HIST 3000 - Witches and the Witch Craze in Early Modern Europe and America

The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft is the result of a two-year project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), grant no. R000239234. The primary goal of the project was to create a database of people accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736. The aim was to collect, collate and record all known information about accused witches and witchcraft belief in a Microsoft Access database and to create a web-based user interface for the database.

The really intense period of persecution of witches did not come until the late 16th and 17th centuries. The basic doctrines of the later witchcraze were laid down in documents of the later medieval period.

These documents built on longstanding folk beliefs which were put in vaguely academic dress.
There has been much recent discussion of whether witches actually existed. For a long period the whole discussion was seen as a mirror of psychological anxieties. Some recent authors - notably Carlo Ginzberg - however, have argued that there were indeed groups of people who regarded themselves as witches.

The three documents below include the Papal Bull of 1484, in which the pope provided his blessing and encouragement to witchhunting; an account of some beliefs about witches; and an extract from the Hammer of Witches describing the process of examination and trial.

"A compleat history of magick : Sorcery, and witchcraft ; containing, I. The most Authentick and best attested relations of Magicians, Sorcerers, Witches, Apparitions, Spectres, Ghosts, Daemons, and other preternatural Appearances. II. A Collection of several very scarce and valuable tryals of Witches, particularly that famous one, of the witches of Warboyse. III. An Account of the first Rise of Magicians and Witches ; shewing the Contracts they make with the Devil, and what Methods they take to accomplish their Infernal Designs. IV. A full Confutation of all the Arguments that have ever been produced against the Belief of Apparitions, Witches, &c. with a Judgment concerning Spirits, by the late Learned Mr. John Locke." --- Richard Boulton / WorldCat

"The theatre of Gods judgements: wherein is represented the admirable justice of God against all notorious sinners, great and small, specially against the most eminent persons in the world, whose exorbitant power had broke through the barres of divine and humane law. Collected out of sacred, ecclesiasticall, and pagan histories by two most reverend doctors in divinity, Thomas Beard and Thomas Taylor." --- HathiTrust

"In reading these treatises it is both important and difficult to remember that these are serious and sincere works, presented by men concerned to press home the dangers of witches and witchcraft while simultaneously being aware of the need to confound skeptics, to keep their attack focused on 'real' witches, and not to be misled by enthusiasm, false claims, unsupported allegations, or even by the confessions of wannabe victims also caught up in waves of hysteria. Each treatise has its own defensive agenda, so in addition to providing a how- to-do-it pamphlet regarding the identification of a witch and the self-justification of the author, the pamphlets remind us that even among the true believers there were different schools of thought and disagreements about most aspects of the enterprise." --- Joel T. Rosenthal, (book review), The Sixteenth Century Journal 40, no. 4, (Winter, 2009): 1321.

"An example of a very rare text of which only four copies are still known to exist. The work is pro witch in its outlook and repeats many of the stories and accusations of previous works." --- Witchcraft in England: The Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries - University of Sidney

"The discovery of witchcraft proving that the compacts and contracts of witches with devils and all infernal spirits or familiars are but erroneous novelties and imaginary conceptions : also discovering, how far their power extendeth in killing, tormenting, consuming, or curing the bodies of men, women, children, or animals by charms, philtres, periapts, pentacles, curses, and conjurations : wherein likewise the unchristian practices and inhumane dealings of searchers and witch-tryers upon aged, melancholly, and superstitious people, in extorting confessions by terrors and tortures, and in devising false marks and symptoms, are notably detected ... : in sixteen books" --- Reginald Scott

"Facsimile t.-p.: The discovery of witches: in answer to severall queries, lately delivered to the judges of Assize for the county of Norfolk. And now published by Matthew Hopkins, witch-finder, for the benefit of the whole kingdome... Printed for R. Royston, 1647." --- HathiTrust

"Wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of Deceivers and Impostors, And Divers persons under a passive Delusion of Melancholy and Fancy. But that there is a Corporeal League made betwixt the Devil and the Witch, Or that he sucks on the Witches Body, has Carnal Copulation, or that Witches are turned into Cats, Dogs, raise Tempests, or the like, is utterly denied and disproved. Wherein also is handled, The Existence of Angels and Spirits, the truth of Apparitions, the Nature of Astral and Sydereal Spirits, the force of Charms, and Philters; with other abstruse matters." --- John Webster

"The impossibility of witchcraft, plainly proving, from Scripture and Reason, That there never was a WITCH; and that it is both Irrational and Impious to believe there ever was. In which the depositions against Jane Wenham, Lately Try'd and Condemn'd for a WITCH, at Hertford, are Confuted and Expos'd" --- Google Books

"A work by a minor English demonologist, brought into prominence by Summers' edition. Pandaemonium was originally published in 1684 and is a unique work in the library of occult research. The work is in two parts: firstly an unoriginal, violently anti-papist diatribe based on the works by Joseph Glanvill and Daniel Brevint, Dean of Lincoln Cathedral which reviews the Fall of Angels, arguments proving witchcraft, the character of a witch, and confederacies of priests and popes with the devil. Part 2 gives evidence concerning apparitions spirits and witches and comprises fifteen quite amusing ghost stories. The most famous of these is the story of "The Demon of Spreyton", later to be retold by Andrew Lang and other writers. In Bovet's view, Catholic priest craft and diabolism were inseparable, as can be seen from his frontispiece." --- Witchcraft in England: The Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries - University of Sidney

"Hale was one of England’s most famous judges and the most celebrated lawyer of his time. By his legal decisions he was a major factor in the continuance of the belief in witchcraft. The most famous trial over which he presided was that of Rose Cullender and Amy Dunn, the witches of Bury St Edmonds." --- Witchcraft in England: The Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries - University of Sidney

"With a true Narration of the Witchcrafts which Mary Smith, wife of Henry Smith Glouer, did practise: Of her contract vocally made between the Deuill and her, in solemne termes, by whose meanes she hurt sundry persons whom she enuied: Which is confirmed by her owne confession, and also from the publique Records of the Examination of diuerse vpon their oathes: And lastly, of her death and execution, for the same; which was on the twelfth day of Ianuarie last past." --- Alexander Roberts

Roberts, Alexander. A treatise of witchcraft. Originally published, London: S. Man, 1616 -- Hopkins, Matthew. The discovery of witches. Originally published, London: R. Royston, 1647 -- Brodie -- Innes, John William. Scottish witchcraft trials