Designed for teachers of European history at the high school level, the course is nonetheless open to any teacher with an interest in the subject. Some materials may appeal particularly to teachers of early American history.
We begin the coverage of the topic with three related questions:
• How was witchcraft understood in the past?
• How did trials for witchcraft become important political events?
• How did these events reflect larger trends in the emergence of European modernity?
We explore these questions in a variety of ways, noting recent changes in the study of European history, in general, and addressing recent scholarly approaches to witchcraft and witch-hunting, in particular. In addition, a very important aspect of the course is the analysis of extensive documentary evidence from the period, illustrating how source materials may be used to develop students’ research skills — to get them “doing history,” rather than just reading it.
The course seeks to undermine the notion that witchcraft trials largely took place in the Middle Ages. To the contrary, witch-hunting was a modern phenomenon, and one that is central to the study of European history between 1450 and 1750. Witchcraft trials, as distinct from witchcraft beliefs, were the product of important changes taking place in early modern Europe. Rather than being the result of widespread lunacy, chaos, and political breakdown, trials of accused witches were most often methodical administrative procedures reflecting intellectual consensus of theorists in the fields of theology, politics, law, and medicine.
Instructor: Edmund Kern, associate professor of history, Lawrence University