Gathering together the vast literature on witchcraft related issues published in the last decade, this six-volume set focuses on issues such as gender, government and law, the culture of religion and the occult. Using approaches from several disciplines, including anthropology and sociology, this source provides a sweeping overview of the occult.

The Witchcraft Sourcebook, now in its second edition, is a fascinating collection of documents that illustrates the development of ideas about witchcraft from ancient times to the eighteenth century. Many of the sources come from the period between 1400 and 1750, when more than 100,000 people - most of them women - were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and colonial America. During these years the prominent stereotype of the witch as an evil magician and servant of Satan emerged. Catholics and Protestants alike feared that the Devil and his human confederates were destroying Christian society. Including trial records, demonological treatises and sermons, literary texts, narratives of demonic possession, and artistic depiction of witches, the documents reveal how contemporaries from various periods have perceived alleged witches and their activities. Brian P. Levack shows how notions of witchcraft have changed over time and considers the connection between gender and witchcraft and the nature of the witch's perceived power. This second edition includes an extended section on the witch trials in England, Scotland and New England, fully revised and updated introductions to the sources to include the latest scholarship and a short bibliography at the end of each introduction to guide students in their further reading. The Sourcebook provides students of the history of witchcraft with a broad range of sources, many of which have been translated into English for the first time, with commentary and background by one of the leading scholars in the field.

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 harm on their neighbours and making pacts with the devil.

Brian P. Levack draws on law, politics and religion to explain the intensity of Scottish witch-hunting. Topics discussed include:

• the distinctive features of the Scottish criminal justice system
• the use of torture to extract confessions
• the intersection of witch-hunting with local and national politics
• the relationship between state-building and witch-hunting and the role of James VI
• Scottish Calvinism and the determination of zealous Scottish clergy and magistrates to achieve a godly society.

This original survey combines broad interpretations of the rise and fall of Scottish witchcraft prosecutions with detailed case studies of specific witch-hunts. Witch-Hunting in Scotland makes fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in witchcraft or in the political, legal and religious history of the early modern period.

The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, now in its fourth edition, is the perfect resource for both students and scholars of the witch-hunts written by one of the leading names in the field. For those starting out in their studies of witch-beliefs and witchcraft trials, Brian Levack provides a concise survey of this complex and fascinating topic, while for more seasoned scholars the scholarship is brought right up to date. This new edition includes the most recent research on children, gender, male witches and demonic possession as well as broadening the exploration of the geographical distribution of witch prosecutions to include recent work on regions, cities and kingdoms enabling students to identify comparisons between countries. Now fully integrated with Brian Levack's The Witchcraft Sourcebook, there are links to the sourcebook throughout the text, pointing students towards key primary sources to aid them in their studies. The two books are drawn together on a new companion website with supplementary materials for those wishing to advance their studies, including an extensive guide to further reading, a chronology of the history of witchcraft and an interactive map to show the geographical spread of witch-hunts and witch trials across Europe and North America. A long-standing favourite with students and lecturers alike, this new edition of The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe will be essential reading for those embarking on or looking to advance their studies of the history of witchcraft

The Witchcraft Sourcebook, now in its second edition, is a fascinating collection of documents that illustrates the development of ideas about witchcraft from ancient times to the eighteenth century. Many of the sources come from the period between 1400 and 1750, when more than 100,000 people - most of them women - were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and colonial America. During these years the prominent stereotype of the witch as an evil magician and servant of Satan emerged. Catholics and Protestants alike feared that the Devil and his human confederates were destroying Christian society. Including trial records, demonological treatises and sermons, literary texts, narratives of demonic possession, and artistic depiction of witches, the documents reveal how contemporaries from various periods have perceived alleged witches and their activities. Brian P. Levack shows how notions of witchcraft have changed over time and considers the connection between gender and witchcraft and the nature of the witch's perceived power. This second edition includes an extended section on the witch trials in England, Scotland and New England, fully revised and updated introductions to the sources to include the latest scholarship and a short bibliography at the end of each introduction to guide students in their further reading. The Sourcebook provides students of the history of witchcraft with a broad range of sources, many of which have been translated into English for the first time, with commentary and background by one of the leading scholars in the field.

Gathering together the vast literature on witchcraft related issues published in the last decade, this six-volume set focuses on issues such as gender, government and law, the culture of religion and the occult. Using approaches from several disciplines, including anthropology and sociology, this source provides a sweeping overview of the occult.

Contents:
Megged, Amos. 'Magic, Popular Medicine and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Mexico: The Case of Isobel de Montoya.' Social History 19 (1994)

Klaniczay, Gábor. 'Shamanistic Elements in Central European Witchcraft.' In Mihály Hoppál, ed., Shamanism in Eurasia (G öttingen, Germany: 1984).

de Blécourt, Willem. 'Witch Doctors, Soothsayers and Priests on Cunning Folk in European Historiography and Tradition.' Social History 19 (1994).

O'Neil, Mary. 'Magical Healing, Love Magic and the Inquisition in Late Sixteenth-Century Modena.' In Stephen Haliczar, ed., Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1987).

Davies, Owen. 'Healing Charms in Use in England and Wales, 1700-1950.' Folklore 107 (1996).

Sebald, Hans. 'Shaman, Healer, Witch. Camparing Shamanism with Franconian Folk Magic.' Ethnologica Europaea 14 (1984).

Alver, Bente Gullveig and Torunn Selberg. 'Folk Medicine as Part of a Larger Concept Complex.' Scandinavian Yearbook of Folklore 43 (1987).

Cassar, P. 'Healing by Sorcery in 17th and 18th Century Malta.' St. Lukes Hospital Gaz. (Guardamangia) 11 (1976).

Gentilcore, David. 'The Church, the Devil and the Healing Activities of Living Saints in the Kingdon of Naples After the Council of Trent.' In Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham, eds., Medicine and the Reformation (London, UK: Routledge, 1993).

Fox, Sylvia. 'Witch or Wise-Woman? Women as Healers Throughout the Ages.' Jaarboek Liturgie Onderzoek 8 (1992).

Cave, Alfred A. 'Indian Shamens and English Witches in Seventeenth-Century New England.' Essex Institute Historical Collections 128 (1992).

Hicks, David. 'On Syphilis and Witchcraft.' Current Anthropology 36 (1985).

Waardt, Hans de, 'From Cunning Man to Natural Healer.' In J.M.W. Binneveld and Rudolf Decker, eds., Curing and Insuring. Essays on Illness in Past Times: The Netherlands, Belgium, England and Italy, 16th-20th Centuries (Hilversum, the Netherlands: Verloren, 1992).

Harley, David. 'Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife Witch.' Social History of Medicine 3 (1990).

Rubinger, Catherine. 'Witch or Saint: Absolutes in the French 18th Century Novel.' Atlantis 11 (1986).

Contents:
Barstow, Anne Llewellyn. 'On Studying Witchcraft as Women's History. A Historiography of the European Witch Persecutions.' Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 4 (1988).

Purkiss, Diane. 'Women's Stories of Witchcraft in Early Modern England: the House, the Body, the Child.' Gender and History 7 (1995).

Jackson Louise. 'Witches, Wives and Mothers: Witchcraft Persecutions and Women's Confessions in Seventeenth-Century England.' Women's History Review 4 (1995).

Maluf, Sônia Weidner. 'Witches and Witchcraft: A Study About Representations of Female Power on Santa Catarina Island.' International Sociology 7 (1992).

Roper, Lyndal. 'Stealing Manhood: Capitalism and Magic in Early Modern Germany.' Gender and History 3 (1991).

Roper, Lyndal. 'Witchcraft and Fantasy in Early Modern Germany.' History Workshop 32 (1991).

Briggs, Robin. 'Women as Victims? Witches, Judges and the Community.' French History 5 (1991).

Clark, Stuart. 'The 'Gendering' of Witchcraft in French Demonology: Misogyny or Polarity?' French Studies 5 (1991).

Holmes, Clive. 'Women: Witnesses and Witches.' Past and Present 140 (1993).

Whitney, Elspeth. 'The Witch 'She' / The Historian 'He': Gender and the Historiography of the European Witch-Hunts.' Journal of Women's History 7 (1995).

Ross, Eric B. 'Syphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-century Europe.' Current Anthropology 36 (1995).

Horsley, Ritta and Richard. 'On the Trail of the Witches: Wise Women, Midwives and the European Witch-Hunts.' Women in Germany Yearbook 3 (1986).

Gaskill, Malcolm. 'The Devil in the Shape of a Man: Witchcraft, Conflict and Belief in Jacobean England.' Historical Reseach 71 (1998).

Behar, Ruth. 'Sexual Witchcraft, Colonialism, and Women's Powers: Views from the Mexican Inquisition.' In Asunción Lavrin ed., Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press: 1989).

Zika, Charles. 'Fears of Flying: Representations of Witchcraft and Sexuality in Early Sixteenth-Century Germany.' Australian Journal of Art 8 (1989-90).

Scully, Sally. 'Marriage or a Career? Witchcraft as an Alternative in Seventeenth-Century Venice.' Journal of Social History 28 (1995).

Accati, Louisa. 'The Spirit of Fornication: Virtue of the Soul and Virtue of the Body in Friuli, 1600-1800.' In Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero, eds., Sex and Gender in Historical Perspective (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990).

Dresen-Coenders, Lène. 'Witches as Devils' Concubines: On the Origin of Fear of Witches and Protection against Witches.' In Lène Dresen-Coenders and Petty Bange, eds., Saints and She-Devils: Images of Women in the 15th and 16th Centuries (London, UK: Rubicon Press, 1987).

Sharpe, J.A. 'Witchcraft and Women in Seventeenth-Century England: Some Northern Evidence.' Continuity and Change 6 (1991).

Kamensky, Jane. 'Words, Witches and Women Trouble: Witchcraft, Disorderly Speech, and Gender Boundaries in Puritan New England.' Essex Institute Historical Collections 128 (1992).

Kivelson, Valerie A. 'Through the Prism of Witchcraft: Gender and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Muscovy.' In B.E. Evans, B.A. Egnel, and C.D. Worobec, eds., Russia's Women: Accommodation, Resistance, Transformation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991).

Griffin, Wendy. 'The Embodied Goddess: Feminist Witchcraft and Female Divinity.' Sociology and Religion 56 (1995).

Gathering together the vast literature on witchcraft related issues published in the last decade, this six-volume set focuses on issues such as gender, government and law, the culture of religion and the occult. Using approaches from several disciplines, including anthropology and sociology, this source provides a sweeping overview of the occult.

Gathering together the vast literature on witchcraft related issues published in the last decade, this six-volume set focuses on issues such as gender, government and law, the culture of religion and the occult. Using approaches from several disciplines, including anthropology and sociology, this source provides a sweeping overview of the occult.

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 harm on their neighbours and making pacts with the devil.

Brian P. Levack draws on law, politics and religion to explain the intensity of Scottish witch-hunting. Topics discussed include:

• the distinctive features of the Scottish criminal justice system
• the use of torture to extract confessions
• the intersection of witch-hunting with local and national politics
• the relationship between state-building and witch-hunting and the role of James VI
• Scottish Calvinism and the determination of zealous Scottish clergy and magistrates to achieve a godly society.

This original survey combines broad interpretations of the rise and fall of Scottish witchcraft prosecutions with detailed case studies of specific witch-hunts. Witch-Hunting in Scotland makes fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in witchcraft or in the political, legal and religious history of the early modern period.

The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, now in its fourth edition, is the perfect resource for both students and scholars of the witch-hunts written by one of the leading names in the field. For those starting out in their studies of witch-beliefs and witchcraft trials, Brian Levack provides a concise survey of this complex and fascinating topic, while for more seasoned scholars the scholarship is brought right up to date. This new edition includes the most recent research on children, gender, male witches and demonic possession as well as broadening the exploration of the geographical distribution of witch prosecutions to include recent work on regions, cities and kingdoms enabling students to identify comparisons between countries. Now fully integrated with Brian Levack's The Witchcraft Sourcebook, there are links to the sourcebook throughout the text, pointing students towards key primary sources to aid them in their studies. The two books are drawn together on a new companion website with supplementary materials for those wishing to advance their studies, including an extensive guide to further reading, a chronology of the history of witchcraft and an interactive map to show the geographical spread of witch-hunts and witch trials across Europe and North America. A long-standing favourite with students and lecturers alike, this new edition of The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe will be essential reading for those embarking on or looking to advance their studies of the history of witchcraft

Distrust of public institutions, which reached critical proportions in Britain and the United States in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, was an important theme of public discourse in Britain and colonial America during the early modern period. Demonstrating broad chronological and thematic range, the historian Brian P. Levack explains that trust in public institutions is more tenuous and difficult to restore once it has been betrayed than trust in one's family, friends, and neighbours, because the vast majority of the populace do not personally know the officials who run large national institutions. Institutional distrust shaped the political, legal, economic, and religious history of England, Scotland, and the British colonies in America. It provided a theoretical and rhetorical foundation for the two English revolutions of the seventeenth century and the American Revolution in the late eighteenth century. It also inspired reforms of criminal procedure, changes in the system of public credit and finance, and challenges to the clergy who dominated the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and the churches in the American colonies. This study reveals striking parallels between the loss of trust in British and American institutions in the early modern period and the present day.

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.