Article ID: CBB001220735

“Der zu vielen Wissenschaften anweisende curiöse Künstler.” Alchemie, Volksmagie und Volksmedizin in barocken Hausbüchern (2011)

unapi

Germany's Hausväterliteratur, the literature of the fathers of the houses, was once a popular genre but today is seldom studied. Roughly, this literature, as its name suggests, comprises books on the proper keeping of noble households and mansions. Interestingly, besides the content which one might expect in such books, the organization of personnel, the arrangement of festivities, discussions of the various branches of technical skills, economic advice and the whole field of agriculture, fishing and hunting, these books also contain remarkably large amounts of information directly connected with magic and an associated popular medicine (Volksmedizin). This medicine involved treatment administered mostly by laywomen instead of regular physicians and was based not just upon traditional medical knowledge per se but also upon magical practices. Also found in such texts are alchemical ideas and recipes. This means that despite the fact that such books were written and published in the 17th and early 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment, conceptions found in them are still deeply rooted in older intellectual currents, in Medieval and Renaissance thinking. The present study examines examples of alchemical, magical and popular medical ideas in three such works and seeks to explain how pre-enlightenment ideas and thought could maintain such an influential place in the intellectual world of a later time dominated by other philosophies.

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Authors & Contributors
Joseph, Jacques
Caccioppoli, Carmen
Rispoli, Gennaro
Casini, Paolo
Califano, Salvatore
Maxwell, Lynn
Concepts
Alchemy
Natural magic
Medical chemistry
Medicine
Natural philosophy
Chemistry
Time Periods
17th century
18th century
16th century
Early modern
Renaissance
Medieval
Places
Germany
England
Spain
France
Europe
India
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