Liv Helene Willumsen. <i>The Voices of Women in Witchcraft Trials: Northern Europe</i>

In this wide-ranging work, Liv Helene Willumsen examines unpublished court records of witchcraft trials to foreground the voices of women accused of witchcraft in early modern northern Europe.The book is organized geographically, with individual chapters exploring trials from the Spanish Netherlands, northern Germany, Denmark, Scotland, England, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.Willumsen analyzes the trials of three women from each of these eight regions from the late-sixteenth to the late-seventeenth centuries.Each chapter includes a brief overview of the historical context surrounding that region's witch-hunting period, followed by descriptions of the trials and analyses of the different voices that Willumsen has identified in the records, including those of the accused women, the witnesses, the interrogators, the law, and the scribes.Willumsen argues that secular court documents produced during witchcraft trials preserve the thoughts and beliefs of ordinary women and provide a crucial window into the experiences of women who have otherwise left behind no records of their lives.The thesis is expansive, contributing to diverse areas of scholarship, including the history of mentalities and the interrelationship between gender and witch hunting.In the Scottish context, it builds on the work of historians Sierra Dye, Lauren Martin, Diane Purkiss, and Emma Wilby, who have explored how witchcraft trials communicate details of women's lives, often in their own words.The book's innovation, however, is found in its comparison of 'close readings of source material in the original languages of eight countries' and in its narratological approach, which treats the text of the court records as the object of analysis (pp. 2, 20).Willumsen carefully selected detailed cases that clearly distinguished between the individual voices present in the courtroom, which allows her to isolate the words of the women on trial.Her measured analysis of different trial components, such as witness statements, confessions, and interrogations, renders a vivid picture of the accused women as outspoken and active members of their communities.This considerate treatment restores the unique personalities of these women and shows them as dynamic historical

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