The Witchcraft Sourcbook: Second Edition

The Witchcraft Sourcbook, now in its second edition, is a fascinating collection of documents that illustrates the development of ideas about witchcraft from ancient times to the eighteenth century. Many of the sources come from the period between 1400 and 1750, when more than 100,000 people - most of them women - were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and colonial America. During these years the prominent stereotype of the witch as an evil magician and servant of Satan emerged. Catholics and Protestants alike feared that the Devil and his human confederates were destroying Christian society. Including trial records, demonological treatises and sermons, literary texts, narratives of demonic possession, and artistic depiction of witches, the documents reveal how contemporaries from various periods have perceived alleged witches and their activities. Brian P. Levack shows how notions of witchcraft have changed over time and considers the connection between gender and witchcraft and the nature of the witch's perceived power. This second edition includes an extended section on the witch trials in England, Scotland and New England, fully revised and updated introductions to the sources to include the latest scholarship and a short bibliography at the end of each introduction to guide students in their further reading. The Sourcbook provides students of the history of witchcraft with a broad range of sources, many of which have been translated into English for the first time, with commentary and background by one of the leading scholars in the field.

About the Author

Brian P. Levack is the John E. Green Regents Professor in History at the University of Texas at Austin. His publications on witchcraft and demonology include The Witch-hunt in Early Modern Europe (3rd edition, 2006); Witch-hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics, and Religion (2008); and The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West (2013). He has also edited The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America (2013).