Witchcraft and sexual knowledge in early modern England

Recent scholarship in witchcraft studies has drawn greater attention to the constitutive role of sexual discourse in witch trials throughout early modern Europe--even in England, whose trials have generally been regarded as less lurid and sensationalist than those that took place in other European countries. This essay complements existing scholarship by proposing that we should likewise recognize that witchcraft discourse occupies a vital place within the history of sexuality. Examining a range of archival materials--witchcraft treatises, demonologies, trial depositions, popular pamphlets, and dramatic literature--reveals that beliefs and practices concerning witchcraft were the site of a complex discourse about sexuality, particularly regarding female erotic pleasure and women's sexual anatomy. The essay analyzes in detail the distinctively English juridical concern with searching a suspect's body for a witch's mark or supernumerary teat, and proposes that standard judicial procedures provided a permissive, even urgent context for investigating women's bodies and interrogating them about their erotic experiences. More broadly, the article argues that witchcraft discourse promoted the pursuit of sexual knowledge with regard to both sexes, legitimizing such inquiry through its affiliations with legal authority.
Many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi.... Such devils hinder men from performing [...]