Witchcraft in England, 1558-1618

Witchcraft in England, 1558-1618 PDF Author: Barbara Rosen
Publisher: Syracuse Studies on Peace and
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Anyone interested in manifestations of witchcraft in Elizabethan and Jacobean England will find this book an invaluable source. Barbara Rosen has gathered and edited a rare collection of documents--pamphlets, reports, trial accounts, and other material--that describes the experience, interpretation, and punishment of witchcraft in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In her introduction, Rosen explores the full range of practices and beliefs associated with witchcraft and situates these phenomena in historical context. She explains how ignorance of science and medicine combined with social circumstance and religious ideology to shape popular perceptions and superstitions. Distinguishing between English and Continental forms of witchcraft, she also examines the legal definitions, disciplines, and punishments applied to wizards, witches, wise women, and conjures in the Elizabethan age. The pamphlets and other original texts have been modernized in certain respects to make them more accessible to general readers. But the book retains its value for scholars: omissions are detailed in the notes and additions marked; obsolete words and grammar are explained in the glossary. Originally published in England in 1970 under the title Witchcraft, this book appears now for the first time in paperback and includes a new preface by the editor.

Witchcraft in England, 1558-1618

Witchcraft in England, 1558-1618 PDF Author: Barbara Rosen
Publisher: Syracuse Studies on Peace and
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Get Book Here

Book Description
Anyone interested in manifestations of witchcraft in Elizabethan and Jacobean England will find this book an invaluable source. Barbara Rosen has gathered and edited a rare collection of documents--pamphlets, reports, trial accounts, and other material--that describes the experience, interpretation, and punishment of witchcraft in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In her introduction, Rosen explores the full range of practices and beliefs associated with witchcraft and situates these phenomena in historical context. She explains how ignorance of science and medicine combined with social circumstance and religious ideology to shape popular perceptions and superstitions. Distinguishing between English and Continental forms of witchcraft, she also examines the legal definitions, disciplines, and punishments applied to wizards, witches, wise women, and conjures in the Elizabethan age. The pamphlets and other original texts have been modernized in certain respects to make them more accessible to general readers. But the book retains its value for scholars: omissions are detailed in the notes and additions marked; obsolete words and grammar are explained in the glossary. Originally published in England in 1970 under the title Witchcraft, this book appears now for the first time in paperback and includes a new preface by the editor.

Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England

Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England PDF Author: Charlotte-Rose Millar
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1134769814
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
This book represents the first systematic study of the role of the Devil in English witchcraft pamphlets for the entire period of state-sanctioned witchcraft prosecutions (1563-1735). It provides a rereading of English witchcraft, one which moves away from an older historiography which underplays the role of the Devil in English witchcraft and instead highlights the crucial role that the Devil, often in the form of a familiar spirit, took in English witchcraft belief. One of the key ways in which this book explores the role of the Devil is through emotions. Stories of witches were made up of a complex web of emotionally implicated accusers, victims, witnesses, and supposed perpetrators. They reveal a range of emotional experiences that do not just stem from malefic witchcraft but also, and primarily, from a witch’s links with the Devil. This book, then, has two main objectives. First, to suggest that English witchcraft pamphlets challenge our understanding of English witchcraft as a predominantly non-diabolical crime, and second, to highlight how witchcraft narratives emphasized emotions as the primary motivation for witchcraft acts and accusations.

A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718

A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 PDF Author: Wallace Notestein
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Witchcraft
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description


England's Witchcraft Trials

England's Witchcraft Trials PDF Author: Willow Winsham
Publisher: Grub Street Publishers
ISBN: 1473870968
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
By the author of Accused comes “an entertaining as well as illuminating” history of Britain’s most infamous witch hunts and trials (Magnolia Review). With the echo of that chilling injunction, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” hundreds of people were accused and tried for witchcraft across England throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With fear and suspicion rife, neighbor turned against neighbor, friend against friend, as women, men, and children alike were caught up in the deadly fervor that swept through villages. From the feared covens of Pendle Forest to the victims of the notorious and fanatical Witchfinder Generals Matthew Hopkins and John Stearns, so-called witches were suspected, accused, and dragged to trial to await judgement and face their inevitable and damnable fate. In this “interesting, informative and insightful” book, historian Willow Winsham draws on a wealth of primary sources including trial transcripts, parish, and country records, and the often sensational—and highly prejudicial—pamphlets that were published after each trial. Her exhaustive research reveals just how frightening, violent, and terribly common the scourge really was, and explores the social conditions, class divisions, and religious mania that stoked its flames (All About History).

The Common Touch

The Common Touch PDF Author: Adrian Roscoe
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443865745
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
During the Elizabethan Age and for the following hundred and fifty years, such figures as Shakespeare and Jonson, Milton and Pope dominated the English literary scene. But what was the vast majority of society really watching, reading and singing? This pioneering anthology, set in two volumes, attempts to answer this question by offering a wide selection of material, ranging from broadside ballads and drolls to witch trial reports and political newsbooks.

The Witch in History

The Witch in History PDF Author: Diane Purkiss
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134882386
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
'Diane Purkiss ... insists on taking witches seriously. Her refusal to write witch-believers off as unenlightened has produced some richly intelligent meditations on their -- and our -- world.' - The Observer 'An invigorating and challenging book ... sets many hares running.' - The Times Higher Education Supplement

Witchcraft and the Act of 1604

Witchcraft and the Act of 1604 PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047432940
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
The essays in this volume examine the relationship of the Jacobean Witchcraft Act to the culture and society of seventeenth-century England. The book explores the potential influence of King James’s works and person on the framing of the Act, including the relationship of Shakespeare's MacBeth to these events, as well as the impact of the Darrell controversy on the shaping of witchcraft beliefs before the Act. It also asseses the impact of the legislation on society in various parts of the country, as well as examining how drama reflected the ideas found in the legislation. The volume concludes with a look at the reasons for its repeal in 1736. This work provides new interpretations of the influence and application of the 1604 Witchcraft Act by some of the world’s leading scholars of witchcraft. Contributors include: Jonathan Barry, Jo Bath, Roy Booth, Chris Brooks, Owen Davies, Malcolm Gaskill, Marion Gibson, Clive Holmes, P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, John Newton, and Tom Webster.

Magical Transformations on the Early Modern English Stage

Magical Transformations on the Early Modern English Stage PDF Author: Lisa Hopkins
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317102762
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Magical Transformations on the Early Modern Stage furthers the debate about the cultural work performed by representations of magic on the early modern English stage. It considers the ways in which performances of magic reflect and feed into a sense of national identity, both in the form of magic contests and in its recurrent linkage to national defence; the extent to which magic can trope other concerns, and what these might be; and how magic is staged and what the representational strategies and techniques might mean. The essays range widely over both canonical plays-Macbeth, The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Doctor Faustus, Bartholomew Fair-and notably less canonical ones such as The Birth of Merlin, Fedele and Fortunio, The Merry Devil of Edmonton, The Devil is an Ass, The Late Lancashire Witches and The Witch of Edmonton, putting the two groups into dialogue with each other and also exploring ways in which they can be profitably related to contemporary cases or accusations of witchcraft. Attending to the representational strategies and self-conscious intertextuality of the plays as well as to their treatment of their subject matter, the essays reveal the plays they discuss as actively intervening in contemporary debates about witchcraft and magic in ways which themselves effect transformation rather than simply discussing it. At the heart of all the essays lies an interest in the transformative power of magic, but collectively they show that the idea of transformation applies not only to the objects or even to the subjects of magic, but that the plays themselves can be seen as working to bring about change in the ways that they challenge contemporary assumptions and stereotypes.

Aphrodisiacs, Fertility and Medicine in Early Modern England

Aphrodisiacs, Fertility and Medicine in Early Modern England PDF Author: Jennifer Evans
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 0861933249
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
An investigation into aphrodisiacs challenges pre-conceived ideas about sexuality during this period.

Magic as a Political Crime in Medieval and Early Modern England

Magic as a Political Crime in Medieval and Early Modern England PDF Author: Francis Young
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786732912
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Treason and magic were first linked together during the reign of Edward II. Theories of occult conspiracy then regularly led to major political scandals, such as the trial of Eleanor Cobham Duchess of Gloucester in 1441. While accusations of magical treason against high-ranking figures were indeed a staple of late medieval English power politics, they acquired new significance at the Reformation when the 'superstition' embodied by magic came to be associated with proscribed Catholic belief. Francis Young here offers the first concerted historical analysis of allegations of the use of magic either to harm or kill the monarch, or else manipulate the course of political events in England, between the fourteenth century and the dawn of the Enlightenment. His book addresses a subject usually either passed over or elided with witchcraft: a quite different historical phenomenon. He argues that while charges of treasonable magic certainly were used to destroy reputations or to ensure the convictions of undesirables, magic was also perceived as a genuine threat by English governments into the Civil War era and beyond.