Beyond the Witch Trials is an important volume on the nature of witchcraft and magic in European society during the Enlightenment. This innovative book provides the reader with a challenging variety of approaches and sources of information, as well as advancing the study of witchcraft into the eighteenth century.The essays cover England, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Germany, Scotland, Finland and Sweden, and examine the experience of and attitudes towards witchcraft in those countries. The contributors come from different academic disciplines and move beyond the usual historical perspectives and sources.They emphasize the importance of studying such themes as the aftermath of witch trials, the continued role of cunning-folk in society, and the nature of the witchcraft discourse in different social contexts.

Owen Davies is Lecturer in History at the University of Hertfordshire.

Willem de Blécourt is Honorary Research Fellow at the Huizinga Institute, Amsterdam.

Introduction: Beyond the witch-trials--Owen Davies and Willem de Blécourt * Marking (dis)order: Witchcraft and the symbolics of hierarchy in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Finland--Raisa Maria Toivo * Pro exoneratione sua propria coscientia: Magic, witchcraft and Church in early eighteenth-century Capua--Augusto Ferraiuolo * From illusion to disenchantment: Feijoo versus the 'falsely possessed' in eighteenth-century Spain--María Tausiet * Responses to witchcraft in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Sweden Marie Lenners and: The aftermath of the witch-hunt in Dalarna--Linda Oja * The superstitious other: Witchcraft and magic in eighteenth-century Scotland--Peter Maxwell-Stuart * The Devil's pact: A male strategy--Soili-Maria Olli * Public infidelity and private belief? The discourse of spirits in Enlightenment Bristol--Jonathan Barry * 'Evil people': A late eighteenth-century Dutch witch doctor and his clients--Willem de BlécourtThe archaeology of counter-witchcraft and popular magic--Brian Hoggard * The dissemination of magical knowledge in Enlightenment Germany--Sabine Doering-Manteuffel * The supernatural and the development of print culture --Stephan Bachter