HIST 2C Lecture 8: The Night Battles
Document Summary
Seventeenth centuries is a historical study of the benandanti folk custom of. Italian historian carlo ginzburg, then of the university of bologna, and first published by the company giulio. Einaudi in 1966 under the italian title of. I benandanti: stregoneria e culti agrari tra cinquecento e seicento. It was later translated into english by john and. Routledge and kegan paul in 1983 with a new foreword written by the historian. In the night battles, ginzburg examines the trial accounts of those benandante who were interrogated and tried by the roman inquisition, using such accounts to elicit evidence for the beliefs and practices of the benandanti. These revolved around their nocturnal visionary journeys, during which they believed that their spirits traveled out of their bodies and into the countryside, where they would do battle with malevolent witches who threatened the local crops.
