The European Witchcraft Debate and the Dutch Variant

Author(s): Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra

Source: Social History, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May, 1990), pp. 181-194
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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 MarijkeGijswijt-Hofstra

The European witchcraft debate and

the Dutch variant

The European witchcraft debate is far from being concluded. This will be the case as long
as historians and other social scientists continue to unearth new material and develop
diverging views on the complex problems of Europeanwitchcraft. Trevor-Roper's daring
essay of the late I96os on the European witch-craze seems to mark both the end and the
beginning of an era of witchcraft research.1A similarlybroadrangeand synthesis are not to
be found in witchcraft studies of the next two decades. Unlike Trevor-Roper, most later
authors tended to emphasize the empiricalside of research, ratherthan being tempted into
sweeping generalizations. However, in a way Trevor-Roper was also an exponent of the
new period, which can be characterizedby a growing interest in and use of the approaches
of other social sciences. One only has to be reminded of Trevor-Roper's frequent use of
terms like social, social conflict, stress, scapegoating, etc., to get the point, however his
efforts are otherwise evaluated.
A real breakthrough was accomplished in the late I96os and early I970S with the
introduction of anthropological approaches to European witchcraft research. The first
major study along these lines was Macfarlane'sbook on Essex witchcraft (1970), to be
followed a year later by Keith Thomas's thematically much broaderstudy of religion and
magic in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Inspired by these new develop-
ments, other historians soon began to compose articles on the historiographyof European
witchcraft and on the remaining theoretical and empirical problems connected with
witchcraft research. Monter's stock-taking article, for example, was published as early as
I972.3
Monter distinguished three paradigmsor models in witchcraft research:the rationalist,
the romantic and the new social science or anthropologicalmodel. In fact, the last, rather
wide label only covered a specific approach, the so-called structural-functionalistview of
i H. R. Trevor-Roper, The LuropeanWitch- Dutch authors also paid attention to recent
Craze of the i6th and X7th Centuries developments in the historiographyof European
(Harmondsworth, I969). witchcraft. See: M. Gijswijt-Hofstra, 'Bijdrage
2 Alan Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and tot theorievorming over de i6e- en 17e-eeuwse
Stuart Lngland( 970). Keith Thomas, Religion Europese heksenvervolgingen', Mens en Maat-
and the Decline of Magic ( 97 ) . schappij, XLVII (1972), 304-36; J. E. Toussaint
3E. William Monter, 'The historiography of Raven, Heksenvervolging (Bussum, 1972); I.
European witchcraft: progress and prospects', Sch6ffer, 'Heksengeloof en heksenvervolging',
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, ii Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, LXXXVI (1973),
(I971-2), 43S-S3. At about the same time, three 2 I5-35.
I82 Social History VOL. I5: NO. 2

witchcraft. According to this view, witchcraft and witchcraft accusations perform

'functions' within a given structure, serving certain individual or social ends. Witchcraft
may serve to explain the otherwise unexplainable, like illness or death. Fear and stress can
find an outlet via witchcraft accusations, the witch functioning as a scapegoat. Later on,
authors like Muchembled and Larner were to present witch-trials as a means of enforcing
conformity on a backward population.4 Others interpreted witch-trials as a male
instrument to suppress women.5
However, problems arise when 'function' is equated with need, task or end, and when
needs, etc. are considered as causes and witchcraft and witch-trials as their effects.
Though this line of argument was already much criticized at the time, quite a few
historians of European witchcraft tended to disregard this in their enthusiasm for the
promising new horizons of a functionalist approach. On the other hand, this approachhas
resulted in valuable witchcraft research at local level, focusing on the relations between
accusers and accused and on the effects of witchcraft accusations and witch-trials.
But there is more to be said about the historiographyof Europeanwitchcraft: since 1972
the scene has expanded and diversified. Monter's social scientific or anthropologicalmodel
ought to be supplemented. Besides the rather unfortunatepars pro toto indications, with
the structural-functional approach figuring as exemplary for anthropology and anthro-
pology as exemplary for the social sciences, several witchcraft studies of the past two
decades present perspectives so far unmentioned. I do not propose to present another
scheme of successive yet coexisting, sharply defined approaches, each of them provided
with a handy label. However attractiveat first sight, a simple three- or four-part typology
would hardly help to clarify recent trends in the historiographyof European witchcraft. I
will therefore take another course by successively looking at the ways in which witchcraft
has been defined as a subject of research, the types of questions which have been posed,
and the answers or interpretations which have been given, including their relation to
empirical sources. Recent Dutch research has developed some worthwhile perspectives
which have remained relatively unknown due to problems of language. These will receive
special attention here.6

WITCHCRAFT: WHICH WITCHCRAFT?

The historiographyof Europeanwitchcraft has been and still is mainly concerned with the
theme of the so-called witch-craze or witch-hunt, or, in less extreme terms, with witchcraft
prosecutions. The problem of the concentration of witch-trials and especially of the

4 Robert Muchembled, 'Satan ou les hom-
mes? La chasse aux sorcieres et ses causes';
'Sorcieres du Cambresis. L'acculturation du
monde rural aux XVIe et XVIIe siecles' in
Marie-Sylvie Dupont-Bouchat, Willem Frijhoff
and Robert Muchembled, Prophetes et sorciers
dans les Pays-Bas ATIe-ATIIIe siele (Paris,
I978), I6-39, I59-26i. Christina Larner,
Enemies of God. The Witch-Hunt in Scotland
(I98I).
5 See, for example, Claudia Honegger (ed.),
Die Hexen der Neuzeit (Frankfurt a. Main,
I978); a less extreme interpretation has been
offered by E. William Monter, Witchcraft in
France and Switzerland (Ithaca and London,
1976), 124-
6 See MarijkeGijswijt-Hofstra, 'Witchcraftin
the northern Netherlands' in Arina Angerman
(ed.), Current Issues in Women's History
(I989); Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra and Willem
Frijhoff (eds), Witchcraft in the Netherlands,
I4th to 20th Centuries (The Hague, I990).
Ma'VI990 Europeanwitchcraftdebate 183

massive prosecutions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - estimations of the

number of victims have been reduced from one million to several tens of thousands - has
occupied many minds.7 In line with this theme much attention has also been paid to the
witchcraft beliefs of advocates and of opponents of these prosecutions, thus of learned
people.8 Popular witchcraft beliefs and practices have been mostly regarded as a
comparatively amorphous and timeless complex, that is to say, as long as there were
witch-trials. For the period after the witch-trials, however, continuity of these beliefs and
practices has not been taken for granted. Indeed, the cessation of witch-trials has even
mistakenly been used as an indication of the decline of witchcraft itself.9
To put it differently: the preoccupation with witchcraft prosecutions, though quite
legitimate and understandable, implies some serious shortcomings of a paradigmatic
nature. First, witchcraft beliefs and practices have been insufficiently dealt with as an
integral part of particular socio-cultural settings.10 To put it rather crudely: witchcraft
should not simply be reduced to the realm of concocted fantasies of so-called demono-
logists and/or witch-hunters, or, to take another example, to a weird superstition of the
common people. It makes far more sense, following in the footsteps of Macfarlane and
Thomas, to regard witchcraft as one of the possibilities of interpreting misfortune and
coming to grips with the vicissitudes of existence. The fruitfulness of an integrated
socio-cultural approach has later been admirably demonstrated by Demos, who studied
New England witchcraft."1 Muchembled's study of witchcraft in Bouvignies and
Favret-Saada's research on witchcraft in the Bocage in the 1970S may serve as further
examples of such an approach.12 This also applies to recent Dutch witchcraft research,
though the sources only rarely permit detailed local reconstructions.13

I The most important monographs on this socio-cultural production of witchcraft. See

topic published after I97i are: H. C. Erik
Midelfort, Witch Hunting in Southwestern
Germany I562-i684 (Stanford, Calif., 1972);
Norman Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons ( 975);
Richard Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials.
Their Foundations in Popular and Learned
Culture I300-I500 (1976); Monter, op. cit.
(1976); G. Schormann, Hexenprozesse in
Nordwestdeutschland (Hildesheim, 1977);
Gustav Henningsen, The Witches' Advocate.
Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition
(i609-I6I4) (Reno, Nevada, 1980); Larner, op.
cit. (I98I); Robert Muchembled, Les derniers
buchers. Un village de Flandre et ses sorcieres
sous Louis XIV (Paris, I98I); Wolfgang Beh-
ringer, Hexenverfolgung in Bayern (Miunchen,
I987)-
8 See, for example, Sydney Anglo (ed.), The
Damned Art. E,ssays in the Literature of
Witchcraft(London, Henley and Boston, 1977) .
' Though not explicitly, Thomas's (I97I)
argument runs along this line.
11) De B1ecourt,who has kindly commented on
an earlier draft of this article, has propagated a
similar approach, wishing to focus on the
Willem de B1ecourt,'Van heksenprocessen naar
toverij' in Willem de B1lcourt and Marijke
Gijswijt-Hofstra (eds), Kwade mensen. Tovernj
in Nederland (Amsterdam,I986), 2-30. Re-
cently Briggs has urged the necessity of an
integrated approach to witchcraft. See Robin
Briggs, Communities of Belief. Cultural and
Social Tensions in Early Modern France
(Oxford, I989), 104.
l John Putnam Demos, Entertaining Satan.
Witchcraft and the Culture of New England
(New York and Oxford, I982).
12 Robert Muchembled avec la collaboration
de Martine Desmons, Les derniers buichers
(I98I). Jeanne Favret-Saada, Deadly Wlords.
W'itchcraftin the Rocage (Cambridge, I980).
13 De Blecourt and Gijswijt-Hofstra (eds)
(I986); Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra and Willem
Frijhoff (eds), Nederland betoverd. Toverij en
hekserij van de veertiende tot in de twintigste
eeuw (Amsterdam, I987). Part of this last book,
including the contributions referred to in this
article, will be published in English in I990 (see
n. 6).
184 Social History VOL. 15: NO. 2

Second, witchcraft has seldom been studied for the period after the trials. This is rather
obvious, given the theme of witchcraft prosecutions, and it is also in line with my first
point about witchcraft having been insufficiently dealt with as a broader socio-cultural
phenomenon.The reason why I refer to this shortcoming separately is the already
mentioned misconception regarding the decline of witchcraft. It is certainly not the case
that witchcraft beliefs and practices had vanished or significantly dwindled before or even
shortly after the cessation of witch-trials. Witchcraft has been an ongoing, though
fluctuating concern, at least until very recently, as has been found not only by
Favret-Saada, but also by, for example, Schock and Baumhauer in Germany, several
Dutch witchcraft scholars, and Schiffmann in Poland.14
Having said this, there still remains the problem of defining witchcraft. Although
Macfarlaneand Thomas had set the tone to a broaderconception, most later scholarsof the
witchcraft prosecutions have displayed a fair amount of consensus that only harmful
and/or diabolic witchcraft should be included. This means that counter-magic or white
magic as practised by cunning folk, diviners, witch-doctors, exorcists or by private
persons have on the whole been neglected. But that is not all. German scholars in
particularhave been inclined to make even stricter delimitations of witchcraft, counting
only Hexerei as their subject, while reserving this term for 'diabolism'. According to them
Hexerei usually refers to harmful witchcraft - maleficium - and always to one or more
demonological elements as expressed in manuals for witch-hunters, such as the pact with
the devil, copulation with the devil, and flight to and attendance at the witches' sabbath.
Zauberei, referringto ritual acts in order to attain harmful or beneficent ends, has not only
been distinguished from Hexerei, but has also been explicitly excluded from these
scholars' research.15
Again I will not refrain from formulating some objections. Magical phenomena can,
varied as they are, seldom be neatly fitted in a dichotomy. Moreover, dichotomies like
these usually fail to link up well with contemporaryterminology. And, most importantly,
such a dichotomy tends as a matter of course to result in too strictly defined research
programmes. Rather than conforming to diverging distinctions between Hexerei and
Zauberei, or between witchcraft and sorcery as designed by historians and anthropol-
ogists,16 I am inclined to avoid confusion and a too narrow delimitation by using either of
these terms in an encompassing sense - preferably in accordance with former usage.
Different types of witchcraft or sorcery can then be distinguished by means of adjectivesor
by means of original, more specialized terms. In English this implies the use of the term

14 Favret-Saada,op. cit. (I980); Inge Schock, Christina Schiffmann, 'The witch and crime:
Hexenglaube in der Gegenwart. Empirische the persecution of witches in twentieth-century
Untersuchungen in Sudwestdeutschland (Tub- Poland', ARV. Scandinavian Yearbookof Folk-
ingen, 1978); Johan Friedrich Baumhauer, lore, XLIII (1987), 147-6S.
Johann Kruse und der 'neuzeitliche Hexen- 's See especially Gerhard Schormann,
wahn'. Zur Situation eines norddeutschen Hexenprocesse in Deutschland (Gbttingen,
Aufklarersund einer Glaubensvorstellungim 20. I98I). Behringer, op cit. (1987) follows this line
Jahrhundert untersucht anhand von Vorgangen less rigidly.
in Ditmarschen (Neumiinster, I984); Gijswijt- 16 Max Marwick (ed.), Witchcraft and Sor-
Hofstra and Frijhoff, op. cit. (I987); Aldona cery (Harmondsworth, I982).
M1ayI990 Europeanwitchcraft debate I85

witchcraft, whereas the all-encompassing term in Dutch was tovenrj.17Witchcraft as well

as toverij thus refers to various types of magical beliefs and activities, harmful as well as
beneficial, either in combination with demonological elements or not.
This inclusive view of witchcraft seems to me essential. Studying only harmful
witchcraft, whether in combination with demonological elements or not, results in
deficient insight. Knowledge of bewitchments without knowledge of unwitchments or
white magic makes insufficient sense. The same and even more can be said regarding the
repression of witchcraft. It is worthwhile not only to pay attention to the repression of
various kinds of witchcraft, but also to their toleration or non-repression. Moreover, the
traditional fixation on the judicial repression of witchcraft should be supplemented by
research into the reactions of other institutions or levels, such as the church or the people
directly concerned with bewitchments. This has proved to be a very fruitful strategy in
recent Dutch witchcraft research- showing (partly) different and also varying definitions
of witchcraft at different levels'8 - as well as in research based on the extraordinarilyrich
material - primarily on white magic - of the archives of the Italian and Spanish
Inquisitions.19

FAVOURITE QUESTIONS AND PARTLY FAILING ANSWERS

Entirely in line with the predominant interest in the repression of witchcraft, questions on
the beginning, course and cessation of witch-beliefs and witch-trials, and especially of the
massive witchcraft prosecutions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have
dominated. Unlike Trevor-Roper, most later authors have refrained from asking too
general, comprehensive questions, such as why the witch-craze occurred throughout
Europe in just these centuries. This is pure gain, since a general explanation of 'the
witch-craze' cannot be found. Too general questions can at best be answered in very
general and thus not very meaningful terms. The variety and complexity of the witchcraft
prosecutions calls for more restricted and specified questions about the how and why of
(aspects of) various sorts of witchcraft trials and also about the absence of such trials.20
This leads me to the interrelatedproblems of precision, scope and systematics. It cannot
be denied that the aspect of precision or the search for archival and other empirical data
have received much attention during the past two decades. As a consequence, the scope of
questions and interpretations has dwindled, maybe more than will eventually prove
desirable. This, of course, has much to do not only with changing views and preferences
concerning the ways in which scientific knowledge should be composed in general - thus

17 Macfarlane, op. cit. (1970), 310-I2;
Thomas, op. cit. (I97I), 435-, 463-5; Gijswijt-
Hofstra and Frijhoff, op. cit. (I987), 8, 262-3.
18 De Blecourt and Gijswijt-Hofstra, op. cit.
(I986); Gijswijt-Hofstra and Frijhoff, op. cit.
(1987); Gijswijt-Hofstra, op. cit. (I989).
19 Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles. Witch-
craft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries (London, Melbourne
and Henley, I 983); Henningsen, op. cit. (i 980);
Mary O'Neil, 'Magical healing, love magic and
the Inquisition in late sixteenth-century
Modena' in Stephen Haliczer (ed.), Inquisition
and Society in Early Modern Europe (London
and Sydney, I 987), 88-I I 4.
20 Gijswijt-Hofstra, op. cit. (1972); H. M.
Belien and P. C. van der Eerden, Satans
trawanten. Heksen en heksenvervolging (Haar-
lem, I985).
i86 Social History VOL. I5 : NO. 2

with accepted scientific standards - but also with the already mentioned preliminary
problems of a paradigmatic nature. In any case, great problems remain in the sphere of
systematics and of the relationship between empirical data and theory. As to systematics: I
have already pointed to problematical aspects of functionalist interpretations. No less
problematic is the issue of psychoanalytic interpretations of past phenomena. Another
serious difficulty concerns the testability of propositions. It is not in the least exceptional
that witchcraft interpretations cannot be verified because definitions and indicators of
abstract concepts like stress, fear and crisis have not been furnished. Lastly, and partly
connected with the previous issue, there is the rather neglected problem of formulating
sufficiently specific questions into the 'why' of aspects of witchcraft and of designing a
strategy for comparative research in order to get answers or explanations. As Maclver
wrote: 'It is sometimes nearly as difficult to define our problem as to solve it.'21
Although the questions posed have become less general, mostly restricted to a certain
region, this does not automaticallyimply sufficient differentiation. First of all, concentrat-
ing on the popular questions about the how and why of fluctuations in the intensity of
witchcraft prosecutions in a certain area, most recent studies contain more or less clear
distinctions between the types of witchcraft and witchcraft prosecutions to be included.
However, apart from the already mentioned paradigmatic and methodological problems
connected with the proposed restrictions - attention being paid mainly to harmful and/or
demonological witchcraft - the actual presentation of the data seldom quite seems to
correspond with the suggested demarcations. This may be attributed to incompleteness of
the data themselves regardingthe type of witchcraft, to problems inherent in the typology
itself, or to a certain ambivalence by the authors in their desire to present their findings in
their entirety, without distinguishing between, for example, harmful and beneficent
witchcraft. Anyway, it would be helpful if, as has been done in Dutch witchcraft
research,22differentiated lists of witchcraft cases and trials were to be presented, including
information on the types of witchcraft and the types of trial.
Moreover, witchcraft research has much to gain by asking more varied questions, for
example about the absence or low intensity of witch-trials. Briggs made a point when
stating that it is much less of a problem to explain why some witches ended at the stake,
than it is to understand the various forms of restraint preventing far more from joining
them.23As a matter of fact, Dutch witchcraft research has made much of the question of
why the number of Dutch trials for harmful and/or demonological witchcraft were
relatively low, considering the whole period of these witch-trials, and why the death
sentences for witchcraft had already come to an end around the end of the sixteenth
century. In fact, these questions in their turn have had to be differentiated in order to allow
for important regional and local variations.
So much for the favourite questions on witchcraft prosecutions. But what about the
answers? As far as they have been structured in terms of preconditions or necessary
conditions and triggers,24 or of structuralvulnerability, mobilization and counter-mobiliz-

21 R. M. Maclver, Social Causation 23 Briggs, Op. cit. (I989), 62.

(Gloucester, Mass., I973) (reprint from revised 24 See, for example, Larner, op. cit. (I98I),
edn, I964), 376. I92-3; Brian P. Levack, The Witch-hunt in
22 Gijswijt-Hofstra and Frijhoff, op. cit. early modern Europe (London and New York,
(I987) . I987), 3, 93-
May 19go European witchcraft debate I87

ation,25 a fair amount of consensus exists regardingthe preconditions of trials for harmful,
and possibly demonological, witchcraft in general and of large-scale witch-trials in
particular. Preconditions for trials for harmful witchcraft in general can only be rather
tautologically stated: they come down to the presence of witchcraft beliefs, whether
combined with demonological elements or not, and witchcraft practices on the one hand
and the possibility of judicial prosecution of harmful witchcraft on the other hand.
Large-scale witch-trials, moreover, require demonological views on witchcraft, like the
pact with the devil, and especially the nocturnal gatherings at the witches' sabbath. If, in
addition, the use of judicial inquisitorial procedures and of torture were accepted, then
there also existed a state of structural vulnerability to massive witch-trials. Given these
preconditions for witch-trials in general or for large-scalewitch-trials in particular, some
kind of mobilization or trigger was necessary to start off witch-trials. At this point the
historian's task becomes more complicated, even tricky. Or, as Larner aptly remarked:
'While preconditions are relatively easy to chart, efficient causes are elusive and their
actual efficiency rarely convinces.'26
Still, in the matter of triggers and also of restraints, certain research strategies have
proved to be effective. Whether trials took place, given the mentioned preconditions,
depended in the first instance on the local witchcraft happenings, on whether or not a case
of witchcraft was reported or became known to the court and on the attitude of the
magistrates. Whereas local witchcraft happenings are to be considered as a sine qua non, it
was the attitude of the magistrates which was thereafter of the utmost importance. This
applied often to whether or not a trial was called, and always to the conduct of the trial
itself, especially to the questions posed, the use of torture and the demands made on the
burden of proof. The attitude taken by judges both in theory and in practice can in its turn
be viewed as being partly dependent on their own insight and experience, on what they
came to hear of witchcraft practices in their own region and also elsewhere, on exhortations
from above to prosecute or to be lenient, on legal advice, and so on. The position of the
court should also be seen as a function of judicial organization and procedural law. One of
the outcomes of Dutch witchcraft research has been that the degree of centralism of the
administration of justice does not in itself seem to have any explanatory value for this
position.27So, going one step further, explanations of a relatively early or late cessation of
witch-trials should contain more elements than just this aspect of judicial organization or,
for that matter, of state formation. Soman's argument concerning the relatively early
cessation of witch-trials in France, Spain and England in terms of the advanced centralism
of these states cannot simply be transplantedto the non-centralized Republic of the United
Provinces, where the witch-trials came to an end even earlier.28
In their turn, the preconditions and the triggers or restraints also require explanation.
This is where most problems arise. While the tracing of witchcraft beliefs and witchcraft
practices often faces a lack of relevant source-material - particularly on the level of the
non-literate strata - and while it is almost as difficult to detect triggers or counteractive

25 28 Alfred Soman, 'La decriminilisation de la

Gijswijt-Hofstra (1972) and (I989).
26 Larner, op. cit. (I98I), 192. sorcellerie en France', Histoire, economie et
27 See Gijswijt-Hofstra and Frijhoff, op. cit. societe, IV (1985), I 79-203-
(1987).
i88 Social History VOL. 15: NO. 2

moves and certainly to assess their contribution to the eventual outcome, it is even more
problematic when we get down to explanations of the preconditions and the triggers
themselves. We are confronted, especially at this point, with inadequate answers. These
failures boil down to insufficient testability of propositions as well as to rather
controversial assumptions - on account of being presented as universal - concerning
human motives, drives and ways of reacting. They may also be translated in terms of the
interrelatedproblems of precision, systematics and range.
Take the example of Levack, who presents the religious, social and economic conditions
that prevailed in early modern Europe as having created an environment in which the
hunting of witches was not merely possible - here Levack refers to both above-mentioned
preconditions - but likely to occur.29 According to him, these religious, social and
economic conditions resulted in 'an atmosphere that heightened the fear of witchcraft and
encouraged people to take action against it'.311He even chooses to launch this atmosphere
as the final precondition of witch-hunting. Whether or not one should be happy with this
addition to the preconditions, it is more important to note that Levack rather easily
switches from the level of stating correlations to the level of stating causal connections.
Part of the impact of the Reformation consists, according to Levack, in the ensuing
religious conflicts and divisions which made communities more fearful of religious and
moral subversion, for example of witchcraft, and therefore prone to witchcraft pros-
ecutions. He extends this functionalist view to the realm of socio-economic change:
witchcraft accusations are seen as a means of resolving socio-economic conflicts at local
level and of explaining misfortunes.31
The problem with this type of reasoning, which is still quite widespread and which is
even to be found in a much more subtle way in Behringer's excellent study of witchcraft
prosecutions in Bavaria,32is, apart from the functionalist assumptions, that too many
empirical steps are missing or just cannot be taken, due to the lack of relevant sources and
of missing indicators of abstract concepts. In other words, the balance between
systematics and precision needs improving, especially where the impact of societal and
interpersonal processes on the way people think and act is at stake. Another problem
concerns the balance between scope and systematics: what about the assumed universal
and non-differentiated need of people to explain misfortunes or to find an outlet for their
fears, more particularlyin the form of finding scapegoats? I would suggest that we are in
need of further research into possible socio-cultural variations in the sphere of the
interpretation or the meanings of and the reactions to 'misfortune' or 'conflict'. Anyway,
one should be on one's guard against simple explanations derived from naming
phenomena, which is, in fact, what happens when witchcraft prosecutions are explained in
terms of stress or fear.

29 Levack, op. cit. (I987), 93. applies to the effects he attributes to the mental
3( Ibid., o49. revolution and, to a lesser extent, to the agrarian
3" Ibid., I I6. crises.
32 Behringer, Op. Cit. (I987). This especially
 lMay1go Europeanwitchcraftdebate I89

NEGLECTED QUESTIONS AND PROMISING PERSPECTIVES

Even within the traditional theme of the witchcraft prosecutions, but more so outside it,
important questions tend to have been neglected. One of them concerns the role of
cunning folk, witch-doctors and other magical specialists in the process of diagnosing and
countering bewitchments, as well as their contribution to continuity in witchcraft beliefs
and practices.33Another point which deserves attention is the part played by travelling
executioners in communicating demonological concepts of witchcraft as well as in showing
ways of detecting witches. Partly in line with this, more information is needed on the
degree and the ways in which witch-trials have served as an example for witchcraft
accusations and witch-trials elsewhere. The Dutch witchcraft research, and also to a
certain extent Behringer'sstudy on Bavaria,testify to the fruitfulness of looking into these
matters.
In general, more systematic attention should be paid to the diffusion and reception of
various conceptions of witchcraft among different socio-culturalstrata. In this context one
of the neglected problems which should be looked at is the diffusion of the female
stereotype of the witch. It has been assumed too easily that such a female stereotype was
prevalent among both learned and popular strata all over Europe, for at least the period of
the witchcraft prosecutions. However, the contrary has been the case in countries like
Finland and Iceland, while Dutch witchcraft research has so far provided answers which
vary according to the period, the region and the type of witchcraft concerned.34Harmful
witchcraft was mostly ascribed to women, beneficent witchcraft was practised by both
men and women - but sometimes more by men - while scolding in terms of witchcraft
followed various patterns. Another question still needing more attention is the diffusion of
various kinds of demonological witchcraft ideas. As Stuart Clarkhas rightly pointed out,
learned demonology has become relatively neglected in witchcraft research.35 It is
interesting to note that both Clark's research on Lutheran demonology and Dutch
research on Roman Catholic and Calvinist views regarding superstition and witchcraft
have yielded similar results.36Theological witchcraft conceptions seem mostly to have
been in line with Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, not incorporatingthe conceptions of
the Malleus Maleficarum (I487) and later manuals for witch-hunters. This means that

toverij. E?en antropologisch-historische studie

33 See especially the contribution of Willem de
Blecourt on Frisian witch-doctors in Gijswijt- naar de veranderingen in de betekenissen van
Hofstra and Frijhoff, op. cit. (I987). toverijbetichtingenin Drenthe van de zestiende
3 See, on Finland, Antero Heikkinen and tot in de twintigste eeuw.
Timo Kervinen, 'Finland: den manliga domi- 3 Stuart Clark, 'Witchcraft and popular
nansen' in Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Hen- culture in Protestantdemonology: some Central
ningsen (eds), Haixornas 'uropa I400-I700 European examples', unpublished paper for the
(Lund, I987), 276-9I. The English version of conference on Witch Beliefs and Witch-Hunting
this book is titled Early Modern E,uropean in Central and Eastern Europe, Budapest, 6-9
Witchcraft.Centres and Peripheries and is to be September I988.
published in I989 by the Clarendon Press, 36 See Marcel Gielis on Roman Catholic

Oxford. On Iceland I only have personal theologians and G. J. Stronks on Calvinist

information. See also Gijswijt-Hofstra and clergymen in Gijswijt-Hofstra and Frijhoff, op.
Frijhoff, op. cit. (I987) and the forthcoming cit. (I987).
thesis of Willem de B1ecourt, Termen van
Igo Social History VOL. I5 NO. 2

witchcraft was not conceived in terms of an organized hereticalplot against Christianityor

as a real, physical threat.
So much for the matter of neglected questions: many more could be added, especially
relating to witchcraft after the cessation of witch-trials. However, I should now prefer to
turn to some promising perspectives in recent witchcraft research. I will first concentrate
on research outside the Netherlands, reserving the final part of this article for the Dutch
research. Without claiming to be exhaustive I will select some of the most innovative and
interesting approaches for discussion.
First, there are those studies which present witchcraft primarily from a cultural,
interpretive point of view, whether in terms of spoken words (Favret-Saada), meanings
(Clark) or cognitive systems (Alver and Selberg). Favret-Saada chose a semantic or
discourse analysis of witchcraft in the Bocage in the I970S, based on participant
observation. She defined an attackof witchcraft as follows:
A set of words spoken in a crisis situation by someone who will later be designated as a
witch are afterwardsinterpreted as having taken effect on the body and belongings of
the person spoken to, who will on that ground say he is bewitched. The unwitcher
takes on himself these words originallyspoken to his client, and turns them back on to
their initial sender, the witch.37

To this she adds that witchcraft is spoken words, and that these spoken words are power,
not knowledge or information. Or, formulated otherwise: 'in witchcraft, words wage
war.'38Without going into shortcomings in Favret-Saada'sanalysis- she herself points out
that she has remained largely unaware of the social context of witchcraft matters - it is
beyond discussion that semantic or discourse analysis at the least adds an essential
dimension to witchcraft research.
Whereas Favret-Saada has concentrated on contemporary local discourses on witch-
craft, Clark has recently analysed late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century German
Lutheran writings on demonology.39He proposes to conceive the history of witchcraft as,
essentially, a history of meanings. Or, somewhat more specifically, as the history of
'practices whose meaning was situated contextually in particular sets of cultural
conditions'.40Clarkrightly points out that texts should be related to other texts in order to
understand their meaning. The German Lutheran writings on demonology should not
only be seen as theoretical contributions to the European witchcraft debate, but also and
primarily as attempts at religious reform.
Alver and Selberg represent another example of interpretive analysis. They have
examined nineteenth- and twentieth-century Norwegian 'folk' explanations of illness as
part of a cognitive system, that is 'a culturally defined way of seeing, thinking about, and
experiencing reality'.41In this cognitive system, which centres on matters of fortune and

3 Favret-Saada, op. cit. (I980), 9. " Clark, op. cit. (I 988), 3 .

38 Ibid., io.
'9 See also Stuart Clark'searlier article on the
meaning of demonological texts: 'Inversion,
misrule and the meaning of witchcraft', Past
and Present, LXXXVII (I980), 98-I27.
41 Bente Gullveig Alver and Torunn Selberg,
'Folk medicine as part of a larger concept
complex', ARV. Scandinavian Yearbook of
Fiolklore I987, XLIII, 2I-44.
Malt I990 Europeanwitchcraft debate I9I

misfortune, witches have a special significance as destructive forces when it comes to

explaining illness.
Authors like Favret-Saada, Clarkand Alver and Selberg have in common that they have
developed a certain sensitivity regardinglanguage, speech situations and meanings, which
is a sine qua non in witchcraft research. They have tried to find out what words of
witchcraft mean when spoken by certain people to certainother people in specific contexts.
This has resulted in an understanding of witchcraft, especially of the perception and
communication of witchcraft, which is relatively free from ethnocentric and hodiecentric
connotations. Rationalistic approacheshave yielded to the search for internal rationality.
Likewise, and partly overlappingwith the previously mentioned perspectives, there has
been a move towards more practice-oriented and explanatory approaches. I refer here to
approaches which systematically try to account for the ways people act within the
constraints or possibilities of particularsocio-cultural systems, including the intended or
unintended consequences of their actions.42Actions in terms of witchcraft, whether in the
form of speech, gestures, physical aggression and/or otherwise, and reactions to witchcraft
have recently been more systematically studied in relation to relevant socio-cultural
systems of which they are part. Functionalist arguments have thereby tended to lose
much, though not all, of their influence.
I have already mentioned Demos's study of witchcraft in New England. He has rather
cleverly combined analyses on the individual and psychological level - whatever one may
think of his psychoanalytic approach- with analyses on what he calls the sociological and
the historical level. At the sociological level, for example, he has related witchcraft
suspicions and accusations, countermagic and judicial procedures, including slander
trials, to life in small Puritan communities and in particular to various value conflicts.
Further, I want to call attention to Behringer'srecent study on Bavariawhich also contains
a combination of analyses on various levels, though here the witchcraft prosecutions form
the main focus. Interesting perspectives on the functioning of witchcraft in seventeenth-
and eighteenth-century Debrecen, especially regarding healers in their mutual com-
petition, have been developed by Ildiko Kristof.43 This also applies to Mary O'Neil's
analyses of magical healing in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Modena.44 A final
reference concerns Briggs'sstudy on early modern France in which he not only succeeds in
presenting witchcraft as a 'normal'part of this society, but also convincingly traces some of
the relations between individual actions and relevant socio-cultural systems, for example
the judicial system.
What does all this amount to? Witchcraft research is becoming a more truly
interdisciplinary undertaking, profiting from various, sometimes recently developed
social scientific insights. Witchcraft is no longer purely found to be interesting from the

42 See, for example, Sherry B. Ortner,
'Theory in anthropology since the sixties',
Comparative Studies in Society and History,
xxvi (I984), 126-66; Raymond Boudon, The
Logic of Social Action. An Introduction to
Sociological Analysis (London, Boston and
Henley, 198I).
43 Ildik6 Krist6f, 'Witches, healers, adult-
resses in I7-i8th century Debrecen', unpub-
lished paper for the conference on Witch Beliefs
and Witch-Hunting in Central and Eastern
Europe, Budapest, 6-9 September I988.
44 O'Neil, op. cit. (I987); see also her
unpublished paper for the Budapest witchcraft
conference in I988: 'Magical remedies in north
Italian Inquisition trials'.
I92 SocialHistory VOL. I5: NO. 2

point of view of its repression: it is coming to be valued in its own right as being one of the
ways in which people have thought and acted. Moreover, witchcraft tends increasingly to
be analysed in relation to or even as part of religion and medicine.

THE DUTCH VARIANT: TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED SOCIO-

CULTURAL APPROACH
Since the foundation in late I982 of the interdisciplinary group for Dutch witchcraft
research, instituted in order to catch up with and contribute to the European witchcraft
debate, it has been possible to eliminate some of the gaps in our knowledge of witchcraft
and of the repression of witchcraft in the northern Netherlands. In addition, the empirical
results give rise to corrections of some general and widely accepted statements concerning
witchcraft. Moreover, the Dutch research seems to have benefited from its initial
disadvantage:though it is internally ratherdiversified, the perspectives alreadyreferredto
have been used or further developed and a number of others have also been introduced. I
will concentrate here on the necessary corrections and on approaches which may be
thought worth following.45
First, some misconceptions and corrections. European witchcraft is usually presented
as a ruralaffair, as part of village life or of the peasant world.46This has only partly been so
in the Netherlands. Traces of bewitchments and unwitchments have been found both in
cities and in the countryside. Indeed, the Netherlands are no exception since urban
witchcraft also occurred, for example, in the southern Netherlands and in German
territories. Another widely accepted view is that witchcraft suspicions and accusations
originated from social tensions or conflicts. This may very well be so in certain areas,
periods and contexts, but it does not in general apply to the Dutch situation. In so far as
sufficient materialis available, previous tensions or conflicts between accuser and accused
have by no means always been demonstrable. Whether or not a conflict did exist
beforehand, there can be no doubt about the ensuing problematical quality of the
relations. Finally I want to recall the above-mentioned matters of a female stereotype of
harmful and other types of witchcraft, and of the diffusion of various types of witchcraft
ideas. Dutch witchcraft research has shown that general statements, which take for
granted a female stereotype of witchcraft or an equal dispersion of demonological
witchcraft ideas propagated in manuals for witch-hunters, are not tenable.
Some last remarks concern several approaches which have proved fruitful in Dutch
witchcraft research. First, I again want to argue in favour of an inclusive view of
witchcraft. Of course the next step should then be to differentiate between various types of
witchcraft as they manifest themselves in various socio-cultural contexts up to the present
time. Socio- or ethnolinguistic approaches are useful here.47 Second, knowledge of the

41 Further informationon the results of Dutch
witchcraft research can be found in the publi-
cations mentioned in n. 6.
46 See, for example, Macfarlane, op. cit.
(1970), Monter, op. cit. (I972), Cohn, op. cit.
(1976), Larner, op. cit. (198I), Briggs, Op. cit.
(I989). Even Levack, who mentions urban
witchcraft, adheres after all to the dominant
view by, rather dubiously, placing urban
witchcraft in a separate category of witchcraft
op. cit. (I98I) I20-3-
4See the forthcoming thesis of Willem de
Bl6court (cf. n. 34).
May 1ggo Europeanwitchcraftdebate 193

functioning of witchcraft at local level has not only proved to be essential to an

understanding of judicial witchcraft proceedings, but it also contributes much to our
knowledge of local socio-cultural history as such and of women's and men's history. If,
moreover, witchcraft and other magical beliefs and practices are systematically analysed in
relation to and as part of religion and medicine - as has been done in part of the Dutch
witchcraft research48- then it becomes possible to attain much-needed integrated
knowledge of conceptions and practices concerning fortune, misfortune, health, illness,
life and death. Such a broader, integrated perspective has a twofold effect: both witchcraft
and the spheres of religion and medicine can be better understood, including the shifting
of their boundaries.
Partly in line with this, witchcraft researchcan shed light on the following themes. First
on the theme of repression and tolerance. The traditionalfocus on witchcraft prosecutions
has resulted in partial knowledge of judicial witchcraft policy. However, the Dutch
research has also looked into other aspects of judicial witchcraft policy, including the
protection rendered to those accused of witchcraft. It has proved to be illuminating to
consider both judicial repression and tolerance of witchcraft. The same goes for an
extension to the policy of the church, and also to the ways in which those directly
concerned with witchcraft have behaved towards each other. Moreover, it looks promising
to compare judicial and church policy regardingwitchcraft to other aspects of their policy,
as for example their policy regarding heresy or religious dissent, sodomy and homosexu-
ality, and, more generally, towards women.49
Partly related to the theme of repression and tolerance is the theme of rationality and
superstition. I have already pointed out that witchcraft research has become more
sensitive to matters of internal rationality. This could be extended to a more systematic
analysis and comparison of the internal rationality of beliefs and practices of various
socio-cultural strata and institutional spheres. The labelling of specific ideas and practices
as superstitious can then be considered as a special characteristicof some conceptions of
rationality.
it remains to be said that Dutch witchcraft researchhas profited much from the use of a
wide range of source material. The judicial archivesnot only contain dataon witch-trials in
the limited sense, but also, and up to the nineteenth century, on, for example, slander and
purgation procedures, trials for mistreatment in connection with witchcraft accusations,
and trials against witch-doctors and diviners. The acta of reformed church councils also
reveal cases of witchcraft, mainly of white and counter-magic, and their punishment by
the church up to the beginning of the eighteenth century. For the later centuries
newspapers and legends have also proved their use as sources. Iconographic research into

of course Thomas, op. cit. (I971) has set research on the MediterraneanInquisitions.
O
the example. See also William Monter, Ritual, 49 See the contribution of Marijke Gijswijt-
AIyth and MIagic in Early Modern Europe Hofstra on witchcraft before Zeeland magis-
(Brighton, I983); Christina Larner, WVitchcraft trates and church councils in Gijswijt-Hofstra
and Religion. The Politics of Popular Relief and Frijhoff, op. cit. (1987); Marijke Gijswijt-
(Oxford, I984); W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter, Hofstra, 'Witchcraft and tolerance: the Dutch
Medical r'nngeand Aledical Orthodoxy I750- case', unpublished paper for the Budapest
i85o (I987); Clark, op. cit. (I980, I988); recent witchcraft conference in I988.
194 Social History VOL. I5: NO. 2

witchcraft representationshas so far rendered interesting results as well. So much for the
Dutch witchcraft research.50
The path towards a more integrated socio-cultural approach to witchcraft has only
partly been trodden. The European witchcraft debgate still has much to gain by
systematically combining interpretive and practice-oriented approaches at various levels
of analysis. The phase of a predominant interest in witchcraft prosecutions might be
drawing to an end. The focus gradually seems to be shifting to witchcraft and its
functioning as such. But that is not all. At the same time, witchcraft research might well
merge into broader, more problem-oriented research. In that case it will no longer be
primarilyimportant whether we are dealing with witchcraft or not. What will then count,
for example, is how people have thought and acted when confronted with matters of life
and death, fortune and misfortune, whether or not this was in terms of witchcraft or of
magical beliefs and practices in general. This might well become the main charm of the
European witchcraft debate.
University of Amsterdam

5"See the publications mentioned in n. 6 for the actual results.