The Discovery of Witches

Matthew Hopkins, a man who called himself the Witchfinder General, wrote this pamphlet in 1647 to defend the trials of accused witches that he had helped carry out in England during its civil war. The text combines first-person accounts, appeals to law and arguments drawn from scripture, all aimed at convincing readers that witchcraft was real and that those accused of it deserved punishment. Its tone is forceful and polemical, and its reasoning rests on fear of the supernatural and of spiritual corruption spreading through society. Read now, it offers a close look at how religious zeal, legal authority and social anxiety could come together in a period of political upheaval. It is as much a record of the mindset behind the persecutions as a justification for them, and it shows how easily belief and power can reinforce one another.