This post is about an important recent paper of interest to all those who want to keep up on contemporary scholarship on Witchcraft. The paper in question is Jacqueline Van Gent's 2011 article "Current Trends in Historical Witchcraft Studies." The full citation is: Journal of Religious History Vol. 35, No. 4, December 2011, pp. 601-612). The paper is freely available in pdf form for download here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9809.2011.01144.x/abstract
Van Gent's paper is a combined review of four recent books on historical Witchcraft studies (well, Levack's book isn't "recent", but it has been recently reissued for its third printing, and van Gent discusses why the book continues to be quite relevant):
- Sarah Ferber: Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France, London and New York: Routledge, 2004; pp. 219 + xii.
- Malcolm Gaskill: Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005; pp. 364 + xvii.
- Brian Levack: TheWitch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 3rd ed., London and New York: Longman, 2006 (first published 1987); pp. 360.
- Charles Zika: The Appearance of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Europe, London and New York: Routledge, 2008; pp. 296 + xiv.
In the course of the combined review, Van Gent also makes references to a number of other important works by authors such as Carlo Ginzburg, Wolfgang Behringer, Marie Lennersand, Gary K.Waite, Marion Gibson, Lyndal Roper, Lara Apps, Owen Davies, etc.
Here is an excerpt from her paper:
Perhaps the most important development to have emerged in the historiography
of early modern European witchcraft in the last two decades, is the
greater recognition of the remarkable cultural, gender, and social diversity to
be found within witchcraft practices. This diversity of witchcraft has made
broader historical contextualization imperative. It is not surprising, therefore,
that the most exciting studies of recent times are those which invite us to see
witchcraft, not as an isolated and somewhat morbid phenomenon, but as an
integral part of a much wider spectrum of early modern religious beliefs, gendered power dynamics, political crises, or social behaviour and traditions.
This review will discuss four books that have appeared in the last few years and
as the witchcraft literature is extremely vast, I will place them in the context of
recent trends that have emerged in the last decade.
The most innovative paradigm shift in historical witchcraft research has
been the expansion of our focus, both chronologically and thematically, beyond
the periods of specific witchcraft persecutions, to consider witchcraft as a less
sensational cultural practice. By expanding the timeline for witchcraft investigations
to before and after the witch-persecution period, witchcraft studies
have unearthed a wealth of new material and questions, and put persecutions
into a new perspective. The kind of witchcraft pursued (or imagined) with such
intensity by authorities during specific witch persecutions, might actually be an
unusual form of witchcraft, restricted to very short periods and defined locations;
while everyday forms of magic, more regularly practised, were both
more influential and typical. This different paradigm allows for a more integrative
view: the full spectrum of social activities, including healing, protective
magic, and the recovery of lost objects, can be considered in our analyses.
Indeed, it is the more integrative approaches to magic and related phenomena
of belief and practice that are producing the most innovative work in the field.
By expanding their chronological perspectives on witchcraft, stepping outside
of the immediate phases of intense persecutions, or witch hunts, historians are
also able to draw broader historical comparisons.
This was clearly signalled with the six volume series The Athlone History of
Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, under the stewardship of general editors,
Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark, which appeared between 1998 and 2002.
This series marks a watershed for witchcraft research. It has reinforced the
point that magical activities have a much longer tradition than witchcraft
persecutions: they existed long before and long after the witch hunts. Only one
of the six volumes deals with the early modern period of intense witch prosecutions;
all others show the different ways in which magic as a cultural and
social phenomenon was part of everyday life. The series’ wide geographic
spectrum reinforces the message of the diversity of legal approaches and
the social dynamics of witchcraft practices. This more integrative approach to
witchcraft is also reflected in the 2004 publication by Owen Davies andWillem
de Blecourt (editors) of Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and Magic
in Enlightenment Europe, which discusses the “decline” of witchcraft beliefs,
or rather their modifications, in several European locations during the
late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
