Witchcraft
Witchcraft seems, at first sight, to be one of the strangest aspects of the early modern world and this week is designed to try to understand why people believed in witches, who was persecuted as a witch, and how the pattern of witchcraft prosecutions varied according to time and space.
Primary Source:
Choose one of the sources at
Early Modern witch trials - The National Archives
Seminar Questions:
- What did you find interesting about the text? come along ready to tell the seminar group about it.
- Was the witch-hunt a ‘war against women’?
- To what extent did all groups in early modern society share witchcraft beliefs and why?
Essential Reading:
Levack, Brian,
The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (any ed), ch. 5: ‘The Social Context’ [online]
Roberts, Penny, ‘Witchcraft and Magic’ in Beat Kümin (ed.), The European World (3rd edition, 2018), ebook.
Recommended Reading:
L. Apps and A. Gow, Male Witches in Early Modern Europe (Manchester, 2003)
S. Clark, Thinking with Demons: the Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford, 1997)
R. Briggs, Witches and Neighbours: the social and cultural context of European witchcraft (London, 1996)
Peter Elmer, Witchcraft, Witch-hunting and Politics in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2016)
L. Roper, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern Europe (London, 1994)
R. Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear (New Haven, 2017)
Further Reading
European Witchcraft:
Behringer, Wolfgang, ‘Weather, Hunger, Fear: The Origins of the European Witch Hunts in Climate, Society and Mentality’,German History, 13 (1995), 1–27 [online]
Durrant, Jonathan B.,Witchcraft, Gender and Society in Early Modern Germany (Leiden, 2007)
R. Briggs, Witches and Neighbours: the social and cultural context of European witchcraft (London, 1996)
J. Dillinger, ‘Terrorists and Witches: Popular Ideas of Evil in the Early Modern Period’, History of European Ideas, 30 (2004), 167-82
M. Douglas, 'Witchcraft and Leprosy: Two Strategies of Exclusion', Man, 26 (1991), 723-36
B.P. Levack (ed.), The Witchcraft Sourcebook (2nd edn, London, 2015)
L. Roper, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany (New Haven, 2004)
A. Rowlands, Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe (New York, 2009)
Many essays/articles are reproduced in the 5 volumes of B.P. Levack (ed), New Perspectives on Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology (New York & London, 2001)]
J. Barry et al (eds), Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1996)
W. Behringer, ‘Weather, hunger and fear: origins of the European witch-hunts’, German History 13 (1995)
R. Briggs, The Witches of Lorraine (2007)
H.P. Broedel, The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft (Manchester, 2003)
S. Clark, ‘Inversion, Misrule and the Meaning of Witchcraft’, Past and Present, 87 (1980), 98-127
O. Davies and W. de Blécourt (eds), Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment Europe (Manchester, 2004)
S. Ferber, Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France (London, 2004)
C. Holmes, ‘Women: Witnesses and Witches’, Past and Present, 140 (1993), 45-78
B.P. Levack (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America (Oxford, 2014)
J. Machielsen, The Basque Witch-hunt: A Secret History (London, 2024)
(ed.), The Science of Demons (London, 2020)
R. Martin, Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1550-1650 (Oxford, 1989)
E.W. Monter, ‘Toads and Eucharists: the Male Witches of Normandy, 1564-1660’, French Historical Studies, 20 (1997)
R. Raiswell, M.D. Brock and D.R. Winter (eds), The Routledge History of the Devil in the Western Tradition (London, 2025)
A. Rowlands, Witchcraft Narratives in Germany: Rothenburg 1561-1652 (Manchester, 2003)
W.F. Ryan, ‘The Witchcraft Hysteria in Early Modern Europe: was Russia an Exception?’, Slavonic and East European Review 76 (1998)
British Witchcraft:
- Philip Almond, Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern England: Contemporary Texts and their Cultural Contexts (Cambridge, 2009)
- William E. Burns, An Age of Wonders: Prodigies, Politics, and Providence in England, 1657–1727 (Manchester, 2002)
- Owen Davies, Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History (Hambledon, 2007)
- Sasha Handley, Visions of an Unseen World: Ghost Beliefs and Ghost Stories in Eighteenth-Century England (London, 2007)
- Deborah Harkness, John Dee’s Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature (Cambridge, 1999)
- Lizanne Henderson, Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment: Scotland, 1670–1740 (Basingstoke, 2016)
- Michael Hunter (ed.), The Occult Laboratory: Magic, Science, and Second Sight in Late Seventeenth-Century Scotland (Woodbridge, 2001)
- Larner, Christina,
Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland
(Edinburgh, 2000) - Brian P. Levack, Witch-Hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics and Religion (Abingdon, 2008)
- Brian P. Levack, The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West (New Haven, 2013)
- Phyllis Mack, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England (Berkeley, 1992)
- Peter Marshall, Invisible Worlds: Death, Religion and the Supernatural in England, 1500–1700 (London, 2017)
- Martha McGill, Ghosts in Enlightenment Scotland (Woodbridge, 2018)
- Darren Oldridge, The Supernatural in Tudor and Stuart England (Abingdon, 2016)
- Sally Parkin, ‘Witchcraft, women’s honour and customary law in early modern Wales’, Social History 31 (2006), 295-318
- Robert W. Scribner, ‘The Reformation, popular magic, and the “disenchantment of the world”’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23 (1993), 475-94
- Jane Shaw, Miracles in Enlightenment England (New Haven, 2006)
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Sharpe, James, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England, 1550–1750 (London, 1997)
- Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971)
- Alexandra Walsham, ‘The Reformation and “the disenchantment of the world” reassessed’, Historical Journal 51 (2008), 497-528
- Emma Wilby, Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic (Brighton, 2005)
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Internet sources:
Hans Baldung, ‘The Witches’ Sabbath’ (Woodcut, 1510) [Web Gallery of Art] Alternative version here