Abstrakt
The resurgence of interest in Early Modern witchcraft prosecutions within public discourse in recent years provides sociologists with an interesting lens by which to assess the construction and reconstruction of memory. The Scottish parliament and the Catalan regional parliament have both recently granted formal pardons to those executed for witchcraft, whilst certain German cities, such as Cologne, have also made efforts at rehabilitation.
In most cases, pressure to pardon witches initially comes from external lobbying before being adopted (or in some instances rejected (see Aachen)) by politicians and then ultimately framed as a cross-party issue. Through an analysis of contemporary public discourse related to witchcraft prosecutions, Maurice Halbwach’s concept of collective memory will be utilised to examine the processes by which witchcraft prosecutions have been ‘reframed’ within a modern political context.