>>Not so minor. Ginzburg, who knows more about
>>this than anyone, would argue that witch scares
>>were part of the beginnings of modernism.
>
>That sounds fascinating. Can you remember where
>he develops that?.... Being a careful
>historian, Ginzberg sticks very closely to his
>local case and what he can back up with
>evidence. But in the introduction he gives
>several indications that he personally believes
>the complex of beliefs behind Benandanti
>practices are part of a tradition that at one
>time spread all over Europe and which was
>continuous back to pre-Christian times.
I think he does believe that. How does that not square with the idea that demonizing those practices is part of the transition from medieval to early modern?
This is the kind of observation Ginzburg makes almost as an aside and in more or less explicit terms, depending on whether it's a book, essay, or lecture. I heard him speak and lecture many times at UCLA, so part of my understanding of his work comes from that.
For example, in one essay called The Inquisitor as Anthropologist (published in a collection called Clues, Myths, and Historical Method) he talks about realizing how much his own approach was shaped by the inquisitors. He says as he read the vatican inquisition documents he was pulling for the peasants but felt as if he was looking over the inquisitors shoulder hoping they would succeed in extracting more information.
Another example, in the interview I linked to the other day he talks about connections between the rise of the nation state and concentrated efforts to disrupt, control, inter, or kill troublesome populations or sectors of populations that could be marginalized by association with something like the Witches Sabbath:
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2003-07-11-ginzburg-en.html
Carlo Ginzburg: What we witness in the spring of 1321 is the idea of the great conspiracy, the notion that external enemies can ally themselves with persons in our midst in order to undermine the entire social structure. This idea had an overwhelming impact in the period under review. In 1348, for example, Jews all over southern France were massacred after being accused of spreading the Black Death. Early in the fifteenth century, this conspiracy model re-emerged, though in a different guise. This time it was the practitioners of the Black Arts who were supposed to be behind the veiled attack on Christianity. They were no longer in league with the Muslims, but with the Devil. Conspiracy had thus become omnipresent. It could no longer be linked to a specific section of the population; and it was no longer rooted in human conflicts, but on the contrary in the absolute struggle between God and the Devil. With this, a mainstay of the belief in the existence of a Witches' Sabbath was firmly in place. The effects of that belief were to make themselves felt throughout the whole of Europe for more than two centuries afterwards.
Trygve Riiser Gunderson: Even so, you think that the events of 1321 were unique?
CG: The rumours spread so rapidly and systematically that spring that it could not possibly have been by chance. Some central authority must have taken steps to spread the charges. The idea of a conspiracy was thus in itself a conspiracy. From the sources available to us it is reasonable to conclude that it was persons at the centre of power in France who were behind it all. The accusations may, of course, have originated at a local level, but their dissemination was encouraged and directed from a central source. That distinguishes the unrest of 1321 from the events of 1348 and those around 1400, which were more spontaneous in nature.
In the years prior to 1321, there was a strong desire in political circles both to destroy the Jews' economic position and to assume control of the considerable sums then accruing to charitable organizations set up to help lepers. Shortly afterwards both these aims were fulfilled.
The appearance of such a large-scale, coordinated campaign can only be explained by the concurrent rise of the nation-state. The conspiracy appears as a distorted image of the new political system, a kind of grotesque caricature of the nation-state's new functions - but with that grain of truth in it that is a feature of all caricatures.
But this picture emerges only when the occurrences of 1321 are viewed as a whole and studied chronologically – when the many diverse incidents are pieced together and analyzed day by day, if not hour by hour. Only then does the link between them become clear. I¹m convinced that chronology, pure and simple, is one of the historian's most powerful weapons. It may be treated with suspicion in modern historiography, but its critical efficacy is greater than many people realize.