Roper, Witch Craze, 44-103.
General question: How successfully does each chapter support Roper's argument?
Chapter 2
Identify: strapado, Magdalena Bollmann, Friedrich Spee
1. What forms of torture were commonly used in witch trials? Did the law place restrictions on torture?
2. What functions did judicial torture serve? What challenges did torture present in witch trials?
3. Who were the different officials involved in the interrogations of witches? What were their functions?
4. What made witchcraft investigations particularly intense?
5. How were witch trials religious, brutal, festive, and dramatic events?
6. Roper writes: "Witchcraft accusations were a hall of mirrors where neighbours saw their own fear and greed in the shape of the witch" (63). What is the significance of this statement?
Chapter 3
7. Why does cannibalism deserve mention in the context of the witch hunts?
8. What was the significance of the case of Margaretha Minderlin?
9. How did the witch craze merge with political factionalism?
Chapter 4
Identify: witches' salve
10. Why was sex with the devil "a paradoxical component of the fantasy of witchcraft" (85)?
11. What does sex with the devil tell us of the experiences of women accused of witchcraft?
12. Why did demonologists tie "themselves into knots" (101) over the question of whether the devil could produce offspring?
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