Witchcraft and Magic in Sixteenth-And Seventeenth-Century Europe

Studies in European History

by Geoffrey Scarre

In his study of witchcraft and magic in 16th and 17th century Europe, Geoffrey Scarre provides an examination of the theoretical and intellectual rationales which made prosecution for the crime acceptable to the continent's judiciaries.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Witches, Academic

88 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1988

About the author

Geoffrey Scarre is a moral philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Durham.

His most important work has been on the topics of evil and the Holocaust, and the ethics of archaeology. He has also written on Utilitarianism and John Stuart Mill.

Reviews

[Helena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written, interesting and thoroughly accessible overview (at least up to 1987 which the date of my copy) of the subject, including a review of the available (again, at the time of publication) literature and a discussion of the difficulties and limitations of archival research. Excellent bibliography for further reading, too.

[Ehsan Mohammadzadeh · Rating 2 out of 5]

غیر آکادمیک و بی‌انسجام. برای بهتر شدنش احتیاج داره مجددا عنوان‌بندی بشه. برای به دست آوردن اطلاعات درباره تعقیب، محاکمه، شکنجه و اعدام جادوگران در قرن شانزده و هفده اروپا اطلاعات جذاب ولی شلخته و ناکافی‌ای داره.
مترجم محترم هم زحمت کشیده منابع کتاب رو که مهم‌ترین بخشش بود به فارسی ترجمه کرده و عملا به درد نمی‌خورن.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

(this review is for the first edition of this work.)

very informative in some ways, but the longer i read, the more frustrated i felt by how the author kept jumping through hoops to dismiss misogyny as a valid motivation for at least some of the witch trials. like, we still have the malleus maleficarum available to read, and it's absolute toxic waste, bro.

also:

"But there is a distinction between hating women and having a poor opinion of them, and while the lowly reputation they enjoyed may have made it easier for women to be suspected of witchcraft, it is not quite so clear that misogyny proper had much responsibility for witch prosecution."

this quote directly followed a paragraph where the author also says this:

"A host of biblical passages proclaimed this message, summed up in the famous description of woman as 'the weaker vessel' (1 Peter 3:7). Aristotle, too, had held that women were inferior to men, blaming this on a defect in the process of their generation. It was even questioned by some writers whether women were really human beings, or whether they belonged to some lesser species."

i have multiple beefs with the above passages. firstly, reducing the meaning of the word "misogyny" strictly to "hating women" as a way to brush contempt of women under the rug as a possible motivator is misleading, imo. (for reference, the definition of "misogyny" is "hatred of or prejudice against women".) to have a whole paragraph describing a history of prejudice against women directly before a paragraph dismissing misogyny as a potential motivator really chapped me.

further, the use of the word "enjoyed" in reference to women being actively oppressed actually made me angry. i sincerely doubt that women have taken pleasure in or benefited from their oppression historically, actually!

i found this read fascinating at first, but passages like the ones above kept popping up and irritated me enough that by the end, i was just mad at having picked it up in the first place.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a good introduction to the witch trials that swept across Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, and touches on those that preceded them and those that occurred in the USA too. On the whole it is a thorough introduction that largely manages to give an objective view of the reasons behind the trials. But the downplaying of the role of misogyny in why so many women were targeted is somewhat misplaced and seems to misunderstand the meaning. Misogyny is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls not just the hatred of women and girls which is how the author portrays it, reducing the attitudes towards women as 'just believing them to be lesser/weaker beings'. This is misogyny and so it is very much why over 80% of these investigations and trials were aimed at women, and not just any women, but widows and spinsters that threatened the patriarchal status quo. I also found the author's belief that we as a society were past this kind of othering behaviour both amusing and depressing given the re-emergence of conservative right wing politics across many countries. Maybe we need to be re-telling the stories of these trials alongside other important historical lessons and be honest about how little we have really changed in the decades and centuries since.

[Frederic Bush · Rating 1 out of 5]

Short book which provides a good review of scholarship on European witchcraft, but which goes completely off the rails when it attempts to provide its own explanation for the witch trials, which is basically that magistrates who killed witches were good people who honestly believed they were rooting out dangerous criminals, and that there was a large group of women who believed they were performing black magic and who often got caught and prosecuted by these honest prosecutors, all of which is asserted without evidence.

[Genevieve Chicoine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good jumping off point for further research.