Led by four Italian universities, the project probes how late-medieval and early-modern Northwestern Europe used “preternatural” phenomena—monstrous births, illicit magic and witchcraft—to define and exclude social outsiders. Drawing on non-canonical sources (ballads, broadsheets, pamphlets, sermons, manuals) from British, Low-German and Scandinavian lands, it tracks the flow of elite theological and legal ideas into popular culture and the repression, especially of women, that followed. Outputs combine classic scholarship (monographs, critical editions) with two open digital corpora of sermons and popular prints, fully tagged and transcribed, to reveal how fear, doctrine and law shaped collective attitudes toward otherness. The study ultimately maps the cultural mechanics of marginality.
Project probes late-medieval/early-modern popular texts to show how preternatural motifs (monstrous births, witchcraft, magic) shaped otherness and legitimated exclusion on moral, religious, gender and racial grounds, clarifying ties between norm, natural order and their breach. Editing, tagging and digitally releasing a trove of little-known ballads, broadsheets, sermons and prints, it places them in full historical-linguistic context and provides tools for comparative research. Findings disseminate through monographs, articles, critical editions, itinerant conferences, PhD and teacher courses. Two inclusive, open-access hypertext corpora, built with CNR-Pisa and hosted on CLARIN, will remain expandable for scholars and educators, boosting critical reading and civic skills.
Ultimo aggiornamento
04.06.2025