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The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America (Paperback)
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The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America (Paperback)
Series: Oxford Handbooks
Expected to ship within 9 - 15 working days
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The essays in this Handbook, written by leading scholars working in
the rapidly developing field of witchcraft studies, explore the
historical literature regarding witch beliefs and witch trials in
Europe and colonial America between the early fifteenth and early
eighteenth centuries. During these years witches were thought to be
evil people who used magical power to inflict physical harm or
misfortune on their neighbours. Witches were also believed to have
made pacts with the devil and sometimes to have worshipped him at
nocturnal assemblies known as sabbaths. These beliefs provided the
basis for defining witchcraft as a secular and ecclesiastical crime
and prosecuting tens of thousands of women and men for this
offence. The trials resulted in as many as fifty thousand
executions. These essays study the rise and fall of witchcraft
prosecutions in the various kingdoms and territories of Europe and
in English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies in the Americas. They
also relate these prosecutions to the Catholic and Protestant
reformations, the introduction of new forms of criminal procedure,
medical and scientific thought, the process of state-building,
profound social and economic change, early modern patterns of
gender relations, and the wave of demonic possessions that occurred
in Europe at the same time. The essays survey the current state of
knowledge in the field, explore the academic controversies that
have arisen regarding witch beliefs and witch trials, propose new
ways of studying the subject, and identify areas for future
research.
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