000 04463nam a2200517Ia 4500
001 197679
003 IT-RoAPU
005 20250106150425.0
006 m|||||o||d||||||||
007 cr || ||||||||
008 240426t20172017nyu fo d z eng d
019 _a(OCoLC)979622637
020 _a9780801467318
_qPDF
024 7 _a10.7591/9780801467318
_2doi
035 _a(DE-B1597)9780801467318
035 _a(DE-B1597)478370
035 _a(OCoLC)845013865
040 _aDE-B1597
_beng
_cDE-B1597
_erda
072 7 _aHIS037010
_2bisacsh
082 0 4 _81p
_a090
_qDE-101
084 _aonline - DeGruyter
100 1 _aBailey, Michael D.
_eautore
245 1 0 _aFearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies :
_bThe Boundaries of Superstition in Late Medieval Europe /
_cMichael D. Bailey.
264 1 _aIthaca, NY :
_bCornell University Press,
_c[2017]
264 4 _c©2017
300 _a1 online resource (312 p.) :
_b2 tables
336 _atext
_btxt
_2rdacontent
337 _acomputer
_bc
_2rdamedia
338 _aonline resource
_bcr
_2rdacarrier
347 _atext file
_bPDF
_2rda
505 0 0 _tFrontmatter --
_tContents --
_tAcknowledgments --
_tNote on Names and Titles --
_tAbbreviations --
_tPrologue --
_tIntroduction: The Meanings of Medieval Superstition --
_t1. The Weight of Tradition --
_t2. Superstition in Court and Cloister --
_t3. The Cardinal, the Confessor, and the Chancellor --
_t4. Dilemmas of Discernment --
_t5. Witchcraft and Its Discontents --
_t6. Toward Disenchantment? --
_tEpilogue --
_tAppendix --
_tBibliography --
_tIndex
506 0 _arestricted access
_uhttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
_fonline access with authorization
_2star
520 _aSuperstitions are commonplace in the modern world. Mostly, however, they evoke innocuous images of people reading their horoscopes or avoiding black cats. Certain religious practices might also come to mind—praying to St. Christopher or lighting candles for the dead. Benign as they might seem today, such practices were not always perceived that way. In medieval Europe superstitions were considered serious offenses, violations of essential precepts of Christian doctrine or immutable natural laws. But how and why did this come to be? In Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies, Michael D. Bailey explores the thorny concept of superstition as it was understood and debated in the Middle Ages. Bailey begins by tracing Christian thinking about superstition from the patristic period through the early and high Middle Ages. He then turns to the later Middle Ages, a period that witnessed an outpouring of writings devoted to superstition—tracts and treatises with titles such as De superstitionibus and Contra vitia superstitionum. Most were written by theologians and other academics based in Europe’s universities and courts, men who were increasingly anxious about the proliferation of suspect beliefs and practices, from elite ritual magic to common healing charms, from astrological divination to the observance of signs and omens. As Bailey shows, however, authorities were far more sophisticated in their reasoning than one might suspect, using accusations of superstition in a calculated way to control the boundaries of legitimate religion and acceptable science. This in turn would lay the conceptual groundwork for future discussions of religion, science, and magic in the early modern world. Indeed, by revealing the extent to which early modern thinkers took up old questions about the operation of natural properties and forces using the vocabulary of science rather than of belief, Bailey exposes the powerful but in many ways false dichotomy between the "superstitious" Middle Ages and "rational" European modernity.
538 _aMode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
546 _aIn English.
588 0 _aDescription based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Apr 2024)
650 4 _aMedieval & Renaissance Studies.
650 4 _aReligious Studies.
650 7 _aHISTORY / Medieval.
_2bisacsh
653 _amedieval Europe, superstitions, Christian doctrine, religious devotion, natural laws, spiritual practice, intellectualtradition, Christian church history.
850 _aIT-RoAPU
856 4 0 _uhttps://doi.org/10.7591/9780801467318
856 4 0 _uhttps://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780801467318
856 4 2 _3Cover
_uhttps://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9780801467318/original
942 _cEB
999 _c197679
_d197679