Witch-Finders, Witch-Hunters or Kings of the Sabbath? The Prominent Role of Men in the Mass Persecutions of the Rhine-Meuse Area (Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries)

Historians of the early modern witch-hunt often begin histories of their field with the realist theories propounded by Margaret Murray and Montague Summers in the 1920s. They overlook the lasting impact of nineteenth-century scholarship, in particular the contributions by two American historians, Andrew Dickson White and George Lincoln Burr . Study of their work and scholarly personae contributes to our understanding of the deeply embedded popular understanding of the witch-hunt as representing an irrational past in opposition to an enlightened present. Yet the men's relationship with each other, and with witchcraft scepticsthe heroes of their studiesalso demonstrates how their writings were part of a larger war against 'unreason'. This Element thus lays bare the ways scholarly masculinity helped shape witchcraft historiography, a field of study often seen as dominated by feminist scholarship. Such meditation on past practice may foster further reflection on contemporary models of history writing.[insert Figure 1 here] Figure 1. Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, 'Christian Thomasius Helps an Elderly Witchcraft Suspect out of Her Prison Cell' (1800). Image Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 14 See especially Waters, Cursed Britain, Pooley, 'Magical Capital', and the collection of essays included in Davies and De Blécourt (eds), Witchcraft Continued. 15 On the agency of victims of the witch-hunt, the starting points remain Roper, Oedipus and the Devil and Willis, Malevolent Nurture.

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2022

La Grande Chasse Aux Sorcières

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Witch-Finders, Witch-Hunters or Kings of the Sabbath? The Prominent Role of Men in the Mass Persecutions of the Rhine-Meuse Area (Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries)

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Witchcraft Acts: Condemnation of Sorcery in the Codes of Law

Witchcraft Acts: Condemnation of Sorcery in the Codes of Law

The War on Witchcraft

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