Witchcraft, Gender and Society in Early Modern Germany

Recent witchcraft historiography, particularly where it concerns the gender of the witch-suspect, has been dominated by theories of social conflict in which ordinary people colluded in the persecution of the witch sect. The reconstruction of the Eichstätt persecutions (1590-1631) in this book shows that many witchcraft episodes were imposed exclusively ‘from above’ as part of a programme of Catholic reform. The high proportion of female suspects in these cases resulted from the persecutors’ demonology and their interrogation procedures. The confession narratives forced from the suspects reveal a socially integrated, if gendered, community rather than one in crisis. The book is a reminder that an overemphasis on one interpretation cannot adequately account for the many contexts in which witchcraft episodes occurred.