Non-fiction and essays
University essays
History
Second Year
Sources and Debates 251
How have twentieth-century historians perceived the connection between the denomination divide caused by
the Reformation and witchcraft persecutions? (HST 251, Spring 2003)

The historiography of witchcraft in early modern Europe can be traced back to the time of the witchcraft
accusations and trials in the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries. Witch hunting guides, most famously
Malleus Malificarum or the “Hammer of Witches” by Heinrich Kramer and Jakob Sprenger are well known
examples of contemporary witchcraft literature. There was also interest from intellectuals, scholars and
learned members of society, who sought to determine the nature of witchcraft and demonology. At this time,
with the effects of the Reformation of the Church, attitudes towards the opposing religious persuasion were
often hostile, and in some cases could result in accusations of witchcraft. The Reformation and its
subsequent division of the Church, coupled with the response of the Catholic Counter-Reformation were
seen as crucial factors in explaining the so-called ‘witch-craze’ of the early modern period. However, while
this denominational divergence continued up to the early years of the twentieth century, it soon fell out of
favour, with less partisan influence on witchcraft writing. This essay will attempt to trace the development of
historians’ attitudes towards the relationship of witchcraft to the Reformation through the twentieth century. To
do this, it will be necessary to examine the dominant theories regarding witchcraft in different periods of the
twentieth century. This will include Margaret Murray in the 1920s, Keith Thomas in the 1970s up to the present
crop of witchcraft historians. The effects of external disciplines on witchcraft writing will also be considered,
as will the relevance of the social and political theories prevalent at the time of writing. In bringing the study up
to the present day, it should be possible to determine where the importance of the Reformation factors into
interpretations of early modern witchcraft.
To see how the twentieth century has affected the relationship between witchcraft and the Reformation, it is
necessary to briefly examine the dominant theories of the years immediately prior to the twentieth century. As
referred to earlier, in the nineteenth century, the division of Europe into Catholic and Protestant camps was
seen as a pivotal factor in the witch-hunts. Reflecting the views of such sixteenth century writers as the
Protestant Reginald Scot, who claimed in 1584 that “only the Catholic Church really took witchcraft seriously”,
anti-Catholic views were taken by Georg Längin in the 1880s, and this was continued by Wilhelm Gottlieb
Soldan in the early 1900s.# Their religious opponents mirrored this, as historians such as Johann
Diefenbach and Nikolaus Paulus espoused an anti-Protestant view of witch hunting. This polarisation of
views was not universally held however, even in the seventeenth century. Robert Filmer had written in 1653
that “both those of the reformed Church, as well as those of the Roman in a manner, agree in their Definition
of the sinne of witchcraft.”# This was agreed with by Hansen, who took a more critical view of the situation; he
“blamed both sides equally, and by about 1910, the controversy reached a stalemate.”# Therefore, by the
outbreak of the First World War, there was still a lingering feeling among historians that the ‘witch craze’ was
mainly due to the religious conflict stemming from the Reformation, though each side was blamed by the
other. However, there were attempts to find some middle ground with neither Protestants nor Catholics being
exclusively to blame.  
After the First World War, the dominant witchcraft theories were expounded by Margaret Murray, with The Witch
cult in Western Europe (1921), and Montague Summer’s The History of Witchcraft and Demonology (1926).
The similarity between these works of the 1920s consists of a greater emphasis on witchcraft as an
accepted reality. This was the major crux of Summer’s argument, together with diabolical worship; he dealt
with witches as a real phenomenon that perhaps defies belief today. Murray on the other hand outlines her
thesis that witches were the remnants of a pre-Christian cult that existed across Europe. These views are
reflections of the anti-rationalist revival that characterised historical writing in the inter-war years. This mode
of approach is evident in their subscription to ideas that seem too fantastic to the early twenty-first century
reader.# Other influences on these ideas, especially with regard to Murray, are a psychological basis from the
work of Sigmund Freud. According to Max Marwick, “These theories stem from Freud’s doctrine of the
displacement of affect and derivative neo-Freudian hypotheses about the projection of urges and conflicts
into culturally standardised fantasies.”# He seems to suggest that Murray saw witchcraft as being a more
personal phenomenon, rather than one caused by wider ranging social factors, such as the impact of the
Reformation.
Murray’s thesis has suffered a great deal of criticism since its publication, but historians have attempted to
discover the justification for her reasoning. Alan MacFarlane noted that Murray “having decided that quite
reasonable people really did fear witches and that others, without torture, freely confessed to the crime” went
on to take a “logical leap and argued that there really must have been witches.” However, MacFarlane
dismissed this, accusing Murray of extensively quoting out of context and that she had created a false picture:
“She mistook what people believed to be happening for what actually did happen.”# Norman Cohn claimed
that Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough had launched a “cult of fertility cults” and it was only a matter of
time before “this kind of interpretation would be applied also to the history of European witchcraft.”# Murray
provided this interpretation, which gave minimal importance to the influence of the Reformation.
Murray’s enduring influence can be illustrated by writings on witchcraft in the 1940s. For instance, Christina
Hole, writing in 1945 claimed that “it is certainly more reasonable to believe in the existence of such a cult
than in the theory, still advanced by some writers, that thousands of simple and ignorant people consciously
devoted themselves to the adoration of the Evil Principle.”# Hole again made little reference to the impact of
the Reformation, but continued with the trend not to distinguish between witch hunting in Catholic and
Protestant areas. In this vein, she wrote that “Nor did the Reformation bring any relief in Protestant countries.
The devil-worshipping witch perished there as frequently and horribly as elsewhere.”# Despite more scathing
recent criticism, Murray’s theory of a cult of witches achieved prominence well into the 1960s. It was even
used by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as the entry for ‘Witchcraft’ between 1929 and 1968, “as though it were
a matter of established fact.”#
There were some historians who ascribed more relevance to the religious differences generated by the
Reformation, but these were not nearly as influential as the idea of a cult of witches. C. L. Ewen made
comparisons between the England of Henry VIII and Europe through their respective treatment of witches. In
England, Ewen described how “the crown took steps to establish a more severe regime in an attempt to root
out the superstitious art that had become a prevalent nuisance”. He went further to differentiate between
European and English witchcraft, in the use of torture and the work of papal inquisitors.# However, in the first
half of the twentieth century, with ideas of a witch cult and individuals responsible for actual cases of
witchcraft, the importance of an international social and political phenomenon such as the Reformation was
diminished.
In the late 1960s, the dominance of the Margaret Murray thesis was beginning to be usurped by new theories.
The first was based upon social science theories and the second on anthropological studies, especially of
more recent witchcraft in Africa. In the former, led by historians such as H. R. Trevor-Roper, the Reformation
received renewed attention in explaining some of the aspects of witchcraft. Partly this resurgence was due to
“mounting empirical evidence that the persecution of witches...was growing in intensity in early modern
Europe and that this growth could itself be attributed, at least in part, to the forces of modernisation.”# The
effects of modernisation were seen as affecting both Catholics and Protestants equally. Describing the witch
craze, Trevor-Roper linked promotion of witchcraft prosecutions to both sides of the religious divide: “It was
forwarded by the cultivated popes of the Renaissance, by the great Protestant reformers, by the saints of the
Counter-Reformation, by the scholars, lawyers and churchmen.”# In this manner, the argument had
progressed to looking at similarities in witchcraft accusations and prosecution between Protestant and
Catholic countries, rather than highlighting differences. Trevor-Roper claimed that “the ideological struggle of
the Reformation and Counter-Reformation...had revived the dying witch craze.”# Midelfort, writing several
years after Trevor-Roper said that this was “clearly an oversimplification.”#
As well as his references to the Reformation, Trevor-Roper made a comparison of the treatment of witches
during years of religious conflict with that of other undesirables of the late medieval and early modern period.
He suggested that “If the universal scapegoat of the Black Death in Germany had been the Jew, the universal
scapegoat of the wars of religion will be the witch.”# An explanation for this is the comparisons with the
treatment of Jews and other undesirables by the Nazis in the Second World War, actions described by Trevor-
Roper as analogous to a modern witch craze.
Joining with Trevor-Roper in highlighting connections between social factors such as the Reformation with
witch hunting was the French historian, Jean Delumeau. Delumeau reiterated the idea of evangelism, both
Protestant and Catholic, being a principal factor in the accusations and prosecutions of witches. He also
promoted the idea of witches as another form of scapegoat. He wrote that “like Jews, Moors, heretics,
madmen and vagabonds, wizards and witches – that is, alleged wizards and witches – were the scapegoats
on which the West cast the responsibility of its sins.” However, Delumeau also suggests that the witch-hunt
was more severe in Protestant countries, and acted to bring accusations of witchcraft and trials to areas such
as Denmark, Bohemia and Transylvania, in conjunction with the reformed religion.# Therefore it is
sometimes difficult to determine exactly where Delumeau fits into the debate on witchcraft, as although he
draws attention to the Reformation and its impact on witchcraft, it is not always clear how influential he sees it
as being. However, he clearly fits into the social explanations for witchcraft, along with Trevor-Roper, and is
separated from the work utilising anthropological studies by Keith Thomas and Alan MacFarlane.
Whereas the social scientific theories gave greater importance to the Reformation, Keith Thomas’ work
Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), seemed to move away from such an overriding social explanation
for witchcraft. According to J M Barry, “Thomas played down any notion of the Reformation marking a break in
clerical or elite attitudes towards popular beliefs; rather he stressed continued ambivalence,” suggesting no
major impact on dealing with witchcraft.# For Thomas the importance of the Reformation with regards to
witchcraft concerned the relationship of the Catholic Church with practices that were seen to be magical.
Thomas contended that if belief in Catholic uses of magic in their religious ceremonies were seen as
diabolical by Protestants, then belief in other types of magic – namely witches – would be equally distrusted.
Focusing on the rejection of Catholic beliefs in England, he noted that “ecclesiastical magic crumbled, and
society was forced to take legal action against a peril, which for the first time threatened to get dangerously
out of hand.” While this might suggest Thomas believed the Reformation had a significant impact on
witchcraft, he quickly followed this statement with a clarification that “a simple equation of strong
Protestantism with a strong desire for witch-prosecution will not work.”# Thomas’ work has been, until
recently, probably the most influential work on witchcraft in early modern Europe. He cited the influence on his
work of “studies made by modern anthropologists of similar beliefs held in Africa” but noted that he regretted
the lack of statistical data from judicial records of the time. In this regard, Alan MacFarlane’s work on
witchcraft in Essex is seen as important due to the abundance of records in that county.#
Thomas’s treatment of witchcraft in Essex is slightly different from Thomas’ work. In dealing with Essex; he
makes reference to the impact of periods of strong Puritanism within the county. He suggests that
“Superficially, there seems to be much evidence in Essex for the argument that Puritanism was a major factor
in causing witchcraft prosecutions. The two periods of most marked Puritan activities, the 1580s and 1640s,
were also those of the greatest number of prosecutions.”# This reluctance to confirm a relationship between
religious change and witchcraft is similar to Thomas. However, later he clarifies that “Witchcraft prosecution
in Essex cannot be directly related to religious tensions through the study of particular individuals,” – here he
goes back to the anthropological basis of his study by looking at individual cases. MacFarlane continues:
“Yet, as a method of explaining misfortune and evil, witchcraft beliefs to some extent overlapped with religious
explanations. Thus changes in religious thought during the sixteenth- and seventeenth century are of
immense importance in understanding the rise and decline of prosecutions.”# Therefore, while keen to
underplay the relationship, even a work based on anthropological studies such as this makes reference to
the social science theories of religious division and its contribution to the witch-hunt.
Julio Caro Baroja offered a different interpretation in the 1960s to either the anthropological school or the
social theories. The significance of his work was largely overlooked at the time of writing, but a decade later,
E William Monter noted that “what distinguished Caro Baroja’s approach from those of other recent scholars
is his insistence on investigating the socio-intellectual worlds of both the witches and their accusers and
judges.”# Caro Baroja’s examination of intellectual rationales for accusations of witchcraft would be
expanded on greatly in later writings, most notably those of Stuart Clark in his study of the science of
demonology. With regards to the Reformation, Caro Baroja wished to minimise the significance of religion in
general, especially the role of Scripture, and instead concentrates on personal intellectual motives.#
Thus during the 1960s and 1970s, with the field of witchcraft studies was veering between the two camps of
social scientific explanation and a basis on anthropology. This meant that the importance of the Reformation
fluctuated from being seen as an overwhelming cause of prosecutions and trials, to being of secondary
importance. Clearly there was a need for some kind of middle ground to be found. In the following two
decades, under the influence of the burgeoning post-modernist movement, witchcraft historians sought a
move away from all-encompassing social explanations for the phenomenon. Instead they began to look at
more in-depth regional studies, and what light these heavily source based investigations could shed on the
witch-hunt as a whole. Commentating on the progression of the historiography of the so-called ‘witch-craze,’
Stuart Clark noted that “An episode so all-embracing and so dramatic required a comparable explanation,
which only the overarching, largely social-scientific theorising that was so influential at the time could
provide.” He concluded: “recently, of course, this model has been steadily dismantled.”#
Other historians have been more outspoken against the work of Thomas and MacFarlane, noting the
limitations of their studies. Malcolm Gaskill acknowledged that “A quarter of a century later, theirs is still the
dominant interpretation.” He continued by saying “it is clear that the time is now ripe for a reappraisal of the
English experience of witchcraft, especially when one considers the occasionally limited scope and overly
theoretical structuring of their research.”# However, as the interpretations offered by Thomas and MacFarlane
began to be replaced by more recent studies, no one historian emerged as the leading authority. Instead
several historians, pursuing different aspects of the witch-hunt have become prominent. In examining their
work it is possible to see the different attitudes towards the importance of the Reformation in the most recent
studies, and explore whether there is any consensus in the debate today.
One of the most important historians in recent years regarding witchcraft has been Stuart Clark. In books and
essays he has sought to bring differences in demonology to the forefront of the debate, together with the
question of differences between Protestant and Catholic treatment of witchcraft. It is this examination of both
similarities and differences between witchcraft prosecutions in Catholic and Protestant countries that
provides a fresh avenue of investigation. Clark makes reference to the seemingly equal severity with which
authorities persecuted witches, but notes that there were differences in the most damning aspect of
witchcraft on either side of the religious divide. He also uses the religious aspect to suggest a reason for the
decline of witchcraft hysteria: “the coming of a religious pluralism that permitted the members of all types of
churches to coexist and spelt the end of the confessional state.”#
Clark’s treatment of the science of demonology was another important stage in the modern historiographical
development of witchcraft writing. He has noted the similarity in texts written at the time of the witch-hunt by
intellectuals, which had previously been ignored by historians. He stated that texts “whether Protestant or
Catholic, whether English or Continental, are notable for the way they internalised virtually all the traditional
ingredients of witchcraft, turning them into a spiritual problem.”# It was, according to Clark, the advocacy of
these intellectuals – such as clergymen, theologians, lawyers, physicians, etc. – that were a driving force
behind the witch-hunt. These classes of people were familiar to both sides of the religious divide, but it was
the increasing evangelistic position of both Churches that contributed to the religious fervour that fuelled both
sides of the debate. For instance, the debate over the nature of the anti-Christ meant, “writers on demonism
in each religious party would seek for witchcraft in the ranks of their enemies.”# This again illustrates the
importance of the Reformation, but with both sides equally affected by the division in religious loyalties.
In Clark’s work on demonology, he makes reference to another historian who has emerged as being
important to the witchcraft debate, Robin Briggs. Clark acknowledges that Briggs, as well as other recent
studies, “have now confirmed that most witchcraft accusations and prosecutions were initiated in ways that
precluded the immediate impact of intellectuals, even if the subsequent proceedings could be affected by
consultations with academic jurists and theologians.”# This explanation gives a slightly different emphasis
on the role of intellectuals in the witch-hunt, but still retains Clark’s argument for their overall significance.
With reference to the idea of the Reformation and religious division, Briggs alludes to no single
overwhelming cause behind the witchcraft phenomenon. He warns “any attempt to suggest that there is a
single cause, or even a dominant one, a hidden key to the mystery, should be treated with great suspicion.”#
According to Briggs, there is room in the study of witchcraft for “a wide range of interpretative strategies,
drawing on virtually every kind of theoretical and interdisciplinary approach” and therefore much research is
still needed to gain a more complete picture.# In this respect, Briggs reflects recent historical discussion, a
post-modernist philosophy that shies away from using sweeping generalisations to explain historical
phenomena. Instead, it is the interplay of various factors that led to a complex series of events that constitute
the witch-hunt in early modern Europe.
Brian Levack has taken an interesting view on the role of the Reformation in witchcraft prosecutions in recent
years. He has suggested that the Reformation was a significant factor in intensifying the witch-hunt, but was
also a major reason behind the eventual decline of witchcraft prosecutions. Part of the explanation he gives
for this is the Protestant view of the sovereignty of God, together with “biblical fundamentalism” that led to “a
recognition of the Devil’s impotence.”# This has been a commonly held view among witchcraft historians
today with regard to the Reformation, such as Clark, that the lessening of belief in the magic of the Catholic
Church eventually led to a lessening of belief in all types of magic, including witchcraft. However, Levack has
noted that the importance of the Reformation in explaining the whole witch-craze is too simplistic. He decries
those historians who “have always assumed that the Reformation served as a catalyst for witch-hunting,” by
pointing out that the phenomenon had begun before the Reformation, and continued after the major impact of
the Reformation had passed.#
While it appears the majority of historians writing about witchcraft in recent years have shifted the focus of
study from the importance of wide-reaching social factors to more regional studies, there is still some
emphasis on the role of the Reformation. For instance, Bengt Ankarloo, while calling for a less Anglo-centric
view of European witchcraft, has noted the importance of the Reformation and religious division. Ankarloo
suggested that “the religious differences between a Greek-Orthodox, a Roman-Catholic, a Calvinist, and a
Lutheran Europe must be seriously considered in the study of a crime which was defined mainly in religious
and theological terms.”# In Ankarloo’s opinion, in order to understand more fully different reactions to
witchcraft by different religious persuasions, it is necessary to examine smaller regions in greater detail, by
using documentary evidence of trials. He admits that while there has been progress made in some areas of
Europe, others, most notably those where the impact of the Reformation was felt later, such as Scandinavia
and Eastern Europe, still require more systematic studies. He suggests that when all of Europe has been
more thoroughly investigated, then the idea of the Reformation’s importance can be more authoritatively
addressed. This approach reflects the increasingly common trend in historical writing that uses documentary
local history, in order to demonstrate more wide-ranging effects of historical change.
The influence of historians at different stages of the twentieth century reflect the changing attitudes towards
witchcraft and the Reformation specifically, but also to wider social factors that influenced historians. In the
early part of the century, Margaret Murray’s The Witch cult in Western Europe proved the dominant
interpretation, with a great emphasis on the existence of a pre-Christian cult accounting for the existence of
real witches, while leaving the Reformation with a subordinate role. Murray drew her approach from the
pseudo-Freudian psychological explanations that could be used to account for individual actions, outside the
influence of wider social disruption that the religious division of Europe provided.
The witch-cult interpretation had fallen out of favour by mid-century when the Reformation received more
emphasis in the writings of Hugh Trevor-Roper and Jean Delumeau. Their influences came from social
science theories that could offer an interpretation for the whole of Europe. In this regard, a tumultuous event
such as the Reformation was clearly the impetus behind the crime of witchcraft and its subsequent
punishment. These historians could look back on the evils of Nazism and the perils of the Cold War as
examples of societies that had lost their way in some respect, and drew comparisons with the witchcraft
hysteria that seemed rampant in early modern Europe.
In the 1970s, an alternative school of thought with regard to witchcraft was brought forward, the
anthropological approach presented by Keith Thomas and Alan MacFarlane. Their influences were studies
conducted on witchcraft in Africa and other regions where witchcraft was taking place much more recently
than in Europe. They were then able to adapt these studies in examining the phenomenon of witchcraft and
the witch-hunt in Europe and draw conclusions based on empirical evidence. For these historians, social
factors were secondary to individual circumstances, and again, the religious division of Europe was sidelined
in importance.
After a relatively quiet period in the advancement of witchcraft studies in the 1980s and early 1990s, recent
research has attempted to adopt aspects from the divergent schools of previous decades. There have also
been inter-disciplinary studies conducted by historians, such as Marion Gibson, who has sought to tackle
witchcraft material as a form of literature and has used pamphlets and trial records as cultural identifiers.# By
examining local experiences of witchcraft and the witch-hunt, historians have hoped to draw comparisons
with other areas, and build up a more complete picture of witchcraft across Europe. As Stuart Clark has
suggested: “To make sense of witchcraft beliefs and the accusations, prosecutions, and punishments
associated with them – if possible through the eyes, minds, and imaginations of those involved – is rather
different from explaining them in terms of prevailing social conditions or large institutional forces or general
psychological states.”# The Reformation will therefore be enjoying reduced importance in the current state of
witchcraft studies, but when more local studies have been carried out, perhaps the evidence will again point
to the importance of the religious division of Europe to the witch hunt.

Bibliography:
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(Cambridge, 1996).
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2001).
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(originally published 1970).
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Foundations, (Stanford, 1972).
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