Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria: Popular Magic Religious Zealotry and Reason of State in Early Modern Europe (Past and Present Publications)

About this book

This is a major groundbreaking study by a leading scholar of continental witchcraft studies now made available to an English-speaking audience for the first time. The author has compiled a thorough overview of all known prosecutions for witchcraft in the period 1300-1800 and shows conclusively that witch hunting was not a constant or uniform phenomenon: three-quarters of all known executions for witchcraft were concentrated in the years 1586-1630. The book also investigates the social and political implications of witchcraft and the complex religious debates between believers and skeptics.