1. Introduction

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we are concerned with setting some of the ground-rules for the study of the witch craze in Britain, Europe and North America between 1500-1700, focusing in particular on the distinction between popular beliefs about witchcraft and the legal history of the phenomenon, the origins of beliefs about witches, and the extent of the persecutions, beginning with the earliest trials in the 14th and 15th centuries.

Course

In this course, Robin Briggs (University of Oxford) explores the witch craze in Britain, Europe and North America, looking in particular at Germany, England, Salem and the Duchy of Lorraine. As we move through the course, we think about the nature of the witch craze, its causes and its impact, as well as the similarities and differences between each of the four regions.

Lecturer

Robin Briggs is Emeritus Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He is currently working on a book covering the history of North-Western Europe from c. 400 A.D. to 1914. Recent publications include a chapter on ‘The Rhine-Moselle Borderlands’ in The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft (ed B. Levack), an article on ‘From Devilry to Sainthood: Mère Jeanne des Anges and the Catholic Reform’ in Women and Religion in the Atlantic Age, 1550-1900 (ed. M. Laven and E. Clark), and an article on ‘The Gallican Context for Pascal's Writings on Grace’ in Seventeenth Century French Studies. Other pieces in the press are contributions on social problems and policies in the later years of Louis XIV, and on emotions and witchcraft as they appear in Lorraine trial records. His current research interests are necessarily very wide, because he is writing a general book covering an immense span of European history. However he does also maintain a particular interest in seventeenth-century French history, with a more precise focus on the half-century of troubles from 1610-61. His next project is likely to be a book attempting to rethink aspects of this crucial period, where much recent work has added to our detailed knowledge, but there has been little in the way of changes to broader interpretations that now look dated and inadequate.