A
witch hunt is a search for
witches or evidence of
witchcraft, often involving
moral panic,
mass
hysteria and
lynching, but in
historical instances also legally sanctioned and involving official
witchcraft trials.
The classical period of witchhunts in Europe falls into the
Early Modern period or about
1480 to 1700, spanning the upheavals of the
Reformation and the
Thirty Years' War, resulting in an
estimated 40,000 to 100,000 executions.
The term "witch-hunt" is often used by analogy to refer to
panic-induced searches for perceived wrong-doers other than
witches. The best known example is probably the
McCarthyist search for communists during the
Cold War, which was discredited partly
through being compared to the
Salem
witch trials.
Antiquity
Punishment
for sorcery and witchcraft is addressed in the earliest law codes
preserved; both in ancient Egypt
and in
Babylonia it played a conspicuous
part. The
Code of Hammurabi
(18th century BCE
short chronology)
prescribes that
- If a man has put a spell upon another man and it is not
justified, he upon whom the spell is laid shall go to the holy
river; into the holy river shall he plunge. If the holy
river overcome him and he is drowned, the man who put the spell
upon him shall take possession of his house. If the holy
river declares him innocent and he remains unharmed the man who
laid the spell shall be put to death. He that plunged into
the river shall take possession of the house of him who laid the
spell upon him.
The pre-Christian
Twelve Tables of
pagan Roman
law has provisions against evil incantations and spells
intended to damage cereal crops.
The
Hebrew Bible condemns sorcery.
Deuteronomy 18:11-12 calls it an
"abomination" and
Exodus 22:18
prescribes "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"; tales like that
of
1 Samuel 28, reporting how
Saul "hath cut off those that have familiar spirits,
and the wizards, out of the land" suggest that in practice sorcery
could at least lead to exile.
In later
Jewish history, Rabbi Simeon ben
Shetach - Pharisee scholar and Nasi of the Sanhedrin in the
1st century BCE - is reported to have sentenced to death 80 women,
who had been charged with witchcraft, on a single day in Ashkelon
.
Later the women's relatives took revenge by bringing false
witnesses against Simeon's son and causing him to be executed in
turn.
The 6th century CE
Getica of
Jordanes records a mythical persecution and
expulsion of witches among the
Goths in an
account of the origin of the
Huns. The ancient
fabled King
Filimer is said to have
- "found among his people certain witches, whom he called in his
native tongue Haliurunnae. Suspecting these women, he
expelled them from the midst of his race and compelled them to
wander in solitary exile afar from his army. There the unclean
spirits, who beheld them as they wandered through the wilderness,
bestowed their embraces upon them and begat this savage race, which
dwelt at first in the swamps, a stunted, foul and puny tribe,
scarcely human, and having no language save one which bore but
slight resemblance to human speech."
Middle Ages
During the
Early Middle Ages, the
Church did not itself conduct witch trials. However, witch trials
were the direct result of Church doctrine.
Canon law, in
Canon
Episcopi, followed the views of the church father
Augustine of Hippo (400 CE) that belief
in the existence of witchcraft was heresy, since according to
Augustine "a heretic is one who either devises or follows false and
new opinions, for the sake of some temporal profit".
The
Council of Paderborn in 785
explicitly outlawed the very belief in witches, and
Charlemagne later confirmed the law. The
Council of Frankfurt in 794,
called by Charlemagne, was also very explicit in condemning "the
persecution of alleged witches and wizards", calling the belief in
witchcraft "superstitious", and ordering the death penalty for
those who presume to burn witches.
Pope John XXII formalized the persecution of witchcraft in 1320
when he authorized the Inquisition to prosecute sorcerors. In 1484
Pope Innocent VIII issued
Summis desiderantes
affectibus, a
Papal bull authorising
two inquisitors, Kramer and Sprenger, to systemize the persecution
of witches.
There were still secular laws against witchcraft, such as that
promulgated by King
Athelstan (924-999)
- And we have ordained respecting witch-crafts, and
lybacs, and morthdaeds: if any one should be thereby
killed, and he could not deny it, that he be liable in his
life. But if he will deny it, and at threefold ordeal
shall be guilty; that he be 120 days in prison: and after that let
kindred take him out, and give to the king 120 shillings, and pay
the wer to his kindred, and enter into borh
for him, that he evermore desist from the like.
It has been proposed that the witch-hunt developed in Europe after
the
Cathars and the
Templar Knights were exterminated, and the
Inquisition had to turn to persecution of witches to remain active.
In the middle of 1970s, this hypothesis was independently disproved
by two historians (Cohn 1975; Kieckhefer 1976).
It was shown that the
pursuit originated amongst common people in Switzerland
and in Croatia
, who pressed
the civil courts to support
them. Inquisitorial courts became systematically
involved in the witch-hunt only in the 15th century: in the case of
the Madonna Oriente, the Inquisition
of Milan
was not sure
what to do with two women who in 1384 and in 1390 confessed to have
participated in a type of white
magic.
Early Modern Europe
The witch trials in
Early Modern
Europe came in waves and then subsided. There were trials in
the 15th and early 16th centuries, but then the witch scare went
into decline, before becoming a big issue again and peaking in the
17th century. Some scholars argue that a fear of witchcraft started
among intellectuals who believed in
maleficium: that is,
harm committed by magic. What had previously been a belief that
some people possessed supernatural abilities (which were sometimes
used to protect the people) now became a sign of a pact between the
people with supernatural abilities and the devil. To justify the
killings Christianity and its proxy secular institutions deemed
witchcraft as being associated to wild
Satanic ritual parties in which there was much
naked dancing,
orgy sex, and
cannibalistic infanticide.
Witch-hunts were seen across early modern Europe, but the most
significant area of witch-hunting in modern Europe is often
considered to be southwestern Germany. Germany was a late starter
in terms of the numbers of trials, compared to other regions of
Europe. Witch-hunts first appeared in large numbers in southern
France and Switzerland during the 14th and 15th centuries. The peak
years of witch-hunts in southwest Germany were from 1561 to 1670.
The first major persecution in Europe, when witches were caught,
tried, convicted, and burned in the imperial lordship of
Wiesensteig in southwestern Germany, is recorded in 1563 in a
pamphlet called "True and Horrifying Deeds of 63 Witches".
In
Denmark
, the burning of witches increased following the
reformation of 1536.
Christian IV of Denmark, in
particular, encouraged this practice, and hundreds of people were
convicted of
witchcraft and burnt.
In the
North Berwick witch
trials in Scotland
, over 70
people were accused of witchcraft on account of bad weather when
James VI of Scotland, who shared
the Danish king's interest in witch trials, sailed to Denmark in
1590 to meet his betrothed Anne of
Denmark.
Current scholarly estimates of the number of people executed for
witchcraft vary between about 40,000 and 100,000. The total number
of witch trials in Europe which are known for certain to have ended
in executions is around 12,000.
During early 18th century, the practice subsided. The last
executions for witchcraft in England had taken place in 1682, when
Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles, and Susanna Edwards were executed
at Exeter.
Jane Wenham was among the
last subjects of a typical witch trial in England in 1712, but was
pardoned after her conviction and set free.
Janet Horne was executed for witchcraft in
Scotland in 1727. The
Witchcraft
Act of 1735 saw the end of witchcraft itself as a legal offence
in Britain: those accused under the new Act were restricted to
people who falsely pretended to be able to procure spirits,
generally being the most dubious professional fortune tellers and
mediums, and punishment was light.
In Switzerland
Anna Göldi was
executed in 1782. Poland
saw the
burning of two women in 1793. Helena Curtens and Agnes Olmanns were the
last women to be executed as witches in Germany
, in 1738 and
Barbara Zdunk in Rößel (West Prussia) in 1811 .
Contemporary critics of witch hunts included
Friedrich von Spee, Gianfrancesco
Ponzinibio,
Cornelius Loos,
Reginald Scot, Johann Mayfurth and Alonzo
Salazar de Frias.
The
Salem witch trials in
Britain's
Massachusetts
Colony were an example of European witch hysteria in the
Americas.
Modern witch-hunts
Although far less frequently than in the past, witch-hunts still
occur today, especially in
Africa.
Witch-hunts against children were reported by the BBC in 1999 in
the Congo and in
Tanzania, where the
government responded to attacks on women accused of being witches
for having red eyes. A lawsuit was launched in 2001 in Ghana, where
witch-hunts are also common, by a woman accused of being a witch.
Witch-hunts in Africa are often led by relatives seeking the
property of the accused victim.
Other instances of
moral panic in the
modern West have some similarities to the earlier witch-hunts.
Notably,
the hysteria surrounding Satanic
ritual abuse, prominent in the United States
, Canada
, the
United
Kingdom
, and elsewhere during the 1980s, employed much of
the same occult and conspiratorial imagery.
The last witch trial was initiated by
Martha Minnen in the year 1950, because her
abutters Victor and Maria Deckx riped up Mrs.Minnen back and called
her witch in the village of Witgoor in the Kempen region of
Flanders.
Saudi Arabia
On February 16, 2008 a Saudi woman,
Fawza
Falih, was arrested and convicted of witchcraft and now faces
imminent beheading for sorcery unless the King issues a rare
pardon.
United Kingdom
Occasional prosecutions under the
Witchcraft Act continued in 19th and 20th
century Britain. A well-publicised recent case was that of the
medium
Helen Duncan in 1944. Supposedly
the authorities feared that by her alleged
clairvoyant powers she could betray details of
the
D-Day preparations, but the accusations in
court centered round defrauding the public. She spent nine months
in prison. The last conviction under the Act was that of
Jane Rebecca Yorke. The Act was repealed
in 1951 and replaced with the
Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951.
This act prohibited a person from claiming to be a psychic, medium,
or other spiritualist while attempting to deceive and to make money
from the deception (other than solely for the purpose of
entertainment).
Africa
In many
African societies the fear of witches
drives periodic witch-hunts during which specialist witch-finders
identify suspects, even today, with death by mob often the result.
Audrey I. Richards, in the journal
Africa,
relates in 1935 an instance when a new wave of witchfinders, the
Bamucapi, appeared in the villages of the
Bemba people. They dressed in European
clothing, and would summon the headman to prepare a ritual meal for
the village. When the villagers arrived they would view them all in
a
mirror, and claimed they could identify
witches with this method. These witches would then have to "yield
up his horns"; i.e. give over the
horn containers for
curses and evil
potions to the
witch-finders. The bamucapi then made all drink a potion called
kucapa which would cause a witch to die and swell up if he
ever tried such things again. The villagers related that the
witch-finders were always right because the witches they found were
always the people whom the village had feared all along. The
bamucapi utilised a mixture of Christian and native religious
traditions to account for their powers and said that God (not
specifying which God) helped them to prepare their medicine. In
addition, all witches who did not attend the meal to be identified
would be called to account later on by their master, who had risen
from the dead, and who would force the witches by means of drums to
go to the graveyard, where they would die. Richards noted that the
bamucapi created the sense of danger in the villages by rounding up
all the horns in the village, whether they were used for
anti-witchcraft charms, potions, snuff or were indeed receptacles
of black magic.
The Bemba people believed misfortunes such as
wartings hauntings and
famines to be just actions sanctioned by the
High-God Lesa. The only agency which caused unjust harm was a
witch, who had enormous powers and was hard to detect. After white
rule of Africa beliefs in sorcery and witchcraft grew, possibly
because of the social strain caused by new ideas, customs and laws,
and also because the courts no longer allowed witches to be
tried.
Amongst the
Bantu tribes of
Southern Africa, the
witch smellers were responsible for detecting
witches. In parts of Southern Africa several hundred people have
been killed in witch hunts since 1990.
Several
African states, Cameroon
, Togo
for example,
have reestablished witchcraft-accusations in courts. A
person can be imprisoned or fined for the account of a
witch-doctor.
It was
reported on 21 May 2008 that in Kenya
a mob had
burnt to death at least 11 people accused of
witchcraft.
In March
2009 Amnesty International reported that up to 1,000 people in
the
Gambia
had been abducted by government-sponsored "witch
doctors" on charges of witchcraft, and taken to detention centers
where they were forced to drink poisonous concoctions. On
May 21, 2009,
The New York
Times reported that the alleged witch-hunting campaign had
been sparked by the Gambia's President
Yahya Jammeh.
In
Sierra
Leone
, the witch-hunt is an occasion for a sermon by the
kɛmamɔi (native Mende witch-finder) on social
ethics : "Witchcraft ... takes hold in people’s lives when people
are less than fully open-hearted. All wickedness is
ultimately because people hate each other or are jealous or
suspicious or afraid. These emotions and motivations cause people
to act antisocially". The response by the populace to the kɛmamɔi
is that "they valued his work and would learn the lessons he came
to teach them, about social responsibility and cooperation."
Papua New Guinea
Though the practice of "white" magic (such as
faith healing) is legal in Papua, the 1976
Sorcery Act imposes a penalty of up to 2 years in prison for the
practise of
"black" magic. In 2009, the
government reports that extrajudicial torture and murder of alleged
witches - usually lone women - is spreading from the Highland areas
to cities as villagers migrate to urban areas.
Causes and sociology of witch-hunts

"The Witch, No.
3", c.1892 by Joseph Baker.
One theory for the number of Early Modern witchcraft trials
connects the
counter-reformation
to witchcraft. In south-western Germany between 1561 and 1670 there
were 480 witch trials. Of the 480 trials that took place in
southwestern Germany, 317 occurred in Catholic areas, while
Protestant territories accounted for 163 of them. During the period
from 1561 to 1670, at least 3,229 persons were executed for
witchcraft in the German Southwest. Of this number 702 were tried
and executed in Protestant territories, while 2,527 were tried and
executed in Catholic territories. Nineteenth-century historians
today dispute the comparative severity of witch hunting in
Protestant and
Catholic
territories. “Protestants blamed the witch trials on the methods of
the Catholic Inquisition and the theology of Catholic
scholasticism, while Catholic scholars indignantly retorted that
Lutheran preachers drew more witchcraft theory from Luther and the
Bible than from medieval Catholic thinkers.”
Other theories have pointed that the massive changes in law allowed
for the outbreak in witch trials. Such laws pointed out heretical
nature, and punished all aspects. Another theory is that rising
number of devil literature popularized witchcraft trials, in which
the German market saw nearly 100,000 devil-books during the 1560’s.
Another assumption is that climate-induced crop failure and harsh
weather was a direct link to witch-hunts. This theory follows the
idea that witchcraft in Europe was traditionally associated with
weather-making. Scholars also imply that a connection between
witchcraft trials and the
Thirty Years’ War may also have a
direct correlation.
While the previously mentioned theories mainly rely on micro level
psychological interpretations, another theory has been put forward
that provides an alternative macroeconomic explanation. According
to this theory, the witches, who often had highly developed
midwifery skills, were prosecuted in order
to extinguish knowledge about
birth
control in an effort to repopulate Europe after the population
catastrophe triggered by the
plague
pandemic of the 14th century (also known as the
Black Death). Citing
Jean
Bodin's "On Witchcraft", this view holds that the witch hunts
were not only promoted by the church but also by prominent secular
thinkers to repopulate the European continent. By these authors,
the witch hunts are seen as an attempt to eliminate female
midwifery skills and as a historical explanation why modern
gynecology - surprisingly enough - came to be practiced almost
exclusively by males in state run hospitals. In this view, the
witch hunts began a process of
criminalization of birth control that
eventually lead to an enormous increase in birth rates that are
described as the "
population
explosion" of early modern Europe. This population explosion
produced an enormous
youth bulge which
supplied the extra manpower that would enable Europe's nations,
during the period of
colonialism and
imperialism, to conquer and colonize 90%
of the world. While historians specializing in the history of the
witch hunts have generally remained critical of this macroeconomic
approach and continue to favor micro level perspectives and
explanations, prominent historian of birth control John M. Riddle
has expressed agreement.
As this theory has an alternative macroeconomic explanation some
scholars oppose it.
Diane Purkiss
argues "that there is no evidence that the majority of those
accused were healers and midwives; in England and also some parts
of the Continent, midwives were more than likely to be found
helping witch-hunters. Also the fact remains that most women used
herbal medicines as part of their household skills, and a large
part of witches were accused by women.
Some sociologists have attributed the occurrence of witchhunts to
the prevalent human tendency to blame unexplainable occurrences on
someone or something familiar. For example, Europe relied heavily
upon agriculture during the period of the witch hunts; if there
were large scale crop failures, the consequences would very likely
be disastrous. Crop failures often correlated with the occurrence
of witchhunts, leading some sociologists to suggest that
communities often took out their anger about a lack of food on
community members (witches) who were unpopular. This can be
paralleled in more recent examples such as the
Nazi use of
anti-semitism to apportion blame for economic
problems. A perception of moral righteousness, by the community, is
a necessary element that enables rationalization. This, however, is
only one element in a complex tapestry of factors leading to the
events in question.
The modern notion of a "witch hunt" has little to do with
gender, the historical notion often did. In general,
supposed "witches" were
female. Saith noted
Judge Nicholas
Rémy (c.1595), "[It is] not unreasonable that this scum of
humanity, [witches], should be drawn chiefly from the feminine
sex." Concurred another judge, "The
Devil uses them so, because he knows that women love
carnal pleasures, and he means to bind them to his allegiance by
such agreeable provocations."
'Witch-hunt' has become a generic term, referring to any situation
in which a 'guilty party' is, essentially, tried and convicted
in absentia, without any 'firm' evidence—indeed, in a
typical witch-hunt, guilt is presumed from the outset, and the
focus of the hunt actually becomes getting the accused to
admit his guilt. Often, these so-called 'confessions' are
brought about by way of verbal trickery, or by questioning the
loyalty or past conduct of the accused.
Political usage
In modern terminology 'witch-hunt' has acquired usage referring to
the act of seeking and persecuting any perceived enemy,
particularly when the search is conducted using extreme measures
and with little regard to actual guilt or innocence. It is used
whether or not it is sanctioned by the government, or merely occurs
within the "court of public opinion".
Homage to Catalonia
The
Oxford English
Dictionary describes the first recorded use of the term in
its metaphorical sense in
George
Orwell's
Homage to
Catalonia (1938). The term is used by Orwell to describe
how, in the
Spanish Civil War,
political persecutions became a regular occurrence.
McCarthyism
The term "witch-hunt" was widely popularized in a political context
through
Arthur Miller's play
The Crucible, ostensibly about
the
Salem witch trials, but
actually a criticism of the
McCarthy
hearings as well as the general atmosphere of paranoia and
persecution that accompanied them.
The hearings, held by anti-Communist committees, panels and
"loyalty review boards" across the United States
, became the most famous 'witch-hunt' of the 20th
century. Later deemed unconstitutional, they represented a
major breakdown in
civil liberties
and civil discourse; those accused of being Communist sympathizers
could find themselves 'blacklisted' by their chosen profession,
effectively ending their careers.
See also
References
- Brian
Levack (The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe)
multiplied the number of known European witch trials by the average
rate of conviction and execution, to arrive at a figure of around
60,000 deaths. Anne Lewellyn Barstow
(Witchcraze) adjusted Levack's estimate to account for
lost records, estimating 100,000 deaths. Ronald Hutton (Triumph
of the Moon) argues that Levack's estimate had already been
adjusted for these, and revises the figure to approximately
40,000.
- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia article on Witchcraft, last accessed 31 March 2006.
There is some discrepancy between translations; compare with that
given in the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Witchcraft (accessed 31 March 2006), and
the L. W. King translation (accessed 31 March 2006)
- "witch" here translates the Hebrew , and is rendered in the
Septuagint.
- "those that have familiar spirits": Hebrew , or "ventriloquist,
soothsayer" in the Septuagint; "wizards": Hebrew or "diviner" in
the Septuagint.
- , Aquinas citing Augustine's De Util. Credendi i
- [1]
- Jeffrey Burton Russell, A History of Medieval Christianity
(173).
- Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, (49).
- Medieval Sourcebook: The Anglo-Saxon Dooms,
560-975
- The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe.
- H.C. Erik
Midelfort, Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany
1562-1684,1972,71
- Wolfgang Behringer, Witches and Witch-Hunts,2004,83
- Based on Ronald Hutton's essay Counting the Witch
Hunt.
- [2]Montague Summers Geography of
Witchcraft, 1927, p.153. Summers discusses and dismisses the
evidence that Mary Hicks and her daughter Elizabeth were hanged in
1716.
- King Abdullah urged to spare Saudi ‘witchcraft’
woman’s life
- "Scotland's Last Witch"
- Mohammed A. Diwan: Conflict between state legal
norms and norms underlying popular beliefs: witchcraft in africa as
a case study; in: 14 Duke J. of Comp. & Int'l L. 351
- A Modern Movement of Witch Finders Audrey I Richards
(Africa: Journal of the International Institute of African
Languages and Cultures, Ed. Diedrich Westermann.) Vol VIII, 1935,
published by Oxford University Press, London
- Christian responses to witchcraft and sorcery
- Witchcraft in Cameroon; Country of origin research
- Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
- Mob burns to death 11 Kenyan "witches"
- "The Gambia: Hundreds accused of “witchcraft” and
poisoned in government campaign"
- "Witch-Hunt in Gambia"
- STUDIA INSTITUTI ANTHROPOS, Vol. 41 = Anthony J.
Gittins : Mende Religion. Steyler Verlag, Nettetal, 1987.
p. 197
- STUDIA INSTITUTI ANTHROPOS, Vol. 41 = Anthony J.
Gittins : Mende Religion. Steyler Verlag, Nettetal, 1987.
p. 201
-
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/unreported-world/episode-guide/series-2009/episode-9
- H.C. Erik Midelfort, Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany
1562-1684,1972,31
- H.C. Erik Midelfort, Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany
1562-1684,1972,31-32
- H.C. Erik Midelfort, Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany
1562-1684,1972,69-0
- Wolfgang Behringer, Witches and
Witch-Hunts,2004,88
- H.C. Erik Midelfort, Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany
1562-1684,1972
- Gunnar Heinsohn/Otto Steiger: "Witchcraft, Population
Catastrophe and Economic Crisis in Renaissance Europe: An
Alternative Macroeconomic Explanation.", University of Bremen 2004
(download)
- Gunnar Heinsohn/Otto Steiger: The Elimination of Medieval Birth
Control and the Witch Trials of Modern Times, International Journal
of Women's Studies, 3, May 1982, 193-214
- Gunnar Heinsohn/Otto Steiger: "Birth Control: The
Political-Economic Rationale Behind Jean Bodin's "Démonomanie"",
in: History of Political Economy, 31, No. 3, 423-448
- Heinsohn, G.(2005): "Population, Conquest and Terror in the
21st Century." [3]
- Walter Rummel: 'Weise' Frauen und 'weise' Männer im Kampf gegen
Hexerei. Die Widerlegung einer modernen Fabel. In: Christof Dipper,
Lutz Klinkhammer und Alexander Nützenadel: Europäische
Sozialgeschichte. Festschrift für Wolfgang Schieder (= Historische
Forschungen 68), Berlin 2000, S. 353-375, [4]
- see John M. Riddle: "The Great Witch-Hunt and the Suppression
of Birth Control: Heinsohn and Steiger's Theory from the
Perspective of an Historian", Appendix to: Gunnar Heinsohn/Otto
Steiger: "Witchcraft, Population Catastrophe and Economic Crisis in
Renaissance Europe: An Alternative Macroeconomic Explanation.",
University of Bremen 2004 (download); also see John M. Riddle: "Eve's
Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West",
Princeton: Harvard University Press 1999, ISBN 0674270266, esp.
Chapters 5-7
- Diane Purkiss, "A Holocaust of one's own," 8
- Diane Purkis, "A Holocaust of one's own," 8
- Klaits, Joseph — Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch Hunts
(1985) p.68
- Arthur Miller, 'Why I Wrote "The Crucible"', New
Yorker, October 21 & October 28, 1996, p.158.
Further reading
- Behringer, Wolfgang. Witches and Witch Hunts: A Global
History. Malden Massachusetts: Polity Press, 2004.
- Briggs, Robin. 'Many reasons why': witchcraft and the problem
of multiple explanation, in Witchcraft in Early Modern
Europe. Studies in Culture and Belief, ed. Jonathan
Barry, Marianne Hester, and Gareth Roberts, Cambridge University
Press, 1996.
- Cohn, Norman. Europe's Inner Demons: The Demonization of
Christians in Medieval Christendom, Revised Edition. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1993.
- Klaits, Joseph. Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch
Hunts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985
- Levack, Brian P. The Great Scottish Witch Hunt of
1661-1662, The Journal
of British Studies, Vol.20, No, 1. (Autumn, 1980),
pp. 90-108.
- Levack, Brian P. The witch hunt in early modern Europe,
Third Edition. London and New York: Longman, 2006.
- Macfarlane, Alan. Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: A
regional and Comparative Study. New York and Evanston: Harper
& Row Publishers, 1970.
- Midlefort, Erick H.C. Witch Hunting in Southeastern Germany
1562-1684: The Social and Intellectual Foundation. California:
Stanford University Press, 1972. ISBN 0804708053
- Oberman, H. A., J. D. Tracy, Thomas A. Brady (eds.),
Handbook of European History, 1400-1600: Visions, Programs,
Outcomes (1995) ISBN 9004097619
- Oldridge, Darren (ed.), The Witchcraft Reader (2002)
ISBN 0415214920
- Poole, Robert. The Lancashire Witches: Histories and
Stories (2002) ISBN 0719062047
- Purkiss, Diane. "A Holocaust of One's Own: The Myth of the
Burning Times." Chapter in The Witch and History: Early Modern
and Twentieth Century Representatives New York, NY: Routledge,
1996, pp. 7-29.
- Robisheaux, Thomas. "The Last Witch of Langenburg: Murder in a
German Village." (2009) ISBN 9780393065510
- Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World, Random House,
1996. ISBN 039453512X
- Thurston, Robert. The Witch Hunts: A History of the Witch
Persecutions in Europe and North America. Pearson/Longman,
2007.
- Purkiss, Diane. The Bottom of the Garden, Dark History of
Fairies, Hobgoblins, and Other Troublesome Things. Chapter 3
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York, NY: New York University Press, 2000, pp. 85-115.
- West, Robert H. Reginald Scot and Renaissance
Writings. Boston: Twayne Publishers,1984.
- Briggs, K.M. Pale Hecate’s Team, an Examination of the
Beliefs on Witchcraft and Magic among Shakespeare’s Contemporaries
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