Playing the Ghost: Ghost Hoaxing and Supernaturalism in Late Nineteenth-Century Victoria,Australia

This article employs a Jungian analytical perspective in its exploration of the phenomenon of ghost hoaxing in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century colonial Victoria, Australia, as observed through its reportage in the print media of the era.     

The Barony and the Churches of Late Nineteenth Century Glasgow

The Barony Parish Church was one of the most important churches in nineteenth century Scotland partly due to its history, size, and location at the heart of the "second city" of the Empire and its Minister, Norman MacLeod. Its congregation represented every tier of Glasgow society in terms of social class and gender and as such, throws light on the more general debates on religion and society in nineteenth century Britain. When compared with other churches and denominations in Glasgow, it builds a more general picture of church and people in the city. The picture drawn reveals a complex pattern of adherence varying between individuals and families. An over emphasis on secular reasons for church membership ignores the important role of faith in determining patterns of adherence. Family letters, diaries, and journals often reveal a deep-seated faith and critical reflections on the preaching of the Word.     

The Charms of Women and Priests: Sex,Magic, Gender and Public Order in Late Medieval Italy

How did judicial authorities in late medieval Italy understand the relationship between gender, sexuality, social status, magic and public order, especially when magic was used to facilitate the crime of adultery? What might this reveal about the intersection of gender, magic and public order in a place and time so fraught with political and social tensions? This study qualitatively compares four love‐magic trials from fourteenth‐century Lucca and suggests that the anxieties underpinning these trials were both particular to late medieval Italian communes and projected onto two populations, women and priests, whose unchecked sexuality posed the greatest threat to civic order. Historians examining gender in medieval European magic trials have often treated judicial officials’ anxieties as portents of the ‘witch craze’ of early modern Europe. Historians of medieval Lucca have tended to treat the political and gender histories of the city as largely separate. This article suggests that the courts’ increasing regulation of gender and sexuality in late medieval Lucca reflected larger ecclesiastical and communal concerns about the dissolution of civic order. In a world of civic power that increasingly belonged to secular men, the unchecked sexuality of women and clergy represented a dual threat to the stability of the family and, by extension, the city. This article argues that secular and ecclesiastical judicial officials feared not magic itself, but the ability of magic to invert power relations between men and women and between clergy and laity, destroying public order.