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Louise Nyholm Kallestrup, "The Construction of Witchcraft in Early Modern Denmark, 1536-1617" (Routledge, 2025)
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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:07]
B
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to New Books in Early Modern History, a channel on the New Books Network. I'm Yana Byers, your host, and I'm here today with Louise Nuholm Kallistrup of the University of Southern Denmark to talk about her new book, the Construction of Witchcraft in Early Modern Denmark, 1536-1617. Out this year 2025 with Rutledge Press. Hi, Louise, and welcome to the program.
- [01:31]
C
Hi, and thank you for having me.
- [01:33]
B
Ah, it's so nice. And how are you this fall morning?
- [01:37]
C
I am very good. The sun is shining, which is rare in October in Denmark, so all is well.
- [01:44]
B
Excellent. Let's talk about witchcraft. It's so exciting. So this is Witchcraft is, you know, your gig, but how did you come to write this particular book?
- [01:56]
C
Yes, I think I have. My early studies in witchcraft were a comparison of Italy and Denmark. And I think for Danish witchcraft history, it's just noteworthy that usually you leave the church out of it because witchcraft is entirely a secular crime. But when you study Italian witchcraft, you cannot avoid studying the Inquisition. And I've spent a lot of years looking into the Inquisition, and that kind of spurred me on to look more into the religious kind of aspect of witchcraft in Denmark as well. Because, of course, as soon as Denmark was reformed, that is in 1536. And witchcraft becomes a secular crime. By law, the Church is. Well, legally it's out of the picture, but of course it's not because everything is thought of in religious kind of arguments and ideas and beliefs. So I was really inspired by looking into Catholic witchcraft or inquisitorial witchcraft, to look further into that religious and theological dimension of it in the Danish context.
- [03:08]
B
Yeah, I particularly am curious about the timeline. Cause you conclude with the witchcraft act of 1617, which you might think was the beginning of the story. So. So. And this book really fills a gap in the historiography. Can you tell our listeners about that, why you made these choices?
- [03:26]
C
Yes, I think the big Danish book on Danish witchcraft prosecution takes its kind of its point of departure in 1617, where we get this big comprehensive act of witchcraft. It prohibits, of course, witchcraft and it refers to witches as those who have engaged in a pact with the devil. And then you have those committing what they refer to as the secret arts. And the secret arts are basically beneficial magic, benevolent magic, divinity, soothsayers, and all these kinds of magic that of course the Church condemns, but ordinary people, the populace, might not condemn them in the same way because nobody gets hurt. And that witchcraft act kind of makes the Danish witch prosecution basically explode. So you get, for the next six, seven, eight years, you get about 60% of all the witch trials in Denmark are conducted in the period after this witchcraft act. So usually you would take your point of departure because you're always interested the researchers or they have been interested in the witch hunt that takes place in those years. So this big book that I started mentioning came out, well, 30 years ago, 35 years ago, and it kind of has been referred to, well, this is kind of the state of the art, this book. And then because that author, Johansen, he counted and registered all the trials and then, well, nobody really got an idea of what happened. What was kind of the overture to this? How was witchcraft constructed in this act? Because it didn't come out of nowhere. So nobody had really looked into, well, how does this law come about? Why is it that they in fact have put so much energy and effort into formulating this big comprehensive law? Basically with the religious argumentation, it says that you have entered a pact with the devil and you're offending God. And God will cast his anger on everybody if the king doesn't eradicate witches. So this is very much a theological argumentation or argument. So I wanted to investigate, well, what was actually the process up towards 1617, how was witchcraft constructed as a crime in 1617 that caused this big witch hunt afterwards.
- [06:21]
B
Right on. Yeah. So I'm getting this idea, like the Witchcraft act really defined it, like, codified an idea of witchcraft. And before that, it's really. It's a negotiation. It's a much squishier definition.
- [06:33]
C
Yeah. Yes. We have a medieval law code in Denmark, the Law of Jutland, and it's from the early editions are from the 13th century. And then we have the wording of the paragraph on witchcraft, which basically just defines witchcraft as harming other people. So it's all about harm. And then we have some procedural regulations in the 16th century, but we do not have a detailed definition of the crime. And we get that in 1617.
- [07:09]
B
Yeah. I mean. And you see it that kind of all over Europe. Right. This idea that, like, well, if it's just a charm, is that witchcraft or is that just kind of a different version of praying? Yeah, yeah. So another of your choices that I really want to talk about is that is you. Did you begin the book in a really, what I. A surprising way with this royal bridal journey about a really bad, I mean, some might say cursed attempt to get Anne, a Danish princess, to Scotland to complete her marriage to James VI and Edinburgh and become Queen of Scotland. And it goes horribly wrong. But everything about this was interesting. First of all, such a bad trip. And secondly, this is not where I would have thought we were going to begin our conversation on witchcraft. So tell our listeners about this inauspicious trip, what happens here?
- [08:05]
C
Yes. So, first of all, when you read the Danish sources, it's very clear that this is a trip or not just a trip. It's a journey. It's a bridal journey. It's been prepared for months and it includes 13 ships, the three biggest ones, the fastest ones, the newest ones of the Danish navy. And the navy, or the fleet is really the pride of the Danish state at this point, because Denmark is a rather big. You could call it an empire. It's a big composite state, and it's very much a marine state or a naval state. So this is the pride of the Danish king. And on September 1, 1589, they were ready to take off these 13 ships. We know that people are standing, looking towards the earth on, you know, the waters where they're leaving from. And this is an impressive sight. But even before they leave the docks of Elsinore, a cannon explodes. So this is the first misfortune. And then as soon as they start sailing, another misfortune. Other misfortunes strike Accidents strike. The ships get away from each other, then the two ships collide, sailors are crushed between ships, and as soon as they reach the North Sea, these really heavy tempests start striking. So they have to give up reaching Edinburgh and they have to go back to. To Norway, so they cannot make it over the North Sea. And this is once again, this is the pride of the Danish king, not able to make it over the North Sea. Something is odd here, something unnatural is at play here. And James VI gets impatient, so he travels to Norway to meet his future king. They're already married by proxy, but she's supposed to be crowned and of course, the marriage to be consummated. And they get formally or officially married in Norway and they go back to Copenhagen. But at this point, nobody's talking, in Denmark, at least, about witchcraft. So they stay in Denmark over the winter, 1590, and there's a conflict between some of the key officers on board these ships, on who's to blame for this, because this is actually quite embarrassing that he cannot bring the ships to Edinburgh. So at some point, and now we are in April 6, 1519, there's a woman in prison in Copenhagen who all of a sudden confesses to having cast these storms. And she's done this because she's part of a witchcraft society or a coven, and it's her and her fellow witches who has actually cast the storms. So they are the ones to blame for these hideous weathers that disrupted the bridal journey. So this is, of course, very fortunate for the Admiral who could not bring the ships to Edinburgh. And, of course, it's also fortunate for everybody else, because now you have actually an explanation for these awful weathers. And this is the beginning of the Danish witch hunt, this summer of 1590, where these 13 people eventually gets executed, maybe more, because the sources are quite fragmentary. So we do not have the entire.
- [11:51]
B
Trials, but at least 13 people burned, which is just the worst way to die.
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C
Yes. And we know that in Denmark, we know that you were burning people alive at the pyre. So they would throw together this big fire and you would burn them on a ladder, tie them to a ladder, and then you will push them into the flames. So people were alive when they were burned in Denmark, which is not that common.
- [12:23]
B
No. Yeah. And usually if the fire starts, if you're tied and the fire starts. This is so funny. Only early modernists can talk about the differences of being burned alive versus not where they start the fire, then you'd get smoke inhalation and you probably die before the Flames hit you. Which is better.
- [12:46]
C
There's a Danish TV show going on right now, a documentary, and they asked. They asked, how do you say, Corona. Someone, you know, somebody who. Who. Who examines corpses.
- [12:58]
B
Oh, a foreigner. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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C
And they ask him, what exactly does happen when. When you burn people on the pyre? And he says, well, luckily you would probably, because when you push the ladder, they would land with their heads or their faces towards the flame. So they would very fastly get suffocated or at least unconscious from the pain. But yes, you're exactly right. And this is something that I can talk about with my colleagues, but everybody else would find that it is just really. Yes, yeah.
- [13:36]
B
Just absolutely beyond the pale. But it's. It is part of understanding, you know, and there's a reason the fire evokes hell. The fire is cleansing. Like, it's not just for the barbarity of it, like, of course.
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C
No, it's because this crime is so awful and so serious and so such a betrayal towards God also. Also. So you cannot leave anything earthly, you cannot leave anything material. You need to go into term, into dust.
- [14:08]
B
Yes, yeah, listeners, we're both just nodding, Malika. Of course, of course. That's how you handle a witch. Okay, you know what is interesting here, One of the points I really want to bring out is we tend to think of witchcraft on a much smaller scale. It's like sick cattle or kids or maybe even bad harvests. But to think of a disastrous royal event as witchcraft is really unexpected. And I think it goes ways to explain why just it isn't until you really consider it part of the record, you know, like why it's not part of the story of the kings.
- [14:47]
C
Yes. And I think what's important to bring into this talk is also that at this point in time, the fact that the devil would take an aim on you, take his aim on you, would target you as a godly king is completely expected, because the more godly you would be as a king, the more the devil will try and strike at you. So I think for Christian iv, who's only basically a teenager at this point, to him this is a reminder that the devil is actually trying to get to me. But I shall be godly, and I will establish and establish a godly state, and I will make sure that all of my inhabitants are godly. So this is the first reminder to him, I think, that this is actually how things work, basically.
- [15:50]
B
So we move from there, from this kind of story, this micro history bit into a broader conversation about witchcraft. And so witchcraft in the west, the way we think about witchcraft in the west, is so deeply entwined with Christianity that we need to know that story. So what's happening in the world and in Denmark in this era that influences the contemporary take on witchcraft?
- [16:16]
C
Yes, I think actually we need to turn time back to the late 15th century, where these apocalyptic anticipations are growing stronger. People are basically getting their heads filled with ideas of, well, in a minute the world will end, Christ will arrive, and he will cast his final judgment on all living and dead. So the fact that you think that you are living in the last days, these are the last of times. And this kind of mentality or belief, I would probably prefer calling it belief. The apocalyptic anticipations only grow stronger in the 16th century, and Denmark is Reformed within the Lutheran Protestantism. So, of course, they look towards Wittenberg. And Luther is the one kind of designing the Danish Reformation. Of course, not himself, but Bugenhagen, who is sent from Luther. And in Lutheranism, this apocalyptic anticipations are particularly strong because they see Luther as the prophet that will reveal and disclose the Antichrist. And of course, the Antichrist is the Pope in Rome. So we have this kind of almost propagandistic way of disseminating the messages of the Reformation is that Luther is the one in the last time, or the last of days, the latter days, who will reveal the Antichrist, which is a part of the story of the. The imminent Second Coming. So this story is very strong, this belief is very strong among the Danish theologians and reformers that this is the last of days. And also a part of that story, the disclosure, of course, the Antichrist is also the story of the Devil roaming the human world. And this part of the story becomes extremely important to prosecuting and persecuting witches, because the Devil is in the human world to try and recruit allies to his final battle with God. Of course, we know how that ends, because God will, of course, win this battle. But the Devil will be here among people and trying to get people on his side. And the most horrible crime is of course, to. To turn yourself into the hands of the Devil. And this is what witches do. Witches will denounce or renounce their Christian faith and their baptism, and they will turn towards the Devil instead. So this is the explanation and the logic kind of associated with the many witchcraft trials. So this is the last of days. Naturally, we will have a lot of witches in the last times before the Second Coming.
- [19:32]
B
Naturally, makes perfect sense. And then there is just, in this era, kind of a heightened religiosity as well as the confessional, we have these disputes and suddenly one's religious practice is open for debate in a way it hasn't been before as well.
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C
Exactly. So I think that's a very important notion because in the medieval time, I think there were a more kind of a less affair way of thinking about people's religion. But on both sides of the confessional borders, the authorities are very, very keen on making sure that actually their subjects are practicing the faith in the right way. And it is the true faith and not the heretic faith that they both call each other heretics on the Catholic and the Protestant side. And I think what happens in Denmark is that at first you. Well, officially you're Lutheran, but what they like to refer to themselves is basically that they're Reformed. They did not use the word reformed, but they are just not Catholics or not papal anymore. And then the Danish theologians are very inspired by Philip Melanchthon, who is the colleague and the pupil of Luther. But as soon as you get a new generation, when you get into the 17th century, you get a new generation of theologians and they are more interested in being called Lutheran than just not papal. But that's a long story. Maybe we can return to that.
- [21:11]
B
Yeah, I don't know how much we need to get into that. It's an interesting story, but I don't know how much we need that. I'd like to take a second to talk about the historian, the craft here, the act of being an historian. And so when you talk in your book, book about the. About kind of these broader church and religious doctrinal theological discussions, you use a certain sort of source base. Can you tell us about what you're using as your source base to make that the argument you've just kind of outlined?
- [21:45]
C
Yes, I think I'm going to start a tiny bit before, because what I've tried to do in the first chapters of the book is, is to try and sketch out the mindset of these people, actually, and how this mindset is almost like a catalyst to witch hunts. Because if you actually believe that the devil is among us and he's trying to recruit allies, well, of course you will be attentive to this, and of course you will try and eradicate these potential allies of the devil. So I've tried to. To kind of narrow down where can we. Where do people, where do we kind of model and how do we shape this mindset? Where does this go on at? What kind of media can we examine or study to try and understand how people's mindsets evolve and develop. So I've tried to look and at the place first where everybody meets, and that's a parish church because they come there several times a week and they look at pictures, murals, they look at each other, of course, they listen to sermons. And then they also. And that's the second chapter. We have a lot of popular writing going on outside the church, of course, but supporting the messages that are pronounced in church. And the messages in church are, of course, the devil is awake, he's not sleeping. You shall be attentive, you shall do penance. And you should be a firm believer in the true faith, of course. And we have a lot of late medieval murals that support this. So if you are parish priest standing on the pulpit, communicating this belief of the devil who's alive and well and walking around like a roaring lion, finding, looking for something to swallow, well, you have the perfect props around you in these murals. So this is one place where you know you will actually could get this message to everybody. And then you have these pamphlets also. Maybe I should say that in Denmark you have the laws, they are pronounced from the pulpit. So every time you have a secular law, it's also communicated from the pulpit after the Reformation. And then you have all these pamphlets, all these frontispieces of really cheap, like early modern tabloid, actually communicating the same message. Do penance. In a minute, the world will go under. The second coming is near. Do penance. So we have this kind of. This framework of media communicating the same message. The devil is among us. Do penance and make sure that you have. And please, no witchcraft. But it's not really focusing on witchcraft, but it's very much focusing on the message of the devil who's awake and.
- [25:04]
B
Walking around among and actively coming for you. Right. The devil is not just like. It's not just like the devil is like, oh, I wish for bad things, like, he's coming into your homes, he's in our streets, like.
- [25:17]
C
Exactly. And in the medieval world, you would have to invoke the devil. You would have to call on him before he would appear to you. Now you should actually, well, he's among us and he's right there around the corner waiting for you. So. Exactly. He's a very active devil.
- [25:35]
B
I like to think about. I love going into churches in northern Europe in the winter when it's so dark and imagining it's candlelight and these terrifying murals and the Last Judgment is above your head. And I can't imagine being in that world and not listening to These stories and seeing all this and not being, like, regularly terrified that I was going to hell, perhaps immediately dragged there by a demon.
- [26:04]
C
Yes. And I think because now we're talking and we cannot show any pictures, but these murals are very, very dramatic. And these late medieval murals, what. What is common to all of them is that the depictions of the Last Judgment is very much focusing on the two paths in the afterlife. So you could either go to the heavenly gates, which is a very calm environment, or you could go to the mouth of hell, the whole mouth. And that is a horrible scenario. You should imagine a big dragon with fire out it's its mouth, and demons dragging off these condemned souls to the eternal flames of hell. So this is a very dramatic scenario. And I think subconsciously, and also very much consciously, people were thinking about right and wrong and where to go in the afterlife because they were constantly reminded also that you should, well, do penance because you do not know when your time is up, and it could be tomorrow, so you better do penance now, otherwise you will end in the hell mouth and in eternal flames of hell. So, yes, this focus on right and wrong and good Christians and bad Christians and good Christians and witches.
- [27:26]
B
Yeah, you know, it's like thinking of it, you know, it's like this kind of cold war. It's just there, and it's huge, and it's like every day of your life. So then there's this turn, and you're going to start talking about evil women, and you use a very different source space here. So can you.
- [27:47]
C
Yes, because what I'm trying to do in the book is that, well, first we have these. We know that there are these messages of the imminent second coming from the Reformers. And then we also have a tradition in the Nordic world of evil and very powerful women, very strong women. And I think a modern feminist could probably get a lot out of it, but I will try not to go down that road and just say, well, we have these Nordic stories that have been very inspired by research by. Of research by, for instance, Stephen Mitchell on these old Norse tales of strong and often evil women. And so I looked into some of these stories and how they changed when they came into the hands of the Reformers. So I try linguistically to trace these women and how they change. And we have parallel examples of how women from early Christian stories are demonized in the early modern period. And we also have this with these old Norse stories of women, these strong and evil women. So now they're not just strong women anymore or old women now they turn into evil women. And then I tried to trace the phrase evil woman because we can see that the reformers use it as a kind of an omni expression. So you can. Or an umbrella expression of. It could be a whore, it could be a bad wife, or it could be a witch. So you have that kind of umbrella concept of an evil woman. And that makes sense because when you look at the, again the church murals, you would see these demons drag along these naked women with their hair loose, and you would know that these women were evil women and they would get their just reward, or what you would call it, they would end in hell. And it could be a whore, it could be a bad wife, or it could be a witch, it didn't matter, because they were all evil women. So they use these again, the phrase of the evil woman can be a witch. And this all contributes to kind of sharpen the distinction between good and bad.
- [30:17]
B
Sure. And you know, and she's naked, right? Because that's like she's engaged with the devil, she's engaged with men, who knows? But exactly, she's. Yeah. And from here you tell the story even, you know, with the kind of a chronological discussion. And so then your fourth chapter is called the Diabolical Triangle, which is in the Oresund region. Forgive my terrible pronunciation, certainly side note, listeners, the chapter names here are outstanding and the Diabolical Triangle is fabulous. But so then you start to begin this a little like very witch heavy region. So what's going on here?
- [31:00]
C
Well, I think I have tried to kind of set the scene in the first chapters and trying to decode this mindset of these people. And then I start looking further into how were the trials actually presented in court. And we have, again, we have a lot. It's very fragmentary, the source material from the 16th century. But what I realized was that the Bridal Journey and the consequences of the bridal journey in 1589, 1590, wasn't limited just to Copenhagen. It had branches to Elenor and to Malmo. And they were strong. They were very experienced in prosecuting witches in those two towns. They were port towns, they were important towns for the king. And then I realized, well, this is actually linked. So you have an entire region that is very familiar to prosecuting witches. And I think that's been overlooked in Danish historiography, that this was that as soon as you start. Because witch trials are never an everyday business. It's always a scandal, it's always a sensation, it is always a shock to people and it sends kind of shocks through the society. So I think what happens is when this happens, strikes in 1590, it basically just touches upon the memory of a lot of tradition of witchcraft trials. And we know that the king, Christian iii, the grandfather of Christian iv, his navy or his fleet was also hit by witches. There's a story about how his father's army was hit by witches. So all of a sudden, when you start digging into this, this is no longer just an isolated event, it's actually a tradition for. For being targeted by witches. So I am. Yes, that's what I do in chapter four. I try to really take these trials apart and see how they're interlinked. Yes.
- [33:21]
B
And then we get to Christian iv, who becomes very interested in witchcraft and there's witchcraft in his courts. Yeah.
- [33:30]
C
And I think because when you have those 13, at least 13 executions in Copenhagen in the summer of 1590, you would have said, well, now we are ready for the big witch hunt. Because everything is there. You kind of have all the elements for a witchcraft. You have the royal court being attacked, you have the idea of the demonological conspiracy, you have all of the witch trials going on in Germany at this point, you have the witch trials in North Berwick. So you have all these kind of. All of the elements are there, all of the pieces are there. You just need to put together, put them together. So you would have thought that this would actually create and spur on a big witch hunt in denmark in the 1590s, but it doesn't. Because the King's court is the court where the King is the judge. And in the 1590s he meets two big cases of witchcraft in his own court, legal court, and he could actually kick start a witch hunt if he wanted to, but he doesn't. He puts a damper on it and puts a lid on it and he says, well, no, you should just reconcile and stop. We cannot have this now. And he's not really that interested in witchcraft. And the nobility in the council of realms, who's also judges in this king's court, well, they are definitely not interested in having a witchcraft, having a witch hunt, because a witch hunt is the same as disaster, it's the same as chaos, it just gives rise to upheavals. So they basically put a lid on the potential witch hunt in the 1590s. So even though it's all there, ready to fire away, it doesn't happen. It takes another 20 years before anything really happens.
- [35:24]
B
All right, so we've talked about Denmark's reformation at home, so I think we can Move on to talk about Kahlo in 1617 and what happens here.
- [35:37]
C
Yes. So what I wanted to see was because there's an important part now we move up 1617. And I should probably say that 1617 is 4. Of course, the hundredth anniversary for Luther's thesis is on the church door in Wittenberg. So it's a very big celebration in Denmark. And that is also the reason why they issue this law. They issue it along with a bunch of disciplinary laws. But one part of the witchcraft act from 1617 is that everybody in the service of the king is now obliged to prosecute witches. So if you know of anybody reputed to be witch, you should initiate a case. So what I wanted to see was whether some of the kings. Because we know that there are trials going on before the Witchcraft Act. So the act is issued in October, 1617, but over the summer, 1617, so months in advance of it, there are actually quite intense trials all over Denmark. So I was curious to see who were actually conducting these trials and if there were any of the King's inner circle of men who were conducting these trials, because that would signify to me that they were very much aware that this was gonna be reality with the witchcrafter. So Caillou, which is a thief in what's called Jlan, is kind of the nose, or if you picture Jutland, you. You usually. We call it the nose of Jutland. So Kale is a thief on Jutland or in Japan, on Juslan. And the provincial governor in that field is called Jan Skeel. And that's. I know it's a Danish name, but Skeel, we can just call him. We can see that he's actually commencing these trials from March 1617. So what I've done in that chapter is basically to try and follow how one of the King's trusted men acts in practice. And we can see. And this is really where you get witchcraft on firsthand, because we can see that as soon as one woman is captured, she spills the beans on. On a lot of other people. And we can really follow the shock waves that this creates over the summer in the local society and how people are terrified, how they flee the thief, how they try and escape, but also how we have a local society of not officials, but bailiffs and the bailiffs, helpers, how they engage in these trials, and how they take these women from local court to local court. So it's just a horrible, horrible entry into how this have been experienced.
- [38:47]
B
Yeah, okay. So it's been through the late 16th and early 17th century, just a perfect storm to prepare for witchcraft persecutions, which you've kind of shown us through the book. And so you know, what, what is my take home concluding message for this? What would you like us to know about witchcraft persecution?
- [39:15]
C
If you're talking to historians, if you, if we are talking to our colleagues, then what to take home from my book is that this very much I hope I intend to show how it's not just prosecuting witches in the 17th and the 16th century isn't just an exotic add on to history and politics. It's very much a way of thinking about the world, about your opponents, also your political opponents. I have a lot about the Swedish king in it, so people can read about the Swedish tyrant themselves. But, but how religion is tied together with politics. And since witchcraft is also very much a religious crime, then it's of course interwoven with this so very much. I have a German colleague who refers to it as thinking with witches and witchcraft politics. And I completely agree. So it's just not, it's not just an exotic add on. And I think for kind of the broader audience, this is very much a question of them and us. You have those against us and we will do anything we can to eradicate them. Instead of listening and talking to each other and trying to understand and find some mutual ground, it's about making your opponent the enemy and right and wrong and you basically have nothing in between. So either you're with us or you're against us.
- [40:57]
B
That's a wonderful place to conclude. So I have just one more question for you. What's next?
- [41:04]
C
I'm continuing my work on Christian IV because He is in 1617. He's a very young man and he's a very successful king, but he is completely, I wouldn't say losing it, but he's definitely not having it as light when he gets into the 1620s. So at the moment I'm working on the 1620s and 1630s. So it's kind of part two of the book because he doesn't die until 1648. So it's about half of his reign I have left from 1617 to 1648.
- [41:41]
B
Yeah. And no spoilers at this stage, but those are big years. There's a lot going on here in Europe in those.
- [41:54]
C
I would say once again, his political failures in the 30 years war is also tied to witchcraft. It's not due to witchcraft, but his decisions and his choices are linked to witchcraft. Once again.
- [42:12]
B
Yeah. Wow. I'm very interested in reading that book. And I do say, just as an historian, you know, just the way the field is developed and the way we still kind of disciplinary boundaries and interdisciplinary boundaries and the way we think still about women and way we study women, which witchcraft becomes a woman's problem, you know, etc. It is so refreshing. It is so nice to see this work that is demonstrating, you know, just once more for the people in the back that this is not ancillary to the main line of history. This is the main line of history.
- [42:49]
C
Yes, I agree. Thank you.
- [42:52]
B
Yeah, you. I mean, it's your argument. I'm just saying it again.
- [42:56]
C
Yeah, I did when I did my inauguration lecture as a professor a few years back, actually the title was writing Witchcraft Back into History because I think that's important, not to see it as isolated topic in history, but actually a part of history.
- [43:14]
B
All right, Luis, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been wonderful.
- [43:17]
C
Thank you for having me.