“The Precious Gifts of Faith, Repentance, and the Feare of God”: Court Confessions and Emotions in Old and New England Witch Trials (ca. 1560–1692)

Abstract

This article examines the role of emotions in confessions during witchcraft trials in Old and New England between approximately 1560 and 1692. Drawing on the reading and analysis of primary sources – including demonological treatises, pamphlets, and court records – it argues that religious and judicial authorities expected the confessions of those accused of witchcraft to unfold within an emotional framework centred on guilt, repentance, shame, and fear of God. This expectation, which remained consistent throughout the period on both sides of the English Atlantic, was not only linked to the need for the accused to acknowledge the reality of the crime, but also aimed at their rehabilitation before both the divinity they had offended and the community they had harmed. Yet the documents reveal not only what members of the judicial bureaucracy and the theological establishment sought from the accused, but also the forms of resistance and challenge that defendants posed to these emotional demands.