De roman als reactie; het Staphorster toverijgeval van 1839

Samenvatting

The Novel as Reaction; the 1839 Staphorst witch case. In the social sciences novels are increasingly used as source material. This article examines the problem of reliability of this kind of source by comparing official documents with an anonymous novel - both texts dealing with the same witch case. While the records focus on maltreatment and hardly mention witchcraft at all, the theme of the novel (‘falling in love with a girl from a family of witches’) belongs to a literary tradition. Notwithstanding the similarities in content between both texts, it is concluded that in terms of empirical information the novel only has a signaling value. It contains no extra insights and makes itself redundant as soon as other, non-literary, sources are discovered. An alternative approach is proposed by considering a novel as one of the many conflicting views about a historical event.