Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century EnglandAstrology, witchcraft, magical healing, divination, ancient prophecies, ghosts, and fairies were taken very seriously by people at all social and economic levels in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Helplessness in the face of disease and human disaster helped to perpetuate this belief in magic and the supernatural. As Keith Thomas shows, England during these years resembled in many ways today's "underdeveloped areas." The English population was exceedingly liable to pain, sickness, and premature death; many were illiterate; epidemics such as the bubonic plague plowed through English towns, at times cutting the number of London's inhabitants by a sixth; fire was a constant threat; the food supply was precarious; and for most diseases there was no effective medical remedy. In this fascinating and detailed book, Keith Thomas shows how magic, like the medieval Church, offered an explanation for misfortune and a means of redress in times of adversity. The supernatural thus had its own practical utility in daily life. Some forms of magic were challenged by the Protestant Reformation, but only with the increased search for scientific explanation of the universe did the English people begin to abandon their recourse to the supernatural. Science and technology have made us less vulnerable to some of the hazards which confronted the people of the past. Yet Religion and the Decline of Magic concludes that "if magic is defined as the employment of ineffective techniques to allay anxiety when effective ones are not available, then we must recognize that no society will ever be free from it." |
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Page 93
... death . . . or other fearful accident'.1 - In the Middle Ages preachers had enlivened their sermons with exempla edifying tales of judgments upon sinners and mercies shown to the pious . In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the ...
... death . . . or other fearful accident'.1 - In the Middle Ages preachers had enlivened their sermons with exempla edifying tales of judgments upon sinners and mercies shown to the pious . In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the ...
Page 336
... death or sickness " . This the newspapers will tell them ; for there we find at the end of the year , that no month passes without the death of some person of note ; and it would be hard if it should be otherwise , when there are at ...
... death or sickness " . This the newspapers will tell them ; for there we find at the end of the year , that no month passes without the death of some person of note ; and it would be hard if it should be otherwise , when there are at ...
Page 441
... death for the contract itself ' . In 1651 Thomas Hobbes said of witches that their trade was ' nearer to a new religion than to a craft or science'.1 Many English intellectuals and theologians were thus converted more or less totally to ...
... death for the contract itself ' . In 1651 Thomas Hobbes said of witches that their trade was ' nearer to a new religion than to a craft or science'.1 Many English intellectuals and theologians were thus converted more or less totally to ...
Contents
The Environment | 3 |
RELIGION | 6 |
The Magic of the Medieval Church | 25 |
Copyright | |
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