Cultures of Witchcraft in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxiv

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2. Contested Knowledge: A Historical Anthropologist’s Approach to European Witchcraft

   • Willem de Blécourt

   Pages 1-22

3. Witches and Devil’s Magic in Austrian Demonological Legends

   • Christa Agnes Tuczay

   Pages 23-52

4. Hanna Dyâb’s Witch and the Great Witch Shift

   • Ruth B. Bottigheimer

   Pages 53-77

5. The Mirror of the Witches (1600): A German Baroque Tragedy in Context

   • Rita Voltmer

   Pages 79-99

6. Unravelling the Myth and Histories of the Weighing Test at Oudewater: The Case of Leentje Willems

   • Machteld Löwensteyn

   Pages 101-120

7. The North Sea as a Crossroads of Witchcraft Beliefs: The Limited Importance of Political Boundaries

   • Hans de Waardt

   Pages 121-136

8. “Kind in Words and Deeds, but False in Their Hearts”: Fear of Evil Conspiracy in Late-Sixteenth-Century Denmark

   • Louise Nyholm Kallestrup

   Pages 137-153

9. “Ein gefehrlich Ding, darin leichtlich zuviel geschieht” (A Dangerous Thing in Which Too Much Happens Easily). The End of Village Witch Trials in the Saar Region

   • Eva Labouvie

   Pages 155-178

10. News from the Invisible World: The Publishing History of Tales of the Supernatural c.1660–1832

    • Jonathan Barry

    Pages 179-213Open Access

11. Researching Reverse Witch Trials in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century England

    • Owen Davies

    Pages 215-233

12. The Catechism of Witch Lore in Twentieth-Century Denmark

    • Gustav Henningsen

    Pages 235-248

13. Magic and Counter-Magic in Twenty-First-Century Bosnia

    • Mirjam Mencej

    Pages 249-267

14. Back Matter

    Pages 269-283

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This volume is a collection based on the contributions to witchcraft studies of Willem de Blécourt, to whom it is dedicated, and who provides the opening chapter, setting out a methodological and conceptual agenda for the study of cultures of witchcraft (broadly defined) in Europe since the Middle Ages. It includes contributions from historians, anthropologists, literary scholars and folklorists who have collaborated closely with De Blécourt. Essays pick up some or all of the themes and approaches he pioneered, and apply them to cases which range in time and space across all the main regions of Europe since the thirteenth century until the present day. While some draw heavily on texts, others on archival sources, and others on field research, they all share a commitment to reconstructing the meaning and lived experience of witchcraft (and its related phenomena) to Europeans at all levels, respecting the many varieties and ambiguities in such meanings and experiences and resisting attempts to reduce them to master narratives or simple causal models.

The chapter 'News from the Invisible World: The Publishing History of Tales of the Supernatural c.1660-1832' is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

• folklore
• witch trials
• bewitchment
• cunning folk
• demonology

• Department of History, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom

  Jonathan Barry

• School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom

  Owen Davies

• Heathfield, United Kingdom

  Cornelie Usborne

Jonathan Barry is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Exeter, UK, and currently a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator for his project, 'The Medical World of Early Modern England, Ireland and Wales c.1500-1715'.


Owen Davies is Professor of Social History at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Together with Jonathan Barry and Willem de Blécourt, he edits the Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic series.


Cornelie Usborne is Professor Emerita of History at Roehampton University, UK, and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. She has shared her life with Willem de Blécourt, and thus with witchcraft studies, for many years.

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