Witch-Hunting in Scotland

By Brian P. Levack,

Book cover of Witch-Hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics and Religion

Book description

Shortlisted for the 2008 Katharine Briggs Award

Witch-Hunting in Scotland presents a fresh perspective on the trial and execution of the hundreds of women and men prosecuted for the crime of witchcraft, an offence that involved the alleged practice of maleficent magic and the worship of the devil, for inflicting…

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1 author picked Witch-Hunting in Scotland as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The distinctive selling-point of this work is summed up by its sub-title: a focus on law, politics and religion as causal factors, not just for humdrum witchcraft accusations but for major, sustained witch-hunts. Brian Levack has made a huge contribution to our understanding of witch-hunting, and here brings his specialist expertise to bear on Scotland, which experienced the most intense, and devastating panics anywhere in the British Isles (and worse even than most places in continental Europe).

Historians have long learned not to see witch-hunts as hysterical spasms of pre-Enlightenment ‘superstition’. Demonology was a serious subject in the sixteenth and…

From Malcolm's list on witch hunting in Britain and Europe.

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