Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: A Regional and Comparative Study

Witchcraft in 16th- and 17th-century England! Witchcraft beliefs and accusations flourished as never before in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. This study of some of the least-explored regions of post-Reformation society investigates the categories of persons that were believed to be witches and considers the motives of their accusers. The author, a highly regarded anthropologist-historian, examines the extent to which witchcraft accusations reflected basic tensions in the structure of pre- industrial thought and society, and directs light on such issues as contemporary attitudes to misfortune and pain, to methods of resolving interpersonal conflicts, to the treatment of social deviants.