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Male Witches, Feminized Men or Shamans?

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Man as Witch

Part of the book series: Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic ((PHSWM))

Abstract

Two unequivocal conclusions can be drawn from the systematic analysis of witch trials in Holstein, Carinthia and Franche-Comté:

First, the courts charged large numbers of men independently of women and in their own right. Their identification as alleged witches was neither a by-product of trials of female witches, nor can it be seen as collateral damage. Side by side with and on the same level as the female witch there stood a male witch, who was by no means a scaled-down or dwarf version of the majority type. Notwithstanding these general conclusions, any analysis of gender distribution must take account of regional context and popular as well as learned witch images, for the dynamics of the witch-hunts produced absolute majorities of female witches just as they occasionally also produced only a minority.

We know that, after the flight, the accused, like all other witch-folk, had a particular kind of demon at the gatherings, the men had a bride, and the women a bridegroom.

(Reason given by the judge for a sentence passed in a witch trial near Regensburg 1689)

(There are)…effeminate men who have no Zeal for the Faith…

(Heinrich Institoris 1486)

I removed the heart and the liver of a pike, these I smoked to intoxicate the possessed people; I then pulled apart a pitch-black hen and laid it on their heads…to expel the evil spirits…

(Christoph Gostner, a healer in South Tyrol, 1595)

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Notes

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Kiel, Germany

    Rolf Schulte (Historian)

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© 2009 Rolf Schulte

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Schulte, R. (2009). Male Witches, Feminized Men or Shamans?. In: Man as Witch. Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230240742_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230240742_9

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-35875-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-24074-2

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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