The Devil And The Land Of The Holy Cross

Originally published in Brazil as O Diabo e a Terra de Santa Cruz, this translation from the Portuguese analyzes the nature of popular religion and the ways it was transferred to the New World in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Using richly detailed transcripts from Inquisition trials, Mello e Souza reconstructs how Iberian, indigenous, and African beliefs fused to create a syncretic and magical religious culture in Brazil. Focusing on sorcery, the author argues that European traditions of witchcraft combined with practices of Indians and African slaves to form a uniquely Brazilian set of beliefs that became central to the lives of the people in the colony. Her work shows how the Inquisition reinforced the view held in Europe (particularly Portugal) that the colony was a purgatory where those who had sinned were exiled, a place where the Devil had a wide range of opportunities. Her focus on the three centuries of the colonial period, the multiple regions in Brazil, and the Indian, African, and Portuguese traditions of magic, witchcraft, and healing, make the book comprehensive in scope. Stuart Schwartz of Yale University says, "It is arguably the best book of this genre about Latin America...all in all, a wonderful book." Alida Metcalf of Trinity University, San Antonio, says, "This book is a major contribution to the field of Brazilian history...the first serious study of popular religion in colonial Brazil...Mello e Souza is a wonderful writer."

The Roman Catholic church played a dominant role in colonial Brazil, so that women’s lives in the colony were shaped and constrained by the Church’s ideals for pure women, as well as by parallel concepts in the Iberian honor code for women. Records left by Jesuit missionaries, Roman Catholic church officials, and Portuguese Inquisitors make clear that women’s daily lives and their opportunities for marriage, education, and religious practice were sharply circumscribed throughout the colonial period. Yet these same documents also provide evocative glimpses of the religious beliefs and practices that were especially cherished or independently developed by women for their own use, constituting a separate world for wives, mothers, concubines, nuns, and witches. Drawing on extensive original research in primary manuscript and printed sources from Brazilian libraries and archives, as well as secondary Brazilian historical works, Carole Myscofski proposes to write Brazilian women back into history, to understand how they lived their lives within the society created by the Portuguese imperial government and Luso-Catholic ecclesiastical institutions. Myscofski offers detailed explorations of the Catholic colonial views of the ideal woman, the patterns in women’s education, the religious views on marriage and sexuality, the history of women’s convents and retreat houses, and the development of magical practices among women in that era. One of the few wide-ranging histories of women in colonial Latin America, this book makes a crucial contribution to our knowledge of the early modern Atlantic World.

Christianity abounds with fascinating, little-known trivia. Gas station attendants, for example, enjoy their own patron saint. So do stamp collectors, truss makers and sailors in the Bolivian navy. Jesus and Judas were common names in the biblical period, and Jesus of Nazareth had a brother named Judas. The forbidden fruit was more likely an apricot than an apple, and Delilah hired a barber to cut Sampson’s hair. This dictionary of miscellany combs the annals of Christian esoterica, offering the most intriguing facts that are often forgotten, overlooked or ignored. Departing from the standard subject matter, this work serves as an unruly companion to the typical Bible dictionary. Nearly 1500 entries range from Aaron’s beard (a popular name for Saint John’s wort) to zounds (an antiquated Christian swear word). Information is cross-referenced and includes numerous quotations.

Networks of Power in Modern Greeceprovides exciting new perspectives on Greek history and society. The collection presents pioneering work on the Greek merchant marine and the role of women in the Greek War of Independence. Local perspectives transform common assumptions regarding the function of miracle-working shrines and the place of religion in the early nineteenth century. Essays show how clientilistic networks linked the nationalist heroes of the Macedonian Struggle to the anticommunism of the Civil War, analyze the populist radicalism of Andreas Papandreou, a figure who dominated Greek politics in the final decades of the Cold War, and emphasize the ambiguities of a "modern Greece." Additional chapters by leading anthropologists, such as Ren e Hirschon, Roger Just, and Juliet Du Boulay, apply an ethnographic approach toward the understanding of social institutions and practices, from divorce to sacred foodstuffs. Written in honor of the classical historian John Campbell, the multidisciplinary essays challenge conventional ideas of Greek nationalism and social development and touch upon broader issues, including the emergence of nation-states, the relationship between familial and ideological conflict, and the continued relevance of religion in modern life.

Throughout the history of the Crusades, liturgical prayer, masses, and alms were all marshaled in the fight against Muslim armies. In Invisible Weapons, M. Cecilia Gaposchkin focuses on the ways in which Latin Christians communicated their ideas and aspirations for crusade to God through liturgy, how public worship was deployed, and how prayers and masses absorbed the ideals and priorities of crusading. Placing religious texts and practices within the larger narrative of crusading, Gaposchkin offers a new understanding of a crucial facet in the culture of holy war.