Witchcraft and Demonology in Hungary and Transylvania

Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic

by Gábor Klaniczay (Editor), Éva Pócs (Editor)

This book provides a selection of studies on witchcraft and demonology by those involved in an interdisciplinary research group begun in Hungary thirty years ago. They examine urban and rural witchcraft conflicts from early modern times to the present, from a region hitherto rarely taken into consideration in witchcraft research. Special attention is given to healers, midwives, and cunning folk, including archaic sorcerer figures such as the táltos; whose ambivalent role is analysed in social, legal, medical and religious contexts. This volume examines how waves of persecution emerged and declined, and how witchcraft was decriminalised. Fascinating case-studies on vindictive witch-hunters, quarrelling neighbours, rivalling midwives, cunning shepherds, weather magician impostors, and exorcist Franciscan friars provide a colourful picture of Hungarian and Transylvanian folk beliefs and mythologies, as well as insights into historical and contemporary issues.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Folklore, Occult

426 pages, Hardcover

Published December 14, 2017

About the author

Dr. Klaniczay is University Professor of Medieval Studies and Fellow of the Centre for Religious Studies at the Central European University (CEU), in Budapest, Hungary.

He was born in 1950.

He graduated in History, Medieval Studies, and English Philology in 1974 from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, and completed his postgraduate studies in 1976 in Paris with Jacques Le Goff (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) and Michel Mollat (Sorbonne). He received his Dr.Phil. at ELTE (Hungary) in 1983, and was Cand. Sci. at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1994. In 2001 he was awarded Dr. Habil. at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, and then Dr. Sci. of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2005.

In 2014 he was Correspondant étranger de l‘Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Paris.