Witches and Neighbours

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… show more.

Whether or not, as Tip O’Neill said, all politics are local, all witchcraft accusations certainly are. Briggs has dug deeply into the archives of various Lorraine villages to unearth an astounding variety of beliefs about magic, sexuality, neighborliness, and social order—all tied to the phenomenon of the witch craze. Like Roper, he gets at the emotional, even therapeutic, impulses behind accusations that lead people in small face-to-face societies to turn on each other.  It’s certainly weird and disturbing, but not always in the ways we have come to expect. Sometimes difficult to obtain in the U.S., but worth the pursuit.

This builds on the archives, on the sociology and anthropology, and on the politics, law and religion discussed so far, but its emphasis is on communities – what has been called (by my research supervisor, Keith Wrightson) ‘the politics of the parish’. If witch-hunting was shaped by the structures and relationships of the state, as in Levack’s book, it also belonged to the local political world of ordinary people, who helped each other out and joined forces to resist perceived enemies in their midst. And there was no enemy more frightening than the witch, who was the anti-neighbour, anti-mother, anti-Christian… show more.