Undergraduate Course: The European Witch-Hunt (SCHI10021)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 40 |
ECTS Credits | 20 |
| Summary | The age of the Renaissance and Reformation was also the age in which many people throughout Europe, Catholic and Protestant, became convinced that society was threatened by conspiracies of witches. Thousands of people, mostly lower-class women, were executed. The course delves into intellectual, cultural and social history to explain how this happened, and why.
The two central sections of the course are 'Why believe in witches?' and 'Why hunt witches?'. Witch-belief was an essential precondition of witch-hunting and has to be explained; yet witch-hunting had its own dynamics, for plenty of people believed in witches but did not hunt them. The course incorporates a regional survey of how patterns of witch-hunting varied from country to country, including not only Europe but European colonies in America. There is a more detailed case-study of one fairly typical country - Scotland. The final section discusses how witch-hunting came to an end, and what happened to witch-beliefs afterwards. |
| Course description |
Not entered
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | A pass in 40 credits of third level historical courses or equivalent.
Before enrolling students on this course, Personal Tutors are asked to contact the History Honours Admission Secretary to ensure that a place is available (Tel: 503783). |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2014/15, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 15 |
| Course Start |
Full Year |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
400
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 44,
Summative Assessment Hours 4,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 8,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
344 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
67 %,
Coursework
33 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Split into sixths and consisting of
Two 5000 word essays
and
Two two-hour exams:
Paper 1 will have two questions, both of which must be answered: (i) a question asking you to comment on two topics from a choice of about eight with reference to two individual cases, (ii) a question asking you to comment on two extracts from documents (from a choice of about eight). Paper 2 will have about eight essay-type questions and will ask you to answer two of them. |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| Exam Information |
| Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Hours & Minutes |
|
| Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May) | Paper 1 | 2:00 | | | Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May) | Paper 2 | 2:00 | |
Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course, students should be able to:
- demonstrate a grasp of historical causation
- engage at high level with scholarly debate
- evaluate arguments critically
- express their ideas on the above in oral and written form.
More specifically, they should be able to:
- understand the role of witch-beliefs in the culture of early modern Europe
- understand the social processes that led to witch-hunting
- balance the distinctive regional patterns of witch-hunting against the common experience of Europe as a whole
- understand the legal, political, religious and intellectual developments that led witch-hunting first to grow and then to decline.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | EurWitch |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Julian Goodare
Tel: (0131 6)50 4021
Email: J.Goodare@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Clare Guymer
Tel: (0131 6)50 4030
Email: clare.guymer@ed.ac.uk |
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