous, and only in individual cases can it be proven
that people ascribed to them a magical charisma.&dquo; Dishonesty as a char-
acter attribute that first acquired a distinct contour within urban guilds
during the late Middle Ages, was by no means necessarily connected to
transcendence, even in the case of these particular professions
The suspicion voiced by the mandate on witchcraft of 1611 might
have derived its essence from the circumstance that in a number of cases
members of marginal groups had begun to claim mastery over sorcerous
practices. It is possible that they may have deployed such claims towards
earning a livelihood, their economically depressed position having left
them with few other options. Individual instances of ’sorcerers’ or ’wise
women’ could well have succeeded in arousing collective suspicion, lead-
ing to a general label being applied to an entire profession or group.
Such a practice of labelling still awaits detailed research.4’ This enter-
prise would presumably call for highly complex models. Popular ’gossip’
44
’sich Artis divinandi oder deß wahrsagens ...
anmassen, sonder auch welche Super-
stitiones und Aberglauben mit Wercken oder Worten und Segen ...
gebrauchen’, zu
achten—’insonderheit auff die Nachrichter und dergleichen gesellen, wie auch etliche
alte Weiber, bey denen in solchen sachen gemeinigklich raht gesuchet wird, auch auff
die jenige Schmidt auff dem Landt, und wohl auch in Stätten, die zu zeiten seltzame
Künste yeben und gebrauchen ....’ Wolfgang Behringer, Mit dem Feuer vom Leben zum
Tod. Hexengesetzgebung in Bayern, München, 1988: 168.
45
Cf. Rober Jütte, ’Bader, Barbiere und Hebammen: Heilkundige als Randgruppe?’
in Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller (ed.), Randgruppen
: 89-120; Danckert, Unehrliche Leute,
passim.
46
Cf. comprising Wolfgang von Hippel, Armut, Unterschichten, Randgruppen
: 97.
47
Walz’s study on the genesis of witch trials is methodically important (cf. Rainer
Walz, Hexenverfolgung
).
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52
or ’rumour’ could originate from circumstances or suggestions which a
modern, rational way of seeing would regard as utterly unspecified inad-
equate attention has till now been paid to the divergent mental modes of
pre-logical, pre-Copemican societies, which made up those very social
configurations surrounding marginal groups during pre-modem times.49
These were ’small worlds’,5° to a great extent illiterate, and the men and
women who populated them were a part of rather loosely knit, flimsy
network of communication, although changes were becoming evident
in the course of the sixteenth century, especially as the larger organisation
of the early modem state was beginning to cast its looming shadow on
societal constellations.s’ The typological model of the anthropocentric
universe, conceived by L6vy-Bruhl and his successor Mary Douglas,
and which has found a place in ethnological field studies, reveals a sur-
prising convergence with fragments of world views of the late fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. The tendency to interpret the universe in terms
directly dictated by an individual’s experiences, to explain occurrences
subjectively and centred on the self within a framework of luck and mis-
fortune, are examples of this world view, marked by fuzziness or the
blurring between the inside and the outside, object and person, ego and
environment, sign and instrument, language and action.52 Pamphlets,
’newe zeyttungen’ (newspapers) and chronicles appear to have partici-
pated in a way of thinking which claimed the existence of ’causalities’
where evidence suggested analogies, S3 coincidences of certain phenomena
were read so as to postulate a cohesive totality, the particularity of other
phenomena was interpreted as part of an overlap between two distinct
sequences.&dquo;
48
Cf. Bernd Roeck, ’Wahrnehmungsgeschichtliche Aspekte des Hexenwahns’.
49
Cf. Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, La mentalité primitive, Paris, 1922; Mary Douglas, Reinheit
:
106.
50
Cf. Arthur E. Imhof, Die verlorenen Welten: Alltagsbewältigung durch unsere Vor-
fahren—und weshalb wir uns heute so schwer damit tun..., Munich, 1984; Hans Kloft,
Albrecht Classen and Jörg Requate, ’Kommunikation’, in Peter Dinzelbacher (ed.), Euro-
päische Mentalitätsgeschichte: Hauptthemen in Einzeldarstellungen, Stuttgart, 1993:
362-99.
51
Cf. Wolfgang Behringer, Die Welt in einen Model gegossen. Der Strukturwandel
des frühneuzeitlichen Kommunikationswesens am Beispiel der Reichspost (upcoming).
52
Cf. Mary Douglas, Reinheit
: 116f.
53
Ibid.
: 90; fundamentally, Marcel Mauss, Soziologie und Anthropologie
: 59-123.
54
Cf. E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft
; and Mary Douglas, Reinheit
: 90. Examples
from sixteenth century Europe: Roeck, Eine Stadt
: 84.
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53
The search for the origins of those currents that shaped the fate of an
individual self was carried out, in such societies, within the immediate
environment: saints, healers, wise women on the one hand, sorcerers
and witches on the other, appeared as ’relay stations’ of the cosmic
powers. Even ’learned’ theology conceded the possibility of an individual
attaining such a mediatory role-one could become a witch, a magician
or a saint on one’s own initiative. In addition, however, the idea of pre-
disposition, or of being chosen to become a repository of the cosmic
powers also enjoyed acceptance. Hagiographies of saints emphasised
those special conditions, premonitory signs and miracles that appeared
at the moment of birth and during the childhood of their protagonists.ss
It is true that one could become a shaman on one’s own initiative, but in
some cultures shamanism was hereditary.s6 The circumstance of being
born under a glückshaube (bonnet of luck), that is in an unruptured
amniotic sac, predestined the child to become a fighter against evil and
promised the gift of clairvoyance.&dquo; The belief that this was especially
true of the child bom on the Sabbath was a widespread one.&dquo;
Thus, under no circumstances, was it contingent as to whom, inside
of certain societal configurations, charismatic and transcendent character-
istics came to be ascribed. Only the logic, which the processes of labelling
followed, was identifiable. Deviant behaviour, a lifestyle not conforming
to majority norms, was among the important preconditions for social
marginalisation. Certain specific aspects of this general deviance appear
to have subsequently become relevant to the ascription of transcendence,
aspects which then opened up spaces for contemporary imagination.
These aspects centred on activities in the border zones between life and
death, occupations in obscure fringe territories from which danger could
results9-those dealing with dead bodies and carcasses, with unclean
substances, such as blood, excrements and other bodily fluids. A special
relationship to the rural world can often be observed, to nature with its
mysterious phenomena and sounds, to a secluded existence. The handling
of elementary things, iron and especially fire, the fact of being marked
55
Evidences by J.M. Sallmann, Naples et ses saints
: 235-55.
56
Mircea Eliade, Schmiede und Alchemisten
: 30-33.
57
Cf. Gábor Klaniczay, Heilige, Hexen, Vampire
: 30-35, with further evidences; funda-
mentally, Nicole Belmont, Les Signes de la naissance. Étude des représentations symbol-
iques associées aux naissances singulières, Paris, 1971.
58
Cf. Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, VIII, Sp. 114.
59
Mary Douglas, Reinheit
: 107.
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54
by physical peculiarities, and finally, socially conspicuous behaviour,
all seem to have played an important role
So far the findings. The search for reasons that would explain why the
supernatural came to be associated with certain social activities and life
situations eludes a single, general answer. Isolated findings in this respect
do not matter greatly, while mythological speculations, as shown not
only by Danckert’s study but also by more recent research,6’ tend to re-
main caught up in speculation. One factor that would appear significant
in this context was the extreme sensitivity of the contemporaries to issues
of transcendence, their thirst for the supernatural. Further, the specific
logic built into processes of ascription, which stimulated the ’genesis’ of
witches, saints and charismatic outcasts, appears to me to be fundamental.
Analogy, anagogy, sympathy and empathy, the role of invisible powers,
all these most likely played an important role, but one that has hardly
been investigated and is difficult to evaluate. Such operations of thinking
helped to find answers to questions about luck and misfortune, about the
space for human agency within this field of tension, and in the end, about
the nature of the universe. One could go a step further with Douglas and
point out that metaphysical cognition was probably incidental to a more
urgent practical interest, namely that of negotiating a difficult, hardly
controllable environment so as to be able to organise oneself within
society .61 The social outcast who embodied transcendence must have
had an important function in this model of the world. He could be a
saviour or a danger, sometimes both at the same time,63 the scapegoat
par excellence or counsellor in the universal struggle between good and
evil. He bewitched men and animals, but could also protect against witch-
craft. He saw his role as that of helping in everyday life in many ways. 64
He could be the bearer of hope, or equally a menacing monster.
60
The chronicler Hermann Cornerus from Luebeck says about the gypsies: ’There
were about 300 humans ... with a very ugly appearance, black as the Tartars...’ (tr.)
Reimer Gronemeyer, Zigeuner im Spiegel friiher Chroniken und Abhandlungen. Quellen
vom 15. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert, Gießen, 1987: 15f.); further literature under n. 19
(about ecstatic shamans).
61
For example, Carlo Ginzburg, Hexensabbat. Entzifferung einer nächtlichen
Geschichte, Berlin, 1990.
62
Mary Douglas, Reinheit
: 91; cf. also Clyde Kluckhohn, Navaho Witchcraft
: 110-18.
63
’Heiliger Sankt Florian/verschon mein Haus, zündt’ andre an’ (Holy Saint Florian
spare my house, burn others down), is chanted by Bavarian peasants. The ambivalence
of the position of the táltos, who were skilled in the art of healing, is described by Gábor
Klaniczay, Heilige, Hexen, Vampire
: 49f.
64
Cf. Heide Dienst, ’Lebensbewältigung durch Magie’.
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55
The ’taboo’ surrounding some marginal groups and social outcasts-
and by no means exclusively those to whom qualities of transcendence
were ascribed-suggests a particular social technique: here a certain
structural similarity to the taboo surrounding saints and rulers is evident.
Underlying the setting up of this taboo was the presumption that approach-
ing a social outcast uninhibitedly, or even contact with objects ’contamin-
ated’ by such a person, could establish a connection with supernatural
powers. The taboo induced the practice of particular rituals that governed
all dealings with the individuals in question, rituals which defined a
boundary, though one which was not necessarily rigid or intraversible.
Or was it the ritual that produced the quarantine space of the taboo? If
regulations were followed or cleansing ceremonies performed, the border
could be crossed, its transgression was healable. For example, it was
possible to ritually control the dangers that emanated from wood of the
gallows through a fife and drum procession. The Catholic Church in
particular had prescribed a broad range of such cleansing rituals, from
the confession to the pilgrimage. It is nonetheless difficult to establish
that all those zones of distance which had been created around marginal
groups and social outcasts in pre-modem European societies could be
grouped under the category of the ’taboo’. Taboo zones in fact comprised
a specific magical-sacred field of force. Keeping distance could be a
product of other considerations as well, as for instance, in the case of
prostitutes the reasons would have been hygienic or moral ones. The
knacker might have been avoided because contact with him could have
endangered one’s own status, for the fear of impurity was intrinsically
connected to social life.
The distance zones that were created around the executioner and per-
sons of other marginal groups were noticeably ’empty’ spaces within a
structure marked by countless imaginary borderlines. They separated
the pure from the impure, good from evil, the holy from’the profane.
Like the spectacular enclaves set up to exclude infamy, they had a funda-
mental role to play in the attempt to create an ideal social order, propa-
gated by the state and the elite which constituted it. This ideal was meant
to represent a binding model for broad sections of the population: the
model of a ’theocracy’ with its moral-sacred society.&dquo; Such a model ap-
peared to suggest that were it not possible to completely eliminate the
65
Cf. Roeck, Außenseiter, Randgruppen, Minderheiten
: 13-22; a similar model by
Christina Larner, Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland, Baltimore and London,
1981.
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56
evil, the impure or unholy, for even these had a place and purpose in the
social order, they ought to be neutralised, spun in cocoons and thereby
isolated. This resulted in the paradox that made the taboo appear as a
means of integration. That apart, the powers of heaven and earth were
mobilised to make humans good, to urge them to pursue a righteous life.
Plagues, floods, earthquakes, wars, even bad weather, were all declared
as consequences of transgressing the frontiers. Such a mental construct
could appear plausible only against the background of belief in magical
powers: giving the supernatural its place within the imagination, recog-
nising the existence of forces that emanated from God or the devil, en-
forced the respect of borderlines and taboo zones.
But what was ’right’? Where were the dividing lines to be drawn? On
this score there was, and is, as is generally known, no consensus. European
history during the outgoing Middle Ages and the early modem period
has been deeply marked by debate on this question. The search for an
answer has opened up the field of an even more fundamental conflict,
namely, the contest over the ’monopoly of magic’; for the control over
means of salvation, and of the path to transcendence. Under this rubric,
I wish to subsume the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, as well as the efforts of the institutions of the large denomin-
ational groups and the crystallising early modem state to bring about a
homogenisation of its subjects. As is generally known, the allies were
overwhelmingly-although not entirely-successful during the course
of the wars in gaining this monopoly. They wiped out heretics, formulated
universally binding doctrines, and tried to win acceptability for their
system of rituals. The religious wars articulated the reach of this ambition.
The flickering flames of witch-bumings illustrate the inner struggles that
erupted over such ambitions, as well as the methods of dealing with
what the allies defined as ’superstition,’ and therewith separated it from
permitted religious practices.66 It was henceforth placed under their dis-
position as to whether a bone was allowed to be venerated as a holy relic
or had to be confiscated as an active substance of a ’highly prohibited’
magical act, or whether the magician was persecuted. They determined
who was saintly, insane or an impostor: case studies suggest that this
66
Cf. Hildred Geertz and Keith Thomas, ’An Anthropology of Religion and Magic.
Two Views’, Journal for Interdisciplinary History, 6, 1975: 71-110. Through my expos-
ition it might become clear that I tend towards Geertz’s position. Cf. further, Arnold van
Gennep, Manuel defolklorefrançais contemporaine, vol. 1, Paris, 1938: 15, who draws
a sharp line to the scientific mentality. Finally, Egbert von Weiher, Spätbabylonische
Texte
: 3.
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57
occurred since the end of the sixteenth century with increasing strictness. 67
Only those symbolic systems sanctioned by them could claim to be legit-
imate. The extent of scepticism within the kingdom during the epoch of
the great witch-panics, doubts as to whether those who had crossed the
frontier really came into contact with the powers of evil and were able to
bring harm (or profit) by magical means, however forms the subject of a
separate study. The victory of scepticism corresponds to the victory of
reason: it forms one of those aspects of the ’disenchantment of the world’,
from which even the ’charismatic outcasts’ did not remain unaffected.
67
Von Weiher, ibid. Cf. further Wolfgang Behringer, ’Scheiternde Hexenprozesse.
Volksglaube und Hexenverfolgung um 1600 in München’, in Richard van Dülmen (ed.),
Kultur der einfachen Leute. Bayerisches Volksleben vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert,
Munich, 1983: 69; Robert Muchembled, ’Sorcellerie’; Peter Burke, Helden, Schurken
und Narren. Europäische Volkskultur der friihen Neuzeit, Stuttgart, 1981. Utensils used
by the executioner play a decisive role in the ’volksmedizin’ (popular medicine) till
today. Cf. Wayland D. Hand, ’Hangmen, the Gallows and the Dead Man’s Hand in
American Folk Medicine’, in Jerome Mandell and Bruce A. Rosenberg (eds), Medieval
Literature and Folklore Studies: Essays in Honour of Francis Lee Utley, New Brunswick,
NJ, 1970: 323-29, 381-87. Also idem, Magical Medicine: The Folkloric Component of
Medicine in the Folk Belief, Custom, and Ritual of the Peoples of Europe and America,
Berkeley and London, 1980.
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The Enchantment of the Alien: Metaphysics and Marginality in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

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The Enchantment of the Alien: Metaphysics and Marginality in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe