Witches, Witch-hunting and Magic in Late Medieval and Early Modern Continental Europe, c.1350-1700

HIST31392 Witches, Witch-hunting and Magic in Late Medieval and Early Modern Continental Europe, c.1350-1700 20 Semester 2 Undergraduate Level 3 Jennifer Spinks Unit coordinator History 1 FHEQ level (Framework for Higher Education Qualifications) ' Last part of a Bachelors ' European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System Rating : 10.0 Anxieties about heresy, gender, and diabolism led to the development of new legal, religious and cultural responses to witchcraft and magic in late medieval and early modern Europe, especially in German and French-speaking areas. This course explores the establishment of these beliefs from c.1350 onwards, and their full development in the brutal European witch-hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This course explores the manner in which 'the witch' or practitioner of magic became a culturally significant figure in continental Europe between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the object of intense legal, religious, political and cultural scrutiny and debate. It focuses upon crucial developments in German-speaking Holy Roman Empire, in Switzerland and in France, and also draws on important comparative material from elsewhere in continental Europe. In particular, the course explores the ways in which responses to witchcraft and magic (and to intersecting topics including the witches' Sabbath, 'night-battles' and possession) were shaped by religious and moral anxieties developed in late medieval Europe and transformed by the European Reformation. This course will use a wide variety of textual and visual sources in order to test historical arguments about the factors leading to the rise and expansion of the harsh prosecution of witchcraft and magic in late medieval and early modern continental Europe. It will place particular emphasis on reading the pivotal roles of gender and religion in nuanced ways, and on understanding the complex interplay of popular and elite ideas about magic and witchcraft. By the end of this course, students should be able to; Manifest knowledge and understanding of:  - The broader religious and social contexts in which the European witch-hunts unfolded.  - The ways in which the witch-hunts in continental Europe were dependent upon a varied range of cultural discourses and institutional supports.  - The centrality of gender to the development of the witch-hunts.  - The formative background of anxieties about heresy and diabolism to the development of the witch-hunts.  - Differing perceptions of elite magic and popular witchcraft in this period, and the variety of responses by different sectors of society to the perceived threats of magic and witchcraft. - Students will develop a sophisticated understanding of the historiography of the witch-hunts.  - They will be able to analyse both visual and textual primary sources, and assess the content and also the limitations of various primary and secondary materials.  - Essay writing and the organisation of research into a coherent argument.  - Seminar participation and the ability to articulate a response to various primary and secondary sources, as well as to comments by other students.  - Locating and summarising relevant research.  - Written and oral communication skills.  - Teamwork skills developed through discussion with other students. 1 x 3-hour Lecture/Seminar per week + Course Unit Office Hours equivalent to 1-hour per week Seminar and background readings will be placed or signposted on Blackboard, which will also contain links to relevant web-sites and course information. 1 Written exam 40% 2 Written assignment (inc essay) 60% Students will receive essay feedback electronically and through verbal discussion. HIST31392 is restricted to History programmes, Classics and Ancient History programmes, History and American Studies and European Studies programmes (please check your programme regulations for further details).Pre-requisite units : 60 credits of HIST or CLAH coded courses unless the student is studying a combined studies history programme / History and American Studies programme  N Michael Bailey, Battling Demons: Witchcraft, Heresy and Reform in the Late Middle Ages (University Park, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). Robin Briggs. Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002). Hans Peter Broedel, The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft: Theology and Popular Belief (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003). Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Sarah Ferber, Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France (London: Routledge, 2004). Alan Kors and Edward Peters, eds, Witchcraft in Europe 400¬'1700: A Documentary History (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2nd ed. 2001). Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 3rd. Ed. 2006). Lyndal Roper, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004). Waite, Gary K. Heresy, Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Charles Zika, The Appearance of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in sixteenth-century Europe (London: Routledge, 2007). Seminars 33 Supervised time in studio/wksp 11 0 156 AssessmentPrimary Source Analysis - 2,000 words - 20%Essay - 3,000 words - 40%Exam - 2-hours - 40%