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9781421409924 Add to Cart Academic Inspection Copy

Night Battles:

Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
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Based on research in the Inquisitorial archives of Northern Italy, The Night Battles recounts the story of a peasant fertility cult centred on the benandanti, literally, 'good walkers.' These men and women described fighting extraordinary ritual battles against witches and wizards in order to protect their harvests. While their bodies slept, the souls of the benandanti were able to fly into the night sky to engage in epic spiritual combat for the good of the village. Carlo Ginzburg looks at how the Inquisition's officers interpreted these tales to support their world view that the peasants were in fact practicing sorcery. The result of this cultural clash, which lasted for more than a century, was the slow metamorphosis of the benandati into the Inquisition's mortal enemieswitches.Relying upon this exceptionally well-documented case study, Ginzburg argues that a similar transformation of attitudesperceiving folk beliefs as diabolical witchcrafttook place all over Europe and even spread to the New World. In his new preface, Ginzburg reflects on the interplay of chance and discovery, as well as on the relationship between anomalous cultural notions and historical generalizations.

Preface to the 2013 Edition
Foreword by Eric J. Hobsbawm
Translators' Note
Preface to the English Edition
Preface to the Italian Edition
I. The Night Battles
II. The Processions of the Dead
III. The Benandanti between Inquisitors and Witches
IV. The Benandanti at the Sabbat
Appendix
Notes
Index of Names

""A tour-de-force of reconstruction, building out of scattered and fragmentary sources a whole world for the reader to inhabit.""

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