Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England

Charlotte-Rose Millar has done an outstanding job here of reminding us that diabolism and emotions are integral to early modern English witchcraft beliefs, the lack of which in previous scholarship is highlighted by this excellent work. By using so-far understudied witchcraft pamphlet literature as her core sources for discussion, Millar ably demonstrates the importance of emotion in popular conceptions and perceptions of witchcraft, highlighting not only the evolution of witch beliefs over the early modern period, but also the continuity of beliefs over that same period, indicating that pamphleteers and the reading public had a fairly stable and specific idea of what a witch was and what witchcraft entailed.

A very cogent and sensible argument in a very readable monograph. I very much enjoyed this one.