Afterword: Passions in Perspective

Abstract

Although early modern people accused of witchcraft were more mundane than the fantastical creatures imagined by demonologists and artists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they were no less charged with emotion: the rage and envy they felt for their neighbours, and the fear and fury neighbours felt for them. This afterword draws together various themes in the collection, arguing that although witchcraft imagery was diverse, all witches were in some respect tangible projections of otherwise intangible emotions. In witches, emotions were ‘embodied’ in a very literal way. At the same time, however, in practice witchcraft suspects were identified less by their appearance than by their conduct, relationships and reputations, located within specific social spaces: households, neighbourhoods and communities.