Popular belief

Popular beliefs are studied as a sub-field of social sciences, like history and anthropology, which examines spiritual beliefs that develop not independently from religion, but still outside of established religious institutions. Aspects of popular piety, historical folklore, and historical superstitions are some of the themes explored.

Social scientists who study popular belief offer explanations for behaviors and events that arose as a means of redress in times of adversity or from perceived practical or spiritual utility. The cause of the European witch craze, responsible for the death of many older women in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, is one such area of research. The attitudes to sanctity and relics in the central Middle Ages, which represent a bottom-up phenomenon (whereby relics became acceptable to the Roman Catholic Church as a result of their popularity among the masses), is another widely studied area of popular belief.

The population of pre-modern, Western Europe was exceedingly liable to pain, sickness, and premature death. Epidemics such as the bubonic plague and famine plowed through European towns during the late Middle Ages, at times cutting the population by half. People often turned to saints and their relics, as well as magic, making a charm from the Eucharist wafer for example, for relief of both great and small problems.

Astrology, witchcraft, magical healing, divination, ancient prophecies, ghosts, and fairies were taken very seriously by people at all social and economic levels in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Helplessness in the face of disease and human disaster helped to perpetuate this belief in magic and the supernatural. The early effects of the Little Ice Age kept the food supply at precarious levels. Social unrest and witch hunts abounded. Some forms of magic were challenged by the Protestant Reformation.

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