Abstract | Keywords | Export | Availability | Bookmark

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The essays in this handbook, written by leading scholars working in the rapidly developing field of witchcraft studies, explore the historical literature regarding witch beliefs and witch trials in Europe and colonial America between the early fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries. During these years witches were thought to be evil people who used magical power to inflict physical harm or misfortune on their neighbours. Witches were also believed to have made pacts with the devil and sometimes to have worshipped him at nocturnal assemblies known as sabbaths. These beliefs provided the basis for defining witchcraft as a secular and ecclesiastical crime and prosecuting tens of thousands of women and men for this offence. The trials resulted in as many as fifty thousand executions. These essays study the rise and fall of witchcraft prosecutions in the various kingdoms and territories of Europe and in English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies in the Americas

History of North America --- History of Europe --- Esoteric sciences --- Christian dogmatics --- anno 1500-1799 --- Witch hunting --- Trials (Witchcraft) --- Witchcraft --- Chasse aux sorcières --- Procès (Sorcellerie) --- Sorcellerie --- History --- History. --- Histoire --- Expositions --- Procès --- Ouvrages de référence --- 248.222 --- 291.33 --- -Trials (Witchcraft) --- -Witchcraft --- -Black art (Witchcraft) --- Sorcery --- Occultism --- Wicca --- Burning witches --- Hunting witches --- Witch burning --- Witches --- Witchburning --- Witchhunting --- Persecution --- Vrijwillige relaties met de duivel. Satanisme. Hekserij. Toverij --- Directe invloed op de goddelijke wil: hekserij; bezweringen; magie, toverij --- Persecutions --- Violence against --- -Vrijwillige relaties met de duivel. Satanisme. Hekserij. Toverij --- 291.33 Directe invloed op de goddelijke wil: hekserij; bezweringen; magie, toverij --- 248.222 Vrijwillige relaties met de duivel. Satanisme. Hekserij. Toverij --- -291.33 Directe invloed op de goddelijke wil: hekserij; bezweringen; magie, toverij --- Black art (Witchcraft) --- Chasse aux sorcières --- Procès (Sorcellerie) --- Ouvrages de référence. --- witch beliefs --- magic --- the Late Medieval West --- magical practices --- demonologies --- Sabbath --- witches' assemblies --- scepticism --- witchcraft in early modern literature --- Early Modern Europe --- witchcraft prosecutions --- trials for diabolical witchcraft --- the German witch trials --- the Rhine-Moselle region --- witchcraft trials in France --- witchcraft and wealth --- the Netherlands --- witchcraft prosecutions in Italy --- witchcraft in Iberia --- witchcraft trials in England --- witchcraft in Scotland --- witchcraft in Poland --- witch-hunting in early modern Hungary --- witchcraft trials in Russia --- witchcraft criminality --- witchcraft research in the Nordic countries --- witchcraft in British America --- magical traditions --- witchcraft and gender --- witchcraft and the law --- sixteenth century religious reform --- neuropsychology --- politics --- state-building --- science and witchcraft --- demonic possession --- exorcism --- medicine and witchcraft