HIS266
Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe , 1400-1800
Fall Semester 2008
Professor Stuart Clark
Course Rationale
These are topics that have become impossible to think about in isolation from the major developments of the early modern age – the fundamental religious upheavals of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, the transformation of political institutions and state systems, the onset of colonialism and the colonial mentality, the competition for resources and the struggle for stability in agrarian economies, and the development of medical and natural philosophical knowledge and of knowledge practices in general. For this reason they offer undergraduates an excellent perspective on early modern European history in general. In addition, the history of magic and witchcraft has provoked lively reinterpretation and debate for nearly forty years and the pace of scholarly interest in the field shows no sign of slackening. Undergraduates can therefore be introduced to some of the most innovative and influential historians of early modern Europe – from Frances Yates, Keith Thomas, and Erik Midelfort to Gábor Klaniczay, Wolfgang Behringer, Lyndal Roper, and Robin Briggs. The field is currently so rich and active that they themselves should be able to see in it ample opportunity to explore and develop their own concerns and interests as historians.
The course will introduce undergraduates to a broad range of issues in the historiography of the subject but it will concentrate on the cultural and intellectual aspects of the history of early modern magic and witchcraft. In this way it will emphasise the need for the historian to come to terms with the beliefs and mentalities involved. To this end we will begin by examining the place of magic in everyday life and thought, in particular in relation to attitudes to misfortune, family fortunes, and love. This will be followed by an analysis of accusations of maleficium in witchcraft trials, making use of the major new database of nearly 400 trial records from the archives of the Duchy of Lorraine in Nancy . Finally in this section of the course, the attitudes of religious reformers, both Protestant and Catholic, towards popular beliefs and practices are considered. This will include a study of the Catholic Inquisition’s surprisingly cautious attitude to witchcraft and of how both churches viewed the question of demonic possession and exorcism.
As the European prosecutions of witches reached their height in the last decades of the sixteenth century and the first of the seventeenth century so too did the debate amongst clergymen, lawyers, and other members of the educated elite about the reality of witchcraft and its threat to morality and the social order. At first sight the arguments used by these writers seem bizarre and sensational, as does the whole episode. A principal aim of the second part of the course is accordingly to examine the key texts in this controversy in relation to the wider cultural context in which they originally made sense. This will involve reconstructing contemporary ideas about demonology and devil-worship, medicine and the human body, witchcraft and gender, and politics and political authority.
A final aim will be to refer throughout the course to the methodological debates on magic and witchcraft that have arisen among modern commentators. Over the last four decades there have been many different interpretations of early modern magic (high and low), witchcraft trials, and demonology. For example, anthropological, intellectual, feminist, and psychoanalytical approaches have all been attempted. In investigating this controversy, undergraduates will be able to follow recent and continuing developments in styles of modern historical explanation and interpretation.
Course Requirements
There will be one mid-term 5-7 page paper based on the critical reading of a primary text (worth 25% of the final grade) and one final 12-15 page paper in lieu of the final exam (worth 50% of the final grade). Participation in precept discussions will account for the final 25% of the final grade.
Required Texts
It will be required that students use original historical sources from the early modern period in both their papers. These will be available in three forms:-
(a) texts posted by the instructor on Blackboard
(b) texts available online via such sites as EEBO (Early English Books Online) and the archive of Lorraine witchcraft trials at www.history.ox.ac.uk/staff/robinbriggs (to accompany Briggs’s The Witches of Lorraine)
(c) texts available in text anthologies or other publications, as follows:
E. William Monter (ed.), European Witchcraft (1969)
A. C. Kors and E. Peters (eds.), Witchcraft in Europe , 1100‑1700: A Documentary History (1972; 2nd much enlarge edition in 2001)
Barbara Rosen (ed.), Witchcraft in England , 1558-1618 (1969; new edition, 1991)
P. G. Maxwell-Stuart (ed.), The Occult in Early Modern Europe : A Documentary History (1999)
Marion Gibson (ed.), Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases in Contemporary Writing (2000); supersedes Rosen (above) in re-editing 16 English witchcraft pamphlets from the period 1566 to 1621
L. Normand and G. Roberts (eds), Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland (2000); includes documents from the 1590-91 Edinburgh trials, 'Newes from Scotland ', and James VI's 'Daemonologie'.
J. Sharpe, Witchcraft in Early Modern England (2001); see Part 3 for 27 documentary extracts.
J. Sharpe et al. (eds), English Witchcraft, 6 vols. of original texts (2003)
B. P. Levack (ed.), The Witchcraft Sourcebook (2004)
M. Duni, Under the Devil’s Spell: Witches, Sorcerers, and the Inquisition in Renaissance Italy (2007); see Appendix of extracts from 7 Inquisition trials.
Among the modern historical studies to be recommended are:-
Introductory
G. Scarre and J. Callow, Witchcraft and Magic in 16th and 17th Century Europe (Palgrave Macmillan Studies in European History, 2001).
Brian Levack, The Witch‑Hunt in Early Modern Europe (1987, rev. edn. 1995).
B. Ankarloo, S. Clark, and W. Monter, The Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe , vol 4: The Period of the Witch Trials (2002)
M. Gibson CHECK
More Advanced
K. V. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (Penguin, 1973).
R. Briggs, Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft ( Fontana , 1997)
R. Briggs, The Witches of Lorraine (2007)
J. Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England 1550-1750 (1996).
S. Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (1997)
M. Bailey, Battling Demons: Witchcraft, Heresy, and Reform in the Late Middle Ages (2003)
G. Waite, Heresy, Magic, and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (2003)
C. Zika, The Appearance of Witchcraft (2007)
Provisional Schedule of Lectures (to be accompanied by weekly readings)
Week 0: Introductory Lecture: Making Sense of Magic and Witchcraft
Week 1: Magic and Misfortune in Popular Culture
Maleficium in Witchcraft Trials
Week 3: Witchcraft and the Protestant Reformation
George Gifford and William Perkins
Week 4: Witchcraft, Catholicism, and the Inquisition
Alonso de Salazar and the Spanish Inquisition
Week 5: Possession and Exorcism
Werewolves and Werewolf Trials
Week 6: Witchcraft as Devil Worship
The Witches’ Sabbat as a Symbolic System
Week 7: Demonology
The Great Witchcraft Debate: Johann Weyer and Reginald Scot
Week 8: Gender and Witchcraft
Witchcraft and Apocalypticism
Week 9: Witches and Magistrates: The Politics of Demonism
Shakespeare and Witchcraft: Macbeth
Week 10: Demonology and New World Colonialism
Images of Witchcraft
Week 11: Intellectual or ‘High Magic’: Alchemy, Astrology, and Natural Magic
Magic and the Scientific Revolution
Week 12: Course Review