Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe Author Faith Tarpley Author Liza Conover Author Tim Regan Supervising Editor Kathryn M. Moncrief Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England EncyclopediaEMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

Unless otherwise noted, intellectual copyright in EMEE Anthology pages is held by Kate McPherson on behalf of the contributors. Copyright on the TEI-XML markup is held by the University of Victoria on behalf of the LEMDO Team. The content and TEI-XML markup in this file are licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. This file is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and /or data; (2) this availability statement must remain in the file; (3) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (4) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Faith Tarpley, Liza Conover, and Tim Regan, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Published page. Updated links to a permalink. proofed Review of article finished. updated author respStmt. Created File.

The idea that magic and witchcraft had the potential to harm others, combined with strictures in Christianity, spurred the witch hunts that took place from the 14th century to the mid-17th century. Before this time, witchcraft was not considered inherently evil. People in early modern period generally believed that those practicing magic had willingly damned themselves to hell. In England, people also believed that demonic animal familiars accompanied witches and aided them in their practices. Some experts such as Barbara Ehrenreich assert that rather than being implemented by disorganized mobs, witch hunts were calculated operations planned by both the state and church.

Impoverished women were the demographic most commonly executed for practicing witchcraft. That being said, all persons could be accused of witchcraft. Women and, to a significantly lesser extent, men of all social statuses were accused and sentenced to death for practicing witchcraft.

In early modern England, witch trials relied on the confession of witchcraft from the accused. The number of honest confessions cannot be accurately determined, as the accused would commonly be tortured until they provided a confession, which led to their execution. Compared to other European nations, England was relatively moderate in terms of is persecution of witches. Despite witch hunts regularly occuring during the early modern period, those executed for witchcraft in England during this period accounted for approximately 1% of all witches killed in Europe during this time period (Ehrenreich).

Witchcraft and the Marginalized

Approximately 80% of those tried in witch trials were women, most of them marginalized by being single, sick in mind or body, or elderly, all unable to defend themselves. This targeting of women came from their presumed affiliation with and weakness for occult practices, possibly due to Christian beliefs about Eve’s temptation by Satan in Genesis. This association was strengthened by a book Malleus Maleficarum, published in 15th century Germany by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. Malleus Maleficarum was one of the first popular publications that directly, negatively connected witchcraft to womanhood, insisting that both are borne from carnal lust and are tied to the devil. Malleus Maleficarum later became a reference tool for witch trials in early modern Europe, popular across the region and published in more than 26 editions in the period.

Some other writers were publicly apprehensive regarding claims of witchcraft, most notably Reginald Scot’s 1584 The Discoverie of Witchcraft. Scot argues that those accused of witchcraft were likely marginalized and the supposed acts of witchcraft were misunderstandings or coincidences. In his writings Scot does not deny the existence of witches, but that the acts of witchcraft were instead acts of God. In response to these claims, King James VI of Scotland, who became KingJames I of England in 1603, held public book burnings of Scot’s volume and famously authored his own exploration of witchcraft entitled Daemonologie in 1597.

Key Print Sources Bodin, Jean et al. The Definition of a Witch. On the Demon-mania of Witches. Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 1995, pp. 45–55. Carroll, William C. William Shakespeare, Macbeth: Texts and Contexts. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999. Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre English. Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers. Feminist, 1973. Gildrie, Richard P., and Carol Karlsen. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. The American Historical Review vol. 94, no. 1, 1989, pp. 211. James I, King of England. Daemonologie. Curwen Press, 1924 1597. Kramer, Heinrich, and Jacob Sprenger. Malleus Maleficarum. Trans. Rev. Montague Summers. Pushkin Press, 1951. Monter, E. William. Re-contextualizing British Witchcraft. Journal of Interdisciplinary History vol. 35, no. 1, 2004, pp. 105–111. Newton, John, and Jo Bath. Witchcraft and the Act of 1604. Brill, 2008.
Key Online Sources Best, MichaelWitches.Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Intenet Shakespeare Editions, https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/ideas/the%20supernatural/witches.html. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026. Scot, ReginaldThe Discovery of Witchcraft. 1665, Early English Books Online. University of Michigan. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A62397.0001.001.
Image Sources Macbeth, Banquo and the Three Witches, the Historie of Scotlande. 1577. Woodcut, B/w Photo. Bridgeman Images: The Bridgeman Art Library. London: Bridgeman, 2014. Credo Reference.