Ronald Hutton
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Ronald Hutton (born 1954) is Professor of History at the University of Bristol and is an occasional commentator on British television and radio on the history of paganism in the British Isles.
Hutton's areas of specialisation include the history of the British Isles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially on the Reformation, Civil Wars, Restoration and Charles II. He has also written on ancient and medieval paganism and magic, and on witchcraft beliefs and shamanism.
In three books, he studied the development of the ritual year in Britain, exploring many myths about the antiquity of festivals and practices. His book Triumph of the Moon: A history of Modern Pagan Witchcraft examined the development of Wicca and the context in which it formed. He questioned many assumptions about its development and argued that many of the claimed connections to longstanding hidden pagan traditions are questionable at best. However, he also argued for its importance as a genuine new religious movement.
Publications
- Charles the Second, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, 1989 - ISBN 0198229119
- The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy, 1993 - ISBN 0631189467
- "The Discovery of the Modern Goddess" in Nature Religion Today, (Joanne Pearson,Richard H. Roberts, Geoffrey Samuel, eds) 1998 - ISBN 074861057X
- The British Republic 1649-1660, 2000 - ISBN 0333913248
- The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year, 1400-1700, 2001 - ISBN 019285447X
- The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, 2001 - ISBN 0192854488
- The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, 2001 - ISBN 0192854496
- Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination, 2001 - ISBN 1852953247
- Witches, Druids and King Arthur, 2003 - ISBN 1852853972
- Debates in Stuart History, 2004 - ISBN 1403935890
External links
Reviews and Assessment
- Barry Collett, Review of Stations of the Sun, Sixteenth Century Journal, 29/1 (1998): 241-243.
- Christopher W. Marsh, Review of Stations of the Sun, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 50 (1999): 133-135.
- Jonathan Roper, Review of Shamans, Folklore, April 2005, [link]
- Chas S. Clifton, Review of Witches, Druids and King Arthur, The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, 7/1 (2005): 101-103.
- [A review of Ronald Hutton's The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles] by Max Dashu, 1998. Last accessed 27 April 2006.
- [Margaret Murray and the Distinguished Professor Hutton] by Jani Farrell-Roberts: originally published as The Great Debate by Farrell-Roberts and Hutton in The Cauldron, 2003.
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