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

by Normand, Lawrence; Roberts, Gareth

• ISBN13: 9780859893886
• ISBN10: 085989388X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-01-01
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Summary

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 It provides hitherto unpublished and inaccessible material from the legal documentation of the trials in a way that makes the material fully comprehensible, as well as full texts of the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.

Table of Contents

List of the Texts	viii
List of Illustrations	x
Acknowledgements	xii
Introduction: History, Witchcraft, Texts	1	(6)
Discussion of the Texts and Editorial Conventions	7	(10)
Chronology	17	(12)
PART 1: CONTEXT	29	(98)
The Court and Politics	29	(24)
Social Contexts and Cultural Formations	53	(18)
The Kirk	71	(7)
Scottish Witchcraft Before the North Berwick Witch Hunt	78	(9)
The Legal Process	87	(18)
Aftermath	105	(22)
PART 2: TEXTS	127	(300)
Witch Hunting: Examinations, Confessions and Depositions	127	(76)
Documents	135	(68)
Records of the Witchcraft Trials: Dittays	203	(87)
Documents	224	(66)
Witch Hunt Propaganda: News from Scotland	290	(37)
News from Scotland	309	(18)
Theorising the Witch Hunt: James VI's Demonology	327	(100)
Demonology	353	(74)
Appendix: Privy Council Orders Relating to the Legal Processes of Witch Trials 1591--7	427	(4)
Bibliography	431	(20)
Index	451