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The Supernatural in Early Modern Europe, c.1450-1750 - HIS00159M

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  • Department: History
  • Module co-ordinator: Dr. Sophie Weeks
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2023-24

Module summary

In recent decades there has been a surge of scholarly interest in the early modern supernatural, as influential studies of belief patterns in Europe have shown how a focus on the supernatural can throw new light on broad historical trends. In attempting to understand how supernatural beings were rooted in a coherent and rational worldview, we can gain a fascinating insight into the beliefs and values of a vanished age. The study of the supernatural has much to reveal about how early modern men and women understood and experienced the world around them.


Through a focus on specific supernatural beings such as demons, werewolves and ghosts, this module will reflect on key themes in early modern history, such as politics, religion, the afterlife, societal expectations and science. It will raise general questions about the relationship between elite and popular culture, the impact of religious change upon attitudes to the supernatural, the value of cultural and literary representations of supernatural beings, and the role of science in the decline of belief in the supernatural. These questions are pursued through an extensive range of translated primary sources, including formal treatises, woodcuts, Shakespeare's plays, transcripts of witchcraft trials, popular pamphlets and broadsides. We conclude by reflecting on how serious engagement with the stranger aspects of the past can provide us with a fresh perspective on the present and help us to appreciate the strangeness of our own world.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2023-24

Module aims

The aims of this module are to:

  • Develop skills of source analysis and interpretation
  • Assess a range of source material and relevant secondary works; and
  • Develop students’ powers of evidence-based historical argument, both orally and in writing.

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:

  • Demonstrate a knowledge of a specialist historiographical literature;
  • Present findings in an analytical framework derived from a specialist field;
  • Solve a well-defined historiographical problem using insights drawn from secondary and, where appropriate, primary sources.
  • Set out written findings using a professional scholarly apparatus.

Module content

Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1. Students will then attend a 2-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing (RAW) weeks during which there are no seminars, and during which students research and write a formative essay, consulting with the module tutor. Students prepare for eight seminars in all.

Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:

  1. Historiographical approaches to the supernatural
  2. The Devil and Demons
  3. The Witch's Familiar
  4. Fairies
  5. Angels
  6. Ghosts
  7. Werewolves
  8. Strange Worlds: Then and Now

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Long Essay		 N/A 100

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

Students submit a 2,000-word formative essay in week 9.
A 4,000-word summative essay will be due in the assessment period.

Reassessment

None

Module feedback

Students will typically receive written feedback on their formative essay within 10 working days of submission.

Work will be returned to students in their seminars and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their formative essay during their tutor’s student hours—especially during week 11, before, that is, they finalise their plans for the Summative Essay.

For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.

For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.

Indicative reading

For reading during the module, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:

  • Jane P. Davidson, Early Modern Supernatural: The Dark Side of European Culture, 1400–1700 (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012).
  • Julian Goodare and Martha McGill (eds.). The Supernatural in Early Modern Scotland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020).
  • Darren Oldridge, The Supernatural in Tudor and Stuart England (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016).


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.