The Witchcraft Reader offers a wide range of historical perspectives on the subject of witchcraft in a single, accessible volume, exploring the enduring hold that it has on human imagination.
The witch trials of the late Middle Ages and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have inspired a huge and expanding scholarly literature, as well as an outpouring of popular representations. This fully revised and enlarged third edition brings together many of the best and most important works in the field. It explores the origins of witchcraft prosecutions in learned and popular culture, fears of an imaginary witch cult, the role of religious division and ideas about the Devil, the gendering of suspects, the making of confessions and the decline of witch beliefs. An expanded final section explores the various "revivals" and images of witchcraft that continue to flourish in contemporary Western culture.
Equipped with an extensive introduction that foregrounds significant debates and themes in the study of witchcraft, providing the extracts with a critical context, The Witchcraft Reader is essential reading for anyone with an interest in this fascinating subject.
General introduction
PART ONE
Medieval origins
1 Richard Kieckhefer
WITCH TRIALS IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE (1976)
2 Norman Cohn
THE DEMONISATION OF MEDIEVAL HERETICS (1975)
3 Michael D. Bailey
WITCHCRAFT AND REFORM IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES (2003)
4 Hans Peter Broedel
THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF WITCHCRAFT (2003)
5 Charles Zika
ULRICH MOLITOR AND THE IMAGERY OF WITCHCRAFT (2007)
PART TWO
Witchcraft, magic and fear
6 Robin Briggs
THE EXPERIENCE OF BEWITCHMENT (2002)
7 Euan Cameron
SPIRITS IN POPULAR BELIEF (2010)
8 Joyce Miller
WITCHES AND CHARMERS IN SCOTLAND (2002)
9 Edward Bever
THE MEDICAL EFFECTS OF WITCHCRAFT IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE (2000)
10 Wolfgang Behringer
WEATHER, HUNGER AND FEAR: ORIGINS OF THE EUROPEAN WITCH- HUNTS IN CLIMATE, SOCIETY AND MENTALITY (1995)
PART THREE
The idea of a witch cult
11 Jacqueline Simpson
MARGARET MURRAY’S WITCH CULT (1994)
12 H. C. Erik Midelfort
HEARTLAND OF THE WITCHCRAZE (1981)
13 Gustav Henningsen
FROM DREAM CULT TO WITCHES’ SABBATH (1993)
14 É va P ó cs
THE ALTERNATIVE WORLD OF THE WITCHES’ SABBAT (1993)
15 Stuart Clark
INVERSION, MISRULE AND THE MEANING OF WITCHCRAFT (1980)
PART FOUR
Witchcraft and the Reformation
16 Stuart Clark
PROTESTANT WITCHCRAFT, CATHOLIC WITCHCRAFT (1997)
17 Alison Rowlands
A LUTHERAN RESPONSE TO WITCHCRAFT AND MAGIC (1996)
18 Gary K. Waite
ANABAPTISTS AND THE DEVIL (1999)
PART FIVE
Witchcraft and authority
19 Gerhild Scholz Williams
PIERRE DE LANCRE AND THE BASQUE WITCH- HUNT (1999)
20 Brian P. Levack
STATE- BUILDING AND WITCH HUNTING IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE (1996)
21 William Monter
WITCHCRAFT, CONFESSIONALISM AND AUTHORITY (2002)
PART SIX
Witchcraft, possession and the Devil
22 H. C. Erik Midelfort
THE DEVIL AND THE GERMAN PEOPLE (1989)
23 Charlotte- Rose Millar
THE DEVIL AND FAMILIAR SPIRITS IN ENGLISH WITCHCRAFT (2017)
24 Kathleen Sands
THE SOCIAL MEANINGS OF DEMONIC POSSESSION (2004)
25 Sarah Ferber
ECSTASY, POSSESSION, WITCHCRAFT (2004)
26 Elisa Slattery
JOHANN WEYER AND THE DEVIL (1994)
PART SEVEN
Witchcraft and gender
27 Karen Jones and Michael Zell
WOMEN AND WITCHCRAFT BEFORE THE “GREAT WITCH- HUNT” (2005)
28 Jane P. Davidson
THE MYTH OF THE PERSECUTED FEMALE HEALER (1993)
29 Elizabeth Reis
DAMNED WOMEN IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND (1997)
30 Clive Holmes
WOMEN, WITNESSES AND WITCHES (1993)
31 E. J. Kent
MASCULINITY AND MALE WITCHES IN OLD AND NEW ENGLAND (2005)
PART EIGHT
Reading confessions
32 Virginia Krause
WITCHCRAFT CONFESSIONS AND DEMONOLOGY (2005)
33 Louise Jackson
WITCHES, WIVES AND MOTHERS (1995)
34 Lyndal Roper
OEDIPUS AND THE DEVIL (1994)
PART NINE
The decline of witchcraft 375
35 Brian P. Levack
THE DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFT PROSECUTIONS (1999)
36 Marion Gibson
THE DECLINE OF THE WITCHCRAFT PAMPHLET (1999)
37 Owen Davies
URBANIZATION AND THE DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFT: AN EXAMINATION OF LONDON (1997)
38 Marijke Gijswijt- Hofsra
WITCHCRAFT AFTER THE WITCH TRIALS (1999)
PART TEN
Witchcraft today
39 Diane Purkiss
MODERN WITCHES AND THEIR PAST (1996)
40 Ethan Doyle White
WICCA AS WITCHCRAFT (2016)
41 Jean La Fontaine
WITCHCRAFT AND SATANIC ABUSE (1998)
42 Marion Gibson
HARRY POTTER IN AMERICA (2007)
43 Julian Goodare
MODERN WESTERN IMAGES OF WITCHES (2016)
Index
Biography
Darren Oldridge is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Worcester. He has written extensively on religion and belief in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His most recent publications include The Supernatural in Tudor and Stuart England (2016) and Strange Histories: The Trial of the Pig, the Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds (2nd edn, 2018).
