Jan Machielsen
Biographic Data
| ID | 1531186 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jan Machielsen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jan |
| FAMILY NAME | Machielsen |
| SIGNATURE | MACHIELSEN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cardiff University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8492-0263 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 34 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The Cambridge Companion to Counter-Reformation Sanctity
This groundbreaking Companion explores how Counter-Reformation sanctity reshaped religious identities, sacred traditions, and devotional practices that transformed Catholicism into the first global religion. Offering a fresh perspective on early modern Catholicism, it moves beyond traditional debates about Reformation and Reform and presents sanctity as the defining lens through which to view the period's transformative changes. By examining the …
The Cambridge History of the Papacy
Historically, the papacy has had – and continues to have – significant and sustained influence on society and culture. In the contemporary world, this influence is felt far afield from the traditional geographic and cultural center of papal authority in western Europe, notably in the Global South. Volume 3 frames questions around the papacy's cultural influence, focusing on the influence that successive popes and various vectors of papal authorit…
The Origins of the Sabbat
Even by the standards of early modern witches’ gatherings, the Basque sabbat was exceptional. Neither the French judges nor the Spanish inquisitors who confronted the witchcraft panic of 1609 quite knew what to do with the sensational testimony they gathered. Basque sorginak did not simply feast on the bodies of dead babies, as witches were said to do elsewhere, they dug up the bodies of deceased witches from cemeteries and consumed those. They d…
Welcome
Welcome
Bedazzled Saints
Jesuits and Print
This introductory article employs the Scottish Jesuit John Hay as a starting point for a wider exploration of the relationship between Jesuits and print, the theme of this special issue. Hay demonstrates how important print could be to a Jesuit’s self-worth and identity. In this, as contemporary catalogs of Jesuit publications attest, he was not alone, but he was a controversial outlier. Hay’s superiors prevented him from continuing a vociferous …
Balsdon Fellowships
Why did the Catholic Church, a faith defined by its cult of saints, find it so difficult to create new ones at the time of its greatest crisis? Historians have long noticed a long gap in saint-making following the Reformation. After 1523 there were to be no new saints for 63 years, a situation Peter Burke memorably attributed to a ‘failure of papal nerve’. The hesitant resumption of saint-making in 1588 created the modern machinery of canonizatio…
A Work Out of Time
The year 2021 marked the fiftieth anniversary of Keith Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), a book that set the agenda for decades of scholarship on the history of supernatural beliefs. Half a century after its first publication, Thomas’s masterpiece remains an inspiration — and a foil — for countless students of social, cultural and religious history. Its legacy is complex. It is often presented, alongside a 1967 essay by Hugh Trev…
Tableau de l’inconstance des mauvais anges et démons
Pierre de Lancre’s Tableau de l’inconstance des mauvais anges et démons (1612) deservedly ranks, as its editor Jean Céard observes, among the ‘grands textes de la démonologie de la Renaissance’. In fact, it was probably the last of the great demonologies. In the wake of the Louis Gaufridi affair, France, as even de Lancre himself realized, was becoming obsessed with demonic possession instead. The Tableau was more, however, than just one judge’s …
The Devil is in the Tales
Martin Delrio’s Disquisitiones magicae (1599–1600) likely was the most successful work of demonology printed during the early modern period. It was also a work of textual scholarship. This article studies in detail the few instances in which the Spanish-Flemish Jesuit chose to discuss anecdotes based on things he either saw or heard and how he attempted to establish their credibility. Embedding these stories in a diverse web of other (textual) ex…
The Cardinal, the Prince and the Crisis of the Fronde, by David Parrott
France, like virtually every other country in Western Europe, found itself in the midst of a general crisis during the middle of the seventeenth century. The Fronde (1648–1652) has long exercised the imagination of historians, either as an early anarchic predecessor to the French Revolution, or as a hurdle on the road towards absolutism, a last gasp of resistance that the forces of modernity needed to overcome. This remarkable study focuses on an…
Invoking the Akelarre
Invoking the Akelarre: Voices of the Accused in the Basque Witch-Craze, 1609–1614, by Emma Wilby Invoking the Akelarre: Voices of the Accused in the Basque Witch-Craze, 1609–1614, by Emma Wilby (Brighton: Sussex Academic P., 2019; pp. 480. £85). Jan Machielsen Jan Machielsen Cardiff University, UK [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume 136, Issue 579…
The Basque Seroras
The serora was a quintessential and unique part of the Basque religious landscape. Almost every church or shrine (of which there were many) had one. Seroras were the women charged with preparing the church for Mass, decorating it for feast days, ringing the church bells, and so on. Their caretaking functions were considered essential, and communities invested considerable time and effort in selecting and installing the right serora to look after …
J ason P hilip C oy . The Devil’s Art
At the heart of Jason Philip Coy’s The Devil’s Art: Divination and Discipline in Early Modern Germany stand two intriguing questions: How can we explain the alignment of witchcraft and divination in early modern demonology? And how can we explain the difference in outcomes on the ground? While comparatively many witches were executed, few faced prosecution for divination, let alone death. The source base marshaled to answer these questions is rem…
Mytho-Poetics at Work
Spare a thought for poor Philip de Montmorency, Count of Horn. Very few people have. Horn had been one of the early leaders of the Dutch Revolt. Infamously executed by the Duke of Alba alongside Lamoral, Count of Egmont, on 5 June 1568, he is little remembered today. By contrast, Egmont, as the book reviewed here shows, became the stuff of legend. In the late 1780s, on the eve of the French Revolution, Egmont became the subject of a tragedy compo…
The Making of a Teen Wolf
The Tableau de l’inconstance des mauvais anges et démons (Portrait of the inconstancy of evil angels and demons, 1612) by the Bordeaux magistrate Pierre de Lancre offers a famous account of a witch-hunt conducted by the author in the French Basque country in 1609. Yet it also contains a detailed description of the 1603 trial for lycanthropy of thirteen-year-old Jean Grenier, likely the youngest person ever to be convicted as a werewolf. This arti…
For the Sake of Learning
It is impossible to study early modern history and not know the name Anthony Grafton. Currently Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, where he has been based since 1975, Anthony Grafton’s scholarship has received virtually every major award or distinction imaginable. Grafton himself was the winner of the 2002 International Balzan Prize and was president of the American Historical Association in 2011. He holds honor…
Forging the Past
This is one of the most eagerly awaited books on early modern Catholic culture of the past decade. The Iberian peninsula has long had a reputation for invented traditions and forged texts. Within this well-established tradition, Katrina Olds carves out a prominent position for the chronicles fabricated by the Toledo Jesuit Jerónimo Román de la Higuera (1537/8–1611), which provided Spanish scholars and antiquarians with evidence for an early Chris…
The Dutch Revolt and Catholic Exile in Reformation Europe, by Geert H. Janssen
That migration decisively shaped the outcome of the Dutch Revolt has often been noted. Andrew Pettegree and others have studied how returning Protestant exiles, radicalised in refugee centres such as Emden and London, helped forge the officially Protestant, but confessionally mixed, religious culture of the Dutch Republic. Similarly, Belgian scholars (notably Gustaef Asaert) have frequently drawn our attention to the mass northbound migration of …
Martin Delrio
The protagonist of this study, the Jesuit Martin Delrio (1551–1608), is a largely forgotten figure, purposefully elided from many of the scholarly and religious spheres to which he contributed. To the extent that he is remembered today it is for his Disquisitiones magicae (1599–1600), a study of witchcraft and superstition that went through numerous editions and was last reprinted in 1755. The present volume recovers the lost world of Delrio’s wi…
Shadows of Doubt
The present volume stands as a warning about the dangers of pithy blurbs. The bold claim—on the front flap—that ‘Post-Reformation Catholicism did not simply usher in modernity, but postmodernity as well’ appears both puzzling and crude when contrasted with the sensitive argument which Stefania Tutino develops in this book. Still, Tutino’s argument is nothing if not ambitious. Inspired by her own extensive reading in the field of postmodernist her…
The Devil in Society in Premodern Europe
Perhaps the back cover of this edited volume meant to lower the expectations of its academic audience, when it rather crassly declared that ‘the devil should be ascribed – perhaps as much as God
Arlette Jouanna, The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
Kimberly Lynn, Between Court and Confessional
The Making of a Teen Wolf
The Tableau de l’inconstance des mauvais anges et démons (Portrait of the inconstancy of evil angels and demons, 1612) by the Bordeaux magistrate Pierre de Lancre offers a famous account of a witch-hunt conducted by the author in the French Basque country in 1609. Yet it also contains a detailed description of the 1603 trial for lycanthropy of thirteen-year-old Jean Grenier, likely the youngest person ever to be convicted as a werewolf. This arti…
How (not) to Get Published
This article explores the strategies used by the English Catholic Thomas Stapleton (1535–1598) and the Flemish–Spanish Jesuit Martin Delrio (1551–1608) to have their works printed by Jan Moretus I, successor and son-in-law of the well-known printer Christophe Plantin, and the economics behind Moretus' reluctance to commit their writings to print. Delrio's ultimate success and Stapleton's failure are explained by their different approaches. While …
The Political Economy of the Dutch Republic
Witchcraft and the Act of 1604
Cornelius Gemma
How (not) to Get Published
This article explores the strategies used by the English Catholic Thomas Stapleton (1535–1598) and the Flemish–Spanish Jesuit Martin Delrio (1551–1608) to have their works printed by Jan Moretus I, successor and son-in-law of the well-known printer Christophe Plantin, and the economics behind Moretus' reluctance to commit their writings to print. Delrio's ultimate success and Stapleton's failure are explained by their different approaches. While …
Thinking with Montaigne
In 1612 the Bordeaux witchcraft inquisitor Pierre de Lancre (1556–1631), himself linked by marriage to Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), revealed that the essayist and sceptic was related on his mother’s side to a leading authority on magic and superstition, the Flemish-Spanish Jesuit Martin Delrio (1551–1608). De Lancre confounded historians' expectations by using the revelation to defend Montaigne against his cousin's criticism. This article re-…
Catholic Identity and the Revolt of the Netherlands, 1520-1635, by Judith Pollmann
Secularisation and the Leiden Circle, by Mark Somos
In this new book, based on his Harvard doctoral dissertation, Mark Somos argues that the modern, secular world no longer understands or recognises religious legitimacy claims. For Somos, this failure is the primary obstacle to preventing religious conflict today. The most important current topic in the social sciences today is to address ‘this systemic cause of conflict: the forgotten contingency of secularisation’ (p. 445). It is the duty of the…
Friendship and religion in the Republic of Letters; the return of Justus Lipsius to Catholicism (1591)
jan machielsen , Friendship and religion in the Republic of Letters; The return of Justus Lipsius to Catholicism (1591) The return of the Flemish humanist Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) to the Spanish Netherlands and his reconciliation with Catholicism (1591) have defined his image for posterity. Debates about the sincerity of Lipsius' religious beliefs have continued to the present day. Scholars have presented Lipsius' departure from Leiden as the r…
Sacred History
Journal Article Sacred History: Uses of the Christian Past in the Renaissance World, ed. Katherine van Liere, Simon Ditchfield and Howard Louthan Get access Sacred History: Uses of the Christian Past in the Renaissance World, ed. Katherine van Liere, Simon Ditchfield and Howard Louthan (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 2012; pp. xxiv + 339. £55). Jan Machielsen Jan Machielsen Balliol College, Oxford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic G…
The Devil in Society in Premodern Europe
Perhaps the back cover of this edited volume meant to lower the expectations of its academic audience, when it rather crassly declared that ‘the devil should be ascribed – perhaps as much as God
Arlette Jouanna, The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
Kimberly Lynn, Between Court and Confessional
The Lion, the Witch, and the King
Historians have rarely acknowledged the restraint shown by Catholic exile writers in their portrayals of Queen Elizabeth. As a general rule, exiles took care to restrict their often stringent criticism to the queen’s government or advisers. This restraint has been obscured, in part, by the Apologia pro Rege Catholico Philippo II (1592) written by Thomas Stapleton (1535–1598), Regius Professor of Scriptures at the University of Leuven (Louvain). T…
Martin Delrio
The protagonist of this study, the Jesuit Martin Delrio (1551–1608), is a largely forgotten figure, purposefully elided from many of the scholarly and religious spheres to which he contributed. To the extent that he is remembered today it is for his Disquisitiones magicae (1599–1600), a study of witchcraft and superstition that went through numerous editions and was last reprinted in 1755. The present volume recovers the lost world of Delrio’s wi…
Shadows of Doubt
The present volume stands as a warning about the dangers of pithy blurbs. The bold claim—on the front flap—that ‘Post-Reformation Catholicism did not simply usher in modernity, but postmodernity as well’ appears both puzzling and crude when contrasted with the sensitive argument which Stefania Tutino develops in this book. Still, Tutino’s argument is nothing if not ambitious. Inspired by her own extensive reading in the field of postmodernist her…
The Dutch Revolt and Catholic Exile in Reformation Europe, by Geert H. Janssen
That migration decisively shaped the outcome of the Dutch Revolt has often been noted. Andrew Pettegree and others have studied how returning Protestant exiles, radicalised in refugee centres such as Emden and London, helped forge the officially Protestant, but confessionally mixed, religious culture of the Dutch Republic. Similarly, Belgian scholars (notably Gustaef Asaert) have frequently drawn our attention to the mass northbound migration of …
Forging the Past
This is one of the most eagerly awaited books on early modern Catholic culture of the past decade. The Iberian peninsula has long had a reputation for invented traditions and forged texts. Within this well-established tradition, Katrina Olds carves out a prominent position for the chronicles fabricated by the Toledo Jesuit Jerónimo Román de la Higuera (1537/8–1611), which provided Spanish scholars and antiquarians with evidence for an early Chris…
For the Sake of Learning
It is impossible to study early modern history and not know the name Anthony Grafton. Currently Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, where he has been based since 1975, Anthony Grafton’s scholarship has received virtually every major award or distinction imaginable. Grafton himself was the winner of the 2002 International Balzan Prize and was president of the American Historical Association in 2011. He holds honor…
Mytho-Poetics at Work
Spare a thought for poor Philip de Montmorency, Count of Horn. Very few people have. Horn had been one of the early leaders of the Dutch Revolt. Infamously executed by the Duke of Alba alongside Lamoral, Count of Egmont, on 5 June 1568, he is little remembered today. By contrast, Egmont, as the book reviewed here shows, became the stuff of legend. In the late 1780s, on the eve of the French Revolution, Egmont became the subject of a tragedy compo…
The Making of a Teen Wolf
The Tableau de l’inconstance des mauvais anges et démons (Portrait of the inconstancy of evil angels and demons, 1612) by the Bordeaux magistrate Pierre de Lancre offers a famous account of a witch-hunt conducted by the author in the French Basque country in 1609. Yet it also contains a detailed description of the 1603 trial for lycanthropy of thirteen-year-old Jean Grenier, likely the youngest person ever to be convicted as a werewolf. This arti…
The Cardinal, the Prince and the Crisis of the Fronde, by David Parrott
France, like virtually every other country in Western Europe, found itself in the midst of a general crisis during the middle of the seventeenth century. The Fronde (1648–1652) has long exercised the imagination of historians, either as an early anarchic predecessor to the French Revolution, or as a hurdle on the road towards absolutism, a last gasp of resistance that the forces of modernity needed to overcome. This remarkable study focuses on an…
Invoking the Akelarre
Invoking the Akelarre: Voices of the Accused in the Basque Witch-Craze, 1609–1614, by Emma Wilby Invoking the Akelarre: Voices of the Accused in the Basque Witch-Craze, 1609–1614, by Emma Wilby (Brighton: Sussex Academic P., 2019; pp. 480. £85). Jan Machielsen Jan Machielsen Cardiff University, UK [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume 136, Issue 579…
The Basque Seroras
The serora was a quintessential and unique part of the Basque religious landscape. Almost every church or shrine (of which there were many) had one. Seroras were the women charged with preparing the church for Mass, decorating it for feast days, ringing the church bells, and so on. Their caretaking functions were considered essential, and communities invested considerable time and effort in selecting and installing the right serora to look after …
J ason P hilip C oy . The Devil’s Art
At the heart of Jason Philip Coy’s The Devil’s Art: Divination and Discipline in Early Modern Germany stand two intriguing questions: How can we explain the alignment of witchcraft and divination in early modern demonology? And how can we explain the difference in outcomes on the ground? While comparatively many witches were executed, few faced prosecution for divination, let alone death. The source base marshaled to answer these questions is rem…
Tableau de l’inconstance des mauvais anges et démons
Pierre de Lancre’s Tableau de l’inconstance des mauvais anges et démons (1612) deservedly ranks, as its editor Jean Céard observes, among the ‘grands textes de la démonologie de la Renaissance’. In fact, it was probably the last of the great demonologies. In the wake of the Louis Gaufridi affair, France, as even de Lancre himself realized, was becoming obsessed with demonic possession instead. The Tableau was more, however, than just one judge’s …
History (24 works) · Art (19 works) · History (16 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Literature (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Sociology (11 works)