1.9.
In what ways can one relate the impact of the printing press to
reinforcing or changing beliefs in either witchcraft or portents
of impending disaster?
1.9.1 The general reading about the relationship between witchcraft and pamphlets
is contained in the bibliography for essay 1.4, especially 1.4.1 and 1.4.2. For this
essay, however, you have to broaden the scope to include other elements of ephemeral
printed material such as ballads and almanacs. For that, see the bibliography to essay
1.5. You might even want to include printed play-texts as part of the picture, in which
case, consult the bibliography to essay 1.8, especially 1.8.1. The issue of
‘reinforcement’ raises questions of what happened to beliefs when placed in a printed
environment, especially how stereotypes are developed, used to sell printed works,
and then reinforce other popular attitudes. You will need to think hard about how a
‘stereotype’ works. Another notion that might be helpful is that of ‘acculturation’.
For its application, see Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons. The Idea of Witchcraft in
Early-Modern Europe (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1997), ch. 34 (‘Acculturation
by Text’). For changing beliefs in respect of witchcraft, it is harder to document,
though there is a case for saying that witches were presented more sympathetically as
they lost their power to harm. Although he does not quite say that, there are linked
arguments in Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Scribner,
1971), ch. 18 (‘witchcraft decline’)
1.9.2 More challenging is the issue of the impact of the printing press on portents of
impending disasters. For the arguments about ‘reinforcement’ in this area, Alexandra
Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999), ch. 1 (‘Providence, Print, Protestant Religion’) is essential, noting that she
problematises the issue comprehensively: ‘Historians are questioning and shedding
the supposition that these pamphlets and broadsides unambiguously reflected and
conditioned the opinion of the social groups who used and perused them, and
recognizing that the evidence they yield is at best speculative and conjectural’ (p.38).
She points readers in the direction of Barry Reay, 'Popular Literature in SeventeenthCentury England', Journal of Peasant Studies, 10 (1983), 243-49 and Tim Harris, ed.,
Popular Culture in England, C. 1500-1850 (London: Macmillan, 1995) – especially
the introduction. In her conclusion, Walsham explores very briefly the ‘changes’ that
one might expect, notably the ‘waning’ of such beliefs in the wake of the English civil
war. These are just pointers, however, which you can explore through the changing
attitudes to astrology – see Patrick Curry, 'Astrology in Early Modern England: The
Making of a Vulgar Knowledge', in Science, Culture and Popular Belief in
Renaissance Europe, ed. by Stephen Pumfrey, Paolo L. Rossi and Maurice Slawinski
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), pp. 271-91. See also the
bibliography to essay 2.14.