Witchland: A Tale of Witch Hunting and War in Seventeenth-Century Britain

Summary

'No historian before Marion Gibson has managed to convey so well the lived reality of British witch trials at the local level. This is as close to an eye-witness view of them as we are likely to get' Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch

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If the witchfinders came to your town, who would you have believed – and what would you have done?

In the 1640s, Britain was swept up in a brutal witch hunt. The economic uncertainty and religious extremism fuelled by the English Civil War created a climate of fear. Neighbours turned on each other. Women and the poor were especially vulnerable, scapegoated by the powerful looking for someone to blame. In the resulting hysteria – which would, just a few decades later, provide a handbook for the Salem trials – hundreds of innocent people were killed.

Moving from village to village in Scotland and England, Professor Marion Gibson reveals how accusations grew out of everyday tensions – poverty, grief, and resentment – and how entire communities took part in persecuting the vulnerable. Drawing on newly uncovered historical records, this gripping account restores the voices of those accused of witchcraft. Vivid and intimate, Witchland shows that these were ordinary people with extraordinary stories, largely forgotten by history, caught up in suspicion and moral panic.

Witchland is a captivating story of fanaticism, inequality and the violence that surfaces during times of political upheaval.

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‘Witchland gives witches back their names. History with its feet on the ground, harrowing in its wealth of ordinary details’ Rebecca Romney, author of Jane Austen’s Bookshelf

'A remarkable feat of scholarship and empathy … a chilling and timely read!' Shelley Puhak, author of The Blood Countess and The Dark Queens