The Demons' Reaction to Sodomy: Witchcraft and Homosexuality in Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola's "Strix"

Herzig, Tamar

doi:10.2307/20061313

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The myth of the Wicked witch influenced witchcraft trials in Europe and elsewhere (15th–18th centuries), with estimated consequential killings varying from several million to 20–50,000 in more recent and accurate accounts (Hutton, 2017). The victims were mainly women of low social status, although, in some areas and at certain times, men and upper-class persons were also prosecuted, sometimes under accusations linked to sodomy and extreme sexual pleasure during sexual intercourse with devils (Herzig, 2003).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reclaiming the witch: Processes and heroic outcomes of consumer mythopoesis

Zanette

Rinallo

Mimoun³

2022

Marketing Theory

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Although previous research has investigated consumer mythopoesis (consumers’ identity work using marketplace myths), little is known about its enactment involving ambiguous myths. Here, we investigate the myth of the witch (predominantly depicted by dominant mythmakers as a villain but recently repositioned more positively) and describe how consumers reclaim the empowering and heroic aspects of the ambiguous witch myth. Based on a qualitative study using archival data and in-depth interviews with self-proclaimed witches, we argue that the witch’s ambiguity originates in different mythopoetic cycles. Then, we describe the following processes through which consumers reclaim positive cycles: incarnating the myth, coming out to selected others and practising myth-related craft. Finally, we show that reclaiming results in new forms of heroic agency that amplify the myth’s ambiguity and identity value. Our results reveal that consumers cope with market-wide paradoxical injunctions, stressful situations and marginalisation by transforming these pressures into acts of self-heroism.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reclaiming the witch: Processes and heroic outcomes of consumer mythopoesis

Zanette

Rinallo

Mimoun³

2022

Marketing Theory

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“…214-15;Maggi 2006, pp. 25-65;Herzig 2003;Costa 1990). Several other priests were denounced as members of the witches' sect.…”

Section: Examplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Witchcraft, Demonology and Magic

Montesano¹

2020

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“…214-15;Stephens 2016;Maggi 2006, pp. 25-65;Herzig 2003;Costa 1990). Several other priests were denounced as members of the witches' sect.…”

Section: Examplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Debating the Devil’s Clergy. Demonology and the Media in Dialogue with Trials (14th to 17th Century)

Voltmer

2019

Religions

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In comparison with the estimated number of about 60,000 executed so-called witches (women and men), the number of executed and punished witch-priests seems to be rather irrelevant. This statement, however, overlooks the fact that it was only during medieval and early modern times that the crime of heresy and witchcraft cost the life of friars, monks, and ordained priests at the stake. Clerics were the largest group of men accused of practicing magic, necromancy, and witchcraft. Demonology and the media (in constant dialogue with trials) reveal the omnipresence of the devil’s cleric with his figure possessing the quality of a ‘super-witch’, labelled as patronus sagarum. In Western Europe, the persecution of Catholic priests played at least two significant roles. First, in confessional debates, it proved to Catholics that Satan was assaulting post-Tridentine Catholicism, the only remaining bulwark of Christianity; for Protestants on the other hand, the news about the devil’s clergy proved that Satan ruled popedom. Second, in the Old Reich and from the start of the 17th century, the prosecution of clerics as the devil’s minions fueled the general debates about the legitimacy of witchcraft trials. In sketching these over-lapping discourses, we meet the devil’s clergy in Catholic political demonology, in the media and in confessional debates, including polemics about Jesuits being witches and sorcerers. Friedrich Spee used the narratives about executed Catholic priests as vital argument to end trials and torture. Inter alia, battling the devil’s clergy played a vital role in campaigns of internal Catholic church reform and clerical infighting. Studying the debates about the devil’s clergy thus provides a better understanding of how the dynamics of the Reformation, counter-Reformation, Catholic Reform, and confessionalization had an impact on European witchcraft trials.

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The Demons' Reaction to Sodomy: Witchcraft and Homosexuality in Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola's "Strix"

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

Reclaiming the witch: Processes and heroic outcomes of consumer mythopoesis

Reclaiming the witch: Processes and heroic outcomes of consumer mythopoesis

Witchcraft, Demonology and Magic

Debating the Devil’s Clergy. Demonology and the Media in Dialogue with Trials (14th to 17th Century)

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