Shaman of Oberstdorf: Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms of the Night

by Wolfgang Behringer

Blurb

Shaman of Oberstdorf: Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms of the Night is a study of the arrest and trial of Chonrad Stoecklin, a German herdsman from the town of Oberstdorf who was accused and executed for the crime of witchcraft after experiencing a series of visions. Written by the German historian Wolfgang Behringer, himself a specialist in the Early Modern witch trials of Germany, Shaman of Oberstdorf was initially published in German as Chonrad Stoekhlin und die Nachtschar: Eine Geschichte aus der frühen Neuzeit by R. Piper GmbH & Co. in 1994. It was subsequently translated into English by H.C. Erik Midelfort and published in 1998 by the University of Virginia Press.
The reviews published in specialist academic journals were largely positive, with several reviewers remarking that Behringer had presented a more believable case than Ginzburg for the existence of visionary traditions in Early Modern Europe.

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