Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick Witches

by Lawrence Normand, Gareth Roberts

Overview

This volume provides a valuable introduction to the key concepts of witchcraft and demonology through a detailed study of one of the best known and most notorious episodes of Scottish history, the North Berwick witch hunt, in which King James was involved as alleged victim, interrogator, judge and demonologist. It provides hitherto unpublished and inaccessible material from the legal documentation of the trials in a way that makes the material fully comprehensible, as well as full texts of the pamphlet News from Scotland and James' Demonology, all in a readable, modernised, scholarly form. Full introductory sections and supporting notes provide information about the contexts needed to understand the texts: court politics, social history and culture, religious changes, law and the workings of the court, and the history of witchcraft prosecutions in Scotland before 1590. The book also brings to bear on this material current scholarship on the history of European witchcraft.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780859893886
Publisher:	Liverpool University Press
Publication date:	01/01/2000
Series:	Studies in History
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	468
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.80(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Lawrence Normand is principal lecturer in English at Middlesex University. Until his death in 1999, Gareth Roberts was senior lecturer in the School of English, University of Exeter, where he was Course Director of the MA in The History and Literature of Witchcraft.

Table of Contents

The court and politics social contexts and cultural formations the Kirk Scottish witchcraft before the North Berwich witch hunt the legal process aftermath. Witch hunting - examinations, confessions and depositions. Records of the witchcraft trials (Dittays) text of the witchcraft trials (Dittays). Witchhunt propaganda - "News from Scotland" text of"News from Scotland" Theorizing the witch hunt - James VI's "Demonology" text of "Demonology". Appendix: Privy Council Orders relating to the legal processes of witch trials.

Editorial Reviews

“Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland will be immensely useful for scholars of witchcraft, demonology, early modern women, as well as those who study Scottish political, religious, legal, and social history. The contextual information in Part One is clearly presented and accessible for scholars with only a cursory knowledge of early modern Scotland; and detailed annotations of the documents make them readily comprehensible for readers unfamiliar with Scots dialect. The book is a case-study that becomes cultural history . . . Such rich and carefully read evidence of intimate interactions between members of elite and popular cultures makes an important contribution to our understanding of sixteenth-century social history.” –Albion, Vol.34, Issue 2, Summer 2002

Albion