Including trial records, demonological treatises and sermons, literary texts, narratives of demonic possession, and artistic depiction of witches, the documents reveal how contemporaries from various periods have perceived alleged witches and their activities. Catholics and Protestants alike feared that the Devil and his human confederates were destroying Christian society. During these years the prominent stereotype of the witch as an evil magician and servant of Satan emerged. Many of the sources come from the period between and, when more than, people - most of them women - were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and colonial America. The Witchcraft Sourcebook, now in its second edition, is a fascinating collection of documents that illustrates the development of ideas about witchcraft from ancient times to the eighteenth century. Levack provides here translations of sixty-one texts, each entry running between and words, and all but the first fourteen pp. The rules of full scholarly disclosure rightly require this reviewer to point out that he has known Brian Levack for nearly forty years, has used and admired his earlier work, and is one of the editors, with Alan Charles Kors, of another collection of translated sources on the same subject-about which more below. New York and London: Routledge, The present Sourcebook usefully complements his 3rd ed. This Sourcebook provides students of the history of witchcraft with a broad range of sources, many of which have been translated into English for the first time, with commentary and background by one of the leading scholars in the field. He looks at the connection between gender and witchcraft and the nature of the witchs perceived power.
Levack shows how notions of witchcraft have changed over time. Many of the sources come from the period between 14, when more than 100,000 people - mainly women - were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and colonial America. This fascinating collection of documents illustrates the development of ideas about witchcraft from ancient times to the twentieth century.
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