Coins have provided specific and concrete markers of official, legitimate political sovereignty since the time of the Roman Empire. Europe's female monarchs of the old regime, a group that has not been much studied, used numismatics in effective ways to enhance their official sovereignty. Throughout the entire period, most royal heiresses were married, and despite a persistent and widely circulated literature that preached wifely subservience, their coins (and, later, their medals) suggest their full political autonomy.

Since the seminal study of English witchcraft c. 1970, such developments as England's entry into the European Community and the revival of witchhunting episodes in postcolonial Africa have blurred parts of the picture. Recent publications present an opportunity to make revisions to the classic view of British witchcraft, setting the subject within its proper European context while pointing out some of its distinctive features.