This page is from Hanover College's Internet Archive of Texts and Documents,
which we no longer actively maintain.

In the 1990s, useful historical material was not easy to find online. The Hanover history department pioneered in offering guides like this one to useful primary and secondary sources found throughout the web. Although searching the web is easy now, we continue to offer our most popular subject guides for users who prefer them.

You may also be interested in the Hanover Historical Texts Collection, which holds the primary sources we publish online. You can search the Collection by keyword or browse its table of contents.



Early Modern Europe:
The Witch Hunts


Texts

Johannes Nider, Formicarius (c. 1437) excerpts (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Bull Summis Desderantes (1484) (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Malleus Maleficarum (1486) excerpts (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Jean Bodin, De la demonomanie des sorciers (1580) excerpts (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Witch Persecutions at Trier (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Witch Persecutions at Bonn (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Witch Persecutions at Bamberg (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Witch Persecutions at Wurzburg (Hanover Historical Texts Project) (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Newes from Scotland (1591) (in progress) (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
George Gifford, A dialogue concerning witches and witchcraftes (1593) (in progress) (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
James I, Demonologie (1597) (in progress) (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Friedrich Spee, Cautio criminalis (1631) excerpts (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against Three Witches (1682) (The Trial of the Bideford Witches, Frank J. Gent)
The Tryal, Condemnation, and Execution of Three Witches (1682) (The Trial of the Bideford Witches, Frank J. Gent)
A Tryal of Witches at the Assizes Held at Bury St. Edmunds. . . 1664 (1682) (Ivan A.W. Bunn)

Witchcraft in New York: The cases of Hall and Harrison (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Samuel Green, ed. Groton in Witchcraft Times (c.1671) (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Witchcraft in Virginia: texts published in William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine (JSTOR access only)

Grace Sherwood, the Virginia Witch
part 1 Vol. 3, No. 2. (Oct., 1894), pp. 96-101.

part 2 Vol. 3, No. 3. (Jan., 1895), pp. 190-192.

part 3 Vol. 3, No. 4. (Apr., 1895), pp. 242-245.

part 4 Vol. 4, No. 1. (Jul., 1895), pp. 18-22.

Other Witches Vol. 2, No. 1. (Jul., 1893), pp. 58-60.

Other Witches Vol. 1, No. 3. (Jan., 1893), pp. 127-129.

Increase Mather, Remarkable Providences(1683) excerpts (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Cotton Mather, Discourse on Witchcraft (1689) excerpts (in progress) (Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Salem Witchcraft Papers (Witchcraft in Salem Village)
Deodat Lawson, A Brief and True Narrative (1692) (Witchcraft in Salem)
Letter of Thomas Brattle, 1692 (Witchcraft in Salem)
Letters of Governor Phips to the Home Government, 1692-93 (Witchcraft in Salem)
Cotton Mathers, Wonders of the Invisible World (1693) (Witchcraft in Salem)
Increase Mathers, Cases of Conscience concerning Evil Spirits (1693) (University of Virginia) excerpts
Thomas Maule, Truth Held Forth and Maintained (1695) (University of Virginia) excerpts
Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World (1700) (Witchcraft in Salem)
John Hale, A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft (1702) (Witchcraft in Salem)


Secondary Sources

John Demos, "John Godfrey and His Neighbors: Witchcraft and the Social Web in Colonial Massachusetts" William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. Ser., Vol. 33, No. 2. (Apr., 1976), pp. 242-265. (JSTOR access only)
John Demos, "Underlying Themes in the Witchcraft of Seventeenth-Century New England" The American Historical Review, Vol. 75, No. 5. (Jun., 1970), pp. 1311-1326. (JSTOR access only)
Frederick C. Drake, "Witchcraft in the American Colonies, 1647-62" American Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4. (Winter, 1968), pp. 694-725. See the Levine article below (JSTOR access only)
Phyllis J. Guskin, "The Context of Witchcraft: The Case of Jane Wenham (1712)" Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 15, No. 1. (Autumn, 1981), pp. 48-71. (JSTOR access only)
Ann Kibbey, "Mutations of the Supernatural: Witchcraft, Remarkable Providences, and the Power of Puritan Men" American Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 2. (Summer, 1982), pp. 125-148. (JSTOR access only)
G. L. Kittredge, "A Case of Witchcraft" The American Historical Review, Vol. 23, No. 1. (Oct., 1917), pp. 1-19.(JSTOR access only)
Stuart Levine, "Some Words for Witch-Watchers" (in Notes) American Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 2, Part 1. (Summer, 1969), pp. 267-268. (JSTOR access only)
E. William Monter, "Witchcraft in Geneva, 1537-1662" The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 43, No. 2. (Jun., 1971), pp. 179-204.(JSTOR access only)
Dennison Nash, "A Convergence of Psychological and Sociological Explanations of Witchcraft" Current Anthropology, Vol. 14, No. 5. (Dec., 1973), pp. 545-546. (JSTOR access only)
Frank Wesley Pitman, "Fetishism, Witchcraft, and Christianity Among the Slaves" (in Slavery on British West India Plantations in the Eighteenth Century) Journal of Negro History, Vol. 11, No. 4. (Oct., 1926), pp. 650-668. (JSTOR access only)
John M. Steadman, "Eve's Dream and the Conventions of Witchcraft" (in Notes) Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 26, No. 4. (Oct. - Dec., 1965), pp. 567-574. (JSTOR access only)
John L. Teall "Witchcraft and Calvinism in Elizabethan England: Divine Power and Human Agency" Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 23, No. 1. (Jan. - Mar., 1962), pp. 21-36. (JSTOR access only)
Richard Trask, Introduction to A Documentary History of the Salem Village Witchcraft Outbreak of March 1692 (Witchcraft in Salem)
Helen P. Trimpi "Melville's Use of Demonology and Witchcraft in Moby-Dick" Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 30, No. 4. (Oct. - Dec., 1969), pp. 543-562. (JSTOR access only)
Richard H. Werking, "'Reformation Is Our Only Preservation': Cotton Mather and Salem Witchcraft" (in Notes and Documents) William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. Ser., Vol. 29, No. 2. (Apr., 1972), pp. 281-290. (JSTOR access only)
Russell Zguta, "Witchcraft Trials in Seventeenth-Century Russia" The American Historical Review, Vol. 82, No. 5. (Dec., 1977), pp. 1187-1207. (JSTOR access only)


Resources

Witchcraft in Salem Village (Danvers Archival Center and Electronic Text Center, U. of Virginia)
Witchcraft Bibliography Project (Jeffrey Merrick, Richard M. Golden)
New Works on the Witch Hunts (Stella Australis, Witchcraft Craze History)
Chronology of the Salem Witch Trials (Salem)
Joan's Witch Directory (Joan Pontius)
Steph's Witch Hunt Page
The Witching Hours
The Witch Trials (D. Nix)


Last Updated: October 25, 1999
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