Here are some suggestions to help you identify a paper topic for “Witches in Europe: Power and Belief, 1300-1750.” My hope is that you will identify a subject that fascinates you and engages your imagination; I figure that the more interested you are in your topic, the more likely you are to write a first-rate paper.
1. Think about your interests in general, and ask if these interests find some reflection in the history of witchcraft and witch persecution. An obvious example is gender: there is a clear relationship between witch-persecution and gender relations in early modern Europe, but historians disagree (often very sharply!) about its exact nature.
2. Think about a theme in the course, and let the syllabus be your guide: are you interested in why witch-hunts stopped? You could weigh the various explanations that historians have offered, and write a paper explaining why you think one is more persuasive than the other. Other themes include:
- Witchcraft persecution as a manifestation of conflict between "high" culture and "low";
- Witchcraft accusation as the projection of societal tensions and tensions surrounding motherhood and (later) childhood;
- The relationship between village society and "state power" (in its myriad forms) in the production of witches;
- Witchcraft persecution as a manifestation societal anxieties surrounding wealth and providing for the poor;
- The relationship between demonology and law in the prosecution of witchcraft;
- The relationship between witchcraft and disaster, whether environmental in nature (such as famine and epidemic disease) or man-made;
- Witchcraft accusation as a manifestation of conflict between the Protestant and Catholic confession...and so on.
3. Think about places and times. Are you interested in France? Or Italy? Or Germany? Are you more interested in the Middle Ages than in later centuries? You could compare and contrast the pattern of witch-hunting in one of these countries. The course bibliography has a whole section devoted to each of the major European nations where witch persecution took place, and any one of these would be suitable. Needless to say, you can combine suggestions one or two with this one...and focus, for example, on the relationship between village society and state power in England during the seventeenth century. There is an extensive literature that you could draw upon for this.
4. Are you attracted to the ideas of a particular author we’ve read? We've encountered many already, and will encounter more in the second half of the term. If the author is a historian -- Carlo Ginzburg, for example, or Robert Muchembled, or Stuart Clark, or Lyndal Roper, or Peter Burke, or Wolfgang Behringer -- read a book on witchcraft by that author and perhaps some reviews of it, and give your analysis of the author’s ideas. As you can imagine, the list of potential authors is quite long. For suggestions of other authors, the “General” section of the course bibliography might be helpful; I'm happy to make some suggestions, too.
5. Are you intrigued by the writings of a historical figure we’ve encountered, such as the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum or a skeptic like Reginald Scot, Jean Bodin, Johann Weyer, Friedrich Spee, or Michel de Montaigne? You could write about their ideas on witchcraft -- and there is a great deal in translation.