Document Type
Book Review
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
2005
Journal or Book Title
Speculum
Volume
80
Issue
1
First Page
334
Last Page
335
DOI
10.1017/S0038713400007570
Abstract
Walter Stephens has added an important contribution, not just to witchcraft studies, but to late-medieval and early-modern studies as a whole. He opens with an account of demonic copulation from a witch trial in 1587 but then focuses almost exclusively on treatises and the "witchcraft theorists" who authored them. In his careful and wide-ranging reading of those sources, he follows the work of Stuart Clark (Thinking with Demons [Oxford, 1997]). But unlike Clark, who draws a firm line around 1500 and works to situate demonological literature amidst the larger intellectual currents of the early modern period, Stephens includes earlier treatises from the fifteenth century in his study. Moreover, he sets this literature in the context of intellectual developments stemming from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and at the center of a general crisis of belief that he sees developing within later medieval Christianity.
Copyright Owner
The Medieval Academy of America
Copyright Date
2005
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Bailey, Michael D., "Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief (review)" (2005). History Publications. 28.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/history_pubs/28
Included in
Cultural History Commons, European History Commons, History of Religion Commons, Medieval History Commons, Other History Commons
Comments
This is a book review from Speculum 80 (2005): 334, doi:10.1017/S0038713400007570. Posted with permission.