Work, Gender and Witchcraft in Early Modern England

Abstract

This article revisits a question with which historians of early modern European witchcraft have long grappled: why was the average percentage of male suspects so small (approximately 10–30 per cent), and the percentage of female suspects so large? Drawing on recent studies by economic historians, it argues that this skewed gender ratio can be explained, in part, by the gendered patterns of work which obtained in early modern Europe. Focusing on England, it shows how four key variables – gender divisions of labour, occupational hazard, contact frequency and workplace sociability – combined to increase or decrease workers’ vulnerability to witchcraft accusation.