English Witchcraft - From the Beginning to the Present Day

The long story of the witch in England – from the sorcery of the Anglo-Saxons through the trials of the seventeenth century to the folk-belief that lingered into modern times.

First published in 1937 as part of Montague Summers' A Popular History of Witchcraft, this account traces English witch-belief from its earliest records to the twentieth century, taking in the great trials, the repeal of the witchcraft statute in 1736, and the survivals that outlasted the law. Augustus Montague Summers (1880 – 1948) was an English author and clergyman celebrated for his earnest studies of witches, werewolves, and vampires, all of which he held to be quite real; in 1928 he produced the first English translation of the notorious witch-hunters' manual, the Malleus Maleficarum.

This edition features:

• English witch-belief across the centuries, from Anglo-Saxon sorcery to the celebrated trials of the Tudor and Stuart courts. • The witch statutes and their repeal in 1736, and the folk-practices and cunning folk that persisted long afterward. • Summers' spirited and closely sourced narrative, written in the conviction that the witchcraft he chronicles was genuinely real.

© 2024 Read & Co. History (E-bog): 9781528799669

Udgivelsesdato

E-bog: 30. maj 2024