Table Of ContentWitchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe
Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic
Series Editors: Jonathan Barry, Willem de Blécourt and Owen Davies
Titles include:
Edward Bever
THE REALITIES OF WITCHCRAFT AND POPULAR MAGIC IN
EARLY MODERN EUROPE
Culture, Cognition and Everyday Life
Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin and Joyce Miller
WITCHCRAFT AND BELIEF IN EARLY MODERN SCOTLAND
Jonathan Roper (editor)
CHARMS, CHARMERS AND CHARMING
Alison Rowlands (editor)
WITCHCRAFT AND MASCULINITIES IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE
Rolf Schulte
MAN AS WITCH
Male Witches in Central Europe
Forthcoming:
Johannes Dillinger
MAGICAL TREASURE HUNTING IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA
A History
Soili-Maria Olli
TALKING TO DEVILS AND ANGELS IN SCANDINAVIA, 1500–1800
Laura Stokes
THE DEMONS OF URBAN REFORM
The Rise of Witchcraft Prosecution, 1430–1530
Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic
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Witchcraft and
Masculinities in Early
Modern Europe
Edited by
Alison Rowlands
Senior Lecturer in European History, University of Essex
Palgrave
macmillan
Editorial matter, selection and Chapter 1 © Alison Rowlands 2009
All remaining chapters © contributors 2009
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-55329-3
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First published 2009 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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ISBN 978-1-349-36311-7 ISBN 978-0-230-24837-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230248373
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Preface ix
Series Foreword x
Notes on the Contributors xi
1 N ot ‘the Usual Suspects’? Male Witches, Witchcraft, and
Masculinities in Early Modern Europe 1
Alison Rowlands
2 Male Witches in the Duchy of Lorraine 31
Robin Briggs
3 Men as Accused Witches in the Holy Roman Empire 52
Rolf Schulte
4 W itch-Finders, Witch-Hunters or Kings of the Sabbath?
The Prominent Role of Men in the Mass Persecutions of
the Rhine-Meuse Area (Sixteenth–Seventeenth
Centuries) 74
Rita Voltmer
5 W hy Some Men and Not Others? The Male Witches
of Eichstätt 100
Jonathan Durrant
6 Giandomenico Fei, the Only Male Witch. A Tuscan or
an Italian Anomaly? 121
Oscar Di Simplicio
7 Men and the Witch-Hunt in Scotland 149
Julian Goodare
8 M asculinity and Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century
England 171
Malcolm Gaskill
v
vi Contents
9 The Werewolf, the Witch, and the Warlock: Aspects of
Gender in the Early Modern Period 191
Willem de Blécourt
10 Possession and the Sexes 214
Sarah Ferber
Index 239
Figures and Tables
Figures
2.1 B ewitchments attributed to Lorraine witches: data from
trials of 96 men and a sample of 96 women 40
3.1 Duchy of Carinthia: Witchcraft persecutions by sex,
1540–1729 (numbers accused) 57
3.2 Duchy of Carinthia: Witchcraft persecutions by sex,
1540–1729 (percentage) 57
3.3 Bishopric of Bamberg: Witchcraft persecutions by sex,
1610–1635 (numbers accused) 60
3.4 B ishopric of Bamberg: Witchcraft persecutions by sex,
1610–1635 (percentage) 60
3.5 Duchy of Holstein and Saxony-Lauenberg: Witchcraft
persecutions by sex, 1530–1730 (numbers accused) 63
3.6 D uchy of Holstein and Saxony-Lauenberg: Witchcraft
persecutions by sex, 1530–1730 (percentage) 63
6.1 Number of cases of Maleficia and magic tried before the
Inquisitorial Tribunal in Siena, 1580–1721 125
Tables
3.1 Proportion of men accused in Witch-Trials in
the Holy Roman Empire, by region (1480–1760) 55
3.2 Proportion of men involved in Witch-Hunts in
selected territories of the Holy Roman Empire 56
3.3 Proportion of men accused of Witchcraft in
selected Catholic and Protestant territories of
the Holy Roman Empire (by percentage) 66
6.1 Numbers of men and women investigated by
the Inquisitorial Tribunal in Siena for
love magic, 1580–1721 126
6.2 Numbers of men and women investigated by
the Inquisitorial Tribunal in Siena for
conjuration, 1580–1721 126
6.3 Numbers of men and women investigated by
the Inquisitorial Tribunal in Siena for invocation of
the Devil, 1580–1721 126
vii
viii Figures and Tables
6.4 N umbers of men and women investigated by
the Inquisitorial Tribunal in Siena for
therapeutic magic, 1580–1721 126
6.5 Ages of women investigated on charges of Witchcraft by
the Inquisitorial Tribunal in Siena, 1580–1721 127
6.6 M arital status of women investigated on
charges of Witchcraft by the Inquisitorial Tribunal in
Siena, 1580–1721 127
6.7 Occupations of women investigated on
charges of Witchcraft by the Inquisitorial Tribunal in
Siena, 1580–1721 128
6.8 Targets of the Maleficia of women investigated on
charges of Witchcraft by the Inquisitorial Tribunal in
Siena, 1580–1721 128
Preface
This book is the result of a conference, Witchcraft and Masculinities
in the Early Modern World, held at the University of Essex from 21–23
April 2006. All the chapters in the book were presented on that occa-
sion. The conference would not have been possible without financial
support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the German
History Society, and the Department of History at Essex University:
my grateful thanks to them all. I would also like to express particular
thanks to my co-organizer, Jenni Grundy, without whom the confer-
ence would have been much harder (and much less enjoyable) to plan;
to Jenni, Herbert Eiden and Cathryn Wilson for acting as session chairs
during the conference; and to all the paper-givers and conference par-
ticipants for their lively input. Many thanks also to Belinda Waterman
for technical assistance in preparing the manuscript.
The cover illustration is reproduced by courtesy of the Satdtbibliothek
in Trier, and shows a detail from the so-called Witches’ Sabbath in Trier,
an engraving attached to Thomas Sigfrid, Richtige Antwort auff die Frage
(Erfurt, 1593: 1594 edition), Signatur 1/34 8˚.
This book is for Herbert, Susannah, and Sebastian (who thankfully
waited until just after the conference to be born!)
ALISON ROWLANDS
Wivenhoe, September 2008
ix
