did make up a substantial percentage of those accused of witchcraft in early modern Europe,
which has been attributed by Barstow to be an attack on female folk healers by male
doctors. 9 However, drawing on evidence produced by Keith Thomas and Etienne Delcambre,
Richard Horsley suggested instead that cunning folk and witches were seen as separate by
contemporary people, and he reiterated Macfarlane’s conclusion from his study of the Essex
trials that cunning folk were often involved in the identification of witches rather than
themselves being accused. 10
Another occupation believed to have rendered certain women more likely to be
accused of witchcraft is midwifery. David Harley argued that while some historians, such as
Richard Kieckhefer and Norman Cohn, have pointed to midwives being among the accused,
they failed to provide any examples of a midwife being prosecuted as a witch to support
their statements. Harley goes on to argue that in the few instances where midwives were
tried as witches, detailed examination suggests that these trials were the result of ‘a zealous
prosecutor’ rather than popular belief of midwife -witches. Harley has suggested that the
notion of midwives as witches stems from the Malleus Maleficarum and the writings of
demonologists, believed by some historians to have influenced contemporary popular
belief. 11 However, as suggested by Horsley, the association with midwives and the Devil was
the belief of the literate and elite and was not one shared by the peasantry. He therefore
claimed that further research is required before the role and significance of midwives in the
witch-trials of early modern Europe can fully be established. 12
9 Barstow, p. 8 10 Richard A. Horsley, 'Who Were the Witches? The Social Roles of the Accused in the European Witch Trials', The Journal of Interdisciplinary History , 9 (1979), pp. 689-715 11 David Harley, 'Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-Witch', Social History of Medicine: The Journal of the Society for the Social History of Medicine , 3 (1990), pp. 1-26 12 Horsley,
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