The climax comes with the chapter on witchcraft in England, its relation to the social environment, and its decline. There is a long chapter on astrology, its social and intellectual role and its relation to religion. A chapter on magical healing contains a remarkable evocation of the ‘cunning man’, the wise man or woman to whom people turned for help in sickness or distress. It is impossible in a short review to do more than suggest the wealth of material which the book contains. It is most refreshing to meet in these days with such a scholarly book, representing years of deep research. A wide range of source material has been used, to which adequate and careful references are given in the footnotes. This long and rich book is a study of magic, including its relations to science and religion, in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
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