Module overview
This module offers you the opportunity to study the history of witchcraft in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (the period during which the great majority of prosecutions and executions for that supposed crime took place). On the module you will explore a wide range of topics, including: the nature of popular witch belief in late medieval and early Tudor England; contemporary attitudes towards women and witchcraft; the passage of the first acts of Parliament against witchcraft in 1542 and 1563; the prosecution of witches under Elizabeth I; the appearance of the first ‘witch pamphlets’ in London; the notion of the witch’s ‘familiar’ (or attendant demonic spirit); representations of the witch on the Tudor and Stuart stage; the prosecution of witches under James I and Charles I; the great witch hunt of 1645-47; the decline in witch trials during the later seventeenth century; the passage of the Act of Parliament of 1736 (which directed that prosecutions for witchcraft should cease); and the remarkable persistence of popular witch-belief in the English countryside throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Cognitive Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Evaluate differences in historiographical understandings of witchcraft in the early modern era
- Make analytical connections between different types of sources and theories in explaining why there were so many witchcraft prosecutions in the early modern period.
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of the histories of witchcraft and witchcraft accusations.
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- gather and digest relevant primary and secondary source materials including via electronic and web resources
- put forward your ideas and arguments in group discussions, and consider the arguments put forward by your fellow students
- develop orally and in writing sound and well supported arguments.
- elaborate and express your ideas and critical reflections in essays, using primary and secondary sources.
- engage in independent study and research.
Subject Specific Practical Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Work confidently with library, archival and virtual sources as appropriate
- Evaluate and compare different genres of source text
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- The historiographies of witchcraft in early modern England
- The variety of witchcraft narratives in the period 1542-1736 and the factors determining those variations
- The primary sources and testimonies that provide historical evidence for stories of witchcraft in the early modern period.
Syllabus
This course will cover topics including:
- ‘Scolding Tongues’: Views of women and witchcraft during the late medieval and early Tudor periods.
- The earliest English witch pamphlets.
- Witch-prosecution under Queen Elizabeth I.
- Representations of the witch on the Tudor and Stuart stage.
- Witch-prosecution under King James I.
- Witch-prosecution under Charles I, 1625-42.
- Witchcraft during the English Civil War, 1642-46.
- The Great English Witch Hunt of 1645-47.
- Witch prosecution after 1660.
- The growth of judicial scepticism and the Act of 1736.
- The persistence of popular belief, 1736-1910.
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Teaching methods will include:
- weekly one-hour lecture and one-hour seminar
- directed individual and group activities around primary sources
- short presentations given by students on the module
- group discussions including feedback from the tutor
Lectures are designed to introduce you to key themes, historical debates and historians' approaches. Further reading and seminar discussions of primary and secondary source material are designed to consolidate your knowledge and understanding. In seminar discussions you will be expected to engage in critical analysis of primary sources and to formulate and articulate arguments. And you will be encouraged to express your own ideas about a topic.
Learning activities will include:
- independent study, reading and research in preparation for each seminar
- putting together and delivering short presentations as directed by the lecturer
- in-depth study of textual and visual primary sources
- participation in small group and whole seminar discussions
This module, like all of the 15 credit History modules offered to second year students, will be research led and it will focus heavily on primary sources. You will study an individual source in depth each week. As such, this module will provide you with a sound preparation for the source-based work undertaken in year 3 during the Special Subject and the dissertation.
| Type | Hours |
|---|---|
| Lecture | 12 |
| Seminar | 12 |
| Completion of assessment task | 54 |
| Revision | 24 |
| Preparation for scheduled sessions | 36 |
| Wider reading or practice | 12 |
| Total study time | 150 |
Resources & Reading list
Journal Articles
D. Purkiss (1997). ‘Desire and its Deformities: Fantasies of Witchcraft during the English Civil War’. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 27(1).
Textbooks
P. Elmer (2016). Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting and Politics in Early Modern England.
H. Trevor-Roper (1947). Four Centuries of Witch-Belief.
B. Rosen (1991). Witchcraft in England, 1558-1618.
K. Brigges (1962). Pale Hecate’s Team: An Examination of the Beliefs on Witchcraft and Magic among Shakespeare’s Contemporaries.
C. Ewen (1929). Witch-Hunting and Witch Trials.
M. Gaskill (2005). Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy.
R. Poole (ed.) (2000). The Lancashire Witches.
O. Davies (1999). A People Bewitched: Witchcraft and Magic in Nineteenth-Century Somerset.
A.Macfarlane (1970). Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England.
J. Sharpe (1996). Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England, 1550-1750.
C. Hole (1986). Witchcraft in Britain.
J. Sharpe (2002). ‘The Witch’s Familiar in Early Modern England’, in G.W. Bernard and S.J. Gunn (eds), Authority and Consent in Tudor England.
M. Stoyle (2011). The Black Legend of Prince Rupert’s Dog: Witchcraft and Propaganda during the English Civil War.
M. Stoyle (2017-18). Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart Exeter.
B.P. Levack (2006). The Witch-Hunt in early Modern Europe.
Assessment
Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Written assignment | 40% |
| Essay | 60% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Resubmit assessments | 100% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External