Context: elite and popular culture - witchcraft perceptions Flashcards
What is a polymath?
Someone with a wide range of knowledge from multiple disciplines.
What does occult mean?
Mystical, supernatural or magical powers and practices.
Define culture
How people practice or use to express ideas/beliefs that are important to them.
What are the 3 levels in society?
- The Elite
- The Middle Class
- The Common Class
What are the two types of elite?
Noble or historic landowners.
The learned elites were university scholars and churchmen.
Who was a part of the middle class?
Merchants, professional men, and substantial (non-noble) landowners or farmers.
Who occupied the common class?
90% of the population
- Mainly people who lived in hamlets, villages and small towns.
What is Neoplatonism?
A body of varied (and in some ways contradictory) elements, it was a way of thinking and helped foster the acceptance of the reality of the spiritual world.
EXAMPLE: Medicine sometimes included treatments based on astrology.
Renaissance Magus
A man of deep intellectual and spiritual qualities, who was in possession of polymathic and occult knowledge.
Who was John Dee (1527-1608)?
A mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, teacher, occultist, and alchemist.
Helped Queen Liz decide the date of her coronation based on her horoscope.
Known for being involved in necromancy.
