Many of the sources come from the period between 14, when more than 100,000 people - most of them women - were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and colonial America. The Witchcraft Sourcebook, now in its second edition, is a fascinating collection of documents that illustrates the development of ideas about witchcraft from ancient times to the eighteenth century. The Sourcebook provides students of the history of witchcraft with a broad range of sources, many of which have been translated into English for the first time, with commentary and background by one of the leading scholars in the field. This second edition includes an extended section on the witch trials in England, Scotland and New England, fully revised and updated introductions to the sources to include the latest scholarship and a short bibliography at the end of each introduction to guide students in their further reading. Levack shows how notions of witchcraft have changed over time and considers the connection between gender and witchcraft and the nature of the witch's perceived power.
THE WITCHCRAFT SOURCEBOOK SECOND EDITION BIBLIOGRAPHY TRIAL
Including trial records, demonological treatises and sermons, literary texts, narratives of demonic possession, and artistic depiction of witches, the documents reveal how contemporaries from various periods have perceived alleged witches and their activities. Catholics and Protestants alike feared that the Devil and his human confederates were destroying Christian society. During these years the prominent stereotype of the witch as an evil magician and servant of Satan emerged. Primary Source: Letters from the Witch Trial of Rebecca Lemp: a family deals with accusations.Ī review of torture in the witch hunts and today.Paperback. Ten Common Errors and Myths about the Witch Hunts:Ĭorrections to mistaken ideas people frequently have about the Witch HuntsĬhronology of key events, sources and people involved in the witch hunts Ideas by historians about the origins of the Witch Hunts Theories about the Causes of the Witch Hunts: See also this annotated bibliography produced with the work of students. Witch Beliefs and Witch Trials in the Middle Ages: Documents and Readings. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. Witchcraft in Europe 400-1700: A Documentary History. Kors, Alan Charles and Edward Peters, ed. Superstition and Magic in Early Modern Europe: A Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2000. Witches in the Atlantic World: A Historical Reader & Primary Sourcebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.īreslaw, Elaine G., ed. Collections of Secondary Sourcesīarry, Jonathan, Marianne Hester and Gareth Roberts, ed. 218-238 in WomenĪnd Gender in Early Modern Europe. Witchcraft and Magic in 16th and 17th CenturyĮurope.
A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics and Pagans. Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1985. Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch-hunts. Dark Justice: A History of Punishment and Torture. Secondary Sources by one Authorįarrington, Karen. Suggest that witches actually existed during the time of the hunts. The reader/researcher always be wary of books that lack a scholarly apparatusĪccept uncritically the worst accusations of feminists or atheists, and/or Valuable and sound in trying to understand the Witch Hunts. Bibliography of the Most Useful Books of Articles on the Witch Huntsīelow is my brief selection of some books in English that are especially