Brian A. Pavlac, Ph.D., presenter
| Schedule | Useful Online Materials | Suggested Texts |
"She's a witch!" was a cry heard from the fifteenth to the eighteenth the centuries in many European territories. Religious people had developed a heightened concern with the phenomenon of witchcraft, seeing a new sect hostile to humanity. Tragically, although witches did not empirically exist, many innocent people suffered for their alleged crimes. This course will cover how Europeans defined and treated their accused witches, within the context of political, economic, social, and cultural relationships.
Fall 2022 Schedule:
- WEEK 1 (Sep 12): A review of the belief system of Christianity, its organization by the medieval Latin Church, and their concerns about magic and witchcraft that initiated witch hunting.
- WEEK 2 (Sep 19): An examination of witch hunting in the Holy Roman Empire. In various territories of that realm witch hunting took on its harshest brutality.
- WEEK 3 (Sep 26): A look at witch hunting in the Kingdom of France and its supervision and then dissolution by the expanding monarchy.
- WEEK4 (Oct 3): A juxtaposition of witch hunting in Spain and the notorious Spanish Inquisition and the Papal Inquistion based in Rome (with a quick overview of other places in Europe).
- WEEK 5 (Oct 10): The development of witch hunting in the British Isles.
- WEEK 6 (*Oct 24*): An exploration of America's most celebrated witch hunt around Salem in colonial Massachusetts.
B. Useful Online Materials:
- My site on Witch Hunts
- Cartoon History of Witch Hunts
- Cartoon History of Salem Witch Hunt
- Witch Hunt Simulation
C. Recommended texts:
- Kors, Alan Charles and Edward Peters, ed. Witchcraft in Europe 400-1700: A Documentary History. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-812217513
- Oldridge, Darren, ed. The Witchcraft Reader. Second Edition. London: Routledge, 2008. ISBN 978-0415415651
- Pavlac, Brian A. Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials. Lincoln, NB: Bison Books, 2010. ISBN 978-0-803232907
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These pages may be printed and used, |
Professor Pavlac's Witch Hunt Page |
