Introductory description

This module will focus on British conceptions of the supernatural from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Topics will include miracles, witchcraft, possession, astrology, angels, ghosts, fairies and the impact of the Reformation, Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment. The module will give due consideration to differences between England, Wales and Scotland, and students will be encouraged also to reflect on the broader global framework. We will draw on a wide range of source materials, including church and court records, pamphlets, religious or philosophical treatises, material objects, artwork, literary sources, parliamentary acts, manuscript letters and antiquarians’ accounts.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1: Miracles and providences
Week 2: Angels
Week 3: Witchcraft
Week 4: Possession
Week 5: Popular magic
Week 6: Reading week
Week 7: Ghosts
Week 8: Fairies and second sight
Week 9: Disenchantment
Week 10: Broader contexts

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the nature and range of early modern British supernatural beliefs, and to show some awareness of the wider global framework.
• Communicate ideas and findings, adapting to a range of situations, audiences and degrees of complexity.
• Generate ideas through the analysis of a broad range of primary source material.
• Analyse and evaluate the contributions made by existing scholarship.
• Act with limited supervision and direction within defined guidelines, accepting responsibility for achieving deadlines.

Indicative reading list

• Philip Almond, Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern England: Contemporary Texts and their Cultural Contexts (Cambridge, 2009)
• William E. Burns, An Age of Wonders: Prodigies, Politics, and Providence in England, 1657–1727 (Manchester, 2002)
• Owen Davies, Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History (Hambledon, 2007)
• Peter Elmer, Witchcraft, Witch-hunting and Politics in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2016)
• Sasha Handley, Visions of an Unseen World: Ghost Beliefs and Ghost Stories in Eighteenth-Century England (London, 2007)
• Deborah Harkness, John Dee’s Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature (Cambridge, 1999)
• Lizanne Henderson, Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment: Scotland, 1670–1740 (Basingstoke, 2016)
• Lizanne Henderson and Edward J. Cowan, Scottish Fairy Belief: A History (East Linton, 2001)
• Michael Hunter (ed.), The Occult Laboratory: Magic, Science, and Second Sight in Late Seventeenth-Century Scotland (Woodbridge, 2001)
• Brian P. Levack, Witch-Hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics and Religion (Abingdon, 2008)
• Brian P. Levack, The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West (New Haven, 2013)
• Phyllis Mack, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England (Berkeley, 1992)
• Peter Marshall, Invisible Worlds: Death, Religion and the Supernatural in England, 1500–1700 (London, 2017)
• Martha McGill, Ghosts in Enlightenment Scotland (Woodbridge, 2018)
• Darren Oldridge, The Supernatural in Tudor and Stuart England (Abingdon, 2016)
• Sally Parkin, ‘Witchcraft, women’s honour and customary law in early modern Wales’, Social History 31 (2006), 295-318
• Diane Purkiss, Troublesome Things: A History of Fairies and Fairy Stories (London, 2000)
• Laura Sangha, Angels and Belief in England, 1480–1700 (London, 2012)
• Robert W. Scribner, ‘The Reformation, popular magic, and the “disenchantment of the world”’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23 (1993), 475-94
• Jane Shaw, Miracles in Enlightenment England (New Haven, 2006)
• Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971)
• Francis Timbers, ‘The Damned Fraternitie’: Constructing Gypsy Identity in Early Modern England, 1500–1700 (Abingdon, 2016)
• Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999)
• Alexandra Walsham, ‘The Reformation and “the disenchantment of the world” reassessed’, Historical Journal 51 (2008), 497-528
• Emma Wilby, Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic (Brighton, 2005)
• Simon Young and Ceri Houlbrook (eds.), Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies, 500 AD to the Present (London, 2018)
• NB. In addition to these core readings, each week’s reading list will include optional further reading on Britain, and ‘broader context’ readings that look at the topics with reference to continental Europe, Asia, Africa or the Americas. In week 10’s class, each student will be required to discuss two ‘broader context’ works on a theme of their choice.

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.