Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases in Contemporary Writing

Front Cover
Psychology Press, 2000 - History - 338 pages
The sixteen examples collected here describe fifteen English witchcraft cases in detail, vividly recreating events to give the reader the illusion of actually being present at witchcraft accusations, trials and hangings. But how much are we, as readers, victims of literary manipulation by the authors of these texts, and by accusers, magistrates and witches themselves? Some of the writing collected here appear in print for the first time in three centuries, while others are newly edited to give a clearer picture of sources, generic developments in writing about witchcraft, the chronologies of cases, and the biographies of the people who are trying to tell us their stories.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
1 The Examination and Confession of certaine Wytches 1566
10
2 The Examination of John Walsh 1566
25
3 A Rehearsall both straung and true 1579
33
4 A Detection of damnable driftes 1579
41
5 Richard Galis A brief treatise 1579
50
6 WW A true and just Recorde 1582
72
7 The severall factes of Witchcrafte 1585
125
10 A memoriall of certaine most notorious witches 1595
146
11 The severall practises of Johane Harrison and her daughter 1606
151
12 The Witches of Northamptonshire 1612
158
13 Thomas Potts The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches 1612
173
14 Witches Apprehended 1613
266
15 The Wonderful Discovery of the Witchcrafts of Margaret and Phillip Flower 1619
276
16 Henry Goodcole The wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer a Witch 1621
299
Bibliography and further reading
316

8 The Apprehension and confession of three notorious Witches 1589
129
9 A Most Wicked worke of a wretched Witch 1592
138
Index
323

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