The Witchcraft Sourcebook

by Brian P. Levack (Editor)

This fascinating collection of documents illustrates the development of ideas about witchcraft from ancient times to the twentieth century. Many of the sources come from the period between 1400 and 1750, when more than 100,000 people – mainly women – were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and colonial America. Including trial records, demonological treatises and sermons, literary texts, narratives of demonic possession, and artistic depiction of witches, the documents reveal how contemporaries from various periods have perceived alleged witches and their activities. Brian P. Levack shows how notions of witchcraft have changed over time. He looks at the connection between gender and witchcraft and the nature of the witch's perceived power. This Sourcebook provides students of the history of witchcraft with a broad range of sources, many of which have been translated into English for the first time, with commentary and background by one of the leading scholars in the field.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Witchcraft, Esoterica, Religion, Witches, School

368 pages, Paperback

First published June 5, 2015

About the author

Brian Levack is John E. Green Regents Professor in History and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The winner of several teaching awards, Levack offers a wide variety of courses on early modern British and European history, legal history, and the history of witchcraft. For eight years he served as the chair of his department. His books include The Civil Lawyers in England, 1603-1641: A Political Study(1973), The Formation of the British State: England, Scotland and the Union, 1603-1707(1987); The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (3rd edition, 2006), which has been translated into eight languages; and Witch-Hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics, and Religion(2008). His newest book is The Devil Within: Possessions and Exorcism in the Christian West.

Reviews

[Jacopo Quercia · Rating 5 out of 5]

'The Witchcraft Sourcebook' by Brian P. Levack is a collection of primary documents pertaining to the history of witchcraft throughout history. I was particularly taken by, and grateful for, the documents Levack collected from the Roman Empire, which caught me by surprise since I had no idea witchcraft was persecuted back then.

As a work of scholarship, the book is top-notch. Levack does an excellent job of introducing each work and tying its significant into the larger narrative of human history. As such, you never really get lost throughout the experience, which can be quite gripping and even entertain as leisure reading. I highly recommend this book to any student researching witchcraft as well as to any reader who would like to know the full story on the subject.

[Christine Garcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book for school - I love primary sources which is what makes this book good. Most pieces were easy to read, but the downfall for me was that the descriptions before each section didn't give as much information into the source I'd be reading as I would have liked. Otherwise, as far as a school book, I certainly learned a lot. :)

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note: this was a required reading for a class.

3/5
I'm not a big fan of witchcraft (as an overall subject), but the history aspect of this was very good. Levack incorporates a ton of sources (near 70), spanning the years between the Romans and very late 1600s. There is a vast amount of "topics" of witchcraft also covered, involving demonic possessions to scripts from the trials.

If you are however, a witchcraft history fanatic who can stand original sources, I highly recommend looking into purchasing this book. There's tons of information to decipher and analyze, however the reading may perhaps be a bit too dense, due to the age of the sources.

[Leiki Fae · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is wild, just English translations of demonology and witch-hunting texts. Guess if you leave enough men alone with ink and parchment for enough time, they'll start writing stories about witches kissing Satan on his butt. Wild.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't realise that the Russians also had a witch hunt. Would have liked to know if any incidents had occurred in British Canada.

[Sarah Gehres · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this in my HIST 132: Witches, Witch-hunting, and Fear in Early Modern Europe, 1450-1700 class. The primary sources in this book are interesting and a helpful supplement to the class.

[imogen thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10 for this source collection - my hand is CRAMPING for note-taking

[Neal Spadafora]

This offers a solid primer on early modern ideas about witches. The excerpts and commentary provide a succinct though not entirely sufficient starting place for understanding theories of witchcraft.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

History of Magic and Witchcraft GED

[Lashonda Slaughter Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing document resource, loved it .