[Gutenberg 31511] • A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718

General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1911 Original Publisher: The American historical association Description: "In its original form this essay was the dissertation submitted for a doctorate in philosophy conferred by Yale university in 1908."--Pref. Subjects: Witchcraft History / Medieval Body, Mind

It has been said by a thoughtful writer that the subject of witchcraft has hardly received that place which it deserves in the history of opinions. There has been, of course, a reason for this neglect-the fact that the belief in witchcraft is no longer existent among intelligent people and that its history, in consequence, seems to possess rather an antiquarian than a living interest. No one can tell the story of the witch trials of sixteenth and seventeenth century England without digging up a buried past, and the process of exhumation is not always pleasant. Yet the study of English witchcraft is more than an unsightly exposure of a forgotten superstition. There were few aspects of sixteenth and seventeenth century life that were not affected by the ugly belief. It is quite impossible to grasp the social conditions, it is impossible to understand the opinions, fears, and hopes of the men and women who lived in Elizabethan and Stuart England, without some knowledge of the part played in that age by witchcraft.