28/07/2026
An exciting NEW study-unit combining history and cultural anthropology!
ANT2083 Magic, Witchcraft, and Society in Early Modern Europe: Mediterranean Perspectives (4 ECTS) Prof Carmel Cassar
In recent decades, the history of magic, witchcraft, and their repression has been examined from a variety of perspectives. This course adopts an interdisciplinary approach, combining intellectual history, anthropology, and gender studies to explore beliefs about magic and the persecution of witches in early modern Europe, with particular attention to the Mediterranean world and Malta. Throughout the course, selected case studies will be examined in order to illustrate how broader ideas and social dynamics operated in specific historical contexts.
The course is divided into four sections.
The first examines the intellectual foundations of the witch-hunts from the later Middle Ages to the early Renaissance. It traces how learned elites interpreted popular superstition, magic, and heresy, and how these ideas gradually developed into the belief in a diabolical conspiracy of witches threatening Christian society. Special attention will be given to the interaction between elite demonological theories and local belief systems in Mediterranean communities, including Malta.
The second section focuses on the most influential witch-hunting manual, the Malleus Maleficarum (“The Hammer of the Witches”), placing it within the broader context of medieval misogyny. Using tools from gender history, it explores how ideas about women’s bodies, sexuality, and social roles contributed to the association between women and witchcraft.
The third section examines the witch-hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries within the context of the religious divisions between Protestant and Catholic Europe. It considers how wider political, social, and religious transformations shaped witch persecution, while also situating Malta—under the rule of the Order of St John and the authority of the Roman Inquisition—within broader European patterns.
The fourth section draws on anthropology and sociology to analyse the social dynamics that led communities to identify and accuse witches. Particular attention will be given to mechanisms of social tension, scapegoating, and community conflict in small societies. Gender analysis will also help explain why women were more frequently accused and how trial records and confessions, including those preserved in the Maltese inquisitorial archives, can be interpreted within their cultural and psychological context.
