Between June 3 and June 28, Maria Østerby Elleby will be a guest at the Chair of Historical Regional Studies, where she will present her dissertation and exhibition project. The project is a collaboration between the University of Southern Denmark and the Museum of South West Jutland. A new exhibition is being developed for the future Witch Museum in Ribe, focusing on the decline of Danish witch trials. The findings of her dissertation will play a role in the exhibition’s conception.

Dissertation Project: Decline of the witch trials: Deconstruction of witchcraft as a crime 1660–1730

In 1693 Denmark witnessed it’s last executed burning of a witch. Anne Palles from Falster was sentenced to the pyre for having practiced maleficium – tortious magic – as well as for having made a pact with the devil. Anne Palles was 74 years old. The decline in sentences towards those accused of witchcraft was visible before the trial against Anne Palles, but her execution is among the events marking the end of an era characterised by the belief in pacts with the devil and the fear of bewitchment. In 1698 a similar witchcraft trial was conducted in Thisted, where all the accused was acquitted, and where the central administration subsequently published a book, warning against bringing such cases to court in the future. However, it was not until 1866 that witchcraft as a crime legally vanished from the Danish Law.

The project investigates the deconstruction of witchcraft as a crime, focusing on the Supreme Court. The project examines the Supreme Court judges as actors, and the what differences insured that cases where the accused would previously have been executed now lead to acquittal. Did they stop believing in witchcraft and the possibility of bewitchment? The law itself did not change until much later, so which other parameters changed, and made the acquittals possible?

Prof. Dr. Ismael del Olmo

From May 29 to July 30, 2018, Prof. Dr. Ismael del Olmo (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina) was a guest at the Department of Historical Regional Studies. He was a post-doctoral researcher at the National Council of Scientific Investigations in Argentina and held a DAAD short-stay grant for postdoctoral research. During his stay, he deepened his work on demonology, exorcism, and the Enlightenment through scholarly exchange with Dr. Rita Voltmer. The collaboration is set to continue through joint projects such as conferences and publications. Dr. del Olmo completed his dissertation in 2015, titled: Demonic possession, exorcism, and the boundaries of the sacred in Early Modern Europe. Cultural scenarios of a contested paradigm (Spain, France and England, 16th–17th centuries).He is currently Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Buenos Aires. His current project is: The Spirit in the Letter: Demonic Possession, Biblical Exegesis and the Resignification of the Sacred in the Waning of Early Modern Europe (c. 1650–1750).

Selected recent publications  (see also: https://gepama.academia.edu/IsmaeldelOlmo):

‘A Savage Conversion’. Unbelief and Demonic Possession in Pierre de Bérulle’s traité des Énergumènes (1599), in: Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 113, 2018, pp. 189–210.

‘Outsiders of Hagnopolis’: Unbelief, Fear, and Religion in Thomas More’s Utopia”, Moreana 54, 1, 2017, pp. 57–70.

Dr. Raisa Maria Toivo

From February 20 to March 19, 2017, Dr. Raisa Maria Toivo (Academy Research Fellow, History, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tampere, Finland; http://www.uta.fi/yky/en/studies/disciplines/history/staff/person.html?id=37&lang=en) visited the Department of Historical Regional Studies in Trier. During her stay, she collaborated with our team on topics including the Reformation, Jesuit missions in Scandinavia, and European witch persecutions. She also laid groundwork for future research cooperation.

Recent publications by Dr. Toivo:

• Raisa Maria Toivo, Witchcraft and Gender in Early modern Society. Finland and the wider European experience, 2008;
• Writing Witch-Hunt Histories. Challenging the Paradigm, ed. by Marko Nenonen und Raisa Maria Toivo, 2014;
• Raisa Mari Toivo, Faith and Magic in Early Modern Finland, 2016;
• Lived Religion and the Long Reformation in Northern Europe, ed. by Sari Katajala-Peltomaa und Raisa Maria Toivo, 2017.

János Incze (DAAD Fellow)

János Incze obtained a BA degree in History and an MA in Protection and evaluation of the cultural heritage at Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj Napoca, and another MA degree in Medieval Studies at Central European University (CEU), Budapest. János is currently a PhD candidate of the Medieval Studies program at the CEU. His main research interest lies in King Sigismund of Luxemburg’s finances in Hungary. Since King Sigismund later became king of the Romans and emperor too, his financial dealings in Hungary cannot be studied separately from the imperial one, often the revenues of the two polities were managed and spent together. Thanks to a DAAD scholarship János will spend three months at the Department of Geschichtliche Landeskunde of the University of Trier, to study the imperial finances of Sigismund of Luxemburg under the guidance of Prof. em. Dr. Franz Irsigler and Prof. Dr. Stephan Laux, and with the research facilities provided by the university.    

His academia.edu homepage: https://ceu.academia.edu/J%C3%A1nosIncze