Elite and Popular Cultures
| Discussion topics | Documents | Audio | Reading |
Discussion topics and Essay Questions
a) Popular and Elite Cultures
- Why have historians struggled to define 'popular culture'?
- Is the distinction between 'elite' and 'popular' meaningful?
- Did the spread of printing draw elite and popular culture closer together, or drive them further apart?
b) Witchcraft
- Were the European witch hunts primarily a war against women?
- Why did the legal pursuit of witches make less sense in 1750 than in 1500?
Documents
**NOTE: Some eresources are accessible only on-campus or via off-campus proxies or the athens service**
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Popular and Elite Culture
Witchcraft
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Popular and Elite Culture
Witchcraft
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Audio/Video Links:
- BBC Radio 4 'In Our Time' programme on Witchcraft and 'The Salem Witch Trials'
- Witch-Hunt Sources, video discussion with Brian Levack about the early modern European Witch-hunt
- BBC 'A History of the World in 100 Objects': Dürer's Rhinoceros (see 'Images' in documents section above)
- The Watersons, ‘Swarthfell Rocks’, modern rendering of The Fox chace: or, The huntsman’s harmony (see 'Texts' in 'Documents' section above) [Spotify]
Search for suitable versions of the following pieces on hhtp://uk.youtube.com
- 'The Gelding of the Devil', composed by John Playford
- 'New Oysters', composed by Thomas Ravenscroft
Secondary literature
Selected Key Texts:Popular and Elite Culture
- P. Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (1978; reprint, 1994) (ebook)
- B. Reay, Popular Cultures in England 1550-1750 (1998)
- C. Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: the Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (1976; reprint 1992)
- T. Harris, The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500-1850 (2001) (ebook), esp. chs by Harris, Wood, Hindle and Goldie
- H. Parker, “Toward a Definition of Popular Culture,” History and Theory 50 (2011): 147-170
- R. Scribner, ‘Popular Politics and Cultural Conflict in Early Modern Europe’, European History Quarterly 18, no. 1 (1988)
- ", ‘Is a History of Popular Culture Possible?’, History of European Ideas 10, no. 2 (1989)
Selected Key Texts: Witchcraft
- L. Apps and A. Gow, Male Witches in Early Modern Europe (2003) (ebook)
- R. Briggs, Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft (1996)
- B.P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (1995)
- B. P. Levack, The Witchcraft Sourcebook, 2nd ed. (2014)
- D. Oldridge, The Witchcraft Reader (2002)
- D. Oldridge, Strange Histories: The Trial of the Pig, The Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissaince Worlds (2004) (ebook), esp. chap 6 'Werewolves and Flying Witches'
- K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971; reprint 1991)
- C. Larner, Witchcraft and Religion: The Politics of Popular Belief (1984)
- L. Roper, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany (New Haven, 2004)
Further reading
a) Popular and elite culture
- Adamson, John, ed., The Princely Courts of Europe: Ritual, Politics and Culture under the Ancien Régime 1500-1750 (London, 2000)
- P. Burke, 'Learned culture and popular culture in Renaissance Italy', in The Renaissance in Europe: A Reader, ed. K. Whitlock (2000), 73-81 (digital scan)
- Burke, Peter, What is cultural history? (2nd edn, Cambridge, 2008)
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S. Clark, 'French Historians and Early Modern Popular Culture', Past and Present 100 (1983)
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N. Z. Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (1985) (ebook), esp. chs 4, 7 & 8
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“ , ‘The Historian and Popular Culture’, in J. Beauroy & M. Bertrand (eds), The Wolf and the Lamb: Popular Culture in France (1977)
- R. C. Davis, The War of the Fists. Popular Culture and Public Violence in Late Renaissance Venice (1994)
- J. Duindam, Myths of Power: Norbert Elias and the Early Modern European Court (Amsterdam, 1994)
- N. Elias, The Court Society, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York, 1983) (see also Duindam above)
- J.R. Mulryne et al. (ed.) Europa Triumphans: Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe (2004), esp. chs by Knecht, Savage,
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A. Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England 1500-1700 (2000)
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“ , ‘Rumour, news and popular political opinion in Elizabethan and early Stuart England’, Historical Journal 40 (1997)
- A. Hadfield, M. Dimmock, A. Shinn (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England (2014)
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T. Harris (ed.), Popular Culture in England c.1500-1850 (1996) esp. chs 1-3
- M. Ingram, 'Ridings, Rough Music and the 'Reform of Popular Culture in Early Modern England', Past and Present, 105 (1984), 79-113.
- S. L. Kaplan (ed.), Understanding Popular Culture: Europe From the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century (1984) (ebook), esp. chs 3, 5, 7, 9
- Mateer, David (ed.), Courts, Patrons and Poets (2000)
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R. Muchembled, Popular Culture and Elite Culture in France 1400-1750 (1985)
- R. Scribner, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (1987)
- G. Strauss & W. Beik, 'The Dilemma of Popular History', Past and Present 132 (1991), Beik debate and Strauss reply in Past and Present 141 (1993)
- G. Sullivan and L. Woodbridge, 'Popular Culture in Print' in A. Kinney (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1500-1600 (2000), 265-286
- M. Todd, ‘The persistence of popular festivities in early modern Scotland’, Journal of British Studies 39 (2000)
- John Walter, Crowds and Popular Politics in Early Modern England (2006) (ebook)
b) Witchcraft
- B. Ankarloo and G. Henningsen (eds), Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries (Oxford, 1990)
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W. Behringer, ‘Weather, Hunger and Fear: Origins of the European Witch-Hunts in Climate, Society and Mentality’, German History 13 (1995)
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“ , Witches and Witch-Hunts: A Global History (2004)
- E. Bever, 'Witchcraft, Female Agression and Power in the Early Modern Community', Journal of Social History, 35 (2002), 955-88
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B. Levack, , ‘Women as victims? Witches, Judges and the Community’, French History 5 (1991)
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S. Clark, ‘Inversion, Misrule and the Meaning of Witchcraft’, Past and Present 87 (1980)
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“ , ‘The “Gendering” of Witchcraft in French Demonology: Misogyny or Polarity?’, French History 5 (1991)
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“ , Thinking with Demons: the Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (1997), esp. parts iv and v
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N. Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons (1975)
- O. Davies and W. de Blecourt (eds), Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment Europe (2004) (ebook)
- C. Holmes, ‘Women: Witnesses and Witches’, Past and Present, 140 (1993), 45-78
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A.C. Kors & E. Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700: A Documentary History (2001)
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“ (ed.), Witch-hunting in Early Modern Europe: General Studies (1992)
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“ , ‘The Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661-2’, Journal of British Studies 20 (1980)
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E. William Monter, 'Witchcraft in Geneva, 1537-1662', Journal of Modern History 43:2 (1971)
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L. Roper, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern Europe (1994)
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“ , ‘Witchcraft and the Western Imagination’, in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th series, 16 (2006)
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G. Scarre, Witchcraft and Magic in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Europe (1987; new edn with J. Callow, 2001)
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J. Sharpe, Witchcraft in Early Modern England (2001) (ebook)
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J.L. Teall, 'Witchcraft and Calvinism in Elizabethan England: Divine Power and Human Agency', Journal of the History of Ideas 23 (1962)
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H. Trevor Roper, The European Witchcraze of the 16th and 17th centuries (1978) (only for use in library)
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R. Zguta, 'Witchcraft Trials in Seventeenth-Century Russia', American Historical Review 82:5 (1977)
Module Forum
Module Homepage
E-Resources
Chronology
External Links
The Robin Hood Project - database of texts, images and bibliographies about the Robin Hood stories and other outlaw tales
The Elizabethan Noble Style - information and documents relating to Elizabethan noble dress, cusoms and manners
Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto - copies of 21 of Shakespeare's plays
16thC Printing: visualization of the process from arranging letters to decorating book covers (V&A).
Cornell Witch pages - Witchcraft Collection held by Cornell University Library
Survey of Scottish Witchcraft - digital resource relating to the history of witchcraft and witch-hunting in Scotland
Books of Magical Charms - digital copies of two early modern Books of Magical charms from seventeenth-century England (part of the Newberry Library's 'Transcribing Faith' project)
Witchcraft Legends - collection of legends and folktales about witchcraft
Witchcraft and Magic - short commentary and documents relating to witchcraft, as part of 'Virtual Norfolk' project
The Damned Art: The History of Witchcraft and Demonology - an exhibition of books relating to the history of witchcraft and demonology