Witchcraft, witch-hunting, and politics in early modern England / Peter Elmer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Elmer, Peter, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Witchcraft--England--History.

Witchcraft.

Witch hunting--England--History.

Witch hunting.

Trials (Witchcraft)--England--History.

Trials (Witchcraft).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (380 p.)

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A wide-ranging overview of the place of witchcraft and witch-hunting in the broader culture of early modern England. Based on a mass of new evidence extracted from a range of archives, both local and national, it seeks to relate the rise and decline of belief in witchcraft, alongside the legal prosecution of witches, to the wider political culture of the period. Building on the seminal work of scholars such as Stuart Clark, Ian Bostridge, and Jonathan Barry, it demonstrates how learned discussion of witchcraft, as well as the trials of those suspected of the crime, were shaped by religious and political imperatives in that period.

Contents:

Cover; Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England; Copyright; Acknowledgements; Table of Contents; Abbreviations; 1: Introduction; 2: Witchcraft, Religion, and the State in Elizabethan and Jacobean England; WITCHCRAFT AND THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT; REGINALD SCOT'S DISCOVERIE OF WITCHCRAFT (1584): A CASE STUDY IN THE POLITICS OF SCEPTICISM; PURITANISM AND WITCHCRAFT: THE CASE OF PRE-CIVIL WAR ESSEX; THE POLITICS OF WITCH-HUNTING IN EARLY JACOBEAN ENGLAND: THE CASE OF ANNE GUNTER; THE MYTH OF THE WITCH-HUNTING PURITAN; 3: Witchcraft in an Age of Rebellion, 1625-1649

INTRODUCTIONTHE DECLINE OF WITCH-HUNTING IN PRE-CIVIL WAR ENGLAND; WITCHCRAFT, PROVIDENTIALISM, AND THE PERSONAL RULE OF CHARLES I; THE WITCH AS REBEL: WITCHCRAFT, POLITICAL APOSTASY, AND SUPPORT FOR THE CROWN IN CIVIL WAR ENGLAND; THE GODLY RESPONSE: WITCHCRAFT, SPIRITUAL APOSTASY, AND PURITAN OPPOSITION TO THE CAROLINE CHURCH AND STATE; THE RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL ROOTS OF WITCH-HUNTING IN EAST ANGLIA: THE HOPKINS TRIALS, 1645-47; THE POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOPKINS TRIALS; 4: Witchcraft in an Age of Political Uncertainty: Interregnum England, 1649-1660; INTRODUCTION

WITCHCRAFT, WITCH-HUNTING, AND THE POLITICS OF SECTARIANISMTHE POLITICS OF INTERREGNUM SCEPTICISM: ROBERT FILMER AND THOMAS ADY; 5: Redrawing the Boundaries of the Confessional State: Witchcraft, Dissent, and Latitudinarianism in Restoration England; INTRODUCTION; DISPOSSESSING THE NATION: THE RESTORATION AS AN ACT OF EXORCISM; PROVIDENCE, POLITICS, AND RESTORATION DISSENT; WITCHCRAFT, DEMONOLOGY, AND RESTORATION DISSENT; WITCHCRAFT, MEDICINE, AND DISSENT; SPIRITUAL PHYSIC, WITCHCRAFT, AND DISSENT

SEARCHING FOR CONSENSUS: LATITUDINARIANISM, DISSENT, AND PROOF OF WITCHCRAFT IN RESTORATION ENGLANDGLANVILL'S SADUCISMUS TRIUMPHATUS (1682): DEMONOLOGY AND LATITUDINARIAN MANIFESTO; 'THE DEVIL IS A NAME FOR A BODY POLITICK' : WITCHCRAFT, MODERATION, AND THE BOUNDARIES OF THE CONFESSIONAL STATE; 6: 'Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft': Anglicanism, the State, and the Decline of Witchcraft in Restoration England; INTRODUCTION; REFRAMING THE DEBATE ABOUT WITCHCRAFT IN ANGLICAN CIRCLES; WITCHCRAFT, POLITICS, AND LINGUISTIC INSTABILITY

RESTORATION ANGLICANISM, MAGISTRACY, AND THE DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFTMEDICINE, MADNESS, AND THE DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFT; ANGLICANISM, THE RESTORATION CHURCH, AND THE DEATH OF PROVIDENCE; 7: Witchcraft, Enthusiasm, andthe Rage of Party: The Politics of Decline in Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth-Century England; THE LAST WITCHFINDERS; EXPLAINING DECLINE; END NOTES: WITCHCRAFT ON THE MARGINS; Bibliography; 1. MANUSCRIPTS; Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Record Service, Bedford; Bodleian Library, Oxford; Bristol University Library, Bristol; British Library, London

Cambridge University Library, Cambridge

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed February 06, 2016).

ISBN:

0-19-178720-5

0-19-102752-9