With it being Hallowtide, I’m seeing lots of photos of people dressed up as witches for costume parties and trick or treating, so I used this as inspiration for this talk.

I always find it fascinating how in the Tudor period, a world that was run by religion, people were also incredibly superstitious and put their trust in charms, amulets, weird remedies, and astrology, things that are seen as counter-religion today.

In today’s talk, I explain just how these topics were integrated in Tudor life, and the different attitudes towards what was seen as white magic versus witchcraft, and how so many people, mainly women, came to lose their lives in the 16th and 17th centuries accused of witchcraft.