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

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