Keywords: Malleus Maleficarum, infanticide, metamorphosis, witchcraft, Witchcraft in sixteenth century, What caused the witch craze in Europe, Witch hunt in Europe, Witch trials Early modern Europe is known for its climate of fear as highlighted by the moral panics surrounding the witch trials (Roberts and Naphy, 1997, p. 1). Repeated war and death from disease… Continue reading Witches in Sixteenth-Century Germany: The belief in witches, what they were accused of and why
Keywords: Wild man, coat-of-arms, heraldry, Moor’s heads. The wild man was frequently depicted holding a shield to indicate his combative nature, which may have led to his portrayal in the heraldic tradition to symbolise the protector of the family coat-of-arms (Davies, 2012, p. 68). The wild man featured in more than 200 coat-of-arms across Europe,… Continue reading Wild Men and Heraldry
Keywords: golden calf, Ship of Fools, heresy, de Bry, Albrecht Dürer In Exodus 22, the Israelites feared Moses had abandoned them and would not return to lead them when he received the Torah on top of Mount Sinai. They asked the brother of Moses, Aaron, to ‘come, make us gods who will go before us’… Continue reading Ox Worship and the Demonisation of the Foreign Other
Keywords: Human-animal hybrids, Monstrous Races, Monstrous Births, Wild Man, Werewolves Representations of human-animal hybrids and the concept of shape-shifting in both literary sources and the visual arts captured the early modern European imagination. This is particularly evident in the prevalence of pictorial prints featuring these creatures dated in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that… Continue reading Representations of Monsters in German Renaissance Prints
Dana K Rehn 