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The Noctambuli: tales of sleepwalkers and secrets of the body in seventeenth-century England

Seventeenth-century readers were fascinated by marvellous tales of people known as the noctambuli who rose up in their sleep, performed daily chores and attempted dangerous feats, such as clambering onto rooftops. On account of their uncanny nature, commentators noted that sleepers could be mistaken...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Hunter, Elizabeth
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Routledge 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8734948/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35002008
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0268117X.2020.1855235
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description Seventeenth-century readers were fascinated by marvellous tales of people known as the noctambuli who rose up in their sleep, performed daily chores and attempted dangerous feats, such as clambering onto rooftops. On account of their uncanny nature, commentators noted that sleepers could be mistaken for spectres or those who had been bewitched. Depictions of the noctamubli were also influenced by the Malleus Maleficarum, which had argued that they were acting under the influence of demons and would fall if their Christian name was called. Medical texts explained this behaviour in terms of the escape of hot vapours within the body, the powers of the imaginative faculty, and the impairment of common sense during sleep. While this explanation was widely accepted, in the 1650s it was challenged by alternative views from esoteric writings, which conceptualised the movements of sleepers in terms of mystical powers within the body.
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spelling pubmed-87349482022-01-07 The Noctambuli: tales of sleepwalkers and secrets of the body in seventeenth-century England Hunter, Elizabeth Seventeenth Century Articles Seventeenth-century readers were fascinated by marvellous tales of people known as the noctambuli who rose up in their sleep, performed daily chores and attempted dangerous feats, such as clambering onto rooftops. On account of their uncanny nature, commentators noted that sleepers could be mistaken for spectres or those who had been bewitched. Depictions of the noctamubli were also influenced by the Malleus Maleficarum, which had argued that they were acting under the influence of demons and would fall if their Christian name was called. Medical texts explained this behaviour in terms of the escape of hot vapours within the body, the powers of the imaginative faculty, and the impairment of common sense during sleep. While this explanation was widely accepted, in the 1650s it was challenged by alternative views from esoteric writings, which conceptualised the movements of sleepers in terms of mystical powers within the body. Routledge 2020-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8734948/ /pubmed/35002008 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0268117X.2020.1855235 Text en © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Articles
Hunter, Elizabeth
The Noctambuli: tales of sleepwalkers and secrets of the body in seventeenth-century England
title The Noctambuli: tales of sleepwalkers and secrets of the body in seventeenth-century England
title_full The Noctambuli: tales of sleepwalkers and secrets of the body in seventeenth-century England
title_fullStr The Noctambuli: tales of sleepwalkers and secrets of the body in seventeenth-century England
title_full_unstemmed The Noctambuli: tales of sleepwalkers and secrets of the body in seventeenth-century England
title_short The Noctambuli: tales of sleepwalkers and secrets of the body in seventeenth-century England
title_sort noctambuli: tales of sleepwalkers and secrets of the body in seventeenth-century england
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8734948/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35002008
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0268117X.2020.1855235
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