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The ''benandanti'' ("Good Walkers") were members of an agrarian visionary tradition in the Friuli district of Northeastern Italy during the 16th and 17th centuries. The ''benandanti'' claimed to travel out of their bodies while asleep to struggle against malevolent witches (''streghe'') in order to ensure good crops for the season to come. Between 1575 and 1675, in the midst of the Early Modern witch trials, a number of ''benandanti'' were accused of being heretics or witches under the Roman Inquisition, and their beliefs assimilated to Satanism. According to Early Modern records, ''benandanti'' were believed to have been born with a caul on their head, which gave them the ability to take part in nocturnal visionary traditions that occurred on specific Thursdays during the year. During these visions, it was believed that their spirits rode upon various animals into the sky and off to places in the countryside. Here they would take part in various games and other activities with other ''benandanti'', and battle malevolent witches who threatened both their crops and their communities using sticks of sorghum. When not taking part in these visionary journeys, ''benandanti'' were also believed to have magical powers that could be used for healing. In 1575, the ''benandanti'' first came to the attention of the Friulian Church authorities when a village priest, Don Bartolomeo Sgabarizza, began investigating the claims made by the benandante Paolo Gasparotto. Although Sgabarizza soon abandoned his investigations, in 1580 the case was reopened by the inquisitor Fra Felice de Montefalco, who interrogated not only Gasparotto but also a variety of other local ''benandanti'' and spirit mediums, ultimately condemning some of them for the crime of heresy. Under pressure by the Inquisition, these nocturnal spirit travels (which often included sleep paralysis) were assimilated to the diabolised stereotype of the witches' Sabbath, leading to the extinction of the ''benandanti'' cult. The Inquisition's denunciation of the visionary tradition led to the term "benandante" becoming synonymous with the term "stregha" (meaning "witch") in Friulian folklore right through to the 20th century. The first historian to study the ''benandanti'' tradition was the Italian Carlo Ginzburg, who began an examination of the surviving trial records from the period in the early 1960s, culminating in the publication of his book ''The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries'' (1966, English translation 1983). In Ginzburg's interpretation of the evidence, the ''benandanti'' was a "fertility cult" whose members were "defenders of harvests and the fertility of fields." He furthermore argued that it was only one surviving part of a much wider European tradition of visionary experiences that had its origins in the pre-Christian period, identifying similarities with Livonian werewolf beliefs.〔Ginzburg 1983. p. xx.〕 Various historians have alternately built on or challenged aspects of Ginzburg's interpretation. ==Members== The ''benandanti'' – a term meaning “good walkers” when translated into English – were members of a folk tradition in the Friuli region. The ''benandanti'', who included both males and females, were individuals who believed that they ensured the protection of their community and its crops. The ''benandanti'' reported leaving their bodies in the shape of mice, cats, rabbits, or butterflies. The men mostly reported flying into the clouds battling against witches to secure fertility for their community; the women more often reported attending great feasts. Across Europe, popular culture viewed magical abilities as either innate or learned; in Friulian folk custom, the ''bendandanti'' were seen as having innate powers marked out at birth. Specifically, it was a widely held belief that those who in later life became ''benandanti'' were born with a caul, or amniotic sac, wrapped around their heads.〔Klaniczay 1990. p. 131.〕 In the folklore of Friuli at the time, cauls were imbued with magical properties, being associated with the ability to protect soldiers from harm, to cause an enemy to withdraw, and to help lawyers win their legal cases. In subsequent centuries, a related folkloric tradition found across much of Italy held to the belief that witches had been born with a caul. From surviving records, it is apparent that members of the ''benandanti'' first learned about its traditions during infancy, usually from their mothers. For this reason, historian Norman Cohn asserted that the ''benandanti'' tradition highlights how "not only the waking thoughts but the trance experiences of individuals can be deeply conditioned by the generally accepted beliefs of the society in which they live." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Benandanti」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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