This module examines the history of early modern Europe through the history of witchcraft, witch-beliefs, and especially witchcraft prosecutions after 1500. Through learned demonology and folk traditions, we explore the development of the idea of the witch, and see how during the turbulent era of the Reformation this thinking translated into legal trials and, occasionally some savage witch-panics. We look in detail at subjects such as gender, fear and anxiety, state building, and scepticism, ranging across early modern Britain, continental Europe and colonial America.