Why read The Formation of a Persecuting Society?

Book cover of The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe 950-1250

Book description

The tenth to the thirteenth centuries in Europe saw the appearance of popular heresy and the establishment of the Inquisition, the expropriation and mass murder of Jews, and the propagation of elaborate measures to segregate lepers from the healthy and curtail their civil rights. These were traditionally seen as distinct…

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European history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Formation of a Persecuting Society as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Martha Rampton

Author

Robert Moore’s history of the growth of institutional persecution in the tenth through thirteen centuries is a classic in medieval history. Moore demonstrates that the oppression of various “undesirables” in society, such as Jews, heretics, lepers, and homosexuals, fits into a pattern of state-building. Particular groups were not targeted for harassment, expropriation, segregation, expulsion, and mass execution because they caused a real threat. On the contrary, they were defenseless, and by playing on common people’s ignorance and stirring up fear, the centralized powers of state and church were able to scapegoat those groups as polluted, deviant, and dangerous.

Having established…

From Martha's list on The best books on the history of European magic and witchcraft.