Short course: Witchcraft, Werewolves and Magic in European History

Live talks and workshops

Thank you for registering to take part in our short course Witchcraft, Werewolves and Magic in European History. (If you have not already registered you can do so via this page.)

Please find the dates and details for our live course sessions below. 

We recommend you attend live where possible to make the most out of the experience, however if you are unable to make the dates we will upload a recording of each session to the online unit around a week after it takes place which can be viewed on demand. Please note that you do not need to register for the sessions in order to watch the recordings - the recordings will be automatically uploaded to the unit and will be accessible to all.

What you need to do next:

• Book for each of the sessions you wish to attend live below. Please note that these are all online webinar sessions held virtually via Zoom. Please ony register for the sessions you intend to join live.

Access to the accompanying online resource module will be sent to course participants one week before the first session.

If you have any queries in the meantime please email enquiries@history.org.uk

Session 1: The figure of the witch

Tuesday 10 September 2024, 7.30pm - RECORDING NOW AVAILABLE VIA MODULE
With Jonathan Durrant, Laura Kounine, Jan Machielsen, Lisa Tallis, Juliette Wood

Rebel, Wiccan, feminist icon. The figure of the witch as she permeates popular culture today has taken on many shifting, often-contradictory forms over the years. These are the product of a centuries-long engagement with Scripture, mythology, demonology, folktales, popular magical practice and thousands of witchcraft trials. How we imagine the witch now differs greatly from how medieval theologians, early modern witch-hunters or self-confessed witch-victims imagined her. There was no consensus even in the past. In this first session, we will discuss the evolving figure of the witch and introduce some of the concepts and questions that underpin the rest of the course. 

Session 2: Witchcraft imagery and gender

Tuesday 24 September 2024, 7.30pm - RECORDING NOW AVAILABLE VIA MODULE
With Jonathan Durrant, Laura Kounine

One consistent aspect of the figure of the witch throughout history is that she has usually been imagined as female rather than male. Early depictions of the witch following the first major witchcraft trials and the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum (1486) quickly established her sex as essential to modern witchcraft iconography. Images were not long in coming. Ulrich Molitor’s De Lamiis (1489) became the first illustrated work of demonology. Major Renaissance artists like Albrecht Dürer and Hans Baldung Grien embraced the witch, presenting her as a figure of unrestrained, naked, female power. In this session we will use witchcraft imagery as the starting point for a discussion of the many reasons why witchcraft has commonly been associated with women.

Session 3: Demonology

Tuesday 8 October 2024, 7.30pm - RECORDING NOW AVAILABLE VIA MODULE
With Jan Machielsen, Lisa Tallis

At its heart, throughout much of early modern Europe, witchcraft was a form of heresy and idolatry, the worship of someone or something other than God. While early modern witches were imagined to use their powers to harm their neighbours, it was their supposed rejection of God and worship of the devil that offended theologians. From the fifteenth century onwards, theologians transformed witchcraft from a popular superstition into a grave crime deserving of death. The new science of demonology was an interdisciplinary one: theologians debated the devil’s powers and philosophers how they took form, physicians scrutinized diabolical illnesses and lawyers asked how the crime of witchcraft could ever be proven. This new demonology informed large-scale witch persecution across much of Europe. What the demonologies said and how they came to influence witch persecution will be the subject of this  session.

Session 4: Reading trial records

Tuesday 22 October 2024, 7.30pm - RECORDING NOW AVAILABLE VIA MODULE
With Jonathan Durrant, Jan Machielsen

Between about 1450 and 1750 perhaps as many as 100,000 Europeans, mostly women, were tried for witchcraft; about 50% of them were executed for their alleged crimes. Many of the trial records have survived and these are important resources for early modern historians. They give voice to people about whose lives we would otherwise know very little. The records certainly tell us about the fears of the witch-accusers, but they also provide a window onto other emotions, including envy and love, and how people lived among their neighbours. Using trial records from both England and Germany, we will look at how they have been used to understand early modern society and culture.

Workshop 1

Tuesday 29 October 2024, 1.30pm OR Weds 30 Oct, 7.30pm - RECORDING NOW AVAILABLE VIA MODULE
With Paula Kitching

We will have covered a lot of ground in the first four sessions of this course, and you will have a lot of questions and ideas that may not yet have been addressed. As it is Halloween this week, it is an ideal opportunity to discuss your questions and ideas with the course convenors and each other.

Please note the content of the two sessions is the same so you do not need to book for both.

Session 5: Werewolves and male witches

Tuesday 5 November 2024, 7.30pm - RECORDING NOW AVAILABLE VIA MODULE
With Jan Machielsen, Laura Kounine

Witchcraft was primarily but not exclusively a female activity. About 20% of the people tried for witchcraft in early modern Europe were men; in some places, like Russia, Normandy and Iceland, men formed the majority of witch-defendants. Werewolves were also mainly men. The existence of male witches and werewolves challenges some of our preconceptions about witchcraft and the explanations for the extent of witch persecution in early modern Europe. How they do so will be discussed in this session.

Session 6: Folkloric and fictional witches

Tuesday 19 November 2024, 7.30pm
With Jan Machielsen, Juliette Wood
Book now

Witches and witch-hunts are still with us. In this final lecture session, we bring the course up to the present by looking at folkloric and fictional witches, and how historians’ representations of the early modern witch-hunt have changed over time. Witchcraft has been a staple of European folklore studies since the nineteenth century. Plays, novels, films and television series are full of witch characters. In this session, we will examine how and why folkloric and fictional witches are represented in particular ways.

Session 7: Witchcraft in Wales: from Ceridwen to Bella the fortune teller

Tuesday 3 December 2024, 7.30pm
With Lisa Tallis, Juliette Wood
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There were some regions of Europe that experienced very few witchcraft trials. This included the Celtic parts of the British Isles, in particular Wales. That did not mean that witchcraft and related practices were not an integral part of the local belief systems there. By exploring what witchcraft looked like without witches and witch trials, we get a better sense of the malleability and diversity of pre-modern magical beliefs. In this session, we will focus on witchcraft in Wales and how it has been represented from the legendary enchantress Ceridwen to the nineteenth-century Bella the fortune teller.

Workshop 2

Tuesday 10 December 2024, 7.30pm
With Paula Kitching
Book now

Inevitably, we will have not been able to cover everything in our sessions. This workshop is therefore another opportunity for you to discuss any aspects of the course that have interested you with the course convenors and with each other, and to discuss your key learning points as we conclude the course.