Academia.eduAcademia.edu
All Topics
History
History of Religion
Scottish Witchcraft Trials

Scottish Witchcraft Trials

description7 papers
group28 followers
lightbulbAbout this topic
The Scottish Witchcraft Trials refer to a series of legal proceedings and executions in Scotland from the late 16th to the 18th centuries, during which individuals, predominantly women, were accused of witchcraft. These trials were characterized by intense social, religious, and political factors, leading to widespread fear and persecution of alleged witches.
lightbulbAbout this topic
The Scottish Witchcraft Trials refer to a series of legal proceedings and executions in Scotland from the late 16th to the 18th centuries, during which individuals, predominantly women, were accused of witchcraft. These trials were characterized by intense social, religious, and political factors, leading to widespread fear and persecution of alleged witches.

Key research themes

1. How did religious sectarianism and church politics influence the intensity and patterns of the Scottish witchcraft trials?

This research theme explores the intersection of religious factionalism, political power struggles, and ecclesiastical control over judicial institutions in shaping the timing, intensity, and geographic distribution of witchcraft persecutions in Scotland from the aftermath of the Reformation through the Glorious Revolution. It matters because these witch hunts exemplify how intra-Christian conflict and the exclusion or empowerment of religious groups can escalate judicial terror and influence state authority, challenging simplistic explanations of witch hunts as mere social panic or superstition.

Church Politics , Sectarianism , and Judicial Terror : The Scottish Witch-Hunt , 1563-1736 ∗
by Parashar Kulkarni

2022

Key finding: The paper finds that during periods when Scottish Presbyterians were excluded from political power, they actively used local judicial institutions under their control to launch severe witch persecutions, evidencing how... Read more
articleView PaperdownloadDownload
Session 2: Panel 1: Presenter 3 (Paper) -- Hunting Power through Witch Hunts in Early Modern Scotland
by Devika Narendra

2022

Key finding: This study demonstrates how King James VI used witch trials strategically to assert and protect his political sovereignty, especially in relation to the Scottish Kirk, reinforcing his monarchical power by positioning himself... Read more
articleView PaperdownloadDownload
The North Berwick Witch Trials
by Caroline E Oxley

2017

Key finding: King James VI’s direct involvement in the North Berwick trials, including interrogations and endorsing extreme torture methods, tied political fears (such as storms disrupting his royal marriage voyage) to witchcraft... Read more
articleView PaperdownloadDownload
keyboard_arrow_downShow more

2. What role did legal institutions and doctrinal frameworks play in shaping the prosecution and moderation of witchcraft trials in early modern Scotland and Europe?

This theme investigates how legislative thought, legal institutions, and demonological doctrine interacted to both facilitate and constrain witchcraft prosecutions. It addresses the paradoxical role of the state and ecclesiastical hierarchies in legitimizing witch trials while occasionally restraining excesses, reflecting the evolving nature of early modern governance and jurisprudence surrounding witchcraft accusations.

Children, Convicts and Forced Confessions: Continental Witchcraft Practices in Swedish Legal Proceedings during the Mass Witch Trials of the Late 17th Century
by Allegra Geller

2013

Key finding: The study reveals that Swedish witchcraft trials in the late 17th century adopted Continental demonological doctrine and inquisitorial practices such as reliance on child testimonies and torture-induced confessions,... Read more
articleView PaperdownloadDownload
review of Gilbert Geis and Ivan Bunn, A trial of witches: a seventeenth-century witchcraft prosecution
by David Harley

2013, Medical History 42 /4, pp 544-545

Key finding: This case-study analysis highlights the complexities in judicial procedure during witch trials, showing how a respected judge and medical witness navigated the blurred boundary between natural illness and demonic influence to... Read more
articleView PaperdownloadDownload
keyboard_arrow_downShow more

3. How did folklore, popular beliefs, and cultural narratives influence the conceptualization of witches and fairy-related supernatural phenomena in Scottish witch trials?

This theme examines the cultural and folkloric underpinnings of witchcraft beliefs in Scotland, focusing on how popular narratives—such as fairies as demons subordinate to the Devil or the use of fairy motifs in confessions—intersected with official demonology and shaped both popular and legal understandings of witchcraft. It demonstrates the persistence and adaptation of folk beliefs amid dominant Protestant theological frameworks.

The Legality of the Supernatural: Fairy Belief in the Scottish Witch Trials.
by Mark David L Gibbard

2016

Key finding: This paper identifies that confessions involving fairies were possibly constructed by accused witches to minimize culpability or avoid execution, reflecting an awareness of legal consequences and folk narratives. It... Read more
articleView PaperdownloadDownload
keyboard_arrow_downShow more

Related Topics

  • Scottish Witchcraft
  • Witchcraft, Religion and Magic
  • British witchcraft
  • Early Modern English Witchcraft
  • European Witch Trials
  • Early Modern European Witchcraft
  • Witch Hunt Studies
  • Roman Inquisition
  • Witch Hunts
  • Medieval Witchcraft

    • All papers in Scottish Witchcraft Trials

    “The Forme that he vsed in counterfeiting God”: James VI’s Daemonologie and the Theorisation of the Continental Witches’ Sabbath
    by Luca Baratta

    2025, Magic, Witchcraft and Monstrosity in Medieval and Pre-Modern Northwestern Europe Texts

    James’s Daemonologie (1597) reflects his personal and political anxieties, emerging in the wake of the North Berwick witch trials, in which he was directly involved. By reshaping continental demonological concepts – especially the... more
    descriptionView Paperarrow_downwardDownload
    Review of Liv Helene Willumsen, Witches of the North. Scotland and Finmark (2013)
    by Georg Modestin

    2019, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte 110 (2016)

    502 wären. Auch hätte es den Leser natürlich sehr interessiert, erfahren und nachvollziehen zu können, wie einfache Menschen den religiös-konfessionellen Konflikt und die Gräuel des Krieges erlebten. Doch bleiben direkte Zeugnisse dazu... more
    descriptionView Paperarrow_downwardDownload
    The North Berwick Witch Trials
    by Caroline E Oxley

    2017

    Influenced by the religious implications of the Reformation, England and Scotland began experiencing a large rise in witchcraft accusations and trials, prompting fear of the ‘other’ side of Christianity, or ‘Devil-worship’.... more
    descriptionView Paperarrow_downwardDownload
    The Legality of the Supernatural: Fairy Belief in the Scottish Witch Trials.
    by Mark David L Gibbard

    2016

    The Legality of the Supernatural: Scottish Fairy Trials One of the greatest and most inescapable questions regarding any of the European witch hunts is why anyone would confess to such fantastical happenings when it meant their certain... more
    descriptionView Paperarrow_downwardDownload
    The Malkin Tower, A Seventeenth-Century Witches Coven Discovered? The Archaeological and Historical Evidence Behind the British Witch Trials of 1612 Considered.
    by David Barrowclough

    2015

    ABSTRACT The Jacobean era's infamous witchcraft trials are recalled after reservoir repairs close to Pendle Hill reveal a buried cottage with bricked‐up cat. Interpretations of the building as the site of Malkin Tower, recorded in court... more
    Figure 2. Pendle Hill, long associated with witchcraft and a dominant landmark ir Lancashire.
    Figure 1. Lower Black Moss Reservoir (on the left), possible site of Malkin Tower.
    Figure 3. Sealed into the walls: the ruins of the witch's home, where the mummified animal was found. Walls of the 17th century cottage, which became a cat's tomb, at Lower Black Moss, Pendle Hill, Lancashire. Centre of witchcraft: Experts suspect the cottage could have been home to the mysterious Malkin Tower coven. Photograph: Lorne Campbell/United Utilities/PA
    Figure 5. The stone building following excavation with Pendle Hill in the background.
    Figure 6. A close-up of the interior of the building after excavation.
    Figure 7.The nineteenth century stove. Photograph: Lorne Campbell/United Utilities/PA.
    Figure 9. Lancaster Castle, site of the Witch Trials. where the Lancaster Assizes of 1612 took place.
    An alternative location lies near the village of Newchurch in Pendle (Fields 1998, 60). Douglas claims there is ‘persuasive’ evidence that an area near Sadler's Farm (now known as Shekinah Christian Centre) was the site of Malkin Tower. Numerous reports of alleged witchcraft come from the area, and it is in the vicinity of other locations named during the trial such as Greenhead. Greenhead, near Fence, being the home of Christopher Nutter and his son Robert, for whose deaths Anne Whittle and Anne Redferne were charged with murder (Davies 1971, 34; Hasted 1993, 33). Others involved in the trials were known to have lived in the area; alleged witches Jane and John Bulcock resided at Moss End Farm in Newchurch, and John Nutter, whose cows were claimed to have been bewitched, lived at the neighbouring Bull Hole Farm. Southerns' son Christopher Holgate also lived nearby. But neither the deeds of Sadler's Farm, which date back to the seventeenth century, nor contemporary maps of the region mention Malkin Tower or any fields in which it may have stood (Peel and Southern 1985, 155). Historical and documentary evidence alone has therefore proved insufficient to locate the site of Malkin Tower.
    Figure 12. The walls within which the cat was found sealed. It appears that the cat was probably alive when buried in the wall, sometime in the 1800s.
    descriptionView Paperarrow_downwardDownload
    Download research papers for free!
    580 California St., Suite 400
    San Francisco, CA, 94104