The problems of pre-modern life -- A densely populated universe -- Helpful performances : the uses of ritual -- Insight and foresight : techniques of divination -- The Patristic and Early Medieval heritage -- Scholastic demonology in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries -- The demonological reading of superstitions in the Late Middle Ages : areas of consensus -- The demonological reading of superstitions in the Late Middle Ages : areas of difference and disagreement -- The pastoral use of the scholastic critique of superstitions -- Some Renaissance Christian humanists and 'superstition' -- Magic, the fallen world, and fallen humanity : Martin Luther on the devil and superstitions -- Prodigies, providences, and possession : the sixteenth-century Protestant context -- The Protestant critique of consecrations : Catholicism as superstition -- The Reformed doctrine of providence and the transformation of the Devil -- Reformed Catholicism : purifying sources, defending traditions -- Demonology becomes an open subject in the seventeenth century -- Defending the 'invisible world' : the campaign against 'saducism' -- Towards the Enlightenment.
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