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Scottish History The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft |
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| previous surveys |
George F. Black
In 1938, G.F. Black published his Calendar of Cases of
Witchcraft in Scotland, 1510-1727. This listed all the cases he
could collect from a wide range of published sources. Based in New
York, he did not attempt to examine manuscripts. His Calendar
contained about a thousand entries, most of which were references to
specific trials (sometimes of more than one witch). Black's work made
no claim to be comprehensive, and could not be used for statistical
analysis. However, it had a straightforward and convenient
chronological arrangement, and contained a paragraph or two of text
summarising each case. For this, and for its survey of local published
sources, it has remained useful.
Christina Larner, Christopher Hyde Lee and Hugh V.
McLachlan
In 1977, Christina Larner et al. published their Source-Book
of Scottish Witchcraft, the fruits of a research project funded by
the then Social Science Research Council. This was the first attempt
to gather trial records systematically. A great deal of new
information was uncovered, particularly from central manuscript
sources, and raising the total number of cases to 3,069. The entries
for each case provided little detail—10 basic fields, containing
less information than Black—but Professor Larner et al.
were able to run some elementary statistical queries, using the
mainframe computer on which the Source-Book's data was
originally compiled. However, the data was not made available
electronically; the published Source-Book was simply a printed
book with a list of cases and some attached tables.
Stuart Macdonald
In the 1990s, in the course of his doctoral research,
Stuart Macdonald produced a revised version of the Source-Book.
He corrected many of the Source-Book's numerous errors, and
collected additional cases—particularly in Fife, the county on
which his doctoral research concentrated. This raised the total of
cases to 3,230, though this figure included numerous duplicates
inherited from the Source-Book. He also entered the
Source-Book's data onto a modern computer database, increasing
the number of fields from 10 to 21 while retaining the basic scope of
the data. He issued this Scottish Witch Hunt Data Dase (SWHDB) on
CD-Rom, and also kindly made the data available to the present
Witchcraft Survey. The SWHDB itself has now been superseded by the
Survey.
Home •|• Database •|• About the project •|• Introduction to Scottish witchcraft •|• Further Reading •|• Links
Survey of Scottish Witchcraft,
Scottish History, School of History and Classics,
The University of Edinburgh,
17 Buccleuch Place,
Edinburgh, EH8 9LN
Page last updated Thursday, 13-Mar-2008 09:25:06 GMT by Kaye Brewster
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all material is copyright ©
The
University of Edinburgh