History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718

This is a rigorous historical account of a remarkable cultural transformation. Notestein traces the rise and fall of witchcraft belief in England across 160 pivotal years, from the paranoid final years of Elizabeth I through the supernatural obsessions of James I (who personally wrote Daemonologie in 1597) to the eventual enlightenment that saw the last execution for witchcraft in 1718. The book examines not just the trials and persecutions but the entire ecosystem of belief: the pamphlets, the sermons, the legal proceedings, the folk medicine, the neighborhood feuds that fueled accusations. The infamous Lancashire witch trials of 1612 receive extended treatment, that case where a group of marginalized women were accused of causing illness and death through supernatural means. What emerges is not just a history of superstition but a window into how ordinary people once understood misfortune, power, and the invisible forces that shaped their world.