The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe Assignment

The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe - Assignment Example Many folk practices and folktales have been cataloged in the ethnographic encyclopedia and folkloric motifs as a standard guide. These works allow the historian to crosscheck critically the practices and customs that were documented in primary sources. Our area of focus is going to deal with blood and its relationship to the early modern European (Redwald 27). The blood and the bodily symbolism are not only going to reflect the individual and social beliefs but also be able to interpret as they have the values and concepts that can be used to understand how people’s identity is built in a given society that they belong to. Anthropology methodologies are normally concerned with people’s culture; we are going to deal with an anthropological study of magic, witchcraft, heresy, and mysticism commonly known as paganism. Paganism ranges in various ways of high magic (known as ceremonial magic); through witchcraft, these two have varying cosmologies and mythologies, but they h ave a common unifying belief in communication with other spirits and deities in other worlds. These are usually experienced in one’s consciousness (Matteoni 97). According to Sprenger and Institoris’ analysis about witchcraft to have an effect, there must be the witch, the devil and God’s permission to concur in all the mentioned things. So the definition of many late medieval icons about the devil is not easy as one cannot tell the extent to which the devil is present in people’s minds (James 70). According to Peter Burke, the definition of â€Å"people† in western culture existed from the opposed categories: the nobility for the commoners, the literate for the illiterate, the rich for the poor, and the clergy for the laity. Historiography witchcraft reflects the problem of which figure perception by different parts of society, and historians have taken into consideration the socio-economic problems and changes in religious tensions, early modern society, the perception of the witch figure, effect of reformation and its gender relations (Levack 74).           Ã‚