Abstract
Scholars of witchcraft have often been pioneers of new forms of historical study and interdisciplinary developments, as the subject touches upon many fundamental issues regarding the human experience both in the past and the present.1 The witch trials cannot be understood properly without considering the development of science, medicine, religion and the political and economic apparatus of the modern European state. The analysis of witchcraft accusations demands an understanding of the processes of social negotiation, the structure of communities, and the nature of gender relations. Decoding the meaning of witchcraft beliefs requires grappling with the research and theories of anthropology, folkloristics and psychology, even if their application raises serious issues regarding the application of contemporary notions and behaviour to people in the past. Few topics in historical research invite so much interdisciplinary engagement, demand such a broad exploration of historical processes and yet give so much free reign to our historical imagination.
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Notes
Our thanks to Willem de Blécourt for his informative comments and suggestions on an early draft of this introduction. Good recent overviews of witchcraft historiography are provided by Thomas A Fudge, ‘Traditions and Trajectories in the Historiography of European Witch-Hunting’, History Compass 4, 3(2006) 488–527; Wolfgang Behringer, ‘Historiography’, in Richard M. Golden (ed.), Encylopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition, 4 vols (Santa Barbara and Oxford, 2006), Vol. 2, pp. 492–8.
Brian Levack (ed.), Articles on Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology, 12 vols (New York, 1992); New Perspectives on Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology, 6 vols (London, 2001).
Peter Maxwell-Stuart, Witchcraft in Europe and the New World, 1400–1800 (Basingstoke, 2001); Maxwell-Stuart, Witchcraft: A History (Stroud, 2000); Geoffrey Scarre and John Callow, Witchcraft and Magic in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe, 2nd edn (Basingstoke, 2001); Robert W. Thurston, Witch, Wicce, Mother Goose (London, 2001).
See, for example, Éva Pócs (ed.), Demonológia és boszorkánysfág Europában (Budapest, 2001); Gábor Klaniczay and Éva Pócs (eds), Communicating with the Spirits (Budapest, 2005); Pócs, Between the Living and the Dead (Budapest, 1999).
See, for example, Marie Lennersand and Linda Oja (eds), När oväsendet tystnat. Efterspelet till uppror och religiösa konflikter, 1670–1860 (Uppsala, 2004); Marie Lennersand, ‘The Aftermath of the Witch-Hunt in Dalarna’, in Owen Davies and Willem de Blécourt (eds), Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment Europe (Manchester, 2004), pp. 61–9; Linda Oja, ‘The Superstitious Other’, in Davies and Blécourt, Beyond the Witch Trials, pp. 69–81; Richard L. Sjoberg, ‘The Outbreak of Mass Allegations of Satanist Child Abuse in the Parish of Rättvik, Sweden, 1670–71: Two Texts by Gustav J. Elvius’, History of Psychiatry 15, 4 (2004) 477–87; Kristina Tegler Jerselius, Den stora häxdansen: Vidskepelse, väckelse och vetande i Gagnef 1858 (Uppsala, 2003). In neighbouring Norway Rune Blix Hagen runs an impressive campaign publicising and disseminating information about his country’s witchcraft history. His latest publication is Samer er trollmenn i norsk historie (Karašjohka, 2005). See also Gunnar W. Knutsen, ‘Norwegian Witchcraft Trials: A Reassessment’, Continuity and Change 18 (2003) 185–200.
Examples of recent publications on Germany are Rita Voltmer, Hexenverfolgung und Herrschaftspraxis (Trier, 2005); Kurt Rau, Augsburger kinderhexenprozesse 1625–1730 (Wien, 2006).
For a contextual discussion of this revisionist development see Jonathan Barry, ‘Introduction: Keith Thomas and the Problem of Witchcraft’, in Jonathan Barry, Marianne Hester and Gareth Roberts (eds), Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Studies in Culture and Belief (Cambridge, 1996); James Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England 1550–1750 (London, 1696), ‘Introduction’.
His most recent publications include Heksen en hun buren in Frans Vlaanderen. 16 detot 18de eeuw (Ieper, 2004) and ‘Het proces van Leyn Weckx in Eksel — Hechtel in 1725. Het laatste heksenproces in Belgie?’, in Hechtel-Eksem. Historische en naamkundidige bijdragen, Jubileumboek 3 Heemkundige Kring Hechtel-Eksel (2005) 129–55. See also his website, which has some English content: <www.kuleuven-kortrijk.be/facult/rechten/Monballyu/Rechtlagelanden/Homepage.htm>.
Their most recent books are: Maria Tausiet, Los posesos de Tosos (1812–1814). Brujeria y justicia popular en tiempos de revolución (Zaragoza, 2002); Oscar di Simplicio, Autunno della stregoneria. Maleficio e magia nell’Italia moderna (Il Mulino, 2005).
On Ukraine see Kateryna Dysa, ‘Attitudes towards Witches in the Multi-Confessional Regions of Germany and Ukraine’, in Eszter Andor and Istvan Gyorgy Tóth (eds), Frontiers of Faith. Religious Exchange and the Constitution of Religious Identities, 1400–1750 (Budapest, 2001), pp. 285–9. On Poland see, for example, Wanda Wyporska, ‘Witchcraft, Arson and Murder: The Turek Trial of 1652’, Central Europe 1 (2003) 41–54. Her book Motive and Motif Representations of the Witch in Early Modern Poland is forthcoming in the Palgrave Macmillan ‘Cultures of Magic’ series.
See, for example, George Modestin, Le diable chez L’eveque. Chasse aux sorciers dans le diocese de Lausanne (vers 1460) (Lausanne, 1999); Martine Ostorero, L’imaginaire du sabbat: Edition critique des texts les plus anciens (1430c-1440c) (Lausanne, 1999). For the later period see Fabienne Taric Zumsteg, Les sorciers à l’assaut du village Gollion (1615–1631) (Lausanne, 2000).
Most notably the respective sociological, psychological and gender approaches of Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Cambridge, Mass., 1974); John Putnam Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England (Oxford, 1982); Carol. F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (New York, 1987).
Books for children include Marilynne K. Roach, In the Days of the Salem Witchcraft Trials (Boston, 1996; reprinted 2003); Jane Yolen, The Salem Witch Trials: An Unsolved Mystery from History (New York, 2004); Tamra Orr, The Salem Witch Trials (San Diego, 2004).
Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 (New York, 2002); Richard Godbeer, The Devil’s Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England (Cambridge, 1992).
Laura A. Lewis, Hall of Mirrors: Power, Witchcraft and Caste in Colonial Mexico (Durham, 2003); Laura de Mello e Souza, The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: Witches, Slaves and Religion in Colonial Brazil, trans. Diane Grosklaus Whitty (Austin, 2004); Nicholas Griffiths and Fernando Cervantes (eds), Spiritual Encounters: Interactions Between Christians and Native Religions in Colonial America (Birmingham, 1999).
James Sharpe (ed.), English Witchcraft, 1560–1736, 6 vols (London, 2003). For a thoughtful review of this resource see William Monter, ‘Re-contextualizing British Witchcraft’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35, 1 (2004) 105–11. See also the annotated primary sources presented in Marion Gibson (ed.), Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550–1750 (London and Ithaca, 2003); Marion Gibson, Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases in Contemporary Writing (London, 2000).
For example, Johann Weyer, On Witchcraft: De prcætigiis dæmonum, edited by Benjamin G. Kohl and H. C. Erik Midelfort, trans. John Shea (Asheville, 1998); P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, Investigations into Magic: Martin Del Rio (Manchester, 2000); Nicolas Remy, La demonoldtrie, trans. Jean Boes (Nancy, 1998); Friedrich von Spee, Cautio Criminalis, or a Book on Witch Trials, trans. Marcus Hellyer (Charlottesville, 2003); Wolfgang Behringer, Günter Jerouschek and Werner Tschacher, Der Hexenhammer. Malleus Maleficarum (Munich, 2000). The latter is a more accurate translation than the popular version by Montague Summers. Useful translated extracts from primary sources have also been made available in Brian Levack (ed.), The Witchcraft Sourcebook (London, 2002) and Peter Maxwell-Stuart (ed.), The Occult in Early Modern Europe (Basingstoke, 1999).
Claudia Swan, Art, Science, and Witchcraft in Early Modern Holland: Jacques de Gheyn II (1565–1629) (Cambridge, 2005); Linda C. Hults, The Witch as Muse: Art, Gender, and Power in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia, 2005); Charles Zika, Exorcising our Demons: Magic, Witchcraft and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2003).
A recent contribution to the debate is J. Wijaczka, ‘Men Standing Trial for Witchcraft at the Lobzenica Court in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century’, Acta Poloniae Historica 93 (2005) 69–86. Forthcoming publications in the Palgrave Macmillan ‘Cultures of Magic’ series include an English translation of Rolf Schulte’s pioneering Hexenmeister. Die Verfolgung von Männern im Rahmen der Hexenverfolgung von 1530–1730 im Alten Reich (Frankfurt, 2000) and Alison Rowlands (ed.), Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe.
See Wolfgang Behringer, Witches and Witch-Hunts (Cambridge, 2004); Ronald Hutton, ‘Anthropological and Historical Approaches to Witchcraft: Potential for New Collaboration?’, Historical Journal 47 (2004) 413–34; Ronald Hutton, ‘The Global Context of the Scottish Witch-Hunt’, in Julian Goodare (ed.), The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context (Manchester, 2002), pp. 16–33.
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Davies, O., Barry, J. (2007). Introduction. In: Barry, J., Davies, O. (eds) Palgrave Advances in Witchcraft Historiography. Palgrave Advances. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230593480_1
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