Magic and Disability in the Early Modern World

This Element argues that early modern witchcraft in Scotland, England, Ireland and America demonised, devalued and disqualified non-normative bodies and minds. Their victims, the bewitched, however, used witchcraft accusations to navigate discriminatory narratives and treatment of disabling conditions and to find ways to cure or mitigate them.

This Element argues that early modern witchcraft (discourse, visual imagery and trials) in Scotland, England, Ireland and America demonised, devalued and disqualified non-normative bodies and minds. Using interpretative frameworks of monstrosity and deformity, while working within wider religious and medical understandings of disability, physical, cognitive, and sensory difference was read as inner corruption, sin or divine punishment or medicalised and pathologized as something to be fixed. The witch's body became monstrous through association with demonic creatures and physical transformation, while visible physical difference offered sought-after physical evidence of witchcraft. Intersecting with social status, reputation, and gender, disability then explains why some individuals were accused of witchcraft. Disability could also hamper a suspects' ability to defend themselves during interrogation and trial. Their victims, the bewitched, however, used witchcraft accusations to navigate discriminatory narratives and treatment of disabling conditions and to find ways to cure or mitigate them.