Ritual, Myth and Magic in Early Modern Europe - University of Reading

Module title: Ritual, Myth and Magic in Early Modern
Europe, A
Module code: HS3S05
Providing Department: History
Level: H Number of credits: 20
Terms in which taught: Autumn & Spring Module convenor: Dr Helen Parish
Pre-requisites: None Co-requisites: HS3S55 for Single &
Combined History
Modules excluded: None Current from: 2002-03
Aims:
Specials aim to provide ‗hands-on‘ experience of the historian‘s task through close
examination and evaluation of primary sources and the light they shed on issues and
problems. This particular module examines the source materials which focus on the
rituals and beliefs which characterised the culture of early modern Europe.
Assessable outcomes:
By the end of the module it is expected that the student will be able to:
recognise and interpret a range of different primary materials
undertake detailed textural analysis and comment on the primary materials
achieve a detailed command of varying historical interpretations of the primary
materials and subject as a whole
organise material and articulate arguments effectively in writing under timed
conditions
Additional outcomes:
This module also aims to encourage the development of oral communication skills
and the student‘s effectiveness in group situations. Students will also develop their IT
skills by use of relevant web resources.
Outline content:
Religious upheaval and political change in the 16 th and 17 th centuries had a dramatic
impact upon European culture, and upon the beliefs and practices of European
populations. This module will examine sources concerning the place of ritual, myth,
and magic in popular cultures in the early modern period, and analyse the way in
which the people of Europe viewed, and attempted to influence, the world around
them. These sources include early modern writings on astrology and the occult, magic
and witchcraft, especially the Malleus Maleficarum, plays, individuals‘ letters and
narratives, church records and visual propaganda.

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Brief description of teaching and learning methods:
The teaching for this module and for HS3S55 together involves weekly two-hour
discussion seminars. Students will gain ‗hands-on‘ experience of the historian‘s task
through the detailed evaluations of key texts, and the light they shed on the issues and
problems being investigated. Students are expected to carry out self-directed revision
in the Summer term. Staff will be available for consultation as necessary.
Contact hours:
The contact hours for this module are the same as those in HS3S55
Autumn Spring Summer
Lectures none none n/a
Tutorials/seminars 20 20 n/a
Practicals none none n/a
Other contact (eg
Study visits)
none none n/a
Total hours 20 20 n/a
Number of essays
Or assignments
Other (eg major
Seminar paper)
1 1 n/a
1 1 n/a
Assessment:
Coursework
Students will be required to prepare for seminars through reading from both the
primary sources and the secondary literature. Practice commentaries on the sources
will be required for formative assessment.
Relative percentage of coursework
None
Examinations
A three-hour paper involving detailed commentary on extracts from the sources
studied.
Requirements for a pass
A mark of 40% overall.
Reassessment arrangements
Re-examination in September.

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Module title: Ritual, Myth and Magic in Early Modern
Europe, B
Module code: HS3S55
Providing Department: History
Level: H Number of credits: 20
Terms in which taught: Autumn & Spring Module convenor: Dr Helen Parish
Pre-requisites: None Co-requisites: None
Modules excluded: None Current from: 2002-03
Aims:
Specials aim to provide ‗hands-on‘ experience of the historian‘s task through close
examination and evaluation of primary sources and the light they shed on issues and
problems. This particular module focuses on the rituals and beliefs which
characterised the culture of early modern Europe.
Assessable outcomes:
By the end of the module it is expected that the student will be able to:
achieve a detailed command of the themes, events and eras studied
locate and assemble information on the subject by independent research
organise material and articulate arguments effectively in writing
deploy primary materials to shed light on the issues and problems being studied.
Additional outcomes:
This module also aims to encourage the development of oral communication skills
and the student‘s effectiveness in group situations. Students will also develop their IT
skills by use of relevant web resources.
Outline content:
Religious upheaval and political change in the 16 th and 17 th centuries had a dramatic
impact upon European culture, and upon the beliefs and practices of European
populations. This module will examine the place of ritual, myth, and magic in popular
cultures in the early modern period, and analyse the way in which the people of
Europe viewed, and attempted to influence, the world around them. The impact of the
Protestant Reformation and Catholic reform on popular culture will be examined in
depth, alongside a study of the changing nature of the ritual year, the calendar by
which communities measured the passage of time. Consideration will also be given to
beliefs in magic and witchcraft, the persecution of witches in the early modern period,
and the changing patterns of belief.

4
Brief description of teaching and learning methods:
The teaching for this module and for HS3S05 together involves weekly two-hour
discussion seminars. Students will gain ‗hands-on‘ experience of the historian‘s task
through the detailed evaluations of key texts, and the light they shed on the issues and
problems being investigated. Students are expected to carry out self-directed revision
in the Summer term. Staff will be available for consultation as necessary.
Contact hours:
The contact hours for this module are the same as those in HS3S05
Autumn Spring Summer
Lectures none none n/a
Tutorials/seminars 20 20 n/a
Practicals none none n/a
Other contact (eg
Study visits)
none none n/a
Total hours 20 20 n/a
Number of essays
Or assignments
Other (eg major
Seminar paper)
1 1 n/a
1 1 n/a
Assessment:
Coursework
Students will be required to prepare for seminars through reading from both the
primary sources and the secondary literature. Four pieces of formative written work,
for instance essays, seminar presentations, book reviews, posters, will normally be
required over the two terms.
Relative percentage of coursework
None
Examinations
A three-question essay paper to be answered in three hours.
Requirements for a pass
A mark of 40% overall.
Reassessment arrangements
Re-examination in September.

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Ritual, Myth and Magic in Early Modern Europe
Autumn & Spring Terms 2009-10
A special subject involves the detailed study of a particular period or series of events
through a close examination of the evidence left by contemporaries. Teaching is for
two hours per week over the Autumn and Spring terms, in seminar groups of about 10
students, and group discussion plays a central part. The module provides students with
`hands-on' experience of the historian's task, through the close examination and
evaluation of primary sources, and the light they shed on the issues and problems
being investigated.
Work requirements
Each special subject will represent two modules within the university modular
scheme. Four essays, or the equivalent in other forms of written work, will be
required over the two terms, plus practice in commenting on source extracts (or
`gobbets' as they are often termed). Detailed reading and study of the sources is an
essential part of the preparation for class discussion.
Assessment
The assessment of each special subject is normally by means of two three-hour
examination papers at Finals. The first paper (A) will involve comment on extracts
from the sources studied during the special subject. This will examine skills
developed during the special subject, including the ability to write concisely and to
have a detailed command of the subject, and where appropriate of its technical
language. The second paper (B) requires three essay questions to be answered in three
hours: these should also draw on and refer to the source material studied.
Description
This special subject explores the rituals and beliefs which characterised the culture of
Early Modern Europe. It will involve close evaluation and examination of appropriate
primary sources in a number of formats, introducing students to the tasks of the
historian and to the variety of approaches to the subject in recent work. Students will
be expected to familiarise themselves with the material and undertake detailed textual
analysis, and comment on the texts in class.
Religious upheaval and political changes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
had a dramatic impact upon European culture, and upon the beliefs and practices of
the populations. This special subject will examine the place of ritual myth and magic
in popular culture in the early modern period, and analyse the way in which the
people of Europe viewed and attempted to influence the world around them. The
impact of the Reformation and Catholic reform on popular culture will be examined
in depth, alongside a study of the changing nature of the ritual year, the calendar by
which communities measured the passage of time. Consideration will also be given to
beliefs in magic and witchcraft, the persecution of witches in the early modern period,
and changing patterns of belief.

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Further information
Students will be required to complete three pieces of written work (or equivalent)
over the two terms of the course, but will also be expected to prepare informal
contributions to class discussion.
The workload for the course is as follows:
Two essays from the list of titles below. The first essay must be submitted
by the end of 9 th week in the Autumn Term, and the second essay must
be submitted by the end of 9 th week in the Spring Term. Students should
choose one essay topic from titles listed under ‗Autumn term‘, and one from
titles listed under ‗Spring Term‘.
Gobbet test. This will take place during the class hours in 7 th week of the
Spring Term. Students will be expected to comment on unseen text
extracts as if under examination conditions.
In addition, students may be asked to prepare informal presentations for
seminars, and comment on relevant primary source material.
Contact information
I am usually available to see students without an appointment during my ‗office
hours‘ listed on my door, room 138. Or you can arrange a meeting via email
(h.l.parish@rdg.ac.uk).

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Course Outline
Autumn Term
Week One: History and Hagiography: The Lives and Cults of the Saints
Week Two: Popular Culture: The People of Europe and the Ritual Year
Week Three: Popular Religion: Critics and Reformers
Week Four: Popular Culture – Order and Disorder
Week Five: Times, Omens, Prophecies and Prophets
Week Six: Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory
Week Seven: Death, dying, and the place of the dead
Week Eight: Ghosts and Apparitions
Week Nine: The Cheese and the Worms
Week Ten: Superstition
Spring Term
Week One: Witchcraft : The Malleus Maleficarum
Week Two: Witchcraft : the dimensions and dynamics of the witch-hunt
Week Three: Witchcraft : trials and victims
Week Four: Magic I : popular beliefs
Week Five: Magic II : the Renaissance magus
Week Six: Text study Wolfgang Behringer Shaman of Obertsdorf
Week Seven: GOBBET TEST
Week Eight: Astrology and the stars
Week Nine: Science and the supernatural : the ‘disenchantment’ of Europe
Week Ten: Revision session

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Essay Titles
Autumn Term
History and Hagiography
How useful are the lives of the saints to the historian of late medieval religion?
Was late medieval Europe a society ‗saturated with saints‘?
The People of Europe and the Ritual Year
Is the history of popular culture in the early modern period possible?
To what extent were rituals responsible for group cohesion and the formation
of community identity in early modern Europe?
What impact did the Reformation have upon the rituals of the population?
Popular Religion
―Christendom in 1500 was a coherent cultural unit‖. (Monter) Is this an
accurate assessment of Catholic church on the eve of the Reformation?
How successful were Catholic and Protestant reformers in changing patterns
of popular piety in the sixteenth century?
Order and Disorder
Why did early modern revolts take the form that they did?
Was popular protest in early modern Europe planned or spontaneous?
Times Omens and Portents
Why did the people of early modern Europe see a prophetic significance in
natural irregularities?
Why were prophets so popular and so feared in early modern Europe?
Heaven and Hell
What impact did the reformation have upon attitudes to the afterlife?
Did Heaven or Hell loom larger in the beliefs and practices of the laity in the
early modern period?
‗A fond thing vainly invented‘. Why did Protestants writers attack the Catholic
doctrine of purgatory?
Death and the place of the dead
How far did attitudes to death and dying change in the period 1450-1650?
Account for the hostility of Protestant reformers to Catholic rituals and
practices surrounding death
Ghosts
―The Gospel hath chased away walking spirits.‖ How accurate was
Archbishop Sandys‘ assessment of post-Reformation attitudes to ghosts?
To what extent did belief in ghosts depend upon belief in the existence of
purgatory?

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The Cheese and the Worms
Does the trial of Menocchio suggest the existence of a popular peasant culture
which was distinct from that of the learned?
Superstition
What was regarded as superstition in the early modern period?
How successful were church and state in eradicating ‗superstition‘ from early
modern culture?
Spring Term
Witchcraft
Has the influence of the Malleus Maleficarum in the European witch-hunt
been exaggerated?
‗There were neither witches nor bewitched until they were spoken and written
about‘. Discuss
Popular Magic
How did the people of early modern Europe distinguish between natural magic
and demonic magic?
Is evidence of popular belief in magic indicative of a thriving pagan culture in
Early Modern Europe?
Renaissance Magic
Examine the role played by learned magic in the development of science in the
early modern period.
What impact did the Cabal and the Cabalists have upon the nature of magic in
the Renaissance?
Shaman of Obertsdorf
―The popular dream world…represented a dangerous rival to the joyless
society of Christendom‖. Discuss with reference to the case of Conrad
Stoecklin.
Alchemy and Astrology
What impact did the trial of Galileo have upon popular and learned attitudes to
the heavens?
How can the decline of alchemy and astrology best be explained?
The Disenchantment of the World
To what extent was the Reformation responsible for the ‗disenchantment of
the world‘?
‗Magic was ceasing to be intellectually acceptable‘ in the seventeenth century.
Is Keith Thomas correct?

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Seminar Topics & Bibliographies
Seminar 1 : History and Hagiography: The Lives and Cults of the Saints
Seminar Preparation
This seminar will look at the written lives or Vitae of medieval saints, and consider
what historians of medieval religion and society might be able to learn from such
documents. We will look at the primary source texts listed below together, and
consider their strengths and weaknesses as ‗primary sources‘, the context in which
they were composed, and the purposes of their authors.
Please maker sure that you have read the source texts before the seminar, and refer to
the recommended secondary reading for further guidance. It should be possible to
access some of the secondary texts online, even if you are away from the university
library.
Look at the ‗questions for discussion‘ for further guidance.
Primary Sources for Class Discussion
The Life, Translation, and Miracles of St Sacerdos by Hugh of Fleury, available
online at http://urban.hunter.cuny.edu/~thead/sacerdos.htm
Extracts from Jacobus of Voraigne, The Golden Legend (The 11,000 Virgins, Thomas
Becket, the Translation of Thomas Becket)
The Miracles of St Osmund
The Miracles of Henry VI
Thomas of Celano, Two Lives of St Francis, online extracts at
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/stfran-lives.html
Secondary Sources
P. Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints: An Introduction to Hagiography (tr.V. M.
Crawford). Available online at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/delehayelegends.html
: Chapters 1-3
D.Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 2003 (most recent edition, but there are
others)
B. Abou-El-Haj, The medieval cult of saints : formations and transformations (1993)
P.Brown, The cult of the saints : its rise and function in Latin Christianity (1981)
T.Head, Medieval hagiography : an anthology (2001)

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T.Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and their Biographers in the Middle Ages,
1988
A.Vauchez, Sainthood in the later Middle Ages, 1988
D. Weinstein, Saints and society [electronic resource] : the two worlds of western
Christendom, 1000-1700 (History E-Book Project, accessible via Unicorn)
S.Wilson, Saints and their cults : studies in religious sociology, folklore and history,
1983
Discussion Questions
When was the saint alive, and when was the life written? By whom? (if we know)
What motives might there have been for writing the life of this saint at this specific
time?
What can we learn about the saint from this text? And, conversely, what can‘t we
learn?
Why were the legends of the saints so popular? And what function / purpose did the
texts fulfil?
By what other means might information about the saints have been disseminated?
What is ‗hagiography‘, and how does it differ from other sorts of biography?
Are the lives of the saints a form of historical writing?
How useful is hagiography to the historian? Why have historians been sceptical about
its worth, and are they right to be? Are the lives of the saints anything more than
myths and legends? And does this matter?
Seminar 2: Popular Culture: The People of Europe and the Ritual Year
Summary
‗It is sometimes expedient to allow people to play the fool and make merry‘ (Claude
de Rubys). In this session we will look in more detail at ‗merry-making‘, the idea of
the ‗ritual year‘, and the feasts and festivities that marked out the calendar in Early
Modern Europe. Without being overly prescriptive, we will focus our attention upon
publicly celebrated festivals and customs – not least because these provide the
historian with the best source materials – and the way in which they were changed
and adapted during our period. Some distinction may be made between the festivities
of the populace and those of the ‗elite‘, or between those festivals with a religious

12
focus and those that were primarily a form of secular entertainment, but as you will
see in the course of your reading, these distinctions are not always immediately
visible. We will examine the extent of participation in such activities, their origins,
development and critics, which might help our discussions next week of the impact
that the Reformation had upon popular religion and popular culture.
Seminar Preparation
Our discussion of the ‗ritual year‘ will build upon a more detailed understanding and
knowledge of the key dates and festivals in the calendar. We will spend the first part
of the seminar drawing up our own calendar of the ritual year, and looking at the local
or national festivals that took place. Most of the customs and rituals were celebrated
within a clear time-frame, making it possible to break up the year into more
manageable chunks :
(1) December – February
(2) March – July
(3) August - November
As preparation for the class, identify and describe the major festivals and customs in
the months of the year allotted above.
Some questions to consider :
What went on at these events?
How long did they last?
What was their purpose – and did they have another function besides this?
Were the celebrations primarily sacred or secular in their focus, this worldly or
otherworldly?
Were the celebrations adapted or altered, or condemned outright by church and /
or state? Why?
Discussion Questions
What is a ‗ritual‘? : common problems of definition and application
What function did ritual and communal celebration have for the individual and
community?
How did rituals and attitudes to rituals change in this period?
Was there a ‗reformation of ritual‘, or a ‗reformation of manners‘ in this period?
Were there distinctively Protestant rituals?
What kinds of sources are available to the historian of popular culture and popular
ritual? How valuable are they – is the history of popular culture possible?
How easy is it separate religious rituals from secular ritual and folklore?
Is it possible to distinguish between magic and religion?

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Secondary Reading
Burke, P., Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London, 1978).
Clark, S., ‗French Historians and Early Modern Popular Culture‘, Past and Present
(1983).
Davis, N.Z., Society and Culture in Early Modern France (London, 1975).
Dymond, D., ‗God‘s Disputed Acre‘, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 50 (1999).
Hutton, R., The Rise and Fall of Merry England (Oxford, 1996).
Stations of the Sun (Oxford, 1996).
The English Reformation and the evidence of folklore‘, P+P 148 (1995).
Ingram, M., ‗Ridings, rough music and the ‗reform of popular culture‘ in early
modern England‘, P+P 105 (1984).
Kaplan, S.L., Understanding Popular Culture. Europe from the Middle Ages to the
Nineteenth Century (Berlin, 1984).
Karant-Nunn, S., The Reformation of Ritual. An Interpretation of Early Modern
Germany (London, 1997).
Kinser, S., ‗Carnival at Nuremberg 1450-1550‘, Representations, 13 (1986).
Klaniczay, G., The Uses of Supernatural Power. The Transformation of Popular
Religion in medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1990).
Muir, E., Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1997).
Marshall, P., Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England (2002), pp. 286-308.
Reay, B., Popular Cultures in England 1550-1750 (Harlow, 1998).
Roper, L., ‗Going to Church and Street : Weddings in Reformation Augsburg‘, Past
and Present (1985)
Roud, S., The English Year (London, 2008)
Sabean, D., Power in the Blood. Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early
Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1984).
Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), ch. 20.
Muchembled, R., Culture populaire et culture des elites (Paris, 1978).
Scribner, R., ‗Is the History of Popular Culture Possible?‘, History of European Ideas
(1978).
‗Ritual and Reformation‘, PCPM ch.5
Todd, M., The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (New Haven and
London, 2002), ch. 7.
Walsham, A., ‗Reforming the Waters: Holy Wells and Healing Springs in Protestant
England‘, in D.Wood (ed), Life and Thought in the Northern Church,c.1100-1700,
Studies in Church History Subsidia 12, (1999)
Walsham, A., ‗Sacred Spas? Healing Springs and Religion in Post-Reformation
Britain‘, in B. Heal and O.P. Grell (eds.), The Impact of the European Reformation
(Aldershot, 2008)
Wilson, S., The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern
Europe (2000), chs. 1-2

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Seminar 3: Popular Religion: Critics and Reformers
Seminar Preparation
The Protestant divine William Perkins wrote in 1591 ‗surely if a man will but take a
view of all popery, he shall easily see that a great part of it is mere magic‘. Historians
have long sought to define and identify ‗popular religion‘ in the early modern period,
and to assess the impact that the Protestant Reformation had upon the beliefs and
attitudes of the masses. But the Reformation was not just a reformation of popular
belief : the evangelicals also took issue was some of the key elements in ‗official‘
Catholic practice on the basis that they were ‗magical‘, ‗superstitious‘, or ‗idolatrous‘.
In this seminar we will look at some of the criticisms of popular religious practice in
the 16 th century, and at some of the ‗flash-points‘ of the Reformation. In preparation
for this seminar, you should read the documents indicated below, and consider the
aspects of popular piety to which they refer. On what grounds were key aspects of
popular religion criticised, and what kind of problems faced those who sought to
change them? Can we draw any conclusions from this about the impact that the
Reformation had upon popular religion?
Primary Sources for Class Discussion
Desiderius Erasmus: A Pilgrimage for Religion’s Sake, 1536
The Drummer of Niklashausen 1476
The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards and the examination of Lollards in England
(the full text can be viewed online at:
http://www.medievalsources.co.uk/finish%20pdfs/catholic_full.pdf#page=271)
Complaint and Opposition: Lollard Confessions
Ostendorfer: Pilgrimage to the Beautiful Virgin
Flotner: Procession of the Clergy
Discussion Questions
What were the main targets of the reformers?
On what basis did they criticise the faith and practice of the church?
What is the significance of the things that were targeted?
What does this tell us about the nature of popular piety before and after the
Reformation?
What conclusions can we draw about popular levels of understanding of the debates?
What can we learn about the relationship between official and popular religion?
What kind of problems did the reformers have to confront?
How effective were the critics and reformers of popular religion in getting the
message across?

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Secondary Sources
Aston, M., England’s Iconoclasts. Laws Against Images (1988)
Aston, M., Lollards and Reformers. Images and Literacy in Late Medieval Religion
(1984)
Blickle, P., ‗The Popular Reformation‘, in Handbook of European History, 1400-
1600: late Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation, ed. Thomas A. Brady, Jr.,
Heiko A. Oberman, James D. Tracy (Leiden, 1994)
------- ‗Communal Reformation and Peasant Piety‘, Central European History
20 (1987).
Bossy, J., ‗The Social History of Confession in the Age of the Reformation‘,
TRHS 5 th ser. 25 (1974).
Christianity in the West 1400-1700 (Oxford, 1985).
Cameron, E., The European Reformation (Oxford, 1991).
Duffy, E., The Stripping of the Altars. Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580
(New Haven and London, 1992).
Gurevich, A., Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception (1988)
Hillerbrand, H., The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Reformation (Oxford, 1996).
Hutton, R., The Rise and Fall of Merry England (Oxford, 1996).
‗The English Reformation and the evidence of folklore‘, P+P 148 (1995).
Kamen, H., ‗Regulating the people. The Catholic Reformation in Seventeenth Century
Spain‘, JEH 51 (2000) (review)
Karant-Nunn, S., The Reformation of Ritual. An Interpretation of Early Modern
Germany (London, 1997).
Klaniczay, G., The Uses of Supernatural Power. The Transformation of Popular
Religion in medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1990).
Lindberg, C., The European Reformations (Oxford 1996).
Martin, J., ‗Popular Culture and the Shaping of Popular Heresy in Renaissance
Venice‘, in Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe, ed S. Haliczer
(London, 1987).
Moeller, B., ‗Piety in Germany around 1500‘, in The Reformation in Medieval
Perspective ed S. Ozment (Chicago, 1971).
Monter, E.W., Ritual, Myth and Magic in Early Modern Europe (Brighton, 1983).
Nalle, S., ‗Popular Religion in Cuenca on the Eve of the Catholic Reformation‘, in
Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe, ed S. Haliczer (London, 1987).
Parker, G., ‗Success and Failure During the First Century of the Reformation‘,P+P,
136 (1992).
Pettegree. A., The Early Reformation in Europe (Cambridge 1992).
Rubin, M., Corpus Christi. The eucharist in late medieval culture (Cambridge, 1991).
Rublack, H-C., ‗New patterns of Christian Life‘, in Handbook of European history,
1400-1600 : late Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation, ed. Thomas A. Brady,
Jr., Heiko A. Oberman, James D. Tracy (Leiden, 1994).
Scribner, R.W., The German Reformation (Basingstoke, 1986).
For the Sake of Simple Folk. Popular Propaganda for the German
Reformation (Oxford, 1994).
‗Ritual and popular Belief in Catholic Germany at the time of the
Reformation‘, PCPM ch.2 or JEH, 35 (1984).
‗Ritual and Reformation‘, PCPM ch.5
The Reformation in National Context, ed., Scribner, R.Porter, M.Teich
(Cambridge 1994).
Strauss, G., ‗Success and Failure in the German Reformation‘, P+P 67 (1975)

16
Swanson, R.N., Religion and devotion in Europe, c. 1215- c. 1515 (Cambridge,
1995).
Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic, London, 1991).
Tracey, J., Erasmus of the Low Countries (1996) online at
http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft5q2nb3vp/
Trexler, R.,‗Florentine Religious Experience : The sacred image‘, Studies in the
Renaissance, XIX (1972).
Wunderli, R., Peasant Fires. The Drummer of Niklashausen (Bloomington, 1992).
Wilson, S., The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern
Europe (2000), introduction and ch. 17
Seminar 4 : Popular Culture – Order and Disorder
Summary
In this session we will examine the way in which order was challenged, reinforced, or
maintained in early modern Europe. There are plenty of studies of individual revolts
and rebellions across the continent, which also outline some of the common causes of
local and regional unrest in this period. However historians in recent years have also
attempted to chart the relationship between ritual and violence, between festivities and
unrest, and their work raises a number of important questions about the nature of
violence, protest, and popular culture in early modern Europe. We shall explore some
of these themes in this session, with particular emphasis upon carnival, popular
justice, and rites of violence.
Seminar Preparation
(1) Carnival
The carnival was an important feature of popular culture, and especially urban
culture. Its festivities could take many forms, and the records available for the
historian include descriptions of processions, dances, fancy dress and drama.
However on occasion early modern carnival spilled over into violence, and the
images of the world turned upside down, disorder and inversion portrayed
became all too real – as at Romans in 1580. So what function did carnival
have in early modern Europe – did it bring the community together, reinforce
stereotypes of order and hierarchy, and allow the populace to let off steam. Or
did is encourage a seditious attitude, breed disorder and spread contempt for
authority?
(2) Popular Justice
Although historians often benefit from substantial quantities of evidence about
the enforcement of law and order on a national scale, it is clear that for many
in early modern Europe, popular local justice was still an important fact of
life. On the continent, we have accounts of community action known as
‗charivari‘, in England descriptions of similar events, ‗skimmingtons‘. What
was the function of popular and community justice? Did such activities

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reinforce the social and legal order, or undermine the structures of power by
subverting ‗official‘ justice? Why did people take part – who were the victims
and who the aggressors
(3) Violence, Upheaval and Ritual
Both at a local level, and on a national level (most famously in the French Wars of
Religion) is can be hard to separate violence against the individual from other
rituals and ritualised actions. Similarly, some writers, including Scribner (and to
some extent Muir) have identified in the Reformation a process and actions which
might be termed ‗rituals‘, or a revolution in the understanding of ritual. Looking at
the materials and topics for discussion both this week and last week, are such
judgements and conclusions accurate? Were the actions of the people of Early
Modern Europe highly ‗ritualised‘? To what extent were debates, events, and
activities governed by a sense of prescribed actions or rituals, and the need to
conform to them?
Primary Sources for Class Discussion
Images of the World Turned Upside Down
The Descent of the Pope into Hell: Hans Sebald Beham
The Spicers Play
The Nose Dance
The Grand Inquisitor in the Soup
Discussion Questions
To what extent did the maintenance of order depend upon the elaborate rituals
associated with monarchy and rulers?
Did community rituals create disorder or reinforce order? Did community festival act
as a safety valve, allowing people to let off steam without provoking general unrest?
Was popular protest in early modern Europe planned or spontaneous?
What impact might the exercise of popular local justice have had upon power of the
state or monarch?
The world turned upside down‘ : what is the appeal of the idea – and to whom?
Secondary Reading
For some basic background information about revolts and rebellions in early modern
Europe, try the following :
R.Bonney, European Dynastic States, 1993
Y-M Berce, Revolt and Revolution in Early Modern Europe, 1987
A History of Peasant Revolts, 1990

18
T. Scott, ‗Peasant Revolts in Early Modern Germany‘, HJ, 1985
J.Davies, ‗Popular Revolts in Normandy‘, History Today, 1981
Burke, P., Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London, 1978).
Cashmere, J., ‗The Social Uses of Violence in Ritual‘, European History Quarterly,
21 (1991).
Clark, S., ‗French Historians and Early Modern Popular Culture‘, Past and Present
(1983).
Davis, N.Z., Society and Culture in Early Modern France (London, 1975).
‗The Reasons of Misrule. Youth Groups and Charivari in Sixteenth Century
France‘, Past and Present (1971).
Estebe, J., ‗Debate, The rites of Violence : Religious Riot in 16 th Century France‘,
P+P 67 (1975).
Ingram, M., ‗Ridings, rough music and the ‗reform of popular culture‘ in early
modern England‘, P+P 105 (1984).
Kaplan, S.L., Understanding Popular Culture. Europe from the Middle Ages to the
Nineteenth Century (Berlin, 1984).
Kinser, S., ‗Carnival at Nuremberg 1450-1550‘, Representations, 13 (1986).
Klaniczay, G., The Uses of Supernatural Power. The Transformation of Popular
Religion in medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1990).
Ladurie, E. Le Roy., Carnival : a People’s Uprising at Romans (Harmondsworth,
1980).
Reay, B., Popular Cultures in England 1550-1750 (Harlow, 1998).
Rollinson, D., ‗Property, Ideology and Popular Culture in a Gloucestershire Village‘,
P+P 93 91981).
Scribner, R., ‗Reformation, Carnival, and the World Turned Upside Down‘, in
Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987).
Popular religion in Germany and Central Europe, 1400-1800 (New York, 1996).
For the sake of simple folk : Popular Propaganda for the German
Reformation (Oxford, 1994).
Underdown, D., Revel Riot and Rebellion. Popular Politics and Culture in
England 1603-1660 (Oxford, 1985).
Seminar 5: Times, Omens, Prophecies and Prophets
Summary
Over the last few weeks we have discussed the way in which the inhabitants of early
modern Europe sought to influence the world around them through rites and rituals,
and looked at some of the communal festivities and activities in which they
participated. We have considered the extent to which religion and magic acted as a
means of making contact with the world of the supernatural, and thought about the
way in which participation in certain rites and rituals helped to create a daily order, a
community order, and perhaps even a cosmic order. It is clear that control over the
supernatural, or at least access to it, was a vital concern for many of the population.
But what about the occasions on which the supernatural appeared to enter the
materials world uninvited? How were these manifestations of the sacred in time and
space understood and interpreted, and why were certain meanings attributed to these
events? The early modern world, writes Peter Maxwell Stuart, was one of ‗signs and
portents, sent by God….or by the devil….. some natural, some portentous, some

19
miraculous, and other prodigious….‘. It is these events and incidents, and their
interpretation in early modern Europe, that we will discuss in this session.
Seminar Preparation
(1) Portents and Signs in Nature
The earth and the skies presented a vast resource of information and occurrences that
required interpretation and understanding. Comets, lights in the sky, storms, unusual
animals and animal behaviour – all could be warnings of divine anger, messages from
the angels, or lures and tricks of the devil. But how was nature to be interpreted?
What was a natural event, and what had a preternatural significance? What kind of
events and incidents caused alarm and generated fear? Was there a difference between
such a portent and a miracle? What was it about the early modern period that meant
that these events acquired a great significance? How were true signs and portents
separated from superstition or impious interpretation and divination?
(2) Signs in the Body : Monstrous Births and Physiognomy
It was not only the natural world which provided signs and portents : the human body
could also be a mirror for supernatural revelation. We witness a number of reports in
this period of ‗monstrous births‘ – births of animals to humans, malformed
individuals and twins, and even monsters. What kind of interpretations are advanced
of these events? Are they to be feared or welcomed? What role does the monster –
either real or imaginary – play in popular beliefs? Is it possible to ascertain the
character of something – even and individual – from its physical form? For example
what meaning is attached to certain facial or bodily characteristics – and is there a line
between science and superstition in such interpretations?
(3) Dreams
Although it was widely believed among Protestants that the age of miracles had
passed, there was still some debate over dreams – were they purely the result of
physical causes, or did they have a supernatural significance for example. So how
were dreams to be understood and interpreted? Were dreams divinely inspired? Was
it thought to be particularly good to dream of certain things and not of others? How
much attention were dreams given as a means of prediction or divination?
(4) Popular and Unpopular Prophets
The most famous prophet of the early modern period – or at least the one whose
prophecies have been most clearly transmitted to the present day was Nostradamus.
His predictions are not the simplest to grapple with – but alongside his prophecies lie
those of numerous other ‗popular prophets‘, some of whom attracted a widespread
following. Such individuals and their revelations were not uncommon before the
reformation – indeed late medieval mysticism did much to encourage the growth of
the genre – but it is also possible to chart individual prophets during and after the

20
Reformation. What role did they play in society? What kind of reaction did they get
from church and state, or from the people? Why were they popular – but why might
they also have been feared?
Questions for Discussion
Why did the people of Europe see a great significance in events that to us appear
‗natural‘?
How were signs and portents categorised and interpreted?
What kinds of signs and portents were most common?
How did early modern commentators separate the true ‗sign‘ from the false?
Was there a difference between a miracle and a portent?
How were dreams understood and interpreted?
Why were prophets and prophecy so popular –or so feared?
Primary Sources for Class Discussion
A True Report of Certaine Wonderfull Overflowings of Waters
Strange News out of Kent (1609)
Strange News from Mile-End (1684)
Philip Melanchthon, Initia Doctrinae Physicae
Martin Luther, In Primum Librum Mose Enarrationes
Thomas Campanella, Astrologicorum book 7
Tycho Brahe, De Cometa Anni
Pierre Bayle, Pnsees Diverses sur la comete
Bierre Boaistuau, Histoires Prodigieuses
Paracelsus, De Natura Rerum
Martin del Rio, Disquisitiones Magicae book 9
Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia
Martin del Rio, Disquisitiones Magicae book 4
Paracelsus, De Natura Rerum book 9 (extract 2)
Giovanni Indagine, Chiromantia
Girolamo Cardano, Metoposcopia
Four images of monsters
A Most Strange and Wonderful Accident (1600)
Secondary Reading
Bauckham, R., Tudor Apocalypse (Sutton Courtenay, 1978).
Brammall, K., ‗Monstrous Metamorphosis: Nature, Morality and the Rhetoric of
Monstrosity in Tudor England‘, Sixteenth Century Journal (1996)
Clark, S., Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe
(1997), part II, chs. 10, 11, 16, 17
Cressy, D., Travesties and Transgressions (Oxford, 1999). (esp. chapters 1,2,11)

21
Curry, P., Prophecy and power : astrology in early modern England (Cambridge,
1989).
Daston, L., ‗Marvellous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern Europe‘,
Critical Inquiry 18 (1991).
Daston, L., and K. Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature (1998)
Deconinck-Brossard, F., ‗Acts of God, Acts of Men: Providence in Seventeenth- and
Eighteenth-Century England and France‘, in J. Gregory and K. Cooper (eds), Signs,
Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church,
Studies in Church History 41 (2005)
Durston, C., ‗Signs and Wonders and the English Civil War‘, History Today (October,
1987)
Friedman, J., ‗The Battle of Frogs and Fairford‘s Flies: Miracles and Popular
Journalism during the English Revolution‘, Sixteenth Century Journal (1992)
Hill, C., ‗The Many Headed Monster in Late Tudor and Early Stuart
Political Thinking‘, in From the Renaissance to the Reformation ed.
C.H.Carter (London, 1966).
Hole, R., ‗Incest, Consanguinity and a Monstrous Birth in Rural England‘, Social
History (2000)
Holmes, C., ‗Women : Witnesses and Witches‘, P+P 140 (1993).
Hsia, R.P-C., The World of Catholic Renewal 1540-1770 (Cambridge, 1998).
Jansen, S.L.,Political Protest and Prophecy under Henry VIII (Woodbridge, 1991).
Kagan, R.L., Lucrecia’s Dreams. Politics and Prophecy in 16 th century Spain
(London, 1995).
Kaplan, S., Understanding popular culture : Europe from the Middle Ages to the
nineteenth century (Berlin, New York, 1984).
Kocher, P.H., Science and religion in Elizabethan England (1953).
Moore, S.H., ‗‖Such perfecting of praise out of the mouth of a babe‖ : Sarah Wright
as child prophet‘, Studies in Church History 31 (1994).
Niccoli, O., Prophecy and people in Renaissance Italy (Princeton, 1990).
Niccoli, O., ‗Menstruum Quasi Monstruum: Monstrous Births and Menstrual Taboo
in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England‘, in E. Muir and G. Ruggiero (eds),
Sex and Gender in Historical Perspective (1990)
Park, K & Daston, L., ‗Unnatural Conceptions. The Study of Monsters in France and
England‘, P+P 92 (1981).
Sabean, D.,Power in the Blood. Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early
Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1994). Ch.3
Scribner, R.W., Johnson, T., Popular Religion in Germany and Central Europe (New
York, 1996) ch.8.
Soergel, P., ‗The Afterlives of Monstrous Infants in Reformation Germany‘, in Bruce
Gordon and Peter Marshall (eds), The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in
Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2000)
Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic, (London, 1991).
Todd, M., ‗Providence, Chance and the New Science in Early Stuart Cambridge‘,
Historical Journal, 29 (1986)
Vickers, B., Occult and scientific mentalities in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1984).
Walker, D.P., Unclean Spirits (London, 1981).
Walker, D.P., ‗The Cessation of Miracles‘, in I. Merkel and A. Debus (eds),
Hermeticism and the Renaissance (1988) [available from HLP]
Walsham, A., 'Vox Piscis, or the Book-Fish': Providence and the uses of the
Reformation past in Caroline Cambridge‘, EHR 114 (1999).

22
‗‖Frantic Hackett‖: prophecy, sorcery, insanity, and thhe Elizabethan puritan
movement‘, HJ 41 (1998).
‗‖Out of the Mouths of babes and sucklings‖ : Prophecy, Puritanism and
Childhood in Elizabethan Suffolk‘, Studies in Church History 31 (1994).
‗The Fatall Vesper: Providentialism and Anti-Popery in Late Jacobean
London‘, Past and Present (1994)
‗Miracles and the Counter Reformation Mission to England‘, Historical
Journal, 46, no. 4 (2003)
Sermons in the Sky: Apparitions in Early Modern Europe‘, History Today
(April 2001)
Providence in early Modern England (Oxford, 1999).
Westfall, R.S., Science and religion in 17th Century England (1958).
Warmington, A., ‗Frogs, Toads and the Restoration in a Gloucestershire Village‘,
Midland History (1989)
Wilks, M.Prophecy and Eschatology (Oxford, 1994. Studies in Church History).
Wilson, D., Signs and portents. Monstrous Births from the Middle Ages to the
Enlightenment (London, 1993).
Wittkower, R., ‗Marvels of the East: the Study of Monsters in Early Modern Europe‘,
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 5 (1942), 159-97
Worden, B., ‗Providence and Politics in Cromwellian England‘, Past and Present
(1985)
Yolton, J.W., Philosophy, religion and science in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries (Rochester, N.Y., 1990.
More Specifically on Prophecy:
Prophecy and the end of the world
K.Firth, The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain 1530-1645 (1979)
C. A. Patrides and J. Wittreich (eds), The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought
and Literature (1984), esp. Bernard Capp‘s essay on the political nature of
apocalypticism
R., Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse (1978)
P. Christianson, Reformers and Babylon: English Apocalyptic Visions from the
Reformation to the Eve of the Civil War (1977)
P.Lake, The Significance of the Elizabethan Identification of the Pope as Antichrist,
Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 31 (1980)
S.Clark, Thinking with Demons (1997), part III, esp. chs 20, 22, 23, 24
R. K. Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle Ages (1981)
S. Thrupp, Millennial Dreams in Action: Studies in Revolutionary Religious
Movements (1962)
A. Williams (ed.), Prophecy and Millenarianism: Essays in Honour of Marjorie
Reeves (1980)
U. Lotz-Heumann, ‗The Spirit of Prophecy has not yet Left the World: The
Stylisation of Archbishop James Usher as a Prophet‘, in H. Parish and W.G.Naphy
(eds.), Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe (2002)
P. Mack, ‗Women as Prophets during the English Civil War‘, Feminist Studies (1982)
A.Walsham, ‗‖Frantick Hacket‖: Prophecy, Sorcery, Insanity and the Elizabethan
Puritan Movement‘, Historical Journal (1998)

23
D.Watt, Secretaries of God: Women Prophets in Late Medieval and Early Modern
England (1997)
H.Dobin, Merlin’s Disciples: Prophecy, Poetry and Power in Renaissance England (1990)
R.Popkin, ‗Predicting, prophecying, divining and foretelling from Nostradamus to
Hume‘, History of European Ideas, 5 (1984),117-135.
Seminar 6 : Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory
Summary
Over the last few weeks we have looked in detail at the rituals and beliefs of the living
– attitudes to the supernatural, popular religion, the liturgical year, and communal
festivities. Over the next few weeks we will consider the place and the role of the
dead in the culture of early modern Europe. Popular and learned views on death, the
afterlife, and ghosts were an important part of religious culture, and like most aspects
of religion in this period, were redefined or remodelled as a consequence of religious
change. Late medieval sermon literature, both orthodox and heterodox, pulled no
punches in its representations of the afterlife, and particularly the pains that would be
suffered by the souls condemned to Hell, or making their passage through Purgatory.
Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory loomed large in the popular consciousness – as we can
see from the popularity of literary works such as Dante‘s Divine Comedy. The
geography of the afterlife was mapped out in detail, helped not just by literary
creativity but also by accounts of visions, warnings from the dead, and the theology
propounded by the church. This model, and the theology that underpinned it, came
under attack during the Reformation, and it was traditional teaching on Purgatory that
took the brunt of the assault. Alongside our study of traditional beliefs, we will
consider the impact that the Reformation had upon attitudes to the afterlife, and the
nature of the attack on traditional modes of thought.
Seminar Preparation
What picture did the people of early modern Europe have of the afterlife?
How did the geography of the afterlife change in this period?
Did general attitudes to the afterlife change in this period?
Which had the greater impact upon popular beliefs and actions – heaven hell, or purgatory?
Were attitudes to the afterlife more influenced by fear or by hope?
Are popular and elite views of the afterlife different?
Was there any difference between medieval views of heaven and those of the early
modern period?
How strong was the fear of Hell?
Why did purgatory loom so large in the popular imagination?
Why did the doctrine of purgatory become so controversial in this period?
Source texts for discussion

24
Erasmus, The Apotheosis of Reuchlin
Lollard Sermon Of Dead Men: Hell
Tarleton, Newes out of Purgatory
Thomas More, Supplication of Souls
The Map of Hell from Dante; the Island of Purgatory; the Structure of Paradise
Scala Coeli: The Way of Perfection
Secondary Sources
Allmond, P.C., Heaven and Hell in Enlightenment England (Cambridge,1994).
Bernstein, A.E., The Formation of Hell : Death and resurrection in the Ancient and
Early Christian Worlds (Ithaca & London, 1993).
Burgess, C., ‘”A Fond Thing Vainly Invented” : An essay on Purgatory and
Pious Motive‘, in Parish, Church and People, ed., S.J.Wright (London, 1988).
Burns, N.T., Christian Mortalism from Tyndale to Milton (Cambridge Mass. 1972).
Clark, P. and Claydon, T., The Church, the Afterlife and the fate of the soul
(Woodbridge, 2009)
Delumeau, J., Sin and fear : the emergence of a Western guilt culture, 13th-18th
centuries (New York, 1990).
Daniell, C., Death and Burial in Medieval England 1066-1550 (London, 1997).
Disley, E., ‗Degrees of Glory. Protestant Doctrine and the Concept of Rewards
Hereafter‘, Journal of Theological Studies 42 (1991).
Duffy, E., The Stripping of the Altars (New Haven, 1993).
Houlbrooke, R.A., Death, Religion and the Family in England 1480-1750 (Oxford,
1998). (esp. ch2)
Death, Ritual and Bereavement (London, 1989).
Hughes, R., Heaven and Hell in Western Art (London, 1968).
Ingebretsen, E., Maps of heaven, maps of hell : religious terror as memory from the
Puritans to Stephen King (Armonk, 1996).
Koslofsky, C., The Reformation of the Dead (Basingstoke, 2000).
Le Goff, J., The Birth of Purgatory (London, 1984).
Marshall, P., Gordon, B., The Place of the dead : death and remembrance in late
medieval and early modern Europe (Cambridge, 2000).
Marshall, P., ‗Fear, Purgatory and polemic in Reformation England‘, in Fear in Early
Modern Society eds., W.Naphy, P.Roberts (Manchester 1997).
McDannell, C., Heaven. A History (New York, 1990).
Nalle, S., God in La Mancha. Religious Reform and the People of Cuenca 1500-1650
(Baltimore & London 1992) ch.6
Naphy, W.G., Roberts, P., Fear in Early Modern Society (Manchester, 1997).
Walker, D.P., The Decline of Hell (London, 1964)
Seminar 7 : Death, dying, and the place of the dead
Summary
The French historian, Philip Aries, spent the best part of two decades examining the
changing attitudes to death in western culture, and seeking to explain how and why
attitudes changed. In particular, he focused upon the way in which individuals
approached death, or responded to death within their society. We know that
conditions in the medieval and early modern period meant that life expectancy was
short by modern standards, especially in times of hardship and disease. Therefore

25
people were familiar with death – as Huizinga remarked, the culture of the late middle
ages seemed obsessed with death and dying. Aries identified an important trend in the
period after 1100, when Christian cultures tended to focus upon the clash between
good and evil and the battle for the soul of the individual – hence the kind of graphic
representations of death in churches and in art, and the development of literature on
the art of dying well, the Ars Moriendi. The scope of Aries‘ research extends into the
twentieth century, but it is attitudes to death in the early modern period that we shall
focus on in this session, taking some of the ideas expressed by Aries as our starting
point.
Seminar Preparation
Using the source materials and literature on the topic, we shall base our discussion
around three main themes. As part of the preparation for this seminar, please identify
a few lines of one of the sources for the class to comment on as gobbet practice.
(1) the ars moriendi : the art of dying well
The final moments of life were considered to be vital in determining the fate
of the soul after death – indeed it was often thought that the manner in which
an individual died betrayed the final destination of their soul. The church had
much advice for this time – not least in terms of the value of deathbed
confession and repentance – but there was also a vast volume of literature on
the art of dying well, or making a good death. While the notion of the ‗good
death‘ had its origins in the middle ages, the ideal of the good death persisted
through the early modern period, adapted rather than rejected by the
Reformation. But what was a ‗good death‘? How might the individual best
prepare for death? Who else might be involved
(2) death in early modern culture
If we believe John Huizinga, the inhabitants of the later middle ages were
more obsessed with death than at any time since. So what role did death play
in the culture of early modern Europe? How was death represented and
portrayed? Was it to be welcomed or feared? How did death fit in with many
of the other customs and rituals of the times that we have spent time looking at
over the last few weeks. Did death and the dead have a distinctive place in
early modern society?
(3) the Reformation of death
From our study so far of the impact that the reformation had upon popular
culture, and particularly the impact of Protestant reform upon the theology of
the afterlife, it might be thought that the Reformation did much to alter the
theology of death, and attitudes to death in the early modern period. But
should we be more struck by continuities than discontinuities: how much is
really changed by the Reformation? On what grounds did Protestants attack
traditional belief and practice, and with what effect? Aries suggested that the
18 th century marked the greatest change in attitudes after 1100 – but has the
impact of the Reformation been played down?

26
Primary Sources
Thomas a Kempis: Preparation for Death
Image from The Art of Dying Well 1416
Erasmus, Treatise on Preparing for Death
The Book of the Craft of Dying
Thomas Becon, The Solace of the Soul 1549
Dying well: the case of Martin Luther
Selection of Documents: Obits and Anniversaries; Chantries and Almshouses
Wills: The Wills of John Port
Secondary Sources
Aries, P., Western Attitudes Towards Death from the Middle Ages to the Present
(Baltimore, 1974).
The Hour of Our Death (London, 1981).
Aston, M., ‗Death‘, in Fifteenth Century Perceptions, ed R.Horrox (Cambridge, 1994).
Binski, P., Medieval death : ritual and representation (London, 1996).
Clark, P. and Claydon, T., The Church, the Afterlife and the fate of the soul
(Woodbridge, 2009)
Daniell, C., Death and Burial in Medieval England 1066-1550 (London, 1997).
Eire, C.M.N., From Madrid to Purgatory : the art and craft of dying in sixteenthcentury
Spain (Cambridge, 1995).
Gittings, C., Death, burial and the individual in early modern England (London,
1984)
Houlbrooke, R.A., Death, Religion and the Family in England 1480-1750 (Oxford,
1998). (esp. ch2)
Death, Ritual and Bereavement (London, 1989).
Huizinga, J., The Waning of the Middle Ages (London, 1955).
Koslofsky, C., The Reformation of the Dead (Basingstoke, 2000).
Le Goff, J., The birth of purgatory (London, 1984).
Marshall, P., Gordon, B., The Place of the dead : death and remembrance in late
medieval and early modern Europe (Cambridge, 2000).
More, T., The Supplication of Souls ed. F. Manley (New Haven, 1990).
Naphy, W.G., Roberts, P., Fear in Early Modern Society (Manchester, 1997).
Seminar 8 : Ghosts and Apparitions
Summary
The map of the afterlife in late medieval Europe left open the possibility that the dead
might revisit the living, and appearances of the restless dead were not uncommon.
Catholic belief allowed for the possibility that the souls in purgatory might be
permitted by God to return to the earth, most often with the mission to warn
individuals to amend their ways. St Augustine had concluded that communication
between the living and the dead was not only a possibility, but in fact a likely
occurrence. Dreams and visions were already a fact of life, but as Finucane suggests,
the doctrine of purgatory ‗provided a greatly expanded stage‘ on which confrontations
between the living and the dead might occur. The appearance of ghosts allowed the
living to learn about the afterlife from those who had gone before them, and it seemed

27
that the dead were only too happy to oblige by appearing before the living. However
as we saw in week 6, the Reformation dismantled the doctrine of purgatory, and sent
the souls of the faithful either to heaven or to hell. Belief in ghostly apparitions was
condemned as superstition, a reflection of ignorance, or the product of an overheated
imagination. Keith Thomas devoted one chapter of Religion and the Decline of Magic
to beliefs in ghosts, and concluded that ghosts ‗presented no problems‘ to Protestant
reformers. Ghosts did not exist, and they did not appear – at least in theory. But there
is evidence that ghosts did continue to appear, even after the repudiation of purgatory,
and explanations needed to be found. The post-Reformation ghost was not just a
resident of the popular imagination – indeed the presence of ghosts in literature and
drama (eg Hamlet) suggests that cultural attitudes to ghosts were formed by the
interaction of elite and popular beliefs, in a world in which the supernatural continued
to operate despite the protests of the Reformation.
Seminar Preparation
Gobbet samples
We will look in detail at some of the source texts for this topic. Please select a text
extract ‗gobbet‘ which we will discuss in the class. You can choose from any of the
texts for this week‘s session, and set a gobbet of any reasonable length.
Discussion questions
What was a ghost? Where did they come from?
How were people expected to deal with ghosts?
What function did ghosts have in early modern Europe?
How did the Reformation deal with the question of ghosts – and how successfully
were beliefs changed?
Who believed in ghosts and why?
What problems might have been caused by the rejection of ghosts?
Are ghosts a feature of the popular imagination or a reflection of the views of the
educated and literate?
Primary Sources
Lewes Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits Walking by Night, 1572 (English edition)
James VI, Daemonologie, 1597
The ghost in William Shakespeare‘s Hamlet
Girolamo Cardano, De Vita Propria Liber, 1575; De Rerum Varietate 1551
Secondary Sources
Bowyer, R.A., ‗The role of the ghost story in medieval Christianity‘, in The Folklore
of ghosts ed. H.Davidson, W.Russell (Woodbridge, 1981).

28
Briggs, K.M., The Anatomy of Puck (London, 1959).
The fairies in tradition and literature (London, 1967).
Caciola, N., ‗Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in Medieval Culture‘, P+P (1996).
‗Spirits Seeking Bodies. Death, possession, and communal memory in
the middle ages‘, in The Place of the Dead ed. P. Marshall, B.Gordon
(Cambridge, 2000).
Davidson, H., Russell, W., The folklore of ghosts (Woodbridge, 1981).
Davis, N.Z., ‗Ghosts, Kin and Progeny. Some Features of Family Life in Early
Modern France‘, Daedalus (1977).
Dover Wilson, J., What Happens in Hamlet (1951), ch. 3
Edwards, K., (ed), Werewolves, witches, and wandering spirits : traditional belief and
folklore in early modern Europe (2002).
Finucane, R., Appearances of the Dead. A Cultural History of Ghosts (London,1982).
Frye, R.M., The Renaissance Hamlet : issues and responses in 1600 (Princeton,
1984).
Gowing, L., ‗The Haunting of Susan Lay: Servants and Mistresses in Seventeenth-
Century England‘, Gender and History, 14 (2002)
Handley, S., ‗Reclaiming Ghosts in 1690s England‘, in J. Gregory and K. Cooper
(eds), Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the
Church, Studies in Church History 41 (2005)
Harrison, G.B., Daemonologie (James I) (London, 1924).
Hutton, R., ‗The English reformation and the evidence of folklore‘, P+P (1995).
Joseph, M., ‗Discerning the Ghost in Hamlet‘, PMLA 76 (1961).
Koslofsky, C., The Reformation of the Dead (Basingstoke, 2000).
Marshall, P., Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England (2002), ch. 6
--------, ‗Deceptive Appearances: Ghosts and Reformers in Elizabethan and Jacobean
England‘, in H. Parish and W.G. Naphy (eds.), Religion and Superstition in
Reformation Europe (2002)
Prosser, E., Hamlet and Revenge (Stanford, 1971).
Russell, M.S., (eds), The Folkore of Ghosts (1981)
Schmidt, J-C., Ghosts in the Middle Ages (1994)
Shakespeare, W., Hamlet (various copies in RUL)
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Nights Dream
Scot, R.,The Discoverie of Witchcraft (link from
www.luminarium.org/renlit/renaissanceinfo.htm)
Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1991).
Wilson, J.D., What happens in Hamlet (Cambridge, 1951).
‗Ghost stories‘, in J. Shinners (ed.), Medieval Popular Religion 1000-1500 (1997)
[primary sources]
Seminar 9 : The Cheese and the Worms
Summary
Although not the only focused local study of popular culture and attitudes to religion
and magic, Carlo Ginzburg‘s study The Cheese and the Worms had been widely
received and commented upon. The book presents what we might refer to as the
‗mental cosmos‘ of the 16 th century miller, Menocchio, who was brought to trial

29
before the Inquisition, and whose testimony gives us an almost unique window into
his world and the world of his community. It may be argued then, that Ginzburg‘s
work presents the historian with an astonishingly useful account of early modern
popular culture, and the interaction between the world of the village miller and that of
the educated and elite, as represented by the Inquisitors. But Ginzburg‘s work raises
as many questions as it answers, and should lead us to think more about the way in
which the history of popular culture and belief is written. Ginzburg invites us to use
the magnifying glass of Menocchio‘s testimony to explore the culture of the people on
a much broader level, and to look at the dissemination of literate ideas into the
popular thought and practice. But how representative is Menocchio – and how much
authority should Ginzburg‘s account be given? Based on our reading of this text, and
the discussions that we have had so far this term on popular culture, rituals, and
attitudes to life and the afterlife, in this session we will draw some of these threads
together in a more general discussion of popular culture and belief, and the role of
myths and rituals in the local mental world.
Seminar Preparation
Obviously The Cheese and the Worms is the most sensible starting point. I have a
photocopy of the La Capra piece which is not available in the library. However you
might find it useful to look forward to the reading for week 10, and back at some of
the literature in earlier sections of the course bibliography dealing with popular
culture – Peter Burke is a good place to start, as is David Gentilcore‘s Bishop and
Witch.
General questions for discussion
The book itself – how to Menocchio view his world, and from what perspective?
How does Menocchio view the church and religion?
Why is the Inquisition so interested in Menocchio and the Friuli?
How useful is Ginzburg‘s approach – how much can we learn from the tale of
Menocchio?
What is ‗popular culture‘ in this period?
What are the main features of popular culture?
What kind of sources are available to the historian of early modern popular culture,
and what advantages / disadvantages do they have?
What is the relationship between popular and elite culture in this period?
What impact – or lack of impact – does the Reformation have on local beliefs?
Secondary Sources
Ginzburg, C., The Cheese and the Worms (London, 1980).
Burke, P., ‗The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a 16 th Century Miller‘,
History Today, 31 (1981) p.50-1
Chiappelli, F. ‗The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a 16 th Century Miller‘,
Renaissance Quarterly, 34 (1981) pp.397-400.
Cohn, S., ‗The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a 16 th Century Miller‘, Journal
of Interdisciplinary History, 12 (1982) pp.523-5.
Hunter, M., ‗The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a 16 th Century Miller‘,
History, 66 (1981) p.296

30
Kelly, W.W., ‗The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a 16 th Century Miller‘,
Journal of Peasant Studies, 11 (1982) pp.119-21
La Capra, D., ‗The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a 20 th Century Historian‘
in History and Criticism ed. La Capra (1985). [available from HLP.]
Midelfort, H., ‗The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a 16 th Century Miller‘,
Catholic Historical Review, 68 (1982) pp.513-4.
Schutte, A.J., ‗The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a 16 th Century Miller‘,
Church History 51 (1982) p.218
Scribner, R.W., ‗Is the history of popular culture possible?‘, History of European
Ideas 10 (1989).
Valeri, V., ‗The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a 16 th Century Miller‘,
Journal of Modern History 54 (1982) pp.139-43
[see also listings for popular culture and popular religion above]
Seminar 10 : Superstition
Summary
In 1586, Pope Sixtus V in the bull Coeli et Terra drew attention to unwelcome
practices within and outside the Church. There are certain men, he complained ‗either
mad or meddlesome or impious and irreligious who take such pains to attain
knowledge of the future and other hidden things that they offend many times against
the law of God‘. So what were these ‗certain men‘ up to? The list provided by Sixtus
seems fairly comprehensive – there were those who were guilty of conjuring, of
necromancy, those who engaged in magic and magical incantations, more still who
made images and spectres miraculously appear by fraudulent means, some – mainly
women he thought – who ‗gave up to superstitious practices‘, and yet more who ‗by
means of incantations and various superstitions‘ attempted to foretell the future.
Sixtus‘ complaint made reference on more than one occasion to the prevalence of
what he deemed to be ‗superstition‘ and ‗superstitious‘ practices, a catch-all term for
unsuitable actions and misplaced trust. In fact, superstition was one of the most used
- and perhaps even overused words in the vocabulary of religious debate – both
Catholic and Protestant. Because of the ease with which accusations of superstition
slipped into the language of Reformation debate, one of the most fought over terms in
the history of early modern popular culture, especially religious culture, is also one of
the most difficult to define. What, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, was
‗superstition‘ – where were you likely to find it, what would you do with it when you
saw it, and how would you know if you were supporting it. Was there even a
comprehensive or watertight contemporary understanding of the meaning of the word
– or was it simply a stock term of abuse, and a term of abuse which has all too often
found its way into the historiography of the period.

31
Seminar Preparation
We will use this session as a chance to revisit some of the themes that we have
considered during the term, including the relationship between religion and magic, the
purpose of rituals and communal festivities, and the nature of popular culture in early
modern Europe.
Primary Sources
The papal bull Sixtus V Coeli et Terra
Carolus de Baucius, Modus Interrogandi Daemonum
Antonio de Guevara, Visitation Reports 1541
Henry VIII: The Second Royal Injunctions
Edward VI: Act for the Dissolution of the Chantries
Elizabeth I: Proclamation and Injunctions
Secondary Sources
In addition to some of the reading in sections above, the following provide useful
introductions and case studies:
Edward Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe (1997), chs. 5-6
Richard van Dülmen, ‗The Reformation and the Modern Age‘, in C. Scott Dixon
(ed.), The German Reformation (1999), pp. 193-219.
Carlos M. Eire, War against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to
Calvin (1986), conclusion
Euan Cameron, ‗For Reasoned Faith or Embattled Creed? Religion and the People in Early
Modern Europe‘, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6 th series, 7 (1998)
Euan Cameron, Enchanted Europe. Superstition, Reason and Religion (Oxford, 2010)
R. Hutton,The Rise and Fall of Merry England (Oxford, 1996).
Stations of the Sun (Oxford, 1996).
The English Reformation & the evidence of folklore‘ P+P 148 (1995).
T.Johnson & R.Scribner eds., Popular religion in Germany and Central Europe,
1400-1800 (New York, 1996).
N. Jones, ‗Defining Superstitions: Treasonous Catholic and the Act Against
Witchcraft of 1563‘ in C.Carlton, R.Woods, M. Roberston and J.Black eds., State,
sovereigns & society in early modern England : essays in honour of A.J. Slavin
(Stroud, 1998)
G. Klaniczay, The uses of supernatural power : the transformation of popular
religion in medieval and early-modern Europe (Polity, 1990)
H. Parish and W. Naphy (eds), Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe
(2002), introduction
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, (1992) ch. 4. [relevant
section also in A reader in the anthropology of religion, ed. Michael Lambek (2002)]
Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c.1400-
c.1580 (1992), part II
Ulinka Rublack, Reformation Europe (2005), ch. 4 and epilogue
Peter Marshall, ‗Forgery and Miracles in the Reign of Henry VIII‘, Past and Present,
no. 178 (2003)

32
Discussion Questions
(1) What was regarded as ‗superstition‘ by the Catholic church and by the Protestant
churches? Are there differences – and what are they?
(2) Did post-reformation culture accommodate what Reformation leaders had themselves
termed as superstition both in thought and in practice? Was any effort made to
attempt to defend or rationalise continued ‗superstitious‘ beliefs and practices? For
example, was any accommodation made with those practices that were termed as
‗superstitious‘ in order to blunt or soften the impact of religious change?
(3) Were these developments more than just the survival of traditional ideas – were these
practices actively promoted as part of a new religious culture?
(4) The ever present spectre of the debate over what we mean when we talk about
‗popular‘ religion in the era of the Reformation. Whose religion are we referring to,
and what makes it ‗popular‘? Is the religion and culture of the laity merely passively
accepted, or distorted this to fit their needs, which were often material rather than
spiritual?

33
Seminar One: The Malleus Maleficarum
Spring Term
Summary
We shall be spending the first three sessions this term looking at witchcraft, attitudes
to witchcraft, and the persecution of witches in early modern Europe. In the course of
these three seminars, we will study the writings of the witch-hunters, the records of
trials, and the expansion of belief in witchcraft and the witch-hunt spread across
Europe. The first seminar of the term will be devoted to representations of witchcraft
in the writings of the persecutors, inquisitors, and educated, with a particular focus on
the Malleus Maleficarum or the ‗Hammer of Witches‘, which is perhaps the best
known document of the witch-craze. Some extracts are provided, but you can read
more in the University Library edition of the Malleus. or on the web (follow
references from the course homepage) The book is often referred to in the records of
the witch-trials in Germany, France, Italy, and England, and its influence was
enduring — indeed the introduction to one modern edition states ‗this famous
document should interest the historian, the student of witchcraft and the occult, and
the psychologist who is interested in the medieval mind‘.
Seminar Preparation
Please read the primary source documents before the first class. We will spend some
time looking at these in detail in class. Beforehand, please let me have a gobbet
extract from these passages (choose your own section as a ‗question‘ for the rest of
the class). You might also find it helpful to dip into the relevant section of reading list.
Questions for Discussion
(i) What was ‗witchcraft‘ in the early modern period?
(ii) Why was it so feared — especially by the church?
(iii) How did the learned stereotype of the witch develop?
(iv) How do learned views of the witch compare with popular attitudes?
(v) How far did the Malleus Malficarum shape attitudes to witchcraft?
(vi) Has the influence of the Malleus been overexaggerated?
Primary Sources for Class Discussion
The Malleus Maleficarum (extracts)
Guazzo: Compendium Maleficarum (extracts)
Secondary Reading
Anglo, S., The Damned Art : Essays in the Literature of Witchcraft (London, 1977).
"Evident Authority and Authoritative Evidence: The Malleus Maleficarum." In his
The Damned Art: Essays in the Literature of Witchcraft. (London, 1977).
Baroja, J.C., "Witchcraft and Catholic Theology.", in B. Ankarloo, G. Henningsen, eds. Early
Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries (Oxford, 1989).
Clark, S., Thinking with Demons. The idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe
(Oxford, 1997).

34
‗Inversion, Misrule, and the Meaning of Witchcraft‘, Past and Present 87 (1980)
‗The Gendering of Witchcraft in French Demonology‘, French History (1991)
‗The Scientific Status of Demonology‘, in B.Vickers Occult and
Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1984).
"The Rational Witchfinder: Conscience, Demonological Naturalism, and
Popular Superstitions‖, in S. Pumfrey et al., eds. Science, Culture, and
Popular Belief in Renaissance Europe (Manchester, 1991).
Cohn,N., Europe's Inner Demons (New York, 1993).
Fation, Olivier. "Lambert Daneau, 1530-95‖, in J. Rait, ed. Shapers of Religious
Traditions in Germany, Switzerland, Poland, 1560-1660 (New Haven, 1981).
Kieckhefer, R., Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989).
The European Witch Trials. Their Foundation in Popular and Learned
Culture (Berkeley, 1976).
Kors, A., Witchcraft in Europe 1100-1700. A Documentary History (London, 1973).
Kramer, H., Malleus Maleficarum (London, 1971).
Larner, Christina. "James VI and I and Witchcraft‖, in A.G. R. Smith, ed. The Reign
of James VI and I (London, 1973). Reprinted in Larner, Witchcraft and
Religion: The Politics of Popular Belief ( New York, 1984).
"Two Late Scottish Witchcraft Tracts: Witchcraft Proven and The Trial of
Witchcraft." In S. Anglo, ed. The Damned Art: Essays in the Literature of Witchcraft
(London, 1977).
Lehmann, H., ‘The Persecution of Witches as the Restoration of Order. Germany
1590-1650’, Central European History 21 (1988)
Levack, B., The Witch-hunt in Early Modern Europe (London, 1987).
The Literature of Witchcraft (New York, 1992).
Maxwell Stuart, P., ‗Rational superstition: The Writings of Protestant
Demonologists‘, in H. Parish and W.G.Naphy (eds.), Religion and Superstition in
Reformation Europe (2002)
Midelfort H.C., Witch hunting in South West Germany 1562-1684 (London, 1972).
Monter, E.W, Ritual, Myth and Magic in Early Modern Europe (Brighton, 1983).
European Witchcraft (London, 1969).
Pearl, J., "French Catholic Demonologists and Their Enemies in the Late
Sixteenth and Early Seventeeth Centuries", Church History 52 (1983).
Purkiss, D., The Witch in History. Early Modern and Twentieth Century
Representations (London, 1996).
Roper, L., Oedipus and Devil. Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern
Europe (London, 1984).
Scarre, G, Witchcraft and Magic in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Europe
(London, 1987).
Scribner, R.W., ‗Sorcery, Superstition and Society : the Witch of Urach 1529‘,
PCPM ch.12
Seminar 2 : The Dynamics and Dimensions of the Witch Hunt
Summary
The idea of witchcraft was not invented by the persecutors of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries : as we have seen there were precedents in the distant past, and
in the late medieval witch trials (see Kieckhefer) that helped to shape and inform the
persecutions of the early modern period. But historians are still left with the problem

35
of explaining why it was that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw such violent
and vigorous persecution of witches. Works like the Malleus Maleficarum certainly
did much to raise awareness of witchcraft, and throw the spotlight onto the alleged
pact between the witch and the devil, allowing writers such as Jean Bodin to claim
that witchcraft was a ‗crimen exemptum‘ – a crime so awful that the normal standards
of justice did not apply. But why did the people of early modern Europe fear witches
– or witchcraft – as much, and what were the concerns and motivations of those who
persecuted and prosecuted witches, and those who made accusations against their
neighbours?
Seminar Preparation and Questions for Class Discussion
There are no set documents for this week, but the materials from first session on the
Malleus, and the records of witch trials in the first four pages of the document
handbook may be of interest. We shall spend this session looking in general terms at
the persecution of witchcraft in the early modern period, and at the historiography of
the European witchcraze. There are a number of themes to consider :
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
the persecution of witches as a reaction to disaster, hardship.
the ‗acculturation‘ explanation – persecution by church and state as a means of
imposing a Christian culture on the populace
the ‗anthropological‘ explanation – persecution / accusation as a result of
local divisions, hostility to outcasts and those on the margins
the impact of the printed word in shaping ideas, and the selffulfilling
prophecy. (―There were neither witches nor bewitched until they were spoken
and written about‖).
Secondary Reading
Ankarloo, B., Henningsen, G., Early Modern Witchcraft, Centres and Peripheries
(Oxford, 1989).
Apps, L. and Gow, A., Male Witches in Early Modern Europe (Manchester, 2003).
Barry, J., Hester, M., Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Studies in Culture and
Belief (Cambridge, 1998).
Behringer, W., "Weather, Hunger, and Fear: The Origins of the European Witch
Persecutions in Climate, Society, and Mentality" German History 13 (1995).
[available from HLP]
Bennett, G. , "Ghost and Witch in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries", Folklore
96 (1986)
Briggs, R., Witches and Neighbours. The social and Cultural Context of European
Witchcraft (London, 1996).
"Witchcraft and Popular Mentality in Lorraine, 1580-1630", in B.Vickers, ed.
Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1984).
Clark, S., Languages of Witchcraft (Basingstoke, 2001)
Dewindt, A., ‗Witchcraft and Conflicting Visions of the Ideal Village Community‘,
Journal of British Studies, 34 (1995)
Estes, Leland. "Reginald Scot and His Discoverie of Witchcraft : Religion and
Science in the Opposition to the European Craze." Church History 52 (1983).
Gaskill, M., ‗The Devil in the Shape of a Man: Witchcraft, Conflict and Belief in
Jacobean England‘, Historical Research, 71 (1998)
Gibson, M., Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases in Contemporary Writing

36
(London, 2000)
Ginzburg, C., The Night Battles : Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth &
Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1983).
Goodare, J., ‗Women and the witch-hunt in Scotland‘, Social History, 23 (1998)
--------, The Scottish Witch-hunt in Context (2002)
Gregory, A., ‘Witchcraft, Politics and Good ‗Neighbourhood‘ in Early Seventeenth
Century Rye‘, Past and Present 133 (1991)
Henningsen, G., The witches' advocate : Basque witchcraft and the Spanish
Inquisition, 1609-1614 (Reno, 1980).
Hutton, R., ‗Anthropological and historical approaches to witchcraft: potential for a
new collaboration?‘, Historical Journal, 47 (2004), 413-434.
Lehmann, H., ‗The Persecution of Witches as the Restoration of Order. Germany
1590-1650‘, Central European History 21 (1988)
Levack, B., The Witch-hunt in Early Modern Europe (London, 1987).
Levack, B., ‗The Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661-62‘, Journal of British Studies
19 (1980)
Midelfort H.C., Witch hunting in South West Germany 1562-1684 (London, 1972).
"Heartland of the Witchcraze: Central and Northern Europe‖, History
Today 31 (1981).
"Witchcraft and Religion in Sixteenth-Century Germany: The
Formation and Consequences of an Orthodoxy", Archiv fur
Reformationsgeschichte 62 (1971). [available from HLP]
Monter, E.W, Ritual, Myth and Magic in Early Modern Europe (Brighton, 1983).
European Witchcraft (London, 1969).
"European Witchcraft: A Moment of Synthesis?" HJ 31 (1988)
"The Historiography of European Witchcraft: Progress and
Prospects" Journal of Interdisciplinary History 2 (1972).
"Witchcraft in France and Italy", History Today 30 (1980).
Roper, L., Oedipus and Devil. Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern
Europe (London, 1984).
Rowlands, A., "Witchcraft and Popular Religion in Early Modern Rothenburg ob der
Tauber‖, in R.W. Scribner and T. Johnson, eds. Popular Religion in Germany
and Central Europe, 1400-1800 (New York, 1996).
Scarre, G, Witchcraft and Magic in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Europe
(London, 1987).
Scribner, R.W., ‗Sorcery, Superstition and Society : the Witch of Urach 1529‘,
PCPM ch.12
"Witchcraft and Judgement in Reformation Germany", History Today 40 (1990).
Waite, G., Heresy, Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Basingstoke, 2003)
Seminar 3 : Witchcraft : Trials and Victims
Summary
Works like the Malleus Maleficarum did much to influence the way in which the
people of early modern Europe viewed magic and witchcraft. Even if we are cautious
in our assessment of the impact that that Mallues had upon popular, and even elite
attitudes, the work has gone down in history for the way in which it associated women
with witchcraft. The views expressed in the Malleus were not unique to its authors,

37
and the majority of those who were tried and executed for witchcraft were women.
The prevalence of women among the victims of the witch-trials has been the cause of
much debate in recent decades, leading some writers to see the accusation of women
as part of the ‗ongoing mechanisms for the social control of women‘ (Hester). From
our earlier discussions on the historiography of early modern witchcraft, it is clear that
this is only one of a number of possible explanations for the persecutions of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Having looked at literature on witchcraft in this
period, and at the views of historians in recent research, in this session we will make
more use of the records of the trials of witches, and test out the various hypotheses at
a local and individual level.
Seminar Preparation
It may be useful to refer back to the extracts from the Malleus and other tracts from
first week. In this session, we will look in detail at a number of specific witch-trials in
the seminar. Examples are provided in the gobbet handbook, but your preparation for
this week is to find a witch (!) or an account of an early modern witch trial, and bring
the relevant primary sources to class.
There are some accounts of trials in the Malleus, a few in the Kors & Peters volume
Witchcraft in Europe 1100-1700, and of course plenty to be found on the web.
Look at the course homepage
(http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~lhs99hlp/ritual.html)
or at witchcraft links on my other course pages (particularly the Part One Approaches
to History course)
If you would like any information copied for the rest of the group, drop it off by
Tuesday afternoon.
Questions for Class Discussion
Why were women so prominent among the accusers in witch-trials?
What light does the case of ‗your‘ witch shed on the interpretations of the trials that
we discussed in week 2?
How closely does ‗your‘ witch conform to the models set out in the literature?
What are the most important / common features of witchcraft allegations?
How reliable is the evidence for ‗your‘ trial? Compared to other types?
How much popular support / interest is there in the witch-hunt?
How can we explain the rise and fall of levels of persecution, and the geography and
chronology of persecution?
Is the witchcraze an event of cultural and historical importance?
Primary Sources
The Examination and Confession of Certain Witches (1566)
The Apprehension and Confession of Three Notorious Witches (1589)
A Tryal of Witches (1662)
Secondary Reading
Ankarloo, B., Henningsen, G., Early Modern Witchcraft, Centres and Peripheries
(Oxford, 1989).

38
Barry, J., Hester, M., Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Studies in Culture and
Belief (Cambridge, 1998).
Bever, E., ‗Witchcraft, female aggression, and power in the early modern
community‘, Journal of Social History, 35 (2002)
Briggs, R., Witches and Neighbours. The social and Cultural Context of European
Witchcraft (London, 1996).
‗Women as Victims? Witches, Judges, and the Community‘, French History (1991).
"Many Reasons Why: Witchcraft and the Problem of Multiple Explanation‖,
in J.Barry et al., eds, Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Studies in Culture
and Belief (Cambridge, 1996).
Clark, S., ‗The Gendering of Witchcraft in French Demonology‘, French History (1991).
Clark, S. and P. T. J. Morgan. "Religion and Magic in Elizabethan Wales: Robert
Holland's Dialogue on Witchcraft‖, JEH 27 (1976).
Gaskill, M., ‗Witchcraft and power in early modern England: the case of Margaret
Moore‘, in Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (eds.), Women, Crime and the
Courts in Early Modern England (1994)
--------, ‗Witchcraft and Evidence in Early Modern England‘, Past and Present, 198 (2008)
Geis, G., and Ivan Bunn, A Trial of Witches: a Seventeenth-Century Witchcraft
Prosecution (1997)
Ginzburg, C., The Night Battles : Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth &
Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1983).
Gibson, M., Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases in Contemporary Writing
(London, 2000)
Goodare, J., ‗Women and the witch-hunt in Scotland‘, Social History 23 (1998).
Holmes, Clive. "Popular Culture? Witches, Magistrates, and Divines in Early Modern
England‖, in S.Kaplan, ed. Understanding Popular Culture (Amsterdam, 1984).
Horsley, R.A., ‗Who were the witches? The Role of the Accused in European Witch
Trials‘, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 9 (1979).
Lehmann, H., ‗The Persecution of Witches as the Restoration of Order. Germany
1590-1650‘, Central European History 21 (1988).
Macfarlane, A., Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (New York, 1970).
Midelfort, H., "Johann Weyer and the Transformation of the Insanity Defense", in R.
Po-Chia Hsia, ed. The German People and the Reformation, (Ithaca, 1988).
Monter, E.W., "Toads and Eucharists: The Male Witches of Normandy‖, French
Historical Studies 20 (1997).
Poole, R. (ed.), The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories (2003)
Purkiss, D., ‗Women‘s Stories of Witchcraft in Early Modern England: The House,
the Body, the Child‘, Gender and History, 7 (1995)
Roper, L., Oedipus and Devil. Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern
Europe (London, 1984).
Rushton, P., ‗Texts of Authority: Witchcraft Accusations and the Demonstration of
Truth in Early Modern England‘, in Stuart Clark (ed.), Languages of Witchcraft:
Ideology and Meaning in Early Modern Culture (2001), pp.21-39.
Scarre, G, Witchcraft and Magic in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Europe
(London, 1987).
Sharpe, J. A., "The Devil in East Anglia: The Matthew Hopkins Trials Reconsidered‖,
in Jonathan Barry et al., eds.Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1996).
Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England, 1550-1750 (London, 1996).

39
Seminar 4 : Magic I – Popular Beliefs
Summary
In discussions in the first half of the autumn term we considered the relationship
between magic and religion, and especially the relationship between magical rites and
the sacramentals of the pre-reformation church. The willingness to attribute
supernatural powers to material objects, or to see in natural events a supernatural
significance suggests that the people of early modern Europe had few doubts about
the power of the supernatural in the world, and the potency of magic. The study of the
persecution and prosecution of witches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
gives us a clear indication of the widespread fear and hatred of maleficient magic,
especially where such practices appeared to be linked to a pact made between the
individual witch and the devil.
However is it fair to see maleficient witchcraft as the primary concern of early
modern demonologists? How was beneficent magic perceived by these same writers?
Indeed how easy is it to separate magic from witchcraft in this period, given the
important role that the counter-magic offered by local cunning folk played in the
identification of witches and in cures from bewitchment? On what basis did church
and state, on both sides of the confessional divide, approach local practitioners of
magic. Richard Kieckhefer has argued that we should see magic as a crossroads in
medieval culture, ‗one with numerous paths radiating from it‘. (Magic in the Middle
Ages) But what was popular magic in early modern Europe, where was it to be found,
and why was it so feared?
Seminar Preparation
Taking Kieckhefer‘s assertion that magic is at a crossroads of medieval culture as our
starting point, we will consider the relationship between popular magic and –
(1) religion
(2) science and medicine
(3) witchcraft
(4) law and justice
General Questions for Class Discussion
Why were both Catholic and Protestant Churches so hostile to magic?
What was the attitude of secular governments to magic?
What were the main differences between natural and demonic magic? How clear is
the distinction, and did it affect the degree of opposition to the magical arts?
What did popular magical belief owe to Christianity or paganism?
How might natural remedies be distinguished from the supernatural?
What function did magic have in early modern popular culture?

40
Primary Sources
Oswald Cron (extracts)
Reginald Scot (extracts)
Martin del Rio (extracts)
Secondary Reading
Bossy, J., ‗Early Modern Magic‘, History 57 (1972)
Burke, P., ‗Rituals of healing in early modern Italy‘, in his The Historical
Anthropology of Early Modern Italy (Cambridge, 1987).
Christian, W., Local Religion in Sixteenth Century Spain (Princeton, 1981).
Clark, S., Thinking with Demons (Oxford, 1997). Ch.14-15
Curry, P., ‗Revisions of Science and Magic‘, History of Science 23 (1985).
Davies, O., ‗Healing Charms in Use in England and Wales 1700-1950‘, Folklore ,
107 (1996)
--------, ‗Cunning Folk in England and Wales during the 18 th and 19 th Centuries‘,
Rural History (1997)
--------, ‗Charmers and Charming in England and Wales from the 18 th to the 20 th
Century‘, Folklore, 109 (1998), 41-52
De Blécourt, W., ‗Witch doctors, soothsayers and priests: on cunning folk in
European historiography and tradition‘, Social History, 19 (1994), 285-303.
Geertz, H., / Thomas, K., ‗An anthropology of Religion and magic‘, Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 6 (1975).
Gentilcore, D., From Bishop to Witch. The system of the sacred in early modern
Terra d’Ottranto (Manchester, 1992). Ch.4-7
Harley, D., ‗Spiritual Physic, Providence and English Medicine, 1560-1640‘, in Ole
Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham (eds), Medicine and the Reformation (1993)
Henry, J., ‗Doctors and Healers: Popular Culture and the Medical Profession‘, in S.
Pumfrey et al (eds), Science, Culture and Popular Belief in Renaissance Europe (1991)
Hillerbrand, H., The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Reformation (Oxford, 1998) article
on Magic
Hsia, R.P-C., The Myth of Ritual Murder. Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany
(New Haven, London, 1988).
Kieckhefer, R., Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989).
Levack, B., Renaissance Magic (New York, 1992).
Macfarlane, A., Witchcraft in Early Modern England: A Regional and Comparative
Study (1970), chs 8, 13
Maxwell Stuart, P., The occult in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1999).
Monter, W., Ritual Myth and magic in Early Modern Europe (Brighton, 1983).
O‘Neill, M., ‗Magical Healing. Love Magic and the Inquisition‘, in S. Haliczer ed.,
Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe (London, 1987).
‗Sacerdote ovvero strione. Ecclesiastical and Superstitious remedies in 16 th
century Italy‘, in S.Kaplan ed., Understanding Popular Culture (Berlin, 1984).
Scribner, R.W., ‗Magic, Witchcraft and Superstition‘, HJ 37 (1994)
‗The reformation, popular magic and the disenchantment of the world‘,Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 23 (1992-3).
‗Cosmic Order and Daily Life‘, PCPM
Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971).
Thorndike, L., History of Magic (London, 1929-1958).

41
Wear, ‗Religious Beliefs and Medicine in Early Modern England‘, in H. Marland and
M. Pelling (eds), The Task of Healing Medicine, Religion and Gender in England and
the Netherlands (1996)
Webster, ‗Paracelsus Confronts Saints: Miracles, Healing and the Secularisation of
Magic‘, Social History of Medicine, 8 (1995)
Wilson, S., The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern
Europe (2000), chs. 12-13
Seminar 5 : Magic II – The Renaissance Magus
Summary
Any attempt to survey popular beliefs and attitudes towards magic raises questions
about the interaction of popular and elite cultures, and the ability to separate the two.
In looking at attitudes to magic in early modern Italy, for example, it is clear that the
role of the clergy in local practice, as sources of ecclesiastical medicine, or of more
general supernatural and magical powers, should not be underestimated. Richard
Kieckhefer has identified a clerical underworld of sorcerers and necromancers in late
medieval Europe, suggesting that early modern magic was not simply ill thought out
superstition, but also a pastime of the educated and literate. In seeking precedents and
advice in their art, the magicians of the Renaissance, like other scholars, turned to the
classical and ancient past, seeking what they believed were authentic materials for
study and learning. Out of this investigation of the past emerged the hero of the
Renaissance magus, Hermes Trismegistus, the origin of the ‗hermetic tradition‘. The
Humanist revival of the ancient languages also helped to renew interest in the Jewish
Kabbalist tradition, and the wonderworking power of words. The same themes of the
relationship between magic, science, and religion can be traced in both elite and
popular magic, and the revival of interest in magic in the Renaissance helped to stir up
further controversy and debate.
Seminar Preparation
There are a number of individuals whose contribution to writing and thinking on
magic in the Renaissance are worthy of further consideration. Renaissance magic was
not monolithic, and there are a few different discernible trends. We will focus our
discussions on the documents and on the life and work of the following :
(1) Marsilio Ficino
(2) Johannes Trithemius (see N.Brann The Abbot Trithemius for more detail)
(3) Giordano Bruno
(4) Cornelius Agrippa
(5) Thomas Campanella
(6) Paracelsus (Theophrastus Phillippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim)
(7) John Dee
(8) Johannes Reuchlin

42
Primary Sources
Della Porta, Natural Magic
Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia
Ficino, Apologia
Reuchlin, De Arte Cabbalistica
Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia
Do Valle de Moura, De Incantationibus
Borromeo, De Cabbalisticis Inventis
Reuchlin, De Arte Cabbalistica
Del Rio, Disquisitiones Magicae
Secondary Reading
Bossy, J., Giordani Bruno and the Embassy Affair (New Haven, 1991).
Burke, P., ‗Witchcraft and Magic in Renaissance Italy. Gianfrancesco Pico and his Strix‘,
in S.Anglo ed., The Damned Art. Essays in the Literature of Witchcraft (London, 1977).
Clulee, N.H., John Dee's natural philosophy : between science and religion (London, 1988).
Copenhaver, B.P., ‗Scholastic Philosophy and Renaissance Magic in the De Vita of
Marsilio Ficino‘, Renaissance Quarterly 37 (1984).
‗Astrology and Magic‘, in C.Schmitt, Q.Skinner eds., The Cambridge
History of Renaissance Philosophy (Cambridge, 1987).
‗Natural Magic, Hermeticism and Occultism in early Modern Science‘,
in D.Lindberg, R.Westman eds., Reappraisals of the Scientific
Revolution (Cambridge, 1990).
Debus, A.G., Man and Nature in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1978).
The English Paracelsians (Cambridge, 1975).
Dobbs, B., The Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy (1975)
Gatti, H., Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science (Ithaca, 1999).
Kieckhefer, R., European Witch Trials. Their Origin in Popular and Learned
Culture 1300-1500 (London, 1976).
Levack, B., Renaissance Magic (New York, 1992).
Marshall, P., The Philosopher’s Stone: A Quest for the Secrets of Alchemy (2002)
Michel, P.H., The Cosmology of Giordano Bruno (London, 1972).
Nicholl, C., The Chemical Theatre (1980) [on alchemy in Shakespeare and his contemporaries]
Paterson, A., The Infinite Worlds of Giordano Bruno (New York, 1970).
Sigerist, H ed., Paracelsus. Four Treatises (Baltimore, 1996).
Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), chs 10-12
Thorndike, L., History of Magic (London, 1929-1958).
Vickers, B., Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1984).
Walker, D.P., Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella
(Pennsylvania, 2000).
Webster, C., From Paracelsus to Newton : magic and the making of modern science
(Cambridge, 1982).
Yates, F., Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London, 1964).
Szydlo, Z., and R. Brzezinksi, ‗A New Light on Alchemy‘, History Today, 47 (January 1997)
Seminar 6 : Text Study – Wolfgang Behringer’s ‘Shaman of Oberstdorf’.
At the end of our study of attitudes to witchcraft, magic, and the occult, the story of
events in the town of Oberstdorf provides a useful case study of popular beliefs and

43
fears, and attitudes to the supernatural, ghosts, death and myth. Behringer outlines the
events that led to the death of Stoeckhlin, and others of the his community, and the
tensions that could develop between popular religious and magic practice and the
official stance of the church. The ‗end of the dreamtime‘ came when the forces of
church and state were brought to bear on the stories of Stoeckhlin, and as Behringer
writes ‗the people of the night were pushed underground and the fairies took their
leave of history‘.
Given that the book is often compared to Ginzburg‘s The Cheese and the Worms, it
raises the same kind of questions about the value of such individual studies and the
problems of detailed research into popular oral culture. When reading Shaman of
Oberstdorf it is worth bearing in mind these issues, but also considering how the story
of Conrad Stoeckhlin fits into our work on magic and witchcraft this term, and last
term‘s discussions on ghosts, the afterlife, portents and prophecy. Although we will
have a general ‗revision‘ session at the end of term, this text study would be a good
chance to think about some of the themes covered already in the course.
There are no set documents for this class. Secondary reading as appropriate to the
broader implications of the book.
Seminar 8: Astrology and Astronomy
Summary
Keith Thomas tells us that the basic astrological assumptions are easy to grasp:
astronomy is the study of the movements of the starts, while astrology is the study of
the effects of those movements. The four elements earth, air, fire and water — were
controlled by the movements of the stars, and kept in motion by the journeys of the
planets across the skies. We have already seen in our studies of magic and medicine
that a knowledge of the stars was also a key feature of much of the learned magic.
divination and science of the time. Astrology offered an explanation for human
fortunes, good and bad, and a means of understanding worldly events. As Lilly, the
great English astrologer, wrote in 1647 there was ‗nothing appertaining to the life of
man in this world which is one way or another hath not relation to one of the twelve
houses of heaven‘. However from the earliest Christian centuries there had been
conflict and hostility between the star-gazers and the church, and the aftermath of the
Reformation was no exception. Protestant writers and preachers denounced the
predictions of the astrologers as anti-Christian, and astrology was among the long list
of practices forbidden in the Bull of Sixtus V, Coeli et Terra. Universities with a chair
of astrology changed the title to astronomy to avoid papal condemnation. The early
modern period also witnessed a renewal of interest in astronomy, its most famous
practitioners including Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. What advances, then, did
astronomy bring in knowledge and understanding of the stars? What was the
relationship between astronomy and astrology, between astrology and religion, events
in the heavens and events on earth?
Seminar Preparation
What was the attraction of astrology in the early modern period, and to whom?
What functions did astrology have?
What was the appeal of almanacs and prognostications?

44
Was astrology the preserve of the elite, or a set of ideas which was accessible to the
populace? Who practiced astrology?
What were the main reasons for ecclesiastical opposition to astrology?
What were the main ‗discoveries‘ of early modern astronomy?
Why was there such opposition to the works of Copernicus and Galileo?
How far did Copernicus and Galileo (and their condemnation) shape attitudes to the
stars?
Was there a practical difference between astrology and astronomy at this time?
Primary Source Texts
Cardano, De Libris Propriis
Del Rio, Disquisitiones Magicae
Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia
Morin, Astrologia Gallica
Calvin, Advertissement Contra L‘Astrologie Judicaire
Pithoys, Traitte Curieux de l‘astrologie judiciaire
Brahe, De Disciplinis Mathematicis
Copernicus, The Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies
Bellarmine on Galileo
Secondary Reading
Allen, D., The Star Crossed Renaissance: The Quarrel about Astrology and its
Influence in England (1966)
Armitage, A., Copernicus and the Reformation of Astronomy (London, 1950).
Capp, B., English Almanacs 1500-1800: Astrology and the Popular Press (1979)
Copenhaver, B.P., ‗Astrology and Magic‘, in C.Schmitt, Q.Skinner eds., The
Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy (Cambridge, 1987).
Curry, P., Prophecy and Power (Cambridge, 1989).
‗Astrology in Early Modern England. The making of vulgar knowledge‘,
S.Pumfrey et al. Eds., Science, Culture and Popular Belief in Renaissance Europe
(Cambridge, 1991).
Debus, A.G.,Man and Nature in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1978).
Alchemy and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century (New York, 1966).
Dixon, C.S., ‗Popular Astrology and Lutheran Propaganda in Reformation
Germany‘,History 84 (July 1999).
Finocchiaro, M., The Galileo Affair. A Documentary History (Berkeley, 1989).
Garin, E., Astrology in the Renaissance. The Zodiac of Life (London, 1983).
Goodman, C., Science & Belief from Copernicus to Darwin (Open University, 1974).
Koyre, A., The Astronomical Revolution (Cambridge, 1973).
Levere, T., Shea, W., eds Nature, Experiment and the Sciences. Essays on Galileo
and the history of science (Dordrecht, London, 1990).
Maxwell-Stuart, P., The Occult in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1999).
Parker, D., Familiar to All: William Lilly and Astrology in the Seventeenth Century (1975)
Racaut, L., ‗A Protestant or Catholic Superstition? Astrology and Eschatology during
the French Wars of Religion‘, in H. Parish and W.G.Naphy (eds.), Religion and
Superstition in Reformation Europe (2002)

45
Read, J., Prelude to Chemistry. An outline of alchemy, its literature and relationships
(London, 1936).
Redondi, P., Galileo Heretic (Princeton, 1987).
Schechner, S., Comets, Popular Culture and the birth of modern cosmology (Princeton, 1997).
Shumaker, W., Occult Sciences in the Renaissance (London, 1972).
Tester, S., A History of Western Astrology (1987)
Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971). Esp. ch 10-12
Wallace, W.A., Prelude to Galileo. Essays on Medieval and sixteenth century
sources of Galileo’s Thought (Dordrecht, London 1981).
Wildong, M., Raising Spirits, making gold, and swapping wives (Beeston, 1999).
Seminar 9 : Science and the Supernatural : The Disenchantment of Europe
Summary
Throughout the course, we have examined a variety of beliefs and attitudes in popular
and elite culture. We have looked at perceptions of magic and the influence of the
supernatural in the material world, views on death, ghosts and the afterlife, and at
attitudes to witches, witchcraft, prophecy and astrology. However we have also
considered the way in which these beliefs have changed over time, moulded by
religious conflict, scientific discovery, and intellectual debate. By now, the
description of early modern culture by Keith Thomas in terms of religion and the
decline of magic should be a familiar one. Max Weber referred to the rise of a rational
and orderly universe, and the subsequent ‗disenchantment of the world‘, the removal
of the magic, mysterious, and supernatural from the events of daily life. Similarly,
Bob Scribner has approached this question of ‗disenchantment‘ through a study of the
impact of the Protestant Reformation on popular religion and popular culture in the
sixteenth century. We saw how the arrival of the Inquisition in Oberstdorf brought
about the ‗end of the dreamtime‘ – did the scientific revolution bring an end to the
influence of ritual, myth, and magic? Or did, as Thomas suggests, magic decay before
a new rational system of explanation had been invented to take its place? Did the
supernatural cease to hold power, leaving space for the explanations of the scientists,
or did magic collapse under pressure, squeezed by reformed religion on one side and
natural science on the other?
Seminar Preparation
Although we will use this session to consider explanations for the decline of magic at
the end of our period, it will also be a useful chance to revisit some of our earlier
topics. We will look at the relevant documents together, and consider some of the
questions outlined above, but do take this opportunity to think about broad questions
that will help you to revise this course, and we will take time to have a general
revision session in the latter half of the seminar.
Primary Source Texts
Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft
Montaigne (extracts)
Secondary Reading
Anglo, S., The Damned Art : Essays in the Literature of Witchcraft (London, 1977).

46
Boas, M., The Scientific Renaissance (Cambridge, 1962).
Burke, P., ‗Religion and Secularisation‘, in New Cambridge Modern History, XIII
(Cambridge, 1979).
Clark, J.C.D., ‗Providence, predestination and progress: or, did the Enlightenment
fail?‘, Albion, 35 (2004)
Clark, S., Thinking with Demons (1997), pt II, ch. 19; postscript
Curry, P., ‗Revisions of Science and Magic‘, History of Science 23 (1985).
Debus, A.G., Man and Nature in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1978).
Alchemy and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century (New York, 1966).
Science, Medicine and Society in the Renaissance (London, 1972).
Dijksterhuis, E.J. Mechanization of the world picture (London, 1961).
Fix, A. "Angels, Devils, and Evil Spirits in Seventeenth-Century Thought: Balthasar
Bekker and the Collegiants", Journal of the History of Ideas 50 (1989).
Gaskill, M., ‗The Displacement of providence: Policing and Prosecution in Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Century England‘, Continuity and Change, 11 (1996), 341-74
Glucklich, A., The End of Magic (1997)
Harrison, P., ‗Newtonian Science, miracles, and the Laws of Nature‘, Journal of the
History of Ideas, 56 (1995)
Henry, J., The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science (1997), chs. 4, 6
Kassell, L., ‗―All was this Land Full Fill‘d Of Faerie‖, Or Magic and the Past in Early
Modern England‘, Journal of the History of Ideas, 67, 1 (2006)
Kearney, H., Science and Change 1500-1700 (London, 1971).
Lindberg, D., Westman, R.S., Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, 1990).
Mandrou, R., From humanism to science 1480-1630 (Harmondsworth, 1978).
Nauert, C.G. Agrippa and the Crisis of Renaissance Thought, (Urbana, IL, 1965).
"Magic and Skepticism in Agrippa's Thought." Journal of the History of Ideas
18 (1957)
Porter, R., Teich, M., The Scientific Revolution in National Context (Cambridge,
1992)
Scribner, R.W., ‗The Reformation, popular magic, and the "disenchantment of the
world‘, in Journal of interdisciplinary history, XXIII, 1993
"Magic, Witchcraft, and Superstition‖, HJ 37 (1994).
Shapiro, B., Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth Century England (1983), ch. 6
Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971).
Thorndike, L,. "The Attitude of Francis Bacon and Descartes Towards Magic and Occult
Sciences‖, in E.Ashworth Underwood, ed. Science, Medicine, and History: Essays on the
Evolution of Scientific Thought and Medical Practice 2 vols. (London, 1953).
Webster, C., From Paracelsus to Newton: Magic and the Making of Modern Science
(1982), ch. 4