In early modern England, the practice of ritual or ceremonial magic - the attempted communication with angels and demons - both reinforced and subverted existing concepts of gender. The majority of male magicians acted from a position of control and command commensurate with their social position in a patriarchal society; other men, however, used the notion of magic to subvert gender ideals while still aiming to attain hegemony. Whilst women who claimed to perform magic were usually more submissive in their attempted dealings with the spirit world, some female practitioners employed magic to undermine the patriarchal culture and further their own agenda. Frances Timbers studies the practice of ritual magic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries focusing especially on gender and sexual perspectives. Using the examples of well-known individuals who set themselves up as magicians (including John Dee, Simon Forman and William Lilly), as well as unpublished diaries and journals, literature and legal records, this book provides a unique analysis of early modern ceremonial magic from a gender perspective.
The Damned Fraternitie': Constructing Gypsy Identity in Early Modern England, 1500–1700 examines the construction of gypsy identity in England between the early sixteenth century and the end of the seventeenth century. Drawing upon previous historiography, a wealth of printed primary sources (including government documents, pamphlets, rogue literature, and plays), and archival material (quarter sessions and assize cases, parish records and constables's accounts), the book argues that the construction of gypsy identity was part of a wider discourse concerning the increasing vagabond population, and was further informed by the religious reformations and political insecurities of the time. The developing narrative of a fraternity of dangerous vagrants resulted in the gypsy population being designated as a special category of rogues and vagabonds by both the state and popular culture. The alleged Egyptian origin of the group and the practice of fortune-telling by palmistry contributed elements of the exotic, which contributed to the concept of the mysterious alien. However, as this book reveals, a close examination of the first gypsies that are known by name shows that they were more likely Scottish and English vagrants, employing the ambiguous and mysterious reputation of the newly emerging category of gypsy. This challenges the theory that sixteenth-century gypsies were migrants from India and/or early predecessors to the later Roma population, as proposed by nineteenth-century gypsiologists. The book argues that the fluid identity of gypsies, whose origins and ethnicity were (and still are) ambiguous, allowed for the group to become a prime candidate for the 'other', thus a useful tool for reinforcing the parameters of orthodox social behaviour.
Mary Parish wasn’t your ordinary seventeenth-century woman. She was a “cunning woman,” who spent her time in the realm of magic, interacting with fairies, hunting for buried treasures, and communicating with the spirit world, along with her partner, the young aristocrat Goodwin Wharton. Drawing largely from Goodwin’s personal journals, Frances Timbers reconstructs Mary’s life in this microhistory, and explores themes of class, gender, and relationships in seventeenth-century England. Mary’s story provides insight into magical beliefs and practices of early modern history, and sheds light on how class and gender affected everyday life.
The author of Magic and Masculinity explores the history and development of magic and witchcraft in Western society. Broomsticks, cauldrons, familiars, and spells—magic and witchcraft conjure a vivid picture in our modern-day imagination. While much of our understanding is rooted in superstition and myth, the history of magic and witchcraft offers a window into the past. It illuminates the lives of ordinary people in the past and elucidates the fascinating pop culture of the premodern world. Blowing away folkloric cobwebs, this enlightening new history dispels many misconceptions surrounding witchcraft and magic that we still hold today. From Ancient Greece and Rome to the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era, historian Frances Timbers details the impact of Christianity and popular culture in the construction of the figure of the “witch.” The development of demonology and ceremonial magic is combined with the West’s troubled past with magic and witchcraft to chart the birth of modern Wiccan and Neopagan movements in England and North America. Witchcraft is a metaphor for oppression in an age in which persecution is an everyday occurrence somewhere in the world. Fanaticism, intolerance, prejudice, authoritarianism, and religious and political ideologies are never attractive. Beware the witch hunter!
Broomsticks and cauldrons, familiars and spells: magic and witchcraft conjure vivid pictures in our modern imaginations. The History of Magic and Witchcraft offers a window into the past, illuminating the lives of ordinary people and shining a light on the fascinating pop culture of the pre-modern world. Blowing away folkloric cobwebs, this enlightening new history dispels many of the misconceptions rooted in superstition and myth that surround witchcraft and magic today. Historian Frances Timbers brings together elements of Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, Christianity, popular culture, and gender beliefs that evolved throughout the middle ages and early modern period and contributed to the construction and eventual persecution of the figure of the witch. While demonologists were developing the new concept of Devil worship and the witches' sabbat, elite men were actually attempting to practice ceremonial magic. In the twentieth century, elements of ceremonial magic and practices of cunning folk were combined with the culturally constructed idea of a sect of witches to give birth first to modern Wicca in England and then to other neopagan movements in North America. Witchcraft is a metaphor for oppression in an age in which persecution is an everyday occurrence somewhere in the world. Fanaticism, intolerance, prejudice, authoritarianism, and religious and political ideologies are never attractive. Beware the witch hunter!
Unifier or destroyer, law-maker or tyrant? China's First Emperor (258-210 BC) has been the subject of debate for over 2,000 years. He gave us the name by which China is known in the West and, by his unification or elimination of six states, he created imperial China. He stressed the rule of law but suppressed all opposition, burning books and burying scholars alive. His military achievements are reflected in the astonishing terracotta soldiers—a veritable buried army—that surround his tomb, and his Great Wall still fascinates the world. Despite his achievements, however, the First Emperor has been vilified since his death. China's First Emperor and His Terracotta Warriors describes his life and times and reflects the historical arguments over the real founder of China and one of the most important men in Chinese history.
The Raunds Area Project investigated more than 20 Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in the Nene Valley. From c 5000 BC to the early 1st millennium cal BC a succession of ritual mounds and burial mounds were built as settlement along the valley sides increased and woodland was cleared. Starting as a regular stopping-place for flint knapping and domestic tasks, first the Long Mound, and then Long Barrow, the north part of the Turf Mound and the Avenue were built in the 5th millennium BC. With the addition of the Long Enclosure, the Causewayed Ring Ditch, and the Southern Enclosure, there was a chain of five or six diverse monuments stretched along the river bank by c 3000 cal BC. Later, a timber platform, the Riverside Structure, was built and the focus of ceremonial activity shifted to the Cotton 'Henge', two concentric ditches on the occupied valley side. From c 2200 cal BC monument building accelerated and included the Segmented Ditch Circle and at least 20 round barrows, almost all containing burials, at first inhumations, then cremations down to c 1000 cal BC, by which time two overlapping systems of paddocks and droveways had been laid out. Finally, the terrace began to be settled when these had gone out of use, in the early 1st millennium cal BC.
A programme of excavation and survey directed by Roger Mercer between 1974 and 1986 demonstrated that Hambledon was the site of an exceptionally large and diverse complex of earlier Neolithic earthworks, including two causewayed enclosures, two long barrows and several outworks, some of them defensive. The abundant cultural material preserved in its ditches and pits provides information about numerous aspects of contemporary society, among them conflict, feasting, the treatment of the human corpse, exchange, stock management and cereal cultivation. The distinct depositional signatures of various parts of the complex reflect their diverse use. The scale and manner of individual episodes of construction hint at the levels of organisation and co-ordination obtaining in contemporary society. Use of the complex and the construction of its various elements were episodic and intermittent, spread over 300-400 hundred years, and did not entail lasting settlement. As well as stone axe heads exchanged from remote sources, more abundant grinding equipment and pottery from adjacent regions may point to the areas from which people came to the hill. If so, it had important links with territories to the west, north-west and south, in other words with land off the Wessex Chalk, at the edge of which the complex lies. Within the smaller compass of the immediate area of the hill, including Cranborne Chase, field walking survey suggests that the hill was the main focus of earlier Neolithic activity. A complementary relationship with the Chase is indicated by a fairly abrupt diminution of activity on the hill in the late fourth millennium, when the massive Dorset cursus and several smaller monuments were built in the Chase. Renewed activity on the hill in the late third millennium and early second millennium was a prelude to occupation on and around the hill in the second millennium in the mid to late second millennium, which was followed by the construction of a hillfort on the northern spur from the early first millennium. Late Iron Age and Romano-British activity may reflect the proximity of Hod Hill. A small pagan Saxon cemetery may relate to settlement in the Iwerne valley which it overlooks.
Dear Fanny & Kay, Arch has a winner! Enola & I enjoyed reading the book. At times I was laughing so hard I could hardly read. My - But we had a good time with the Grand book. Enola, of course, knew all the Lordstown people and the Lordstown events & it brought her nice memories. It is very pleasant to hear such good things about people you know and like (King's, Wood's, Sheldon's, Trimbath's, Stitle's, Fyfe's etc). Most people who would remember them are dead. Arch did a marvelous autobiography. It's factual, Truthful, interesting, enjoyable, and entertaining! We always admired his drive and "Can Do" spirit. To tackle a book and do so well at it in his 90's, or at any age for that matter, deserves much acclimation. Thank you for letting us read it. Joan Wilson Vernon P.S. Enola asks that you please tell Arch how "really good" she found his book and to thank him for letting us read it.
MEDICINE BOW, WYOMING home of Owen Wister s Virginian. When you call me that, smile. Learn the real history of Medicine Bow and its pioneers. Robbers Roost Ranch home of one of the world s great fossil beds. Discovered in the 1880s and 1890s, archeologists from all over the country came to dig for fossils at Como Bluff near Medicine Bow, Wyo. Fort Halleck, Overland Trail; First Home of John Sublet Jr. Was Wyoming s John Sublet (1840-1928) denied his rightful inheritance to his famous relative s estate, because of his African-American ancestry? Did the hearings on the famous Sublet Will end because a mixed-race man in the wilds of Wyoming was about to prove his relationship to this branch of the Sublet family? Elk Mountain, Wyoming---Home of the renowned GARDEN SPOT PAVILLION with the famous swing and sway dance floor. If you can t dance, hop on and ride! Learn the secret to the famous floor! Dancers from everywhere danced to the music of Harry James, Lawrence Welk, Tommy Dorsey, T. Texas Tyler, and many more famous bands. SADIE S GROVE---Talk of the old days always comes around to Sadie and Sadie s Grove. Learn who she was and why she has become a legend. One of the valley s ghost towns, Carbon, Wyoming was the first coal mine opened in Wyoming by the Union Pacific Railroad. Read about these courageous pioneers and their struggle to make a better life in the prairies and along the river in the Medicine Bow Valley. THE OVERLAND TRAIL; Historians say over 20,000 people a year crossed the Medicine Bow Valley on the Overland Trail. This book has over 1,000 names of people who crossed through or lived in the Medicine Bow Valley. From Hanna, Wyoming come exciting biographies, genealogies, myths, legends, and tales from when Hanna was an infant.
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