Lyndal Roper

A powerful account of witches, crones, and the societies that make them From the gruesome ogress in Hansel and Gretel to the hags at the sabbath in Faust, the witch has been a powerful figure of the Western imagination. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thousands of women confessed to being witches--of making pacts with the Devil, causing babies to sicken, and killing animals and crops--and were put to death. This book is a gripping account of the pursuit, interrogation, torture, and burning of witches during this period and beyond. Drawing on hundreds of original trial transcripts and other rare sources in four areas of Southern Germany, where most of the witches were executed, Lyndal Roper paints a vivid picture of their lives, families, and tribulations. She also explores the psychology of witch-hunting, explaining why it was mostly older women that were the victims of witch crazes, why they confessed to crimes, and how the depiction of witches in art and literature has influenced the characterization of elderly women in our own culture.

Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany

Witch Craze

The first historical biography, for many decades, of Martin Luther (1483-1546), the rebellious monk who ushered in the modern world. When on October 31, 1517 an unknown monk nailed a theological pamphlet to the church door in a small university town, he set in motion a process that helped usher in the modern world. Within a few years Luther's ideas had spread like wildfire. His attempts to reform Christianity by returning it to its biblical roots split the Western Church, divided Europe and polarised people's beliefs, leading to religious persecution, social unrest and war; and in the long run his ideas would help break the grip of religion on every sphere of life. Yet Luther was a deeply flawed human being: a fervent believer tormented by spiritual doubts; a prolific writer whose translation of the Bible would shape the German language yet whose attacks on his opponents were vicious and foul-mouthed; a married ex-monk who liberated human sexuality from the stigma of sin but who insisted that women should know their place; a religious fundamentalist, Jew-hater and political reactionary who called 'for the private and public murder of the peasants' who had risen against their lords in response to his teaching. And perhaps surprisingly, the man who helped create in the modern world was not modern himself: for him the devil was not a figure of speech but a real, physical presence. As an acclaimed historian, Lyndal Roper explains how Luther's impact can only be understood against the background of the times. As a brilliant biographer, she gives us the flesh-and-blood figure. She reveals the often contradictory psychological forces that drove Luther forward and the dynamics they unleashed, which turned a small act of protest into a battle against the power of the Church."

Renegade and Prophet

Martin Luther

Der Mensch Martin Luther

This bold and imaginative book marks out a different route towards understanding the body, and its relationship to culture and subjectivity. Amongst other subjects, Lyndal Roper deals with the nature of masculinity and feminity.

Witchcraft, Religion and Sexuality in Early Modern Europe

Oedipus and the Devil

Arthur Burns

Lecturer in Modern British History Arthur Burns

Joanna Innes

Burns, Arthur R. Burns

Fellow and Tutor in Modern History Joanna Innes

Revisits Britain's much-studied 'age of reform', before and after the Great Reform Act of 1832.

Britain 1780-1850

Rethinking the Age of Reform

Robin Osborne

A collection of innovative essays on major topics in ancient Greece and Rome, first published in 2004.

Studies in Ancient Greek and Roman Society

In ‘Luther’ vertelt hoogleraar geschiedenis Lyndal Roper het levensverhaal van de Duitse Maarten Luther. Als de dan nog onbekende Maarten Luther op 31 oktober 1517 in een Duits stadje een theologisch pamflet op de deuren van de kerk spijkert, kan hij niet voorzien dat die daad het begin zal vormen van de moderne tijd. Zijn poging om het christendom te hervormen verdeelt de westerse kerk tot op het bot en brengt het geloof van de mensen in heel Europa aan het wankelen. De Reformatie is een feit. Maarten Luther (1483-1546) verenigde vele kanten in zich. Hij was een zeer gelovig mens maar werd tegelijk verscheurd door spirituele twijfel. Luther was een fantastisch schrijver wiens vertaling van de Bijbel de Duitse taal definitief zou vormen. Hij was een getrouwde ex-monnik die de menselijke seksualiteit bevrijdde van het stigma van de zonde. Een religieuze fundamentalist, een jodenhater en een politiek reactionair. In deze nieuwe, gezaghebbende biografie laat Lyndal Roper zien hoe een ogenschijnlijk kleine daad van verzet leidde tot een strijd tegen de overheersende macht van de kerk. Roper beschrijft de tegenstrijdige psychologische krachten waardoor Luther werd gedreven en de enorme invloed die hij heeft gehad op het verloop van de Europese geschiedenis. Nieuwe, gezaghebbende biografie over de man die de Reformatie ontketende

een biografie

Luther

James Obelkevich

First Published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Studies in Religion, Politics and Patriarchy

Disciplines of Faith

The "stout Doctor" and His Biographers

Martin Luther's Body

"Martin Luther inspired strong emotions not only in his religious and political opponents, but also in those who knew him. People either loved or hated him, and even today he can elicit intense emotional reactions. Always a controversial figure, his influence is nonetheless pervasive, particularly in Germany where he has left an indelible imprint on the culture, musical, linguistic, material, and visual. This book reflects on the way Martin Luther carefully crafted an image of himself, how others portrayed him for their own purposes (both during his life and after), and the ongoing legacy of these images. Though Luther had a magnetic quality both in life and in death, Roper does not shy away from discussing and grappling with his less savory side. Luther was highly aggressive and could be foul-mouthed, especially when speaking of his enemies. He was virulently anti-Semitic and he tended toward misogyny, even for a man of his time. Moving nimbly from analysis of Luther's portraits to his dreams, his anti-Pope propaganda, and even the Playmobil Luther figures of today, Roper presents new sides of this complicated man made more complicated by his followers and detractors"--

Martin Luther's World and Legacy

Living I Was Your Plague

In an exciting new approach to witchcraft studies, The Witch in the Western Imagination examines the visual representation of witches in early modern Europe. With vibrant and lucid prose, Lyndal Roper moves away from the typical witchcraft studies on trials, beliefs, and communal dynamics and instead considers the witch as a symbolic and malleable figure through a broad sweep of topics and time periods. Employing a wide selection of archival, literary, and visual materials, Roper presents a series of thematic studies that range from the role of emotions in Renaissance culture to demonology as entertainment, and from witchcraft as female embodiment to the clash of cultures on the brink of the Enlightenment. Rather than providing a vast synthesis or survey, this book is questioning and exploratory in nature and illuminates our understanding of the mental and psychic worlds of people in premodern Europe. Roper’s spectrum of theoretical interests will engage readers interested in cultural history, psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, art history, and early modern European studies. These essays, three of which appear here for the first time in print, are complemented by more than forty images, from iconic paintings to marginal drawings on murals or picture frames. In her unique focus on the imagery of witchcraft, Lyndal Roper has succeeded in adding a compelling new dimension to the study of witchcraft in early modern Europe.

The Witch in the Western Imagination

Witchcraft, Sexuality, and Religion in Early Modern Europe

This is a fascinating study of the impact of the Reformation idea of "civic righteousness" on the position of women in Augsburg. Roper argues that its development, both as a religious credo and as a social movement, must be understood in terms of gender. Until now the effects of the Reformation on women have been viewed as largely beneficial--Protestantism being linked with the forces of progressivism, individualism, and modernization. Roper here argues that such a view of the Reformation's legacy is a profound misreading, and that the status of women was, in fact, worsened by the Reformation. A number of themes are explored: the economic position of women in the household economy; the nature of "civic righteousness" and how it applied a "reform moralism" to the role of marriage and the household; the efforts of civic authority to reform sexual deviance; the attempts to control marriage and the breakdown of marriage; and the role of convents and nuns. The Holy Household is the first scholarly account of how the Reformation affected half of society. It combines sound application of feminist theory with careful, open-ended archival research to advance our understanding of the Reformation, of feminist history, and of the place of women in modern European society.

Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg

The Holy Household

Daniel Pick

Lecturer in History Royal Holloway and Bedford New College Lyndal Roper

What is a dream? Dreams are universal, but their perceived significance and conceptual framework change over time. This book provides new perspectives on the history of dreams and dream interpretation in western culture and thought. Dreams and History contains important new scholarship on Freud's Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and subsequent psychoanalytical approaches from distinguished historians, psychoanalysts, historians of science and anthropologists. This collection celebrates and evaluates Freud's landmark intellectual production, whilst placing it in historical context. A modern view of psychoanalysis, it also discusses the controversial idea of the role of the external world on the shaping of unconscious mental contents. In highly accessible language it proceeds through a series of richly illustrated case studies, providing new source materials and debates about the causes, meanings and consequences of dreams, past and present: from Victorian anthropological exploration of ancient Greek dream sources to peasant interpretation of dream-life in communist Russia; from concepts of the dream in sixteenth-century England to visual images in nineteenth-century symbolist painting in France. Dreams and History will fascinate those interested not only in psychoanalysis and history, but also arts, culture, humanities and literature.

Lyndal Roper

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