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The essays in this Handbook, written by leading scholars working in the rapidly developing field of witchcraft studies, explore the historical literature regarding witch beliefs and witch trials in Europe and colonial America between the early fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries. During these years witches were thought to be evil people who used magical power to inflict physical harm or misfortune on their neighbours. Witches were also believed to have made pacts with the devil and sometimes to have worshipped him at nocturnal assemblies known as sabbaths. These beliefs provided the basis for defining witchcraft as a secular and ecclesiastical crime and prosecuting tens of thousands of women and men for this offence. The trials resulted in as many as fifty thousand executions.These essays study the rise and fall of witchcraft prosecutions in the various kingdoms and territories of Europe and in English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies in the Americas. They also relate these prosecutions to the Catholic and Protestant reformations, the introduction of new forms of criminal procedure, medical and scientific thought, the process of state-building, profound social and economic change, early modern patterns of gender relations, and the wave of demonic possessions that occurred in Europe at the same time. The essays survey the current state of knowledge in the field, explore the academic controversies that have arisen regarding witch beliefs and witch trials, propose new ways of studying the subject, and identify areas for future research.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Part I: Witch Beliefs
- 1: Richard Kieckhefer: Magic and its Hazards in the Late Medieval West
- 2: Hans Peter Broedel: Fifteenth-Century Witch Beliefs
- 3: Edward Bever: Popular Witch Beliefs and Magical Practices
- 4: Gerhild Scholz Williams: Demonologies
- 5: Willem de Blécourt: Sabbath Stories: Towards a New History of Witches' Assemblies
- 6: Walter Stephens: The Sceptical Tradition
- 7: Diane Purkiss: Witchcraft in Early Modern Literature
- 8: Charles Zika: Images of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe
- Part II: Witchcraft Prosecutions
- 9: Richard Kieckhefer: The First Wave of Trials for Diabolical Witchcraft
- 10: Thomas Robisheaux: The German Witch Trials
- 11: Robin Briggs: Witchcraft and the Local Communities: The Rhine-Moselle Region
- 12: William Monter: Witchcraft Trials in France
- 13: Hans de Waardt: Witchcraft and Wealth: The Case of the Netherlands
- 14: Tamar Herzig: Witchcraft Prosecutions in Italy
- 15: William Monter: Witchcraft in Iberia
- 16: Malcolm Gaskill: Witchcraft Trials in England
- 17: Julian Goodare: Witchcraft in Scotland
- 18: Michael Ostling: Witchcraft in Poland: Milk and Malefice
- 19: Ildikó Sz. Kristóf: Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Hungary
- 20: Valerie Kivelson: Witchcraft Trials in Russia: History and Historiography
- 21: Rune Blix Hagen: Witchcraft Criminality and Witchcraft Research in the Nordic Countries
- 22: Richard Godbeer: Witchcraft in British America
- 23: Iris Gareis: Merging Magical Traditions: Sorcery and Witchcraft in Spanish and Portuguese America
- 24: Brian P. Levack: The Decline and End of Witchcraft Prosecutions
- Part III: Themes of Witchcraft Research
- 25: Alison Rowlands: Witchcraft and Gender in Early Modern Europe
- 26: Brian P. Levack: Witchcraft and the Law
- 27: Gary K. Waite: Sixteenth-Century Religious Reform and the Witch-Hunts
- 28: Oscar Di Simplicio: On the Neuropsychological Origins of Witchcraft Cognition: the Geographic and Economic Variable
- 29: Johannes Dillinger: Politics, Sate Building, and Witch-Hunting
- 30: Peter Elmer: Science and Witchcraft
- 31: Peter Elmer: Medicine and Witchcraft
- 32: Sarah Ferber: Demonic Possession, Exorcism, and Witchcraft
Report
a worthwhile contribution to the literature which all concerned with early modern witchcraft will consult with profit. Michael Hunter, History Today
