>In
>addition there is an interesting study by Carlo Ginzberg looking at the
>records of the trials, and makes the argument that a trace of a social
>formation can be found in those records, although one that is heavily
>distorted. robert wood
Ginzburg's argument is that witches were created by their inquisitors. He did a number of books using inquisition records that no one had worked with before. One great thing about them is they are as close as you get to actual testimony from peasants. It's distorted, as you say, but the most interesting thing about the distortion, according to Ginzburg's reading, is that over time the inquisitors led people who called themselves Benandanti ("those who do good") to call themselves witches.
Ginzburg presents the evidence in a way that lets the reader follow his interpretation so that you see the distortion unfolding. His idea is that the inquisitors could only understand what these people were saying through categories they were already familiar with and that only roughly fit what they were hearing. Over time the people being interrogated and then the community at large began to accept the inquisitors categories.
Here's a good summary from an interview with Ginzburg, but no summary is as compelling as the books themselves:
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2003-07-11-ginzburg-en.html
[...]
Carlo Ginzburg published his first book, I benandanti, in 1966. It introduces a subject that was to set its seal on much of his career as an historian: the link between the witch trials and popular beliefs. Again the story takes place in Friuli, and this time, too, it was the astonishment shown by the Inquisitors that was the starting point for Ginzburg¹s research. When, in 1575, two men were under interrogation on suspicion of practising witchcraft, the judges were treated to stories of magic, wild nocturnal rides, and secret rites that seemed to fit perfectly with their belief in a horrible Witches' Sabbath. But there was one thing that didn't quite gel: the accused vehemently denied that they were witches. On the contrary, they said, they were benandanti- - "those who do good" – good Christians who at night fought for Christ against the dreaded witches who were out to destroy the villagers' crops. In his book, Ginzburg reviews a series of trials of benandanti held in Friuli in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His theory is that the strange testimonies offered by the "good" witches afford us a glimpse of a popular fertility cult that must have been in existence before, but also in parallel with, the Christian era – a cult that eventually resurfaced in a perverted form in the Church's belief in a Witches' Sabbath. Not only did this theory run counter to accepted conceptions of witchcraft, it was also at odds with the common view of popular religion in medieval and early modern Europe. The theory was to remain in the forefront of Carlo Ginzburg's interest for the next thirty years almost, and in 1989 his preoccupation with it resulted in the publication of his great work, Storia notturna: Una decifrazione del Sabba. Ginzburg himself views this book as his magnum opus.
CG: It all began by chance – like most of the other discoveries I have made in my career as an historian. I believe that at decisive junctures in the research process one must allow oneself to be stupid – simply to dwell in the state of not understanding. That leaves one open to those chance occurrences from which unexpected discoveries spring. I had actually finished my first book when I came across a reference to a man in Livonia [present-day Estonia and Latvia] who, in 1692, was accused of being a werewolf. He had told the judges that on some nights he was in the habit of changing into a wolf and fighting on God's side against the witches and devils who were stealing the people's crops. His statements tallied in surprising detail with those of the benandanti. Were these similarities only coincidental? Or could it be that such cases were rooted in common beliefs that had once been more widespread? I managed to rewrite parts of I benandanti at the last minute, but I knew by myself that I would really have to start all over again from the beginning.
Distorted sources
TRG: In Ecstasies, you study rites and fertility-religious ideas from very different contexts – both historical and geographical - all of them in some ways similar to those you found in your study of the benandanti and the Baltic werewolf. You trace the links between them, and that leads you to describe a series of myths, rites, and convictions the roots of which extend far back into the prehistory of mankind and encompass large areas of the globe. Aren't you afraid of taking on too much?
CG: In writing Ecstasies, I found myself up against formidable methodological problems. It must be borne in mind that the beliefs in question belong to what might be called the dark side of history. We know little about them. We have very little source material. And when, very rarely, something does appear in written sources, it is invariably mediated, filtered through the views of another person - of a compiler of folktales, an anthropologist, or a member of the Inquisition, for instance. The original material is thus very difficult to access. What is more, these beliefs are by their very nature complex and obscure phenomena for which no simple and unequivocal historical explanation can exist. But that doesn¹t mean that the beliefs have never existed or that they are irrelevant. We are dealing here with an aspect of historical reality that is fundamentally different from what historians are used to working with. But it goes without saying that that doesn't make it unimportant.
TRG: You have been accused of over-speculation in your book. How would you yourself describe the method you employed in Ecstasies?
CG: As historians, we have to adapt our methods to the sources available. Even just a few leads can convey a greater historical reality, provided we piece them together correctly. In this case, where source material was both scarce and widely dispersed, comparison became a crucial instrument. Take the benandanti and the Livonian werewolves. To start with there was nothing to link the two cases in a historical sense. But when I compared them, I was struck by the number of things they had in common. Comparison can bring out similarities where we would otherwise tend to focus on differences, and that was decisive in this project.?
There is, for example, a chapter in the book about limping. The werewolves in Livonia were led by a child with a limp. After a while I was struck by the number of myths and rites in which lameness plays a part. If one were to take as one's point of departure a traditional historical approach, one would never find oneself wondering whether there was a historical connection – as I try to demonstrate in my book – between Achilles' heel, Cinderella's lost slipper, and the Chinese Yu dance, in which the feet are dragged to produce a jaunty, bouncing walk. But when one becomes aware of the similarity, the existence of which it is hard to deny once one's attention has been drawn to it, one suddenly finds oneself up against a genuine historical problem, one that needs looking into. That is why comparison is such a unique resource for historians: it helps us to pose questions. In my own case, the web of mythological and ritual similarities that I discovered while engaged in writing Ecstasies evolved into a single major historical question, one of the most momentous I could envisage and one that I felt compelled to try to answer, even though it meant that I would need recourse to methods and approaches that might result in my losing face among "serious" historians.
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