Witchcraft and Magic in England, c. 1400–1920

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Witchcraft and Magic in England, c. 1400–1920

An illustration of a witches' sabbath. In the center of the image a demon sits on a chair. Several human figures surround the devil, dancing. On the left, a group sit at a table, eating a dismembered baby. On the right, a figure holds a baby over a cauldron.

The significance of witches, witchcraft, and magic in English history

Witchcraft is a wicked Arte, serving for the working of wonders, by the assistance of the Deuill, so farre forth as God shall in iustice permit.

A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft, Framed and Delivered, M. William Perkins (1610).

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Explore magical practices and beliefs in England across five centuries

Front covers of three pamphlets. From left to right, their titles read A Dissertation upon Superstition in Natural Things, A Rehearsal both Strange and True, of heinous and horrible actions..., and The History of Witches, Ghosts, and Highland Seers. An illustration features beneath the title of the middle pamphlet, showing two women observing a small demonic figure.

A photograph of two broomsticks chained to a bench.

The practice of witchcraft is centuries old, yet we continue to live in a world fascinated by the potential of magic. Witches have existed in many eras and in many forms—culturally significant and versatile figures who became the object of intense legal, religious, political, and social scrutiny.

Bringing together over 57,000 images, this unique collection charts the evolution of witchcraft and magic in England over five centuries. It comprises documents sourced from The National Archives (UK), British Library, University College London Special Collections, and The Folklore Society. It incorporates a broad range of records and texts, exploring an array of key topics and themes, such as belief, gender, medicine, politics, religion, and science.

The collection hones in on the concept of the witch in late medieval thought and literature, when longstanding beliefs in astrology, ritual magic, superstition, religion, and theories of health and healing tended to compete, but were nevertheless largely co-existent. It then surveys the post-1450 period, when shifting attitudes towards witchcraft led to legal and secular changes, alongside an increase in accusations against, and persecutions of, those perceived to be witches. This trend was linked to religious upheaval, political change, and social tensions in English communities, whereby controversy, fear, and hatred were stoked by a growing print culture. Significantly, the collection features assize records from witch trials of the early modern period and examines pamphlets and printed material that cast the accused (mainly women) as deviant social forces.

The sources also spotlight groups who escaped suspicion: members of the elite or “cunning folk”, as well as medical practitioners who engaged in “respectable magic”. Indeed, the collection contains many alchemical tracts, astrological almanacs, and herbals. The study of magic, the occult, and witchcraft became a widespread scholarly pursuit during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Literature generated by those who studied these compelling subjects, or who were attracted to esoteric societies, features prevalently.

Interdisciplinary in ethos and expansive in terms of its chronological scope and the archival materials that it contains, this collection will appeal to students, educators, and researchers working within a range of scholarly fields, including anthropology, literary studies, philosophy, sociology, religious studies, and women’s studies. It will likewise interest those situated within various branches of historical study, such as the history of ideas and the history of science, as well as social, cultural, and political history.

Highlights

A page of handwritten text. A Public Record Office stamp features in the bottom left.

Licensed to access Court Records from the Assizes

This 1673 deposition is from the records of the assize courts in Northern England. It describes a series of accusations against local women that were made by Anne Armstrong, a fourteen year old servant girl. She claimed that she had witnessed acts of “maleficium”, or harmful magic, during nocturnal gatherings of witches (sabbats) in remote locations across Tynedale, Northumberland. According to Armstrong, the women engaged in flying, shape shifting, and dancing with the Devil.

An illustration of a witch, holding a long stick, with two birds on either side of her. Above, text reads A most certain, strange and true Discovery of a Witch. Being taken by some of the Parliament Forces, as she was standing on a small planck-board and sayling on it over the River of Newbury: Together with the strange and true manner of her death, with the propheticall words and speeches she said at the same time.

Licensed to access Discovery of a Witch

There was a proliferation of print culture in seventeenth-century England regarding cases of witchcraft, spreading fear and superstition. This pamphlet, published in 1643, during the English Civil War, describes how, when fired upon by parliamentary soldiers, an alleged witch “caught their bullets in her hands and chew’d them”. The title page depicts the woman floating on a plank on a river near Newbury, with two accompanying ravens. Such accounts reinforced belief in witches' powers and the threats they posed to society, as well as the assumption that women were especially vulnerable to the influence of the Devil.

An illustration of seven circles with stars in them, arranged in a circle around a central, seven-pointed star. Zodiac symbols feature in and around the stars. A handwritten title above reads Chap. 1: Concerning the Chaos of the Antients.

Licensed to access Rare Manuscripts

Featured in this collection are several medieval and early modern manuscripts. This particular manuscript, sourced from the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, is an influential alchemical text dating from the sixteenth or seventeenth century. It features 67 illustrations which depict alchemical transformation symbolically through the sun and moon, the elements, as well as animals, such as birds, dragons, frogs, and snakes. Detailed explanations of the alchemical process occur throughout.

A page illustrated with celestial imagery. In the centre, text reads Buckminster. 1598. An Almanacke and Prognostication, for the yeere of Christes incarnation M.D.XCVIII. Being the second after the leape yeere. And the yeere of the worldes creation. 5560. Scruing generally for all England, but especially for the Meridian of this honorable Citie of London. Gathered and made by Thomas Buckmynster. Anno etatis fue. 66.

Licensed to access Astrological Almanacs

This astrological almanac, produced by Thomas Buckmynster for the upcoming year of 1598, consists of an astronomical calendar with astrological insights. These provided readers with medical guidance for the year ahead, as each sign of the zodiac was thought to correspond to a part of the body. It is accompanied by a prognostication for the year, predicting the weather for each month and season, as well as lunar eclipses.

Insights

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, beliefs in witchcraft permeated English society. Witchcraft was first deemed a capital offence in 1542, during the reign of King Henry VIII, when the Witchcraft Act defined it as a crime punishable by death. This was repealed in 1547, but restored by a new Act in 1562. Under King James I, a further Act, passed in 1604, intensified persecution. Reflecting James’s Christianity and his interest in demonology, the Act expanded the definition of witchcraft, prohibiting grave-robbing rituals and the use of magic to find hidden treasure. It also transferred trials from church courts to common law courts. The Witchcraft Act (1736) repealed earlier laws, but imposed fines or imprisonment on those claiming magical powers. The 1736 Act marked a turning point in British law, from belief to scepticism, regarding the reality of witchcraft. During the nineteenth century, legislation targeted deception, with the Vagrancy Act of 1824 criminalising astrology, fortune-telling, and spiritualism.
Witchcraft induced fear in English society, and was often fuelled by religious teachings. Between 1560 and 1700, at least 513 people were tried for witchcraft. The last known execution was in 1685 and the final recorded trials occurred in Leicester in 1717. Women were often accused due to the Christian belief that they were the weaker sex and so more vulnerable to the powers of the Devil, but men were also accused. Accusations tended to centre upon dark rituals and “maleficium”, or evil magic, such as summoning malevolent spirits or casting harmful spells. Yet accusations of witchcraft can help to illuminate more mundane aspects of life, such as people being suspicious of neighbours or trying to comprehend a failed harvest. Ultimately, the history of witchcraft sheds more light on ordinary life in early modern England than on the supernatural.
This collection surveys practices such as alchemy, astrology, divination, herbalism, and sorcery. In medieval documents, references to magic often appear in accusations of witchcraft, or in medical advice and recorded folklore. Later, magic tended to be approached as a topic of study. Some practices, such as alchemy and healing rituals, can be viewed as precursors of scientific processes and practices, namely chemistry and contemporary medicine. Significantly, this collection facilitates the study of the development of magic and natural philosophy.
During the nineteenth century, the study of magic, the occult, and witchcraft became a widespread scholarly pursuit. This collection features literature generated by this intellectual trend, such as Joseph Ennemoser’s The History of Magic (1854); Edward Heron-Allen’s A Manual of Chierosophy (1886); H. Stanley Redgrove’s Bygone Beliefs, Being a Series of Excursions in the Byways of Thought (1920); and An Introduction to the Study of the Kabalah (1926) by William Wynn Westcott, co-founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which attracted the celebrated Irish poet, W. B. Yeats. Works by Arthur Edward Waite, co-creator of the Rider–Waite Tarot deck and who was likewise a member of the Golden Dawn, also feature.
This collection features documents in various handwriting styles. Most are in early modern English, with some in Latin or Secretary Hand—a cursive script used in England from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. Developed to increase writing speed, Secretary Hand is characterised by unfamiliar letter forms, now-obsolete Anglo-Saxon letters, inconsistent spelling, and frequent abbreviations.