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-standing and extremely acrimonious battle 108 WITCHCRAFT NARRATIVES IN GERMANY to defend its judicial and political power in Gebsattel, a battle which had acquired an additional religious edge in the spring of 1627. As discussed in the Introduction, Rothenburg was situated in a part of early modern Germany where rights over land and people were particularly fragmented and subject to competing claims from rival lords.11 The village of Gebsattel was one of the biggest thorns in the flesh of the city councillors in the context of their attempts to defend and extend
decision-making power in all cases always remained with the council.4 In the sixteenth century Rothenburg was one of the Empire’s middlesized urban settlements, with 5,000–7,000 inhabitants. Its population was dominated by craftsmen and their households, who produced goods for local and regional markets. These craftsmen belonged to guilds which regulated the standards of their particular craft, but they lacked political power within the city. Individual craftsmen might gain admission to the political elite if they made enough money and the right connections, but as a
accused because of his wife’s conviction. At this first hearing, torture was not applied. Junius was accused by Dr Georg Adam Haan 31 of having frequented a gathering of witches in the electoral council chambers, where they ate and drank together. The accusation was, therefore, aimed directly at the top levels of urban society, and would seem to have been as much about civic politics, power and honour as about anything else
political force. It can just as convincingly be argued, therefore, that the imputed birth of the concept of public opinion indicated that in a pressing politico-religious situation there was need to express a familiar socio-political power in new terms. It has been argued that the arrival of public opinion in the 1750s as a political force engendered a ‘new political culture, recognised as a novelty by contemporaries’.8 It is certainly the case that the Jansenist controversy was inextricably political and brought about a new broad political circumstance in so far as the
-century French episcopate was especially successful in responding to religious reform and political power play, in order to become a flourishing participant in the religious, political and social life of the ancien régime. These publications have added greatly not only to the historiography of French episcopacy, but also, more broadly, to that of early modern French catholicism, because they offer new views on the development and character of a formidable clerical elite. Generally, they differ both in their methodological approaches and in their principal focuses and aims
. Importantly, it is differences in attitude which underpin social difference, not wealth or the resources implied with the grave – which were expressions of the individual. This is especially true in archaeological data because the circumstances of death, burial and the disposal of the body vary from one individual to another. To use a well-known example, Richard III was buried without rich gravegoods, in a minor church in the middle of England (King et al., 2014 ). The circumstance of his death, the shift in political power that resulted from it, and the redistribution
history of their religious opponents was, like that of pagan religions, little more than the history of priestcraft: religious fraud conducted in order to acquire wealth, political power and status, keeping the laity ignorant of true religion. So, part of the ideological heritage of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a deeply ingrained comparative polemico-historical approach which remained in place until at least the end of the eighteenth century, and was not, as many have asserted,17 the product of the Enlightenment. There is no proof whatever, especially in
may be perceived to be the result of women’s misbehavior. Thus Sinhalese women understand that, as women, their bodies pose a unique threat to ordered social hierarchies, and so “are culturally motivated to incorporate TMM7 8/30/03 5:37 PM Page 181 WITCHCRAFT AS EXPRESSION OF FEMALE SEXUALITY 181 within themselves the misfortune and suffering that strikes at the household.”71 Lyndal Roper has similarly shown that political power and authority were conceived metaphorically in terms of the sexual dominance of husband over wife in post-Reformation Augsburg.72
Jansenist ephemeral literature, in particular the weekly Nouvelles ecclésiastiques’.54 This was of course a task which the philosophes could never have accomplished, partly on account of their tiny numbers. It was impossible more so because, on such a direct political issue rather than general philosophical goals, their often elite backgrounds prevented any easy consensus. In the final instance, considerable sections of the elite of France naturally saw the Bourbons as the source of legitimate political power and social order. From whichever angle the situation is viewed
extrapeninsular powers. This remained the case until the victory of the Risorgimento and unification in 1861. Historically, the resources of the Papal States had also helped to ensure a degree of political, financial and military security against competing noble Italian dynasties intent on capturing the papacy and its rich financial rewards for themselves. By the eighteenth century, open violence in the struggle for the papal throne was a thing of the past. But, naturally, the economic and political power derived from temporal dominion could still constitute an important factor