Historical method: a recorded belief or accusation is not independent proof of the supernatural event described.
A beneficial role
Modern scholarship describes some Benandanti as healers who claimed to counter harmful workings. This therapeutic function complicates attempts to define the entire group solely by nocturnal battles.
Nardon’s intervention
The University of Trieste volume edited by Franco Nardon places healing and counter-witchcraft practices within their local social setting. It emphasizes later records overlooked or given less attention by an earlier reconstruction.
Limits of medical interpretation
These were historical therapeutic claims, not evidence of efficacy under modern clinical standards. The archive treats them as historically consequential roles and avoids turning them into medical recommendations.
Source and revision record
- Franco Nardon (ed.), Benandanti e inquisitori nel Friuli del Seicento (1999)University repository · University of Trieste volume focused on seventeenth-century healing and counter-witchcraft.
- Santarelli and Weber, Benandanti, EreticopediaScholarly reference · Survey of agrarian, funerary and therapeutic strands, with discussion of scholarly disagreement.