Lois Martin

The witch in history was a very different creature from her modern counterpart. Lois Martin sets out to explore the historical background to the European witchcraft phenomenon, examining in detail the growth of the ideological, cutural and legal concepts that eventually led to the carnage of the Witch Craze in the 16th and 17th centuries which, it is estimated, may have claimed the lives of 40,000 people. A perfect gap-bridger between lay interest and the academic history of one of the oldest practices in the Western world.

The History of Witchcraft

Linda Baltzell Wright

Presents over five hundred sewing hints from viewers of the "Sewing with Nancy" television series; covering organization, notions, sewing techniques, embellishments, specialized sewing, fitting and pressing, and layout and marking.

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501 Sewing Hints

Witchcraft has recently been undergoing a huge popular revival, but does modern pagan witchcraft really bear any resemblance to its historical antecedents? The witch in history was a very different creature from her modern counterpart, and this book sets out to explore the historical background to the European witchcraft phenomenon. It examines in detail the growth of the ideological, cultural and legal concepts that eventually led to the carnage of the Witch Craze in the 16th and 17th centuries, which, it is estimated, may have claimed the lives of around 40,000 people. For both Medieval and Reformation scholars alike the Devil and all his works were a very real threat. Their conviction that witches were the servants of Satan led to the formation of perhaps one of the greatest conspiracy theories of all time: a belief that witches were working in league with the Devil in a diabolical plot against all Christendom. Witches were transformed from poor deluded old women who rode out at night with the pagan goddess Diana into devil-worshipping heretics who became the focus of a centuries-long, Europe-wide campaign determined to seek out and destroy this evil wherever it was to be found, regardless of whether any of its victims were actually guilty or not.

The witch in history is very different from the image of Harry Potter or the modern day Pagan. A Brief History of Witchcraft sets out to explore how the witch phenomenon began in medieval Europe and how it has continued to haunt us for the next 500 years. In her fascinating history Lois Martin's looks at how folk tradition and religion clashed with devastating effect - one of the greatest conspiracy theories of all and the most brutal regime of persecution ever seen. From early theories of the Devil, a new cosmology of demons and dark arts evolved; deluded old women were transformed into instruments of evil. This culminated in the Witch craze of the 16th and 17th century, which may have claimed the lives of up to 40,000 people.

Lois Martin

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