Exhibit | Witchcraft and the Law

From the first anti-witchcraft law in the UK in 1542 to when Canada finally repealed its law against “pretending to practice witchcraft” in 2018; there have been thousands of witchcraft cases in both official courts and via “mob justice”.

This exhibit brings together rare materials from the Nahum Gelber Law Library, the Osler Library of the History of Medicine and the Library's ROAAr unit to showcase these historic “witch trials”, philosophical debates on the existence of magical beings and practical instructions for how to perform an exorcism.

Exhibit curated by Ana Rogers-Butterworth.