I’m a historian who wants to know: Why did people burn other people at the stake for what we think was an impossible crime? It seems so unjust; indeed it was unjust. I mention Amnesty International in my book; as well as being a professional historian, I’ve been writing letters for Amnesty for many years, trying to rectify injustice. Yet witch-hunting made sense to the perpetrators; they weren’t simply ‘wicked’ or ‘crazed’ or ‘ignorant’. We need to understand them on many levels, from the most erudite demonology, all the way down to psychological processes by which we identify enemies. The five books I’ve chosen move gradually downwards, in order, from the highest to the deepest level.
My book seeks to explain why thousands of people, mostly lower-class women, were tortured and killed in the name of religion and morality during three centuries of witch-hunting throughout Europe and North America. I interpret witch-hunting as an episode of ideologically-driven persecution by the early modern ‘godly state’. I also look at village social relationships and at folk beliefs, and I have a detailed analysis of gender issues. Witchcraft was a crime, prosecuted in the courts, so I examine legal evidence and how it was obtained – often by judicial torture. Witch-hunting was justified by intellectuals’ beliefs about a secret conspiracy of witches in league with the Devil. The witch-hunt eventually declined when the ideological pressure to combat the Devil’s allies slackened.
Although most historical societies have believed in witches of some kind, the great witch-hunt was unique to early modern Europe.
This formidable but brilliant book explains how European intellectuals, in the age of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, created an interpretation of witches as conspirators with the Devil – a spirit of terrifying power. The book has over 800 pages, but there are handy introductions to each of its five sections. Start by reading all these introductions, and then explore the rest of the book bit by bit.
My favourite section, ‘Politics’, shows how witch-hunting was linked with the doctrine of the divine right of kings. You should obey the king because he has been appointed directly by God – and the king can demonstrate his godliness by punishing God’s enemies, including witches.
This is a work of fundamental importance for our understanding of the intellectual and cultural history of early modern Europe. Stuart Clark offers a new interpretation of the witchcraft beliefs of European intellectuals based on their publications in the field of demonology, and shows how these beliefs fitted rationally with many other views current in Europe between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries.
Professor Clark is the first to explore the appeal of demonology to early modern intellectuals by looking at the books they published on the subject during this period. After examining the linguistic foundations of their writings, the author…
How did godly states deal with the threat from witches and the Devil?
At the heart of this book is the torture chamber. Judicial torture, at least in principle, was not mindless cruelty, nor was it a punishment; it was a means of eliciting the truth. Confessions were supposed to reveal information that only a guilty person would know.
With witches, this primarily meant details of their relationship with the Devil. A story about this had to be constructed that was credible both to the accused witch and to the interrogators. It had to contain individual detail about places and times, motives for entering the Devil’s service, activities at the witches’ sabbat, and malefices committed.
Witch Craze shows how bizarre confessions to impossible crimes emerged from the fears of the authorities.
A powerful account of witches, crones, and the societies that make them
From the gruesome ogress in Hansel and Gretel to the hags at the sabbath in Faust, the witch has been a powerful figure of the Western imagination. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thousands of women confessed to being witches-of making pacts with the Devil, causing babies to sicken, and killing animals and crops-and were put to death. This book is a gripping account of the pursuit, interrogation, torture, and burning of witches during this period and beyond.
Drawing on hundreds of original trial transcripts and other rare…
As well as the fears of godly states, early modern villagers had their own fears.
This book shows ‘witches’ being created in a process of everyday village rivalries between neighbours. Two villagers quarrel; either or both of them may utter insults, threats, or curses. You witch! You will regret this! May the Devil drag your soul through hell! And so on.
Insults (even ‘You witch!’) were relatively harmless, but threats and curses could get you into trouble. If your opponent then experienced some misfortune, neighbours might explain this as your curse taking effect.
This was particularly likely if you were female: people feared men’s physical violence, but they feared women’s curses. This book brings early modern villages to life.
Witches and Neighbours is a highly original and unconventional analysis of a fascinating historical phenomenon. Unlike other studies of the subject which focus on the mechanisms of persecution, this book presents a rich picture of witchcraft as an all-pervasive aspect of life in early modern Europe. Robin Briggs combines recent research with his own investigations to produce a brilliant and compelling account of the central role of witchcraft in the past. Although the history of witchcraft can only be studied through records of persecutions, these reveal that trials were unusual in everyday life and that witchcraft can be viewed as…
As well as the village witch, we have what might be called the ‘folkloric witch’, and other folkloric traditions.
When interrogators asked witchcraft suspects about the Devil, the answers sometimes surprised them. They uncovered beliefs about nature spirits, practices of magical healing and divination, and visionary experience of otherworlds.
Some of this material fed into ideas about the witches’ sabbat, but these beliefs, practices, and visions were not necessarily about ‘witchcraft’ at all. Ronald Hutton’s ambitious book surveys these beliefs, practices, and visions.
He ranges far back into the ancient history of Europe – and adjacent regions, exploring traditions of ceremonial magic from ancient Egypt. If the idea of the witch is frightening, it is partly because of the folklore brought together in this book.
Why have societies all across the world feared witchcraft? This book delves deeply into its context, beliefs, and origins in Europe's history
"Traces the idea of witches far beyond the Salem witch trials to beliefs and attitudes about witches around the world throughout history."-Los Angeles Times
The witch came to prominence-and often a painful death-in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In this landmark book, Ronald Hutton traces witchcraft from the ancient world to the early-modern stake.
This book sets the notorious European witch trials in the widest and deepest possible perspective…
The deepest level of witchcraft and magical experience is psychological.
Most executed witches are unlikely to have carried out the practices of which they were accused – certainly not attendance at the sabbat, and not usually deliberate magical harm. But magical practitioners offered a wide range of mostly positive services: healing, finding lost and stolen goods, and love magic.
Edward Bever’s book is densely-written, often quoting from medical sources, but worth persevering with: it opens up a realm of magical action and experience. My favourite chapters deal with how beneficial magic was perceived to have worked, but there is darker material too – including intentional curses.
Exploring the elements of reality in early modern witchcraft and popular magic, through a combination of detailed archival research and broad-ranging interdisciplinary analyses, this book complements and challenges existing scholarship, and offers unique insights into this murky aspect of early modern history.
I became fascinated with 16th-century and 17th-century Europe after reading Don Quixote many years ago. Since then, every novel or nonfiction book about that era has felt both ancient and contemporary. I’m always struck by how much our environment has changed—transportation, communication, housing, government—but also how little we as people have changed when it comes to ambition, love, grief, and greed. I doubled down my reading on that time period when I researched my novel, Dulcinea. Many people read in the eras of the Renaissance, World War II, or ancient Greece, so I’m hoping to introduce them to the Baroque Age.
Dolça Llull Prat, a wealthy Barcelona woman, is only 15 when she falls in love with an impoverished poet-solder. Theirs is a forbidden relationship, one that overcomes many obstacles until the fledgling writer renders her as the lowly Dulcinea in his bestseller.
By doing so, he unwittingly exposes his muse to gossip. But when Dolça receives his deathbed note asking to see her, she races across Spain with the intention of unburdening herself of an old secret.
On the journey, she encounters bandits, the Inquisition, illness, and the choices she's made. At its heart, Dulcinea is about how we betray the people we love, what happens when we succumb to convention, and why we squander the few chances we get to change our lives.
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