ABSTRACT
In 1984 Wolfgang Behringer began to draw attention to the role of print media by examining in detail a topical news pamphlet printed in 1590, ‘The Expanded Witchcraft Report’. The historiography of witchcraft has become more focused on representations of witchcraft, both visual and textual. This chapter presents an overview of some of the main historiographical developments. One of the biggest issues in the historiography of witchcraft news media is whether reports were meant to be taken seriously or if they were simply a form of entertainment. During the witchcraft prosecutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, news of witches, their crimes, confessions, and punishments made the early modern headlines. The most famous case, recognised by historians as creating a media shockwave, was the trial and story of Peter Stumpf, a werewolf witch, who was reportedly executed in a small town of Bedburg near Cologne in 1589.
