Objects, worms, demons. The natural and magical miracle as material proof in the demonological literature of early modern Hungary

Tóth G, Péter (2009) Objects, worms, demons. The natural and magical miracle as material proof in the demonological literature of early modern Hungary. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 54 (2). pp. 411-451. ISSN 1216-9803

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Abstract

Both demonology and medical learning wanted to define what material proofs they were to use in order to alleviate the politically rooted disease symptoms of the early modern period. Finding the proper therapeutic treatment required the appropriate description of the pathology, revealing the causes and consequences and making the right diagnosis. Several key questions were formulated concerning these requirements. Most of the questions formulated in this way are based on a formal syllogism that meets the normative requirements of disciplines that include law, theology and medicine and whose formal elements became valid within the systems of fulfilment of these disciplines themselves. In this paper I shall attempt to introduce the scholarly literature based on these formal logical criteria that address material proofs, omens, prophecies, oracles and miracles. I shall then outline how this debate in European secondary literature has been received in Hungarian scholarship.

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