PhD research project applies evolutionary approach to history of witchcraft

Woodcut from a 1720 collection by William Dodd shows both male and female witches flying on broomsticks. Photo: Wellcome Library, London.
Woodcut from a 1720 collection by William Dodd shows both male and female witches flying on broomsticks. Photo: Wellcome Library, London.

From the 15th to the 17th centuries witches were prosecuted throughout Europe. Many theories about witches, such as the belief in the witches’ Sabbath, the diabolical pact, nightly flight, and torture as a means of interrogation, were strikingly well adapted to create increasingly large witch persecutions. How could this happen, how did this process work? This question will be addressed by Steije Hofhuis, who introduces a new approach in his PhD research: Darwinian cultural evolution. Hofhuis has received funding for his research proposal from the Professor van Winter Fonds.

In the past, historians and social scientists often assumed that concepts of witchcraft were intelligently designed by witch hunters to pursue particular underlying goals. In contrast, most historians of witchcraft today argue that witch-hunters genuinely believed in the dangers of witchcraft, and that persecutions were a highly erratic phenomenon that did not substantially benefit anyone.

However, if these concepts were not the product of an intelligent design, then how did these concepts become so well adapted over time as to create increasingly large persecutions? Hofhuis' qualitative historical project will explore a new potential answer: Darwinian cultural evolution. The hypothesis he will examine is that ideas such as the witches’ Sabbath and nightly flight were only accidentally well adapted to make people hunt for witches, and cumulatively survived together with the persecutions they created.

Hofhuis will be supervised by Prof. Joris van Eijnatten (Cultural History), Prof. Bert Theunissen (History of Science) and emeritus Prof. Ed Jonker (Foundations of Historiography).

Professor van Winter Fonds

The Professor van Winter Fonds was founded in 1990 and named after historian P.J. van Winter (1895-1990), who was a professor in Groningen from 1939 to 1965. The foundation provides financial support to academic research and publications in the field of history.