1st Edition
John Stearne’s Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft Text, Context and Afterlife
Introduction
Chapter 1. The background of the East Anglian witch-hunt: the economy, courts, religion and the beginnings of the trials
Chapter 2. Puritanism: a comparison of Stearne’s religious beliefs to the orthodoxy of the Westminster Assembly’s Confession of faith
Chapter 3. Print culture: the literature of the supernatural and the reception of A confirmation
Chapter 4. Familiar spirits: the origins of Stearne’s concept of familiars and its symbolisms
Chapter 5. Witchcraft, sex and gender: witchcraft confessions in A confirmation as a reflection of seventeenth-century gender roles
Chapter 6. Science and the decline of witchcraft beliefs: evidence for the scientific basis of Stearne’s witch-finding
Chapter 7. The afterlife of A confirmation: the circulation and rediscovery of Stearne’s text in the nineteenth century
Conclusion
Biography
Scott Eaton teaches history at Queen’s University Belfast. He is a religious and cultural historian, with a particular interest in early modern witchcraft, magic, art, and print cultures.
