Everyday Bewitchment is a book about bewitchment in England. It covers the period c. 1500–1700 and uses non-judiciary sources, mainly the casebooks of astrologer-physician Richard Napier (1559–1634). It invites us to think about the history of witchcraft as a history of mundane, everyday life. It is all too easy to reduce witchcraft to crazes, hunts, persecution, torture, kangaroo courts and the gruesome execution of low-status women. Because the crime of witchcraft is ‘impossible’ to us, accusations are often assumed to stem from an ulterior motive, one that we find easier to understand, such as hatred of the accused and a wish to see them punished. But thinking only about accused witches as those who suffered in this process (and they did, of course, suffer), combined with sensationalist popular discourse around persecution and the perceived ‘impossibility’ of the crime does this complex and nuanced topic great disservice. Like the testimonies of accused witches, the stories of those who believed that they, their family members or property had been bewitched are not happy ones: they had lost livestock, suffered sudden illness or disability, or experienced the death of a child.
The book tells the story of those who felt they had suffered harm or tragedy due to nefarious forces operating in their neighbourhoods who took their suspicions to people like Napier to work out if this really was the case. Therefore, this is not just a study in the belief in bewitchment, but also a study of ordinary people, their fears and priorities in a world of material scarcity. It is not, however, a book that seeks to pit accusers against suspects; rather, it tells a familiar story from two new perspectives: the non-legal, and the focus on accusers.
