Witch trials in the early modern period

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Punishments for witchcraft in 16th-century Germany. Woodcut from Tengler's Laienspiegel, Mainz, 1508.

The period of witch trials in Early Modern Europe[1] were a widespread moral panic suggesting that malevolent Satanic witches were operating as an organized threat to Christendom during the 15th to 18th centuries.[2] The trials were sparked by the belief that malevolent Satanic witches were operating as an organized threat to Christianity. Those accused of witchcraft were portrayed as being worshippers of the Devil, who engaged in such acts as malevolent sorcery at meetings known as Witches' Sabbaths. Many people were subsequently accused of being witches, and were put on trial for the crime, with varying punishments being applicable in different regions and at different times.

While early trials fall still within the Late Medieval period, the peak of the witch hunt was during the period of the European wars of religion, peaking between about 1580 and 1630. The witch hunts declined in the early 18th century. In Great Britain, their end is marked by the Witchcraft Act of 1735. But sporadic witch-trials continued to be held during the second half of the 18th century, the last known dating to 1782,[3] though a prosecution was commenced in Tennessee as recently as 1833.[4][5][6]

Over the entire duration of the phenomenon of some three centuries, an estimated total of between 40,000 and 60,000 people were executed. Among the best known of these trials were the Scottish North Berwick witch trials, Swedish Torsåker witch trials and the American Salem witch trials. Among the largest and most notable were the Trier witch trials (1581–1593), the Fulda witch trials (1603–1606), the Würzburg witch trial (1626–1631) and the Bamberg witch trials (1626–1631).

The sociological causes of the witch-hunts have long been debated in scholarship. Mainstream historiography sees the reason for the witch craze in a complex interplay of various factors that mark the early modern period, including the religious sectarianism in the wake of the Reformation, besides other religious, societal, economic and climatic factors.


Further information: Witch hunt

The witch-trials emerge in the 15th century out of the practices surrounding the persecution of heresy in the medieval period, although they reach their peak only during the Wars of Religion following the Protestant Reformation.


The work of Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century was instrumental in developing the new theology which would give rise to the witch hunts,[11] but because sorcery was judged by secular courts it was not until maleficium was identified with heresy that theological trials for witchcraft could commence.[12] The resurgence of witch-hunts at the end of the medieval period, taking place with at least partial support or at least tolerance on the part of the Church, was accompanied with a number of developments in Christian doctrine, i.e. the recognition of the existence of witchcraft as a form of Satanic influence, and its classification as a heresy. As Renaissance occultism gained traction among the educated classes, the belief in witchcraft, which in the medieval period had been part of the folk religion of the uneducated rural population at best, was incorporated into an increasingly comprehensive theology of Satan as the ultimate source of all maleficium.[13][14]


Malleus Maleficarum, the 1485 treatise by Henricus Institoris met initial resistance in some areas,[17] and some areas of Europe only experienced the first wave of the new witch trials in the latter half of the 16th century.[18]

Magic and witchcraft[edit]




Historians like Carlo Ginzburg and Éva Pócs have suggested that various beliefs pertaining to magic and witchcraft in Early Modern Europe represented a survival of shamanistic pre-Christian beliefs about visionary journeys.[24] For instance, Emma Wilby has argued that the Early Modern accounts of familiar spirits represent a survival of pre-Christian animism,[25] and has drawn comparisons between alleged witches' Sabbath journeys and the spirit-visions found in ethnographically-recorded shamanic societies in Siberia and North America.[26]

The Devil[edit]



In the 14th and 15th centuries, the concept of the witch in Christendom underwent a relatively radical change. No longer were they viewed as sorcerers who had been deceived by the Devil into practicing magic that went against the powers of God, as earlier Church leaders like Saint Augustine of Hippo had stated. Instead they became the all-out malevolent Devil-worshiper, who had made a pact with him in which they had to renounce Christianity and devote themselves to Satanism. As a part of this, they gained, new, supernatural powers that enabled them to work magic, which they would use against Christians. It was believed that they would fly to their nocturnal meetings, known as the Witches' Sabbath, where they would have sexual intercourse with demons. On their death, the witches’ souls, which then belonged to the Devil, subsequently went to Hell.[29]

For many educated Christians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including theologians and judges, there was a great concern about the idea that witches were in league with the Devil.[30] Conversely, it appears that the idea of the witch as Satanist was far less prevalent among the peasantry and popular classes, who were far more concerned about the potential harm that they could receive from witches than from where the witches gained their magical power.[31]


Medieval persecution of heresy[edit]

Main article: Medieval Inquisition

While the witch trials only really began in the 15th century, with the start of the early modern period, many of their causes had been developing during the previous centuries, with the persecution of heresy by the Medieval Inquisition during the late twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, and during the Late Medieval period, during which the idea of witchcraft or sorcery gradually changed and adapted. The inquisition had the office of protecting Christian orthodoxy against the "internal" threat of heresy (as opposed to "external" military threats such as those of the Vikings, the Mongols, and the Saracens or Turks).

Witches by Hans Baldung Grien (Woodcut, 1508).




The anti-semitic sentiment prevalent in the Medieval would also influence the later witch trials, with the alleged witches' meetings being termed "sabbaths" and "synagogues".[36]



Beginning of the witch hunts during the 15th century[edit]





On December 5, 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued the Summis desiderantes affectibus, a papal bull in which he recognized the existence of witches and gave full papal approval for the inquisition to move against witches, including the permission to do whatever necessary to get rid of them. In the bull, which is sometimes referred to as the "Witch-Bull of 1484", the witches were explicitly accused of having "slain infants yet in the mother's womb" (abortion) and of "hindering men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving" (contraception[dubious ]).[45]

Peak of the trials: 1580–1630[edit]




Decline of the trials: 1650–1750[edit]

Even throughout 16th century, there had been isolated expressions of scepticism regarding the trials. Such objections became more widespread in the 17th century. In 1635, the Roman Inquisition itself acknowledged that it had "found scarcely one trial conducted legally".[48] In the middle of the 17th century, the difficulty in proving witchcraft according to legal process contributed to the councilors of Rothenburg (German), following advice to treat witchcraft cases with caution.[49]

Whilst the witch trials had begun to fade out across much of Europe by the mid-17th century, they continued to a greater extent on the fringes of Europe (and to a limited extent in the American colonies). In the Nordic countries, the late 17th century saw the peak of the trials in a number of areas; for instance, in 1675, the Torsåker witch trials took place in Sweden, where 71 people were executed for witchcraft in a single day. In Finland, then under Swedish rule, the hunt peaked in that same decade.[3] During the same period, the Salzburg witch trials in Austria led to the death of 139 people (1675–1690).

The 1692 Salem witch trials were a brief outburst of witch hysteria in the New World at a time when the practice was already waning in Europe. In the 1690s Winifred King Benham and her daughter Winifred were thrice tried for witchcraft in Wallingford, Connecticut, the last of such trials in New England. While found innocent, they were compelled to leave Wallingford to settle in Staten Island, New York.[50] In 1706 in Virginia, Grace Sherwood was tried by ducking and jailed for allegedly being a witch.[51]

The 18th century witnessed increased urbanisation and technological development in Europe, which gave Early Modern society an increased belief in its own abilities to fashion the world; this led to a decreasing belief in the existence of invisible forces affecting humanity.[52] Belief that Satan interfered in human affairs directly had also begun to wane.[53] Belief in demons became rare among the educated elites, and thus a belief in demonic witchcraft eroded with it.[54] Rationalist sceptics of the trials came to the opinion that the use of torture had resulted in erroneous testimony.[55]

During the early 18th century, the practice subsided. 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. The last execution for witchcraft in England took place in 1716, when Mary Hicks and her daughter Elizabeth were hanged. Janet Horne was executed for witchcraft in Scotland in 1727. The Witchcraft Act of 1735 saw the end of the traditional form of witchcraft as a legal offense 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.[citation needed]

Helena Curtens and Agnes Olmanns were the last women to be executed as witches in Germany, in 1738. In Austria, Maria Theresa outlawed witch-burning and torture in the late 18th century; the last capital trial took place in Salzburg in 1750.[citation needed]

Sporadic witch-hunts after 1750[edit]

While the educated elites had largely abandoned their belief in the reality of witchcraft, this belief remained widespread in popular culture.[56] From this point on, it was very rare for an accused witch to undergo a judicial process and be threatened with execution, but there was still a danger from popular justice and lynch mobs.[56] The death of Ruth Osborne is an example one such case that occurred in 1751.

In the later 18th century, witchcraft had ceased to be considered a criminal offense throughout Europe, but there are a number of cases which were not technically witch trials which are suspected to have involved belief in witches at least behind the scenes. Thus, in 1782, Anna Göldi was executed in Glarus, Switzerland, officially for the killing of her infant, a ruling at the time widely denounced throughout Switzerland and Germany as judicial murder. Like Anna Göldi, Barbara Zdunk was executed in 1811 in Prussia not technically for witchcraft but for arson.[citation needed] In Poland, the Doruchów witch trial occurred in 1783 and the execution of additionally two women for sorcery in 1793, trialed by a legal court but with dubious legitimacy.[citation needed]


In the 1830s a prosecution for witchcraft was commenced against a man in Fentress County, Tennessee named either Joseph or William Stout, based upon his alleged influence over the health of a young woman. The case against the supposed witch was dismissed upon the failure of the alleged victim, who had sworn out a warrant against him, to appear for the trial. However, some of his other accusers were convicted on criminal charges for their part in the matter, and various libel actions were brought.[4][5][58] In 1895, Bridget Cleary was beaten and burned to death by her husband in Ireland because he suspected that she fairies had taken the real Bridget and replaced her with a witch.

The persecution of those believed to perform malevolent sorcery against their neighbors continued right into the 20th century. For instance, in 1997 two Russian farmers killed a woman and injured five other members of her family after believing that they had used folk magic against them.[3] It has been reported that more than 3,000 people were killed by lynch mobs in Tanzania between 2005 and 2011 for allegedly being witches.[59]


Examination of a Witch by T. H. Matteson

There were extensive efforts to root out the supposed influence of Satan by various measures aimed at the people who were accused of being servants of Satan. To a lesser degree, animals were also targeted for prosecution: see animal trial. People suspected of being "possessed by Satan" were put on trial. On the other hand, the church also attempted to extirpate the superstitious belief in witchcraft and sorcery, considering it as fraud in most cases.[citation needed]

Geoffrey Scarre and John Callow thought it "without doubt" that some of those accused in the trials had been guilty of employing magic in an attempt to harm their enemies, and were thus genuinely guilty of witchcraft.[60]

Most of the trials were not motivated by stupidity or a love of violence, but of a belief that it was the morally appropriate course of action for people to take; while some of those carrying out the trials appeared to exhibit sadism, most appear to have acted "from a spirit of duty and a concern for the public welfare."[61] Scarre and Callow described the trials as "a frightning example of how morally motivated action can lead to massive suffering".[62] Lecky argues there was a large amount of impartial evidence demonstrating the existence of witchcraft and that views only changed when the concept of evil spirits came under skepticism in general.[63]

Regional differences[edit]

There were many regional differences in the manner in which the witch trials occurred. The trials themselves emerged sporadically, flaring up in some areas while neighbouring areas remained largely unaffected.[37] In general, homogenous catholic States, such as Spain and Italy, remained largely unaffected, while religiously divided countries like the Holy Roman Empire or France were more affected.[64]

One of the areas that witnessed the largest number of panics, trials, and executions was in the German-language states that comprised the Holy Roman Empire. Nevertheless, there were regional variations here, with relatively few executions in southern Bavaria and the Lower Rhine area.[65] On the whole the trials were less severe in neighbouring France, although again there was regional variation domestically, with the Pyrenees, Languedoc, the Alps and the North East being particularly heavily affected by the trials. There were also large trials in Lorraine and Franche-Comté, although these regions would only be permanently annexed by France after 1660.[66] The situation differed in Southern Europe, with few trials taking place in either Spain or Italy. When they did occur in these nations, it was in the northern regions such as Spain's Basque Country; being close to neighbouring countries, these areas were more open to foreign influences and had a weaker central authority.[67]

There was much regional variation within the British Isles. In Ireland, there were few trials, and those that did take place lacked the demonic elements present elsewhere in the continent.[68] Similarly, the trials in England were atypical of Europe as a whole, for the emphasis of the charges was normally on the practice of malevolent magic rather than contact with the Devil, while the concept of witches' familiars played a key role, which was conversely largely absent from the continental trial accounts.[69] North of the border, in Scotland, witch trials were far more numerous and resulted in far more executions than in England, having far more in common with the trials of France and Germany.[70] Among the British settlements in New England, witch trials were very rare and not a feature of typical Early Modern life.[70]




Identity of the accused[edit]

The majority of those accused were from the lower economic classes in European society, although in times of severe panic wealthier and high ranking individuals were accused as well, including priests, judges and in very rare cases members of the nobility.[75] On the basis of this evidence, Scarre and Callow asserted that the "typical witch was the wife or widow of an agricultural labourer or small tenant farmer, and she was well known for a quarrelsome and aggressive nature."[76]

In various instances, it was men rather than women who constituted the majority of the accused.[77] For instance, in Iceland 92% of the accused were men,[78] and in Estonia 60% of the accused victims were male, mainly middle-aged or elderly married peasants, and known healers or sorcerers.[79] In the witch trials of Moscow in Russia, two-thirds of those accused were male.[80]

Although it was far more common for them to be the accusers rather than the accused, in certain rare cases, children were put on trial for witchcraft.[81] For instance, at one point during the Würzburg trials of 1629 children made up 60% of those accused, although this had reduced to 17% by the end of the year.[82] Several decades later, in the late 1660s, children in Mora, Sweden publicly claimed that adults had taken them to the witches' Sabbath. As a result, fifteen boys over the age of 16 were executed, while forty younger children were whipped.[83]

Interrogation and torture[edit]

Various acts of torture were used against accused witches to coerce confessions and perhaps cause them to name their co-conspirators. The torture of witches began to increase in frequency after 1468 when the Pope declared witchcraft to be "crimen exceptum" and thereby removed all legal limits on the application of torture in cases where evidence was difficult to find.[84]

In Italy, an accused witch was deprived of sleep for periods of up to forty hours. This technique was also used in England, but without a limitation on time.[85] Sexual humiliation torture was used, such as forced sitting on red-hot stools with the claim that the accused woman would not perform sexual acts with the devil.[86] In most cases, those who endured the torture without confessing were released.[87]


Punishment and executions[edit]


A variety of different punishments were employed for those found guilty of witchcraft, including imprisonment, flogging, fines, or exile.[88] In the Old Testament's Exodus 22:18 it states that "Thou shalt not permit a sorceress to live".[21] Many faced capital punishment for witchcraft in the period, either by being burned at the stake, hanged on the gallows, or beheaded.[89] Similarly, in New England, people convicted of witchcraft were hanged.[90]

Number of executions[edit]

The scholarly consensus on the total number of executions for witchcraft ranges between 40,000 and 60,000.[91] This figure does not include unofficial lynchings of accused witches, which went unrecorded but which are nevertheless believed to have been somewhat rare in the Early Modern period.[92] It would also have been the case that various individuals would have died as a result of the unsanitary conditions of their imprisonment, but again this is not recorded within the number of executions.[93]

Attempts at estimating the total number of executions for witchcraft have a history going back to even to the end of the period of witch-hunts in the 18th century. A scholarly consensus only emerges in the second half of the 20th century, and historical estimates vary wildly depending on the method used. Early estimates tend to be highly exaggerated, as they were still part of rhetorical arguments against the persecution of witches rather than purely historical scholarship. Notably, a figure of nine million victims was given by Gottfried Christian Voigt in 1784 in an argument criticizing Voltaire's estimate of "several hundred thousand" as too low. Voigt's number has shown remarkably resilient as an influential popular myth, surviving well into the in 20th century, especially in feminist and neo-pagan literature.[94] In the 19th century, some scholars were agnostic, for instance Jacob Grimm (1844) talked of "countless" victims[95] and Charles Mackay (1841) named "thousands upon thousands".[96] By contrast, a popular news report of 1832 cited a number of 392,000 victims "in Great Britain alone".[97] In the early 20th century, some scholarly estimates on the number of executions still ranged in the hundreds of thousands. The estimate was only reliably placed below 100,000 in scholarship of the 1970s.[98]

Causes of the trials[edit]

"The Witch, No. 1", c. 1892 lithograph by Joseph E. Baker
"The Witch, No. 2", c. 1892 lithograph by Joseph E. Baker
"The Witch, No. 3", c. 1892 lithograph by Joseph E. Baker

Socio-political turmoil[edit]

Various suggestions have been made that the witch trials emerged as a response to socio-political turmoil in the Early Modern world. One form of this is that the prosecution of witches was a reaction to a disaster that had befallen the community, such as crop-failure, war, or disease.[99] For instance, Midelfort suggested that in southwestern Germany, war and famine destabalised local communities, resulting in the witch prosecutions of the 1620s.[100] Problematically for this theory, it has been highlighted that in that region, the witch hunts declined during the 1630s, as a time when the communities living there were facing increased disaster as a result of plague, famine, economic collapse and the Thirty Years' War.[101] Furthermore, this scenario would clearly not offer a universal explanation, for trials also took place in areas which were free from war, famine, or pestilence.[102]

Catholic versus Protestant conflict[edit]

The English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper advocated the idea that the witch trials emerged as part of the conflicts between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Early Modern Europe.[103] This theory has however received little support from other experts in the subject.[104] This is because there is little evidence that either Roman Catholics were accusing Protestants of witchcraft, or that Protestants were accusing Roman Catholics.[104] Furthermore, the witch trials regularly occurred in regions with little or no inter-denominational strife, and which were largely religiously homogenous, such as Essex, Lowland Scotland, Geneva, Venice, and the Spanish Basque Country.[105] There is also some evidence, particularly from the Holy Roman Empire, in which adjacent Roman Catholic and Protestant territories were exchanging information on alleged local witches, viewing them as a common threat to both.[105] Additionally, many prosecutions were instigated not by the religious or secular authorities, but by popular demands from within the population, thus making it less likely that there were specific inter-denominational reasons behind the accusations.[106]


Functional explanations[edit]

Inspired by ethnographically recorded witch trials that anthropologists observed happening in non-European parts of the world, various historians have sought a functional explanation for the Early Modern witch trials, thereby suggesting the social functions that the trials played within their communities.[109] These studies have illustrated how accusations of witchcraft have played a role in releasing social tensions or in facilitating the termination of personal relationships that have become un-desirable to one party.[109]


Class conflict[edit]


Another theory, proposed by the prominent American anthropologist, Marvin Harris, in his work, 'Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches' (1973), is that the witches were scapegoats victimized by the Church and secular lords to focus and divert public furor at a time of economic dislocation: "The practical significance of the witch mania therefore was that it shifted responsibility for the crisis of late medieval society from both Church and state to imaginary demons in human form." (Harris, 1973, 205) Religious and secular authorities, argues Harris, in leading the witch hunts, not only exonerated themselves but made themselves indispensable, cementing their power.

Gender conflict[edit]

An estimated 75% to 85% of those accused in the early modern witch trials were women,[78][112][113] and there is certainly evidence of misogyny on the part of those persecuting witches, evident from quotes such as "[It is] not unreasonable that this scum of humanity, [witches], should be drawn chiefly from the feminine sex" (Nicholas Rémy, c. 1595) or "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."[114] Nevertheless, it has been argued that the supposedly misogynistic agenda of works on witchcraft has been greatly exaggerated, based on the selective repetition of a few relevant passages of the Malleus maleficarum.[115] There are various reasons as to why this was the case. In Early Modern Europe, it was widely believed that women were less intelligent than men and more susceptible to sin.[116] Many modern scholars argue that the witch hunts cannot be explained simplistically as an expression of male misogyny, as indeed women were frequently accused by other women,[117][118] to the point that witch-hunts, at least at the local level of villages, have been described as having been driven primarily by "women's quarrels".[119] Especially at the margins of Europe, in Iceland, Finland, Estonia and Russia, the majority of those accused were male.[120]

Barstow (1994) claimed that a combination of factors, including the greater value placed on men as workers in the increasingly wage-oriented economy, and a greater fear of women as inherently evil, loaded the scales against women, even when the charges against them were identical to those against men.[121] Thurston (2001) saw this as a part of the general misogyny of the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods, which had increased during what he described as "the persecuting culture" from that which it had been in the Early Medieval.[122] Gunnar Heinsohn and Otto Steiger in a 1982 publication speculated that witch-hunts targeted women skilled in midwifery specifically in an attempt to extinguish knowledge about birth control in an effort to "repopulate Europe" after the population catastrophe of the Black Death.[123]

Academic study[edit]


From the 1970s onward, there was a "massive explosion of scholarly enthusiasm" for the study of the Early Modern witch trials.[60] This was partly because scholars from a variety of different disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, philosophy, philosophy of science, criminology, literary theory, and feminist theory, all began to investigate the phenomenon and brought their different insights to bear on the subject.[125] This was accompanied by in-depth analysis of the trial records and the socio-cultural contexts on which they emerged, allowing for a far more sophisticated understanding of the trials than had previously been available.[60] During this process, Britain and Germany established themselves as the main centres for the research of the subject.[126] There have nevertheless been regional differences in how this has been undertaken; scholars in Britain and the United States have for instance largely neglected questions regarding how ancient ideas influenced and informed the identities of Early Modern witchcraft, something which conversely has been of great interest to a number of continental European scholars.[127]

Reception in wider culture[edit]

Popular culture[edit]


Witch-cult hypothesis and Wicca[edit]

Main article: Witch-cult hypothesis


In 1862, the Frenchman Jules Michelet published La Sorciere, in which he put forth the idea that the witches had been following a pagan religion. The theory achieved greater attention when it was taken up by the Egyptologist Margaret Murray, who published both The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) and The God of the Witches (1931) in which she claimed that the witches had been following a pre-Christian religion which she termed "the Witch-Cult" and "Ritual Witchcraft". She claimed that this faith was devoted to a pagan Horned God and involved the celebration of four Witches' Sabbaths each year: Halloween, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh.[132] However, the majority of scholarly reviews of Murray's work produced at the time were largely critical,[133] and her books never receiving support from experts in the Early Modern witch trials.[134] Instead, from her early publications onward many of her ideas were challenged by those who highlighted her "factual errors and methodological failings".[135]


Jenny Gibbons (1998)[118]



Wiccans extended claims regarding the witch-cult in various ways, for instance by utilising the British folklore associating witches with prehistoric sites to assert that the witch-cult used to use such locations for religious rites, in doing so legitimising contemporary Wiccan use of them.[140] By the 1990s, many Wiccans had come to recognise the inaccuracy of the witch-cult theory and had accepted it as a mythological origin story.[141]

Feminist interpretations[edit]


In 1973, two American second-wave feminists, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, published an extended pamphlet in which they put forward the idea that the women persecuted had been the traditional healers and midwives of the community who were being deliberately eliminated by the male medical establishment.[144] This theory disregarded the fact that the majority of those persecuted were neither healers nor midwives and that in various parts of Europe these individuals were commonly among those encouraging the persecutions.[145] In 1994, Anne Llewellyn Barstow published her book Witchcraze,[146] which was later described by Scarre and Callow as "perhaps the most successful" attempt to portray the trials as a systematic male attack on women.[147]

Other feminist historians have rejected this interpretation of events; historian Diane Purkiss described it as "not politically helpful" because it constantly portrays women as "helpless victims of patriarchy" and thus does not aid them in contemporary feminist struggles.[148] She also condemned it for factual inaccuracy by highlighting that radical feminists adhering to it ignore the historicity of their claims, instead promoting it because it is perceived as authorising the continued struggle against patriarchal society.[149] She asserted that many radical feminists nonetheless clung to it because of its "mythic significance" and firmly delineated structure between the oppressor and the oppressed.[145]




  2. ^ Thurston 2001. p. 01.
  4. ^ a b Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, Volume LX, August 10, 1834, Number 17,057 (From the Nashville (Tenn.) Herald, of 22d July) (transcribed at http://www.topix.com/forum/city/jamestown-tn/TPAPB6U4LVF0JDQC8/p2
  5. ^ a b History of Fentress County, Tennessee, Albert R. Hogue, compiled by the Fentress County Historical Society, p. 67 (http://books.google.com/books?id=b1wvAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67; transcribed at http://boards.ancestry.com/localities.northam.usa.states.tennessee.counties.fentress/260.258/mb.ashx)
  6. ^ Touring the East Tennessee Back-roads By Carolyn Sakowski, p. 212(http://books.google.com/books?id=rLBrUbj02IcC&pg=PA212)
  20. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 11.
  21. ^ a b Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 12.
  23. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 8–10.
  24. ^ Ginzburg 1990; Pócs 1999.
  25. ^ Wilby 2005, p. 61.
  26. ^ Wilby 2005, pp. 84–91.
  27. ^ Thurston 2001. pp. 29–31.
  28. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 12–15.
  29. ^ Thurston 2001. pp. 56–57.
  30. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 6–7.
  31. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 7.
  32. ^ Thurston 2001. p. 73.
  33. ^ Thurston 2001. pp. 73–75.
  34. ^ Thurston 2001. pp. 16–18, 32.
  36. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 19.
  37. ^ a b Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 22.
  38. ^ Thurston 2001. p. 76.
  39. ^ Cohn 1975, p. 225; Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 18.
  40. ^ Thurston 2001. p. 67.
  41. ^ Thurston 2001. p. 77.
  42. ^ Thurston 2001, p. 78.
  44. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 20–21.
  46. ^ The English translation is from this note to Summers' 1928 introduction.
  47. ^ Thurston 2001, pp. 80-81.
  50. ^ http://alicemariebeard.com/history/witch.htm
  52. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 65.
  53. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 71.
  54. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 66.
  55. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 69–70.
  56. ^ a b Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 63.
  58. ^ Touring the East Tennessee Back-roads By Carolyn Sakowski, p. 212.(http://books.google.com/books?id=rLBrUbj02IcC&pg=PA212)
  60. ^ a b c Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 2.
  61. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 73.
  62. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 74.
  64. ^ [1]
  65. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 23.
  66. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 24.
  67. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 25.
  68. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 26.
  69. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 26–28.
  70. ^ a b Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 28.
  72. ^ John H. Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof (Chicago and London, 1977), p. 81 ff.
  73. ^ Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (2nd ed, 1995), p. 202; see also Christina Larner, Enemies of God. The Witch-hunt in Scotland (London, 1981), pp. 62–3.
  74. ^ A detailed account of Hopkins and his fellow witchfinder John Stearne can be found in Malcolm Gaskill's Witchfinders: A Seventeenth Century English Tragedy (Harvard, 2005).
  75. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 31–32.
  76. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 31.
  77. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 29.
  80. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 29–30.
  81. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 32–33.
  83. ^ Caro Baroja 2001, pp. 207–208; Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 33.
  87. ^ a b Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 32.
  88. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 34.
  89. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 1, 21.
  97. ^ 'however incredible it may appear, the enormous sum of three thousand one hundred and ninety-two individuals were condemned and executed in Great Britain alone' "WITCHCRAFT.". The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 - 1842) (NSW: National Library of Australia). 29 September 1832. p. 4. Retrieved 30 September 2013. 
  100. ^ Midelfort 1972.
  101. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 42.
  102. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 41.
  103. ^ Trevor-Roper 1969.
  104. ^ a b Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 43.
  105. ^ a b Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 44.
  106. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 44–45.
  107. ^ Midelfort 1972, p. 31.
  108. ^ Midelfort 1972, pp. 31–32.
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  110. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 46.
  111. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 49–50.
  113. ^ Jones, Adam (1999-2002)
  115. ^ 'On the whole, however, the literature of witchcraft conspicuously lacks any sustained concern for the gender issue; and the only reason for the view that it was extreme and outspoken in its anti-feminism is the tendency for those interested in this subject to read the relevant sections of the Malleus maleficarum and little or nothing else.', Clark, ‘Thinking with Demons: the idea of witchcraft in early modern Europe’, p. 116 (1999)
  118. ^ a b Gibbons 1998.
  122. ^ Thurston 2001. pp. 42-45.
  124. ^ a b Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 64.
  126. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 57.
  127. ^ Hutton 2010, p. 248.
  128. ^ Purkiss 1996, p. 15.
  129. ^ Cohn 1975, p. 103.
  130. ^ Cohn 1975, pp. 103–104; Purkiss 1996, p. 34; Hutton 1999, p. 136.
  131. ^ Cohn 1975, p. 104; Hutton 1999, pp. 136–137.
  132. ^ Murray 1952; Murray & 1962.
  133. ^ Sheppard 2013, p. 169.
  134. ^ Hutton 1999, p. 198.
  135. ^ Eliade 1975, p. 152.
  136. ^ a b Simpson 1994, p. 89.
  137. ^ Heselton 2004.
  138. ^ Gardner 1954. p. 139.
  140. ^ Doyle White 2014, p. 68.
  141. ^ Simpson 1994, p. 95.
  142. ^ a b Hutton 1999. p. 141.
  143. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, pp. 57–58.
  144. ^ Purkiss 1996, pp. 19–20; Hutton 1999, p. 342; Ehrenreich & English 2010.
  145. ^ a b Purkiss 1996, p. 8.
  146. ^ Barstow 1994.
  147. ^ Scarre & Callow 2001, p. 75.
  148. ^ Purkiss 1996, p. 17.
  149. ^ Purkiss 1996, pp. 11, 16.


Doyle White, Ethan (2014). "Devil's Stones and Midnight Rites: Folklore, Megaliths, and Contemporary Pagan Witchcraft". Folklore 125 (1): 60–79. doi:10.1080/0015587x.2013.860766. 
Eliade, Mircea (1975). "Some Observations on European Witchcraft". History of Religions (University of Chicago) 14 (3): 149–172. doi:10.1086/462721. 
Halliday, W.R. (1922). "Review of Margaret Murray's The Witch-Cult in Western Europe". Folklore 33. pp. 224–230. 
Hutton, Ronald (2010). "Writing the History of Witchcraft: A Personal View". The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies (London: Equinox Publishing) 12 (2): 239–262. doi:10.1558/pome.v12i2.239. 
Hutton, Ronald (2011). "Revisionism and Counter-Revisionism in Pagan History". The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies (London: Equinox Publishing) 13 (2): 225–256. doi:10.1558/pome.v12i2.239. 
Runciman, Steven (1962). Margaret Murray, ed. The Witch-Cult in Western Europe. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 
Simpson, Jacqueline (1994). "Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her and Why?". Folklore 105. pp. 89–96. doi:10.1080/0015587x.1994.9715877. 

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