Witches and Witchcraft in Early
Modern
The Malleus Maleficarum
The Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches) is
one of the most infamous and controversial books of the early modern period.
The Malleus has been blamed for the
death of tens of thousands of women and men, and its instructions on the
identification, prosecution, and punishment of witches arguably did much to
pave the way for the great witch-hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries in
These pages
provides
information on the Class Schedule, the course handbook and bibliography
for each week, and useful web sites for students taking the course.
If you find any useful material that could be added to the site, send me an email
Week 1: The Malleus Maleficarum: Introduction
Week 2: The Malleus Maleficarum: Origins and Arguments
Week 3: The Malleus Maleficarum: The Nature of
Witchcraft
Week4: The Malleus
Maleficarum: Devils and Demons in Early Modern
Week 6: The Malleus Maleficarum: Witches and Women
Week 7: The Geography of the Early Modern Witch Hunt
Week 10: Essay Returns and Tutorials
General Resources:
The online edition of the Malleus Maleficarum
The Internet Source book contains
parts of the Malleus Maleficaurm and the papal bull
Renaissance sources and texts (and
music!) at luminarium
Johannes Nider, Formicarius
Extracts from Jean Bodin, De
la demonomanie des sorciers
(1580)
A general overview, with some links on the history of witchcraft
A massive annotated listing of recent publications in the area
can be found at the Witchcraft Bibliography site
Some helpful Statistics
Primary sources, with a focus on trials in Germany, and some witchcraft
literature
Other Academic
Websites:
David
Harley runs a course on
witchcraft and the occult 1400-1700 with a
wide variety of links and key primary sources
In particular, see his discussion of
gender and witchcraft, and useful
information on the life and work of demonologists, from Weyer
to Guazzo
Prof. Pavlac’s course: The
Witch Hunts 1400-1800
Individual Cases
Witchcraft in
Witch Persecutions at Bonn (
Witch Persecutions at Bamberg (
The
Trial of the Bideford Witches: A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations
against Three Witches (1682)
A Tryal of Witches at the
Assizes Held at Bury St. Edmunds. . . 1664 (1682) (
The Wonderful Discoverie of the
Witchcrafts of Margaret and Phillip Flower (1619)
The Chelmsford mass trial of 1645
Confessions of witches at Faversham,
The Lawes against
Witches...also The Confession of Mother Lakeland (1645)
Two pamphlets concerning Joan Peterson of Wapping
(1652)
The 1662 case of the Lowestoft witches (1682 pamphlet).
Essex witches
A
site (with links) devoted to witches in Essex,
with a good selection of sources and texts: See for example: the Witchcraft
Act
1604; the Hatfield Peverel Trial 1566;
the St.
Osyth Trial 1582; the Confession
of Three Notorious Witches 1589; the Manningtree
Trial 1645; a pamphlet A
Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraftes 1593;
Advice
to Judges 1645, and Matthew Hopkins "Discovery
of Witches" . You can also view a Video
Documentary about Mathew Hopkins on this site
Witchcraft in Wiltshire and the trial
of Anne Bodenham
Witchcraft in Finland
The
Trial of Johannes Junius
Primary
sources for Scotland. See also the website of the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft project
A collaborative site
put together by a group of students at Augustana
A witch-hunt simulation – Put
yourself on trial for witchcraft
Other Online Articles
E.
William Monter, "Witchcraft in Geneva, 1537-1662" The
Journal of Modern History, Vol. 43, No. 2. (Jun., 1971), pp. 179-204
Phyllis
J. Guskin, "The Context of Witchcraft: The Case of Jane Wenham
(1712)" Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 15, No. 1. (Autumn, 1981), pp. 48-71.
Russell Zguta, "Witchcraft Trials in Seventeenth-Century
Russia" The American Historical Review, Vol. 82, No.
5. (Dec., 1977), pp. 1187-1207.