Course overview: In this brand new four-part course, early modern historian and author Rebecca Rideal investigates two of the most infamous witchcraft trials of the seventeenth century – Pendle (1612) and Salem (1692-1693). From original testimony and official records to historical context and cultural legacies, attendees will explore how witchcraft was experienced, understood, prosecuted and punished in England and Colonial America.

• Lecture 1 – Understanding early modern witchcraft

• Lecture 2 – Pendle: A family drama?

• Lecture 3 – Changing tides: British witch-hunters and colonial America

• Lecture 4 – Salem: history, hysteria, law and legacy

Delivery: The course will be delivered by a series of 4 video lectures, and separate group Q&As with the course tutor via a video conferencing platform. Participants will also receive a reading list, course literature and activities. Links and details will be sent to participants shortly before the course begins. Lectures will be released at 7pm each Thursday and will be available to view for a month and half.

Accessibility: All lectures will have closed captions. The live Q&As will be recorded and fully captioned within 48 hours of their first being streamed. If you have any additional access requirements, please get in touch via enquiries@histfest.org

Your tutor: Rebecca Rideal is a historian of the early modern period and the author of 1666: Plague, War and Hellfire. She's an experienced tutor and has led courses at UCL, Bath Spa, Stanford University in Oxford, and currently teaches at Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education. She is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and was the 2021 recipient of the University of Waterloo’s Jarislowsky Fellowship. She is also an award-winning podcast and TV producer and hosts the critically acclaimed history and true crime podcast series Killing Time. Her next book, God’s Throne, will be a history of the Stuart dynasty.

Pendle & Salem: Witchcraft in 17th-Century England and Colonial America