TY  - GEN
TY  - GEN
T1  - The Oxford handbook of witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and colonial America
T2  - Oxford handbooks in history
A2  - Levack, Brian P.
LA  - eng
PP  - Oxford
PB  - Oxford University Press
YR  - 2013
UL  - https://kansalliskirjasto.finna.fi/Record/fikka.2458239
AB  - The essays in this handbook, written by leading scholars working in the rapidly developing field of witchcraft studies, explore the historical literature regarding witch beliefs and witch trials in Europe and colonial America between the early fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries. During these years witches were thought to be evil people who used magical power to inflict physical harm or misfortune on their neighbours. Witches were also believed to have made pacts with the devil and sometimes to have worshipped him at nocturnal assemblies known as sabbaths. These beliefs provided the basis for defining witchcraft as a secular and ecclesiastical crime and prosecuting tens of thousands of women and men for this offence. The trials resulted in as many as fifty thousand executions. These essays study the rise and fall of witchcraft prosecutions in the various kingdoms and territories of Europe and in English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies in the Americas.
SN  - 0199578168 sidottu
SN  - 9780199578160 sidottu
KW  - Trials (Witchcraft) : America : History.
KW  - Trials (Witchcraft) : Europe : History.
KW  - Witch hunting : America : History.
KW  - Witch hunting : Europe : History.
KW  - Witchcraft : America : History.
KW  - Witchcraft : Europe : History.
KW  - historia
KW  - noitavainot
KW  - noituus
KW  - Eurooppa
KW  - Yhdysvallat
ER  -