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1. An Analysis of Keith Thomas’s
Religion and the Decline of Magic
By
Simon Young
with
Helen Killick

2. WAYS IN TO THE TEXT
Key Points
• Keith Thomas is a Welsh historian who was born in 1933. He was a
pioneer in the study of the history of early modern* England.
• Religion and the Decline of Magic describes how and why beliefs about
magic* changed in England between the years 1500 and 1700.
• The book broke new ground by demonstrating the value of considering
history from the perspective of modern societies.
Who Is Keith Thomas?
Keith Thomas was born in 1933. A gifted student, he left his Welsh grammar
school for Oxford University in 1952 and remained there for the rest of a
distinguished career in several colleges. He retired in 2000.i
Thomas was one of a number of influential historians at Oxford in the period
immediately following World War II.* Of these, the most celebrated was
perhaps the Marxist* historian Christopher Hill,* who mentored Thomas both
as an undergraduate and a graduate. Hill was the founder of Past and
Present,* a historical journal that Thomas was later to edit.
Although Thomas concentrated on social history*—the study of the past from
the perspective of the everyday people who lived it—he rejected the more
uncompromising political model favored by Hill, and went no further than a
flirtation with Marxism early in his career.ii
The intellectual climate of 1960s
Oxford encouraged novel approaches to the study of history, however, and at
this time Thomas opened himself to the influence of social anthropology*—a
branch of the study of human cultures that emphasizes social and economic
relations. He became interested in the work of prominent Oxford
anthropologists who were active in that field, particularly E. E. Evans-
Pritchard.* All of these influences can be seen in Religion and the Decline of
Magic.
Published in 1971, this was Thomas’s first book. Although he went on to write
a number of other influential works, it remains the one for which he is best
known. It has continued to be an important influence on historians, even if its
conclusions and methodology have been challenged and many social
anthropologists have found its anthropological models outdated.
What Does Religion Say?

3. Keith Thomas had in mind a single core question when he wrote Religion and
the Decline of Magic: what caused the decline in the belief in magic in
England between about 1500 and 1700?
To put it in more concrete terms: Thomas wanted to know why it was that an
Englishman or woman in 1500 would have been more willing to explain their
lives in terms of witchcraft*, ghosts, and spells than their descendants, living
in 1700.
In the course of those two hundred years we see a shift in mentality intimately
connected with the end of the “irrational” Middle Ages* and the rise of the
“rational” modern world. Thomas’s question, then, is fundamental to the
understanding of the evolution of Western societies, and a satisfactory answer
as to why this change took place would allow a historian to lay claim to one of
the keys to modernity.
In Religion, Thomas uses methods drawn from the field of social anthropology
to explore the thinking that led medieval people to believe in magic. His
argument is that magic had a pragmatic function, and that it was designed to
remedy problems, such as disease, for which there were no immediate
solutions. In this way, Thomas illustrates how magic fulfilled a similar role to
popular religious belief. He then goes on to examine how changes in orthodox
religious belief and practice, and advances in science, together undermined
magical belief and practice.
The work has had an immense influence on historians of all periods for a
number of reasons.
First, the book represented a new way of looking at social history, uncovering
previously unstudied aspects of the religious and popular life of early modern
England. Second, by using social anthropology and comparative examples
from the developing world, it also gave historians new methods of historical
analysis. The primary impact of the book can therefore be viewed as
methodological rather than historical; it mapped out new areas for research in
the fields of both social history and intellectual history*—the study of the
history of thought and thinkers—and presented historians with a new
analytical approach.
Despite Religion’s ambitious scope, however, it is arguable that Thomas failed
to fully answer the key question he had set himself.
Religion achieved the status of a classic in a matter of months after its
publication in 1971. By 1973 one review was referring to it as “a magisterial
and ground-breaking book.”iii
The fact that it has been published in more than

4. one edition, and in numerous reprints, and that it appears frequently on
university reading lists, shows that it is still relevant today. Religion and the
Decline of Magic also has a life outside academic debate because it is read
both by historians and members of the general public. It was, for example,
named in 1995 by the Times Literary Supplement as one of the one hundred
most important postwar books “in public discourse.”iv
Religion was later published by the popular Penguin and Peregrine imprints
and, in 2012, the Folio Society invested in an illustrated edition for the general
reader, with an introduction by the famous British historical novelist Hilary
Mantel.* The text also appeals to niche audiences like occult enthusiasts and
those interested in folklore.v
Why Does Religion Matter?
At the broadest level, Religion and the Decline of Magic demonstrates the
potential for social history to help us understand the belief systems and world-
views of the past. Thomas makes the early modern period—that is, about
1500 to 1700—accessible by explaining its concepts in modern terms. This is
particularly important in relation to magical thinking, something generally alien
to modern thought. For example, he frequently points to the ways in which
acts that seem at first glance to be irrational, and perhaps even silly, can help
society to function. He explains the apparent success of “magical” practices
by drawing on modern ideas such as the “placebo”* and “suggestibility,” which
highlight the roles our subconscious behavior and assumptions play in our
health and actions.vi
Another way in which the text can inspire today’s students is as a model of the
interdisciplinary method—that is, a method of research that draws on different
fields of study.
Thomas turns to the disciplines of sociology and social anthropology,
believing that these fields of study can bring general theoretical insights from
other cultures. He draws on E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s studies on African
witchcraft, for example, to help us understand early modern English
witchcraft.vii
The idea that an anthropologist’s work on a contemporary society could be
useful to our studies of the past was exciting to an entire generation of
historians. Even if the approach is less fashionable today than it was in the
1970s and the 1980s, the idea that social anthropology is a useful tool for the
study of history has continued to be the subject of debate.viii
Modern readers
of Thomas’s work are presented with numerous examples of this method in
practice, which will help them to form their own opinions.

5. In addition to its argument and methodology, Religion presents a wealth of
primary source material, much of which had never been studied before its
publication and which is still unparalleled in scope for this period and subject.
Even if Thomas’s central thesis were to be entirely rejected, his mastery of
these sources and his discussion of their potential for understanding
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England would remain unquestioned. To
put it simply, Religion would be valuable for its footnotes alone.
i
Peter Burke, “Keith Thomas,” in Civil Histories: Essays Presented to Sir Keith Thomas, ed.
Peter Burke et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1–30.
ii
Burke, “Keith Thomas,” 9.
iii
H. C. Erik Midelfort, “Review: Religion and the Decline of Magic,” Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 41 (1973): 432.
iv
See Academy of Arts and Sciences, “Hundred Most Influential Books Since the War,”
Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 49 (1996): 12–18.
v
Burke, “Keith Thomas,” 18.
vi
Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth-
and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Penguin, 1991), 247–50.
vii
Thomas, Religion, 402.
viii
See, for example, the debate in the 1990s that took place between the anthropologists
Marshall Sahlins and Gananath Obeyesekere regarding the rationality of indigenous peoples:
Gananath Obeyesekere, The Apotheosis Of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking In The
Pacific (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); Marshall Sahlins, How "Natives" Think:
About Captain Cook, For Example (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).