Rebellion, Community and Custom in Early Modern Germany

Book excerpt: When this volume first appeared in German it inspired a whole generation of young scholars. Schindler recreates the lives of both the poor and excluded; the milieu of the burghers; and the rumbustuous lifestyles of the Counts von Zimmern. A true archivist, he evokes the lost worlds of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century people. He investigates popular nicknames, snowball fights, carnival rituals, even what people did at night-time before the advent of lighting. A final essay deals with an extraordinary late set of trials for witchcraft, in which over 200 people died. Translated into English for the first time, the volume contains a new Foreword by Natalie Zemon Davis and a new introductory essay setting out the key influences of Schindler's work. Norbert Schindler is the leading exponent of historical anthropology in the German-speaking world. A founding member of the German journal Historische Anthropologie, Schindler teaches at the University of Salzburg.