Magic, Maleficia, and Manhood: Masculinities in Late-Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England

Abstract

This study investigates four early modern English men - two astrologer-physicians and two male witches - and the various, often contradictory ways in which they expressed their masculinity by applying R. W. Connell’s theory of multiple masculinities. By comparing profiles of men associated with learned and malefic magic, this research provides a broadened view of the ways in which magic intersected with social variables, elucidates reasons for men’s various levels of success in their quest for hegemony, contests previous studies which concluded that male practitioners of magic had been “feminized men,” and posits masculinity as a textured, subjective experience which is not adequately understood simply in opposition to femininity.