Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Introduction
A brief introduction to the course, number of teaching hours, and course assignments along with a brief discussion of the historiography, seminar programme and list of essay questions. These materials were prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 1.1
Bibliography for essay: What sources enable historians to evaluate what constituted a 'good death' and 'bad death' in the wake of the reformation? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 1.2
Bibliography for essay: What sorts of evidence most impressed judges when they considered the fate those being prosecuted for witchcraft, and why? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 1.3
Bibliography for essay: Estimate the ways in which ONE of the following sources tried to persuade their readers of their objective handling of evidence: a) Ludwig Lavater, Of Ghostes and Spirities Walking by Nyght; b) Reginald Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft; c) Joseph Glanvill, Sadducismus Triumphatus; d) James VI (and I), Demonologie. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 1.4
Bibliography for essay: How reliably can one use popular pamphlets as evidence for common attitudes to ONE of the following; the devil; the natural world; supernatural forces. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 1.5
Bibliography for essay: To what extent can historians use ballads and chapbooks as reliable evidence for popular cultural attitudes to the supernatural? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 1.6
Bibliography for essay: Do any of the sources that we have examined in this course enable us to delineate a general picture of what constituted 'superstition' in the early-modern period? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 1.7
Bibliography for essay: Were the fairies of literary culture and those of folk belief the same creatures in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 1.8
Bibliography for essay: What can we learn from a comparison of popular pamphlets on witchcraft with stage representations of witchcraft in the Jacobean period? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 1.9
Bibliography for essay: In what ways can one relate the impact of the printing press to reinforcing or changing beliefs in either witchcraft or portents of impending disaster? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 1.10
Bibliography for essay: Evaluate from the sources you have examined the ways in which the scientific movement changed attitudes to evidence about the natural world. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 1.11
Bibliography for essay: What, on the basis of the evidence you have examined, explains the gendered nature of witchcraft belief and prosecution? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 1.12
Bibliography for essay: Evaluate the evidence for change and continuity of widespread beliefs about portents in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.1
Bibliography for essay: How did the protestant notion of providence differ from the traditional concept of miracles? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.2
Bibliography for essay: Why was there such interest in 'monstrous births' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.3
Bibliography for essay: Were 'prophets' more revered than reviled in the early modern period? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.4
Bibliography for essay: Why did angels 'survive' the protestant reformation? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.5
Bibliography for essay: 'A constant window to unorthodox belief.' Discuss this view of angels in the early-modern period. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.6
Bibliography for essay: 'The Gospel hath chased away walking spirits' (Archbishop Sandys 1585). Assess the impact of the protestant reformation on ghost beliefs Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.7
Bibliography for essay: Who saw ghosts, and why, in the sixteenth and seventeenth-centuries? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.8
Bibliography for essay: To what extent was early-modern astrology compatible with religious beliefs? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.9
Bibliography for essay: What was the nature of early-modern witches' power, and how were they thought to exercise it? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.10
Bibliography for essay: What can we learn from witchcraft cases about elite and popular conceptions of the power of the devil? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.12
Bibliography for essay: What assumptions sustained the notion of diabolic possession? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.13
Bibliography for essay: Account for the growing reluctance among the educated classes to prosecute witches in the later seventeenth century. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.14
Bibliography for essay: What was the impact of the seventeenth-century scientific movement on the belief in the supernatural? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.15
Bibliography for essay: Assess the relationship between the supernatural and the natural in the wake of the reformation. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.16
Bibliography for essay: Was folklore equated with superstition in the wake of the reformation? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.18
Bibliography for essay: Why did atheism appear to be a more serious threat to ordered society than demonic power in the later seventeenth century? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Essay Bibliography Q 2.19
Bibliography for essay: What arguments were used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to cast doubt upon the reality of witchcraft, and how effectively were contemporaries able to answer them? Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 1: Setting the scene
Explores John Vicar's Prodigies and Apparitions or England's Warning Pieces (1643). Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 2: 'Walking Spirits' - Lavater's 'Scientific' Investigation of Ghosts
Explores Ludwig Lavater's Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght (1572). Includes bibliography and background information. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 3: What to do when you see a ghost
Explores Ludwig Lavater's Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght (1572). Specifically examining in detail Lavater's advice on appropriate behaviour when encountering a ghost. Includes questions to consider. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 4: Ghosts and Literature
Discussion of 'ghost stories' and the role of literary culture in early modern understandings of ghosts. Based upon the key text Mother Leakey and the Bishop. Includes questions to consider. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 5: Late Medieval Christianity and the End of Purgatory
Examination of late Medieval Christianity's approaches to death. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 6: The Debate about Purgatory in Protestant England
A discussion of purgatory, death and the afterlife during the early-mid sixteenth century through analysis of the primary sources that surround the debate over purgatory etc. Specifically Simon Fish's A Supplication for the beggars (1529). Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 7: The Protestant Way of Dying
What did funeral practice in the early modern period look like and what were the rituals and ceremonies (both formal and informal) surrounding it? This seminar examines primary source accounts to answer those questions. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 8: Good and Bad Deaths
Exploration of what represented a 'good death' and by contrast what 'bad deaths' were characterised by in this period. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 9: Ghosts, Fairies, Frauds and the Natural World
Examination of the role of and belief in fairies during the early modern period. Discussion of literature and events surrounding this belief in fairies, how it was taken advantage of, and specifically how it was linked to the discourse surrounding witchcraft. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 10: Angels and Spiritual Presences
This seminar focuses on the protestant opinion of angels and spiritual presences. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 11: The Ghost in the Machine: The Supernatural and the Scientific Movement
This seminar examines the scientific revolution/movement and the conception of the natural world through the lens of a member of the Royal Society, Joseph Glanvill, and the case which he popularised of the Drummer of Tedworth. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 12: Apparitions, Erudite Sccepticism, and the Republic of Letters: Daniel Defoe and the origins of the Gothic Imagination
This session examines the relationship between the literature on apparitions and the emerging ‘Republic of Letters’, especially focusing on works by Thomas Hobbes and Daniel Defoe. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 13: The Crime of Witchcraft
This seminar examines the criminalization of witchcraft in the early modern period. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 15: Continental Comparisons: Witchcraft in Lorraine and Bavaria
There is a strong historiographical tradition, sustained by the insularity of English historians, that English witchcraft and accusation were ‘somehow distinctive from the continental equivalents of these phenomena’. This seminar concentrates on the case of the Duchy of Lorraine to show that the English experience was a variation on themes that were prominent within Europe and not entirely ‘distinctive’ as has been claimed. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 16: Witchcraft Sensationalism: Witchcraft pamphlets
Witchcraft was a scandal as well as a crime. The issue of scandal often appears in witchcraft trials. This seminar examines literary and oral resources to understand the role ‘gossip’ and scandal played in witchcraft cases. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 17: Witchcraft in a Yorkshire Gentry Family
This seminar considers how witchcraft belief was exploited for various means and what role the belief in and practice of witchcraft played in the local community. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 18: The Crime of Witchcraft: Radical Doubters
We tend to imagine that there was a consensus of beliefs about witchcraft and the powers of the devil, with that unity beginning to break down only towards the end of the seventeenth century under the impact of the scientific movement and the scepticism of the early Enlightenment. This seminar challenges these assumptions by showing that there was no real consensus earlier on. The seminar focuses specifically on Reginald Scot and John Webster. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 19: The Crime of Witchcraft validated by a monarch
This seminar will examine in depth James VI (and I’s) attitude towards witchcraft as portrayed in his text Daemonologie (1597). Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 20: The Witch-Craze in Lancashire
This seminar and its sequel explore the rich documentation on witchcraft trials surviving for two English regions: Lancashire and Essex. They have both been subjected to considerable historical analysis already; and acquired a degree of public exposure too. So the aims of this seminar are to test various scholarly assumptions about the origins and process of witchcraft accusations against the regional evidence. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 21: The Witchcraze in Essex
This seminar will examine the craze of witch-hunting in Essex during the civil wars. A key figure in the 'witch-craze' of 1645 was Matthew Hopkins. The seminar will ask students to consider, in particular, the role of Hopkins as witch-hunter and attitudes towards him and his work. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 22: Witches on Stage (and Screen)
Witchcraft was more often represented on stage in the Jacobean period than at any other time. In this seminar we are interested in what impact such plays are likely to have had on their audiences; whether the relationship to the witchcraft that we have now studied is an accurate one (and, where relevant, how the dramatists used contemporary cases of witchcraft to give them their dramatic material), etc. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Exercise - Text Extracts for Commentary
A set of extracts upon which students are expected to attempt a commentary. Includes a bibliography. Prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 2.1: Demonic Possession and Popish Impostures
This seminar examines the idea of Demonic possession in early-modern European thought.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 2.2: Rituals and Religious Controversy - Exorcism
A seminar examining the role of exorcism in Elizabethan protestant circles, and how the idea fitted uncomfortably in the revised religion.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 2.3: The Dangers of 'Sadducisma' and the Defence of Witchcraft
This seminar focuses on Joseph Glanvill's Saducismus Triumphatus, which attempts to provide a 'reasonable' justification of the existence and power of witchcraft in the world.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 2.5: Sudden Deaths and Providential Punishment: Protestant Views of Providence
A Seminar examining sudden death and the belief in providential punishment in early-modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 2.6: Miracles, Holly Wells and Magical Healing
A seminar focused on reformation debates about miracles.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 2.8: Providence and the Natural World
A seminar that explores beliefs in portents in early-modern Europe. This seminar is linked to seminar 07 on Protestant Piety.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 2.9: Monstrous Births and unnatural Happenings
This seminar explores how 'monstrous creatures' and human birth accidents were understood as signs of God's providence.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 2.10: Almanacs, Astrology and Change
A seminar about early-modern almanacs and astrology and how opinions about these changed during the period.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Eruope: Seminar 2.11: Astrology's Contested Role
This seminar explores the contested role of Astrology in early-modern Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 2.12: Prophets, Seers and Messiahs
This seminar looks at the scriptural grounds for believing that the 'Last Days' would be accompanied by 'false prophets'.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 2.14: The New Experience of Nature: Robert Boyle's 'Pneumatical Engine'
This seminar looks into the experimental philosophy that grew during the 17th century in Europe.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe: Seminar 2.17: The Royal Society of London: Scientific Institution - and public relations instrument of the 'new science'
This seminar deals with the Royal Society of London and the rising 'new science' and 'experimental philosophy' of the 17th century.

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Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe

All materials prepared for the special subject module: Ghosts, Witches and Portents in Early Modern Europe. Produced in 2008-09.

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