Lyndal Roper | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia | 28 May 1956
Nationality | Australian |
Occupation(s) | Historian and academic |
Title | Regius Professor of History |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | |
Thesis | Work, marriage and sexuality: Women in Reformation Augsburg (1985) |
Doctoral advisor | Robert W. Scribner |
Academic work | |
Institutions | |
Notable students | Laura Gowing |
Lyndal Anne Roper FBA FAHA FRHistS (born 28 May 1956) is a historian. She was born in Melbourne,Australia. She works on German history of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries,and has written a biography of Martin Luther. Her research centres on gender and the Reformation,witchcraft,and visual culture. In 2011 she was appointed to Regius Chair of History at the University of Oxford,the first woman and first Australian to hold this position. [1]
Roper graduated from the University of Melbourne in history and philosophy in 1977 after which she received the first Caltex Woman Graduate of the Year scholarship and an additional scholarship from the University Women Graduates' association. An award from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) allowed her to undertake study in Germany. During her initial nearly two years in Germany,Roper studied with Heiko Oberman at the University of Tübingen,and worked with Ingrid Batori and Hans-Christoph Rublack. She then moved to King's College London where in 1985 she completed her PhD,supervised by Robert W. Scribner. Her thesis was titled 'Work,marriage and sexuality:Women in Reformation Augsburg'. [2]
Before completing her doctorate,Roper began a Junior Research Fellowship at Merton College at the University of Oxford (1983–6). In 1986 she took up a non-permanent Lectureship at King's College London,and moved in 1987 to a permanent post at Royal Holloway,University of London,becoming Professor in 1999 and establishing (with Amanda Vickery) the first Master's programme in Women's and Gender History. She has been Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (1991–2) and has held Visiting positions at the Eisenberg Centre,Ann Arbor,the University of Western Australia,the Australian National University,Canberra,the Freie Universität Berlin,and the Max Planck Institut,Göttingen. In 2002 she took up a Lectureship and Fellowship at Balliol College,Oxford. She is currently Regius Professor of History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel College. She is an Honorary Fellow of Merton College,Oxford,and of Balliol College,Oxford.
In Living I Was Your Plague,Roper explores some of the more controversial aspects of Martin Luther's personality - his use of vulgar language,his pugilism,and his rampant anti-Semitism. The work also analyses the images of Luther created by the artist Lucas Cranach that have become so instantly recognisable,showing how Luther carefully created the image of himself that he wanted to present to the world. Roper ends by assessing Luther's legacy in more recent years,in particular how he was presented in the former East Germany and how he was celebrated during the 2017 quincentenary year of the 95 Theses.
Roper's Martin Luther:Renegade and Prophet,has been translated into German,Spanish,Polish,Portuguese,Czech and Dutch;in Germany it became a best-seller. Published to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the posting of the 95 Theses and the start of the Reformation,Roper's biography is one of the first to locate Luther within his social and cultural context,foregrounding his physicality and thus seeking to understand his theology in new ways. The work was shortlisted for both the Wolfson History Prize and the Elizabeth Longford Prize. [3]
Exploring how witches and witchcraft have been portrayed through art and literature,The Witch in the Western Imagination builds on Roper's previous works to explain why witches are so often represented as old hags. Yet the figure of the witch is not always portrayed in a negative light,and she might be an individual who could stand up to authority and even represent the community itself. By delving into the importance of 'fantasy' to the interpretation of witches and witchcraft,Roper's nuanced study interprets 'how individuals made sense of witchcraft,why the figure of the witch could arouse such intense emotion,and why she could be used in so many ways.' [4]
Witch Craze explores the role of unconscious fantasy in history by taking four case studies of witch hunting in southern Germany,the region with the highest number of executions of people accused as witches. Using extensive archival sources,including original trial transcripts,the book studies the psychology of witch-hunting,arguing that what powered these witch-hunts were fears surrounding fertility. Roper examines 'why it was mostly older women that were the victims of witch crazes,why they confessed to crimes,and how the depiction of witches in art and literature has influenced the characterization of elderly women in our own culture.' [5] The book has been translated into German with Beck (Hexenwahn:Geschichte einer Verfolgung) [6] and was awarded the Roland H Bainton Prize in 2005.
A collection of nine interconnected essays,Oedipus and the Devil explores subjects ranging from the literary culture of the sixteenth century,to early-modern sexual attitudes and ideas regarding femininity and masculinity,to issues surrounding the complex development of marriage,and the use of psychoanalysis in studying witchcraft. [7] Roper examines why a woman would kill her child,why someone would confess to living with the devil like husband and wife,and why a famous banker might employ a village clairvoyant ('Dorf hellseherin'). The work has been translated into German with Fischer Taschenbuch (Ödipus und der Teufel:Körper und Psyche in der Frühen Neuzeit) [8] and is widely cited.
Roper's first book questioned the ways in which the Reformation changed gender relations,focussing on the case study of Augsburg,one of the most important cities of the Holy Roman Empire. Exploring the idea of 'civic righteousness,' Roper argued that the Reformation developed a theology of gender whereby the roles of men and women were clearly distinct within the vision of the 'holy household.' Whilst previously the effect of the Reformation on women was regarded as beneficial,this book argues that the status of women was instead worsened. The book has been translated into German and has been reprinted several times.
Currently Roper is writing a history of the German Peasants' War (1524–5).
In 2016,Roper won the Gerda Henkel Prize for lifetime achievement in history. [9] Currently she holds a Humboldt Research Award (associated with the Free University Berlin) for research in Germany. [10] She is Honorary Fellow of the History Department,University of Melbourne,Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (2009),Fellow of the British Academy (2011),and Fellow of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften,Berlin (2016). She also holds a Honorary Doctorates from the University of Melbourne (2013) and the University of Basel (2021).
The Malleus Maleficarum, usually translated as the Hammer of Witches, is the best known treatise purporting to be about witchcraft. It was written by the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer and first published in the German city of Speyer in 1486. Some describe it as the compendium of literature in demonology of the 15th century. Kramer presented his own, somewhat idiosyncratic views as the Roman Catholic Church's position.
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. Practicing evil spells or incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the Middle East. In medieval Europe, witch-hunts often arose in connection to charges of heresy from Christianity. An intensive period of witch-hunts occurring in Early Modern Europe and to a smaller extent Colonial America, took place from about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Counter Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 executions. The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In other regions, like Africa and Asia, contemporary witch-hunts have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, and official legislation against witchcraft is still found in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon today.
Balliol College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world.
Christian views on magic vary widely among Christian denominations and among individuals. Many Christians actively condemn magic as satanic, holding that it opens the way for demonic possession. Some Christians simply view it as entertainment. Conversely, some branches of esoteric Christianity actively engage in magical practices.
A Witches' Sabbath is a purported gathering of those believed to practice witchcraft and other rituals. The phrase became especially popular in the 20th century.
Sir Frederick Maurice Powicke was an English medieval historian. He was a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, a professor at Queen's University, Belfast, and the Victoria University of Manchester, and from 1928 until his retirement Regius Professor at the University of Oxford. He was made a Knight Bachelor in 1946.
The Regius Professor of History at the University of Oxford is a long-established professorial position. Holders of the title have often been medieval historians. The first appointment was made in 1724. The term "Regius" reflects the origins of the post as a royal appointment, itself a recognition of the important influence of history.
European witchcraft is a multifaceted historical and cultural phenomenon that unfolded over centuries, leaving a mark on the continent's social, religious, and legal landscapes. The roots of European witchcraft trace back to classical antiquity when concepts of magic and religion were closely related, and society closely integrated magic and supernatural beliefs. Ancient Rome, then a pagan society, had laws against harmful magic. In the Middle Ages, accusations of heresy and devil worship grew more prevalent. By the early modern period, major witch hunts began to take place, partly fueled by religious tensions, societal anxieties, and economic upheaval. Witches were often viewed as dangerous sorceresses or sorcerers in a pact with the Devil, capable of causing harm through black magic. A feminist interpretation of the witch trials is that misogynist views of women led to the association of women and malevolent witchcraft.
Henry William Carless Davis was a British historian, editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, and Oxford Regius Professor of Modern History.
Vivian Hunter Galbraith was an English historian, fellow of the British Academy and Oxford Regius Professor of Modern History.
Dame Olwen Hufton, is a British historian of early modern Europe and a pioneer of social history and of women's history. She is an expert on early modern, western European comparative socio-cultural history with special emphasis on gender, poverty, social relations, religion and work. Since 2006 she has been a part-time Professorial Research Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Hans Christian Erik Midelfort, is C. Julian Bishko Professor Emeritus of History and Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. He is a specialist of the German Reformation and the history of Christianity in Early Modern Europe.
In the early modern period, from about 1400 to 1775, about 100,000 people were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and British America. Between 40,000 and 60,000 were executed, almost all in Europe. The witch-hunts were particularly severe in parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Prosecutions for witchcraft reached a high point from 1560 to 1630, during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion. Among the lower classes, accusations of witchcraft were usually made by neighbors, and women made formal accusations as much as men did. Magical healers or 'cunning folk' were sometimes prosecuted for witchcraft, but seem to have made up a minority of the accused. Roughly 80% of those convicted were women, most of them over the age of 40. In some regions, convicted witches were burnt at the stake, the traditional punishment for religious heresy.
Children have been accused of witchcraft, both historically and in contemporary times, in societies that harbor beliefs about the existence of witches and black magic. These accusations have led to punishment, imprisonment, torture, and execution of children.
The Bamberg witch trials of 1627–1632, which took place in the self-governing Catholic Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg in the Holy Roman Empire in present-day Germany, is one of the biggest mass trials and mass executions ever seen in Europe, and one of the biggest witch trials in history.
The Faculty of History at the University of Oxford organises that institution's teaching and research in medieval and modern history. Medieval and modern history has been taught at Oxford for longer than at virtually any other university, and the first Regius Professor of Modern History was appointed in 1724. The Faculty is part of the Humanities Division, and has been based at the former City of Oxford High School for Boys on George Street, Oxford since the summer of 2007, while the department's library relocated from the former Indian Institute on Catte Street to the Bodleian Library's Radcliffe Camera in August 2012.
Thomas Martin Lindsay FRSE (1843–1914) was a Scottish historian, professor and principal of the Free Church College, Glasgow. He wrote chiefly on church history, his major works including Luther and the German Reformation (1900), and A History of the Reformation (1906–1907).
Henrike Lähnemann is a German medievalist and holds the Chair of Medieval German, University of Oxford. She is a Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
Johann Christoph von Westerstetten was Prince-bishop of Eichstätt, Bavaria, Germany, during the Thirty Years' War. He was a proponent of the Counter-Reformation.
Malcolm John Gaskill FRHistS is an English academic historian and writer on crime, magic, witchcraft, spiritualism, and the supernatural. Gaskill was a professor in the history department of the University of East Anglia from 2011 until 2020, when he retired from teaching to give more time to writing.
{{cite web}}
: Missing or empty |url=
(help)