The Sorceress: A Study in Middle Age Superstition - January 2022

[Sara, Old School Classics]

The discussion for this book begins on January 15, 2022. Happy reading.

[Irphen]

I'm looking forward to this buddy read! I will try to start reading tomorrow but as this saterday is pretty busy for me I might have to put this of to sunday. anyway, it only makes one day difference so it's totally fine :-)

[Cynda]

Sounds good Irphen! I am a bit busy restarting another novel. Rather get a good start on it before starting Sorceress. I may start Sorceress Saturday or Sunday, depending. . . . See you here soon.

[Ian]

For those unfamiliar with the subject:

Michelet was a notable historian in his day, and a fine writer (which I think survived translation in this case), and a pioneer of what might now be called social history. But many his ideas about the Middle Ages have long ago been discarded. So be careful about assuming he was particularly accurate in his reconstructions here.

[Cynda]

Thank you Ian. This is often the fate of historians. I am reading this text as part the history of ideas. It might be interesting to see what might have driven the Early Modern Witchcraze and what an intelligent 19th-century man might say about women who overstepped the gender traits and actions determjned appropriate by society.

I have no idea if this information is available here.

I also want to read something a bit different, less well known--and to read it with Irphen.

[Cynda]

Into the 20th century we had narrative history. That is what Jules Michelet published in 1862. So the scholarship may be of lower historical standards than we have now, yet Michelet shows a deep understanding of women.

Somewhere between subtext and text, Michelet shows that women were left behind, serving the professionals with the raw materials of the Earth. All too often women were called witch, old witch, ugly witch. They were not witches necessarily--even rarely. The were definitely surviving as best they could on the fringes of society.

[Irphen]

Ian wrote: "For those unfamiliar with the subject:

Michelet was a notable historian in his day, and a fine writer (which I think survived translation in this case), and a pioneer of what might now be called s..."

Thanks for the info Ian^^
I already was aware that his theories have been proven false but it doesn't take away that it is an interesting read. As Cynda said I think it is interesting to see how a 19th century historian and philosopher sees the "free" women who where often not so well considered at all.

[Irphen]

Cynda wrote: "Into the 20th century we had narrative history. That is what Jules Michelet published in 1862. So the scholarship may be of lower historical standards than we have now, yet Michelet shows a deep un..."

I can only agree with you. Actually if this isn't what we most of the time would call a historical book I think it is still a very interesting approch. I've noted quite a few lyrical tones and he draws quite interesting images in mind ( in my mind at least! XD ), so for me it's a kind of sensitive approch that doesn't bother to much with precise facts but rather global impressions.

[Irphen]

I've read the introduction and the first two chapters so far, and I hope to read some more later this week.
Cynda, I wanted to ask you: you are reading it in English right? Is the translation you got any good? I'm reading it in French so I don't have to bother with that but given the style and lyrical tones as I mentioned earlier I wonder if the texts gets over well.

[Ian]

I've seen Michelet quoted as a reliable source on witches in books first published in the 1970s, and maybe later, some of which are still in print. (He may have fit what the authors apparently wanted to believe). So I thought it worth emphasizing when he was writing.

Modern studies of the Middle Ages were then in their infancy. A number of noted medievalists at the time got the chronologies of works of some works of Arthurian literature not only wrong in absolute dates, but backwards! Some of their "discoveries" are still current, like "Courtly Love," despite attempts refutations of its premises.

A lot of the work implicitly refuting Michelet is fairly tedious, involving the reliability, and even authenticity, of key documents. And, frankly, Michelet was a better writer to begin with.

In passing: I don't recall if Michelet mentions it, but penitentiaries -- handbooks for confessors' responses to specific sins -- of the early Middle Ages ("Dark Ages") regarded *belief* in witchcraft to be a sin, and specified the penance. It took a lot of effort to put these "pagan superstitions" back on the agenda of the Church, and send clerics looking for real witches, instead of their wrong-thinking accusers.

[Irphen]

Ian wrote: "I've seen Michelet quoted as a reliable source on witches in books first published in the 1970s, and maybe later, some of which are still in print. (He may have fit what the authors apparently want..."

It's always worth reminding in what time an author is writing indeed, it gives a lot of comprehension clues and also as you point it out the needed distance with the theories the book develops.
I didn't knew about this wrong chronologies of Arthurian works, it's quite impressive in some sense they got it all backwards. It reminds of how difficult it really is to well interpret and date some things far back in history.

A lot of the work implicitly refuting Michelet is fairly tedious, involving the reliability, and even authenticity, of key documents. And, frankly, Michelet was a better writer to begin with.
You mean Michelet was a better writer than historian? From what I read of The Sorceress until now I would rather agree on that.

In passing: I don't recall if Michelet mentions it, but penitentiaries -- handbooks for confessors' responses to specific sins -- of the early Middle Ages ("Dark Ages") regarded *belief* in witchcraft to be a sin, and specified the penance. It took a lot of effort to put these "pagan superstitions" back on the agenda of the Church, and send clerics looking for real witches, instead of their wrong-thinking accusers.
Thank you for your information! I wasn't aware Middle Age penitentiaries had specific sections about "belief" in witchcraft being a sin and that this thus was a problem to be resolved first before starting to chase "real" witches. It's very interesting!

[Cynda]

Yes Michele is a good writer. His history is general, even for 19th-century history. Yet his general assessment of the nature of what might be called herbalists or healers so far seems correct.

Irphen, the English translation is good. I can read as far back as Milton without much effort, so Michele with his slightly affected or archaic-style writing is just fine. The translation does flow. So that is that is good.

Ian, what I am looking for, Michele is a fine job of doing. I wanted to see if Michelet might do certain things, such as give hints or reasons for how women who worked as herbalists and other healers could be mixed up as being witches--which he is doing--progressive tense intentional. . . . Also he has said--and I dare not write the scary sentence here--what is the line that some. cross to become witches true line and a scary one!

[Ian]

A digression, on Arthurian literature which may illustrate the dangers of settling for nineteenth-century scholarship. This can be skipped without loss, and I've posted it as a spoiler for that reason.

(view spoiler)[The French Arthurian romances posed a problem for nineteenth-century French medievalists. They really liked the short verse romances of Chretien de Troyes, but had trouble with the vast, convoluted, prose romances, like the Prose Lancelot (otherwise the Vulgate Cycle), and the Prose Tristan.

They found a clue to explainng this in the medieval attribution of the Lancelot Cycle to one Walter Map (or Mapes), a real figure in the earlier twelfth century (a courtier of Henry II). So they saw Chretien's work as the result of *progress,* and confidently put him in the thirteenth century.

Eventually it was realized that the attribution to Walter Map was untenable, and the language of the prose works was later than Chretien: so they had to change places, with Chretien closer to the real Map in time, and the prose works belonging mostly to the early thirteenth century.

This revised view took a while to get noticed, and very early dates of other prose romances were assigned in accordance with the original theory.

This has not been completely inconsequential in popular culture. It has shown up with an Amazon reviewer, who indignantly challenged the later date given an Arthurian prose romance by the translator, and other scholars, who merely read Old French, and have a better chance of estimating its age than whether it fits a theory.... (Their conclusions still vary over a few decades, and sometimes relative dates of obviously related works.). (hide spoiler)]

[Ian]

Irphen wrote: "You mean Michelet was a better writer than historian? From what I read of The Sorceress until now I would rather agree on that...."

I mean that he was an exceptionally good writer, especially compared to many historians. And he deserves full credit for his historical work. In this case, he developed a plausible theory, and one which could be tested. Unfortunately, it didn't stand up well against evidence dug out of archives that he didn't know existed, or couldn't access.

[Cynda]

Ian, allow me to assure you that I am not settling for 19th-century scholarship. I am a strong history reader and appreciator of histiography. I am interested in this text of Michelet for a variety of reasons.

Michelet may have different perspective that I will figure into my understanding. And my understanding is almost always about possibilities rather than absolutisms.

Having a base line rhetorical understanding of what I read, I want to read the dialogue of how Westerners have understood witches and the witch craze.

Those are two big reasons.

[Ian]

I'm not concerned about what you are taking away from Michelet. But Goodreads discussions get read by people just interested in whether they should read a book, and some might accept it as authoritative.

This is also a problem, certainly bigger, with Amazon. The write-up for this edition of the book doesn't really say that Michelet was wrong: https://www.amazon.com/Sorceress-Stud...

I've given up trying to post corrections as part of reviews on Amazon: some of them have been removed, I suspect after complaints from publishers, and I wasted the time and energy I could have used for something else. (Also direct comments responding to errors and confusions in reviews, back when Amazon provided for them.)

[Cynda]

Ian it seems that what concerns you about Michelet or other 19th-century scholarship has been ignored and even removed. . . . .Something a Goodreads librarian told me might be of service to your concerns. . . .Write a review on. In that review you would be able to do two things. 1). Say what limitations a particular text has--here Michelet's scholarship presents, & 2) Say where better information can be found. And then write the review for that text.

Would that work for you?

[Ian]

I've considered reviewing it on Goodread. My reviews tend to be heavy on facts, and I've been reluctant to spend the time and energy lately: I have other writing projects in hand.

And Goodreads doesn't seem to even list some of the worst offenders where this book is concerned.

As an aside: I see that I haven't mentioned that it is published in English under variant titles, such as "Witchcraft and Satanism." These may shape the reader's expectations, too.

[Cynda]

Ian I hope you find a solution--although not ideal--that will work for you.

[Cynda]

Ian, as Inread the text, I think I am starting to see at least some of what your concerns are. Michelet seems to have understood that Christianity came onto the scene and the Church scorned old pagan ways. Maybe in offical pronouncements and documents, but notin practice. The Church has a long hostory of using old pagan images, celebrations, and holy places to bridge into Christianity. Winter Solistice and Christmas are celebrations close in time on a calendar, in days.


I grew up Catholic and returned to Catholicism to bring my child--for a few years. During all that time during Holy Week and at Christmas Midnight Mass we had imagery of the the Mother, of a place where the honoring if Mary met the honoring of Mother Earth/Goddess.

In the Old World many of the large medieval cathedrals like Chartres of Notre Dame built over waterways/bodies and other places sacred ti the Goddess.

In the New World the Native American goddess sites are prayer altars that do not look particularly Christian, or the Christian imagery stand over the pagan: cairns or cairns with crucifixes placed on top of the cairns.