{"product_id":"9780271078403-hazards-of-the-dark-arts","title":"Hazards of the Dark Arts","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAdvice for Medieval Princes on Witchcraft and Magic\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eEnglish translations of two important fifteenth-century writings on witchcraft by Johannes Hartlieb and Ulrich Molitoris. Introduction discusses the writings, the authors, their historical environments, the ways they used sources, and their influence on the development of ideas about witchcraft.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis volume comprises English translations of two fundamentally important texts on magic and witchcraft in the fifteenth century: Johannes Hartlieb’s \u003ci\u003eBook of All Forbidden Arts\u003c\/i\u003e and Ulrich Molitoris’s \u003ci\u003eOn Witches and Pythonesses\u003c\/i\u003e. Written by laymen and aimed at secular authorities, these works advocated that town leaders and royalty alike should vigorously uproot and prosecute practitioners of witchcraft and magic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThough inquisitors and theologians promulgated the witch trials of late medieval times, lay rulers saw the prosecutions through. But local officials, princes, and kings could be unreliable; some were skeptical about the reality and danger of witchcraft, while others dabbled in the occult themselves. Borrowing from theological and secular sources, Hartlieb and Molitoris agitated against this order in favor of zealously persecuting occultists. Organized as a survey of the seven occult arts, Hartlieb’s text is a systematic treatise on the dangers of superstition and magic. Molitoris’s text presents a dialogue on the activities of witches, including vengeful sorcery, the transformation of humans into animals, and fornication with the devil. Taken together, these tracts show that laymen exerted significant influence on ridding society of their imagined threat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePrecisely translated by Richard Kieckhefer, \u003ci\u003eHazards of the Dark Arts\u003c\/i\u003e includes an insightful introduction that discusses the authors, their sources and historical environments, the writings themselves, and the influence they had in the development of ideas about witchcraft.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56449701446006,"sku":"9780271078403","price":18.74,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/stand_6681371_jpg.jpg?v=1760446509","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9780271078403-hazards-of-the-dark-arts","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}