Searching with Sathan: The English Witch's Familiar as Interface Model

Abstract

A humanist doing a detailed reading of a single text and a humanist analyzing a body of texts are performing two very different activities. A researcher addressing every published account of early modern witchcraft trials in England must hold more than one text in her or his mind–a feat which grows more difficult with any increase in the complexity or number of the texts involved. In spite of the inescapable frustrations involved in keeping more than one mental plate spinning, this kind of multi-text research has become simpler and easier for humanists with the widespread development of digital text archives. In this paper, we use published accounts of early modern English witchcraft trials as a basis for investigating ways in which interface design for digital text collections can expedite and even expand the research activities of the humanist.