2016/01/01 by Lizanne Henderson · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Historical Gender and Feminism Studies #Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes
paper · doi:10.1057/9781137313249_5
openalex publication_date 2016/01/01 · openalex created_date 2022/05/12 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
While the Devil does not figure prominently, and sometimes not at all, in earlier witch trials, by the end of the sixteenth century he had become a conspicuous presence, a figure that hovered close to every good and godly citizen in the land, a position reinforced from a theological standpoint and, by extension, through the teachings of the church. He leapt out of the printed pages of the Bible and walked among us, stalking and waiting for his opportunity to seep into human minds, bodies and souls. In the post-Reformation era, images and iconography of the Devil had been destroyed and almost entirely erased, yet he loomed large in the collective consciousness of Scottish society, instilled into the psyche through sermons and instruction by the clergy. In the near absence of native visual depictions of the Devil, it was left to the human imagination, verbal communications from the pulpit, and to centuries of traditional tales and legends, to put meat on his incorporeal bones. As a consummate shapeshifter, liar and deceiver, the form by which the Devil might appear to mortals was potentially limitless, guided only by the boundaries of our imaginative processes. The lack of a visual culture — which lasted until at least the eighteenth century when his image began to quietly surface once again — may only have served to drive the Devil deeper into the Scottish soul, forcing everyone, regardless of their social status, to examine their internal conscience, and not just their outward actions, with a closer degree of scrutiny than ever before. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.