Title Spectralities in the Renaissance : sixteenth and seventeenth centuries / Caroline Callard ; translated by Trista Selous

Edition First edition Published Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2022 ©2022

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Description 1 online resource (257 pages) Series The Past and Present Book Past & present book series. Summary "A major contribution of this work is to characterize the ‘spectral moment’ of early modernity. Two developments in the sixteenth century characterize this moment in particular: the presence of ghosts as an autonomous rhetorical commonplace freed from the confines of theology or votive literature, and the striking epistemological promotion of ghosts as objects of a knowledge legitimised by natural philosophy. By highlighting the ‘spectral moment’ of early modernity, Spectralities in the Renaissance foregrounds the agency of ghosts particularly in property disputes over haunted houses as they were tried before civil courts in Paris, Tours and Bordeaux. Ghosts in these cases did not simply appear as products of their dire and distressing times but rather they had an active role in the resolution of conflicts. Conflicts over haunted houses occurred within both communities (Protestant and Catholic) and families at a time of civil war. And they involved both lay and religious powers, who strove sometimes to confirm their jurisdiction over these affairs and sometimes to thwart the actions of spectral agents. The chronology of this book’s enquiry stops on the brink of trials for superstition conducted against ghosts, by the middle of the seventeenth century. At that precise moment ghosts lost their agency in justice and their very existential substance. A concluding chapter considers the consequences of this pragmatic history of ghosts for the Enlightenment and beyond"--Publisher's description Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from home page (Oxford Academic, viewed on May 15, 2023) Subject Ghosts -- Europe -- History -- 16th century Ghosts -- Europe -- History -- 17th century Ghosts -- Religious aspects -- Christianity. Apparitions -- Europe -- History -- 16th century Apparitions -- Europe -- History -- 17th century Apparitions Ghosts Ghosts -- Religious aspects -- Christianity Europe Genre/Form History Form Electronic book Author Selous, Trista, 1957- translator. ISBN 9780192589262 0192589261 9780192589279 019258927X 9780191883590 019188359X

Other Titles Temps des fantômes. English

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