Witchcraft politics (Hexenpolitik) across the sea. A new entangled history of early modern England and the Holy Roman Empire.

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Rita Voltmer
• Subject Area: Early Modern History
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 566255938

Our project will close a longstanding gap in the field of historical research into witchcraft and witch-trials using a new trans-cultural and comparative approach to the subject. Until well into the late-20th century the historiography of English witchcraft suggested a myth of 'English' exceptionalism compared to witch-trials and beliefs in "continental Europe'. These ways of thinking were based not just on England’s island geography and sense of identity but also on England’s post-Reformation development into an allegedly homogenous Protestant nation state. This separation between England and 'continental Europe' has hitherto hindered historians from gaining a more in-depth understanding of the phenomena of magic, sorcery, witchcraft, and demonic possession. This matters, because witchcraft beliefs and witch-trials were central to the politics, religion, culture, and gender dynamics of early modern Europe. A vibrant cultural engagement with ideas about witches and the Devil also developed in literature, art, and print culture. Our project is based on two key theses. First, we argue that the fact that Great Britain and Ireland are islands did not seal them off from the rest of Europe; the seas around them, their ports and coastlines functioned rather as dynamic sites of maritime transfers of people, things, and ideas, effecting the dissemination and exchange of ideas about the devil, witchcraft and magic as well as about religious change. Second, we argue that comparisons based on modern ‘national’ cartographic boundaries are of limited value for the early modern period. Instead, England and the Holy Roman Empire will be approached as areas of political, judicial, and confessional diversity, with different levels of social, political, and judicial activity (and key actors) operating within and across regions in both polities. The project will establish the key channels through which ideas about witchcraft, witch-trials, and the devil were transmitted within and between England and the HRE, to establish a dynamic sense of how important such cultural exchanges were for the wider developments in European demonological thinking that encouraged early modern actors to instigate or restrain witch-trials. We will undertake the first systematic comparison of the witch-trials and beliefs about witches and devils across the two polities to establish their similarities and differences, using a new model of Hexenpolitik (witchcraft politics). We will offer a new history of the trans-cultural entanglement of the two polities through the prism of witchcraft history that will stimulate similar approaches to other areas of early modern historiography and counter the unhelpful historiographical (and political) tendency to see the histories of England and Europe as separate. It will also speak to wider current public debates about women’s oppression and empowerment, by offering a nuanced account of the gendering of witchcraft politics.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Partner Organisation: Arts and Humanities Research Council
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Alison Rowlands