New Medieval Books: Becoming a Witch
A collection of eleven articles about how witches and witchcraft were depicted in the Middle Ages. Many of the articles focus on the connections between women and magic and how this gradually troubled medieval society.
Study explores gender bias in witchcraft accusations in early modern England
By the end of the Middle Ages, accusations of witchcraft were being made to mostly women. A new study finds another reason why this was the case in early modern England.
Witch Hunts in Medieval England: The Trial of Walter Langton
In 1301 Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, was accused of using sorcery to acquire a large fortune and gain the favour of the king. His lengthy and inconclusive trial shows that accusations of witchcraft made at this time were often motivated by politics rather than fear
From Magic to Maleficium: The Crafting of Witchery in Late Medieval Text
In 1437, theologian Johannes Nider warned about a new threat to the Christian world – witches.
Medieval witches with Gemma Hollman
It’s the spookiest season, which means it’s the perfect time to investigate medieval witches. This week, Danièle speaks with Gemma Hollman, author of Royal Witches, about some of the fifteenth century’s most high profile accusations of witchcraft.
The mark of the Devil: medical proof in witchcraft trials
This thesis will analyze the intersection between medical and religious beliefs in the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries to evaluate the importance placed upon medical evidence by secular and ecclesiastical courts.
The Scapegoat: Impotence and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages
This essay investigates the question of how women were used as scapegoats for male impotence during the Witch Craze.
BOOK REVIEW: Spies, Sadists, and Sorcerers: The History You Weren’t Taught in School
A review of Dominic Selwood’s, ‘Spies, Sadists, and Sorcerers: The History you Weren’t Taught in School’
Movie Review: Dangerous Beauty
Late 16th century Venice, where a woman can be a nun, a wife or a courtesan. For Veronica Franco, the free spirited girl scorned by because of her lack of wealth, the choice is an obvious one…
Ritualized Violence against Sorcerers in Fifteenth-Century France
These tales of violence and sorcery reveal interesting interactions with renowned sorcerers in villages that had not yet become involved in the witch hunts that were beginning to break out in the mountains in eastern France
BOOKS: Medieval Ireland
In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, here are some great books on medieval Ireland!
Witchcraft Trials In Sweden: With Neighbours Like These, Who Needs Enemies?!
Everyone has “that” neighbour on their floor, or street who they’d secretly love to move to Mars and never see again. Well, the Early Modern Swedes had a way of dealing with those kinds of nasty neighbours…
Crafting the witch: Gendering magic in medieval and early modern England
This project documents and analyzes the gendered transformation of magical figures occurring in Arthurian romance in England from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.
10 Terrifying Reads for Halloween!
Here are some spooky medieval books for you to celebrate with over Halloween!
Constructing the Wicked Witch: Discourses of Power in the Witch-Hunts of Early Modern Germany
For the people of early modern Germany, the witch was not the cackling menace of fairytales or myth, but a real-life scourge on society that needed to be purged from their lives.
The American Dark Ages and the Terrorist Witch in Season of the Witch
In this article we argue that medieval films are not to be analyzed according to their faithfulness to the known historical sources, but that they can only be fully analyzed by understanding medievalist codes, traditions and (filmic) intertextuality.
Plague and Persecution: The Black Death and Early Modern Witch Hunts
The century or so from approximately 1550 to 1650 is a period during which witch-hunts reached unprecedented frequency and intensity. The circumstances that fomented the witch- hunts—persistent warfare, religious conflict, and harvest failures—had occurred before, but witch-hunts had never been so ubiquitous or severe.
The Contemporary Evidence for Early Medieval Witchcraft-Beliefs
This article has two main aims. One is to bring to a wider audience a small group of early medieval texts pertinent to the history of witchcraft…
Devil Worship in the Middle Ages
Probably the most reasonable explanation of the Devil worship phenomenon at this time is a combination of both of these hypotheses. Lingering ideas of pre-Christian cults of Diana and the Homed God became entwined with the doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning evil.
Sorcery at court and manor: Margery Jourdemayne, the witch of Eye next Westminster
One of the most sensational episodes of the mid-fifteenth century was the trial for treasonable witchcraft of Eleanor, duchess of Gloucester. As the wife of a royal duke, Humphrey of Gloucester, uncle to the young Henry VI, she not only moved in the highest circles but, since the king was still unmarried, was also amongst the first ladies in the land.
Why Cats were hated in Medieval Europe
Cats in medieval Europe mostly had a bad reputation – they were associated with witches and heretics, and it was believed that the devil could transform himself into a black cat.
The Sorcery Trial of Alice Kyteler
In 1324, Richard Ledrede, bishop of Ossory, declared that his diocese was a hotbed of devil worshippers. The central figure in this affair was Alice Kyteler, a wealthy Kilkenny woman who stood accused of witchcraft by her stepchildren.
Blood beliefs in early modern Europe
This thesis focuses on the significance of blood and the perception of the body in both learned and popular culture in order to investigate problems of identity and social exclusion in early modern Europe.
Sexuality in the Natural and Demonic Magic of the Middle Ages
Throughout the Middle Ages – especially the later Middle Ages – ideas of magic played a large part in the formation of deviant sexual behaviours and it was believed that magic played a main role in sexual malfunctions and abilities.
The Light was retreating before Darkness: Tales of the Witch hunt and climate change
Little by little, out of the old conviction —pagan and Christian— of evil interference in atmospheric phenomena evolved the belief that some people may use malign sorcery to set off whirlwinds hail, frosts, floods and other destructive weather events.