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Witchcraft

Witchcraft. In Early Modern Europe. Witchcraft Trials. In Europe, between 1500-1650, thousands of witchcraft trials were held. Between 40,000-100,000 people, accused of being witches, were killed. Some 80 percent of them were women.* Why then? Why women?

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Witchcraft

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  1. Witchcraft In Early Modern Europe

  2. Witchcraft Trials In Europe, between 1500-1650, thousands of witchcraft trials were held. Between 40,000-100,000 people, accused of being witches, were killed. Some 80 percent of them were women.* Why then? Why women? *NOTE: In some outlying areas of Europe (Iceland, Estonia, Finland) far more men than women were accused. On the other hand, in many regions 90 per cent or more of accused witches were women (Hungary, Denmark, and England, for instance). Still, overall, 80 percent of those accused throughout Europe were women. Courts did not give male suspects more favorable treatment. (See Robin Briggs, Witches & Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft, pp. 260-61.)

  3. Why then? A response to change? What change?

  4. Religious Change • Protestant Reformation and Catholic Reformation • Religious wars that resulted from the split • Attempt to stamp out unorthodox pre-Christian beliefs in order to shore up power of church

  5. Political Change • Growing power of the state (France, England, Spain, Netherlands) • Tension among smaller states (German states, for instance) • Attempt to stamp out popular culture to shore up the power of the state

  6. Social and Economic Change • Peasant unrest • Elite unrest (waning power of nobility) • Inflation • Capitalism Note: Conditions created an atmosphere in which it was easier for the trials to occur

  7. Laws and Legal Procedure • Inquisitorial system of criminal procedure in secular and ecclesiastical courts (England, which was under common law, was different.) • Full-time judges investigated crimes, arrested and interrogated suspects, handed down sentences. These phases were not clear-cut. • There was no jury. • Proceedings in court were closed to the public. • Torture was allowed. • Conviction required a confession or two eye-witnesses. • Convictions could be appealed. • Secular courts gaining jurisdiction over prosecution of witchcraft in many places • Little interference with local and regional courts by central authorities

  8. What Response to Change? • Sexual repression (witches represented sex out of control) • Affirmation of patriarchy • Affirmation of church hierarchy • Affirmation of state authority • Crack-down on popular culture

  9. Fear of change leads to fear of the other • Other as projection • Peasant widow witch is triply other • Female • Without a man • Old and poor • BUT • Not true everywhere in Europe • Some witchcraft trials show a long process of alienation. Note: An article by Edward Bever asserts that early modern women acted more like witches than men – they were more likely to poison enemies, use ritual magic, and show great anger because these were the weapons available to them.

  10. Dangerous witches Weak, so susceptible to devil’s advances Sexually powerful through association with devil, so able to seduce men into sin Important during marginal spaces – the intersection between life and death. (Women were the midwives. Women prepared the bodies of the dead.) Durer, Three Witches

  11. Where?

  12. The witchcraft scares began where the Italian states, German states, France, and Switzerland meet. Why? Protestant-Catholic conflict? Pagan cults?

  13. Witchcraft prosecution was most intense in: • Scotland • Parts of England • Southwest German states • Switzerland • Austria • Low countries Why?

  14. Top down or filter up? • Was the great fear of witches an invention of elites (top down theory)? • Did it filter up from peasant pre-Christian beliefs (filter up theory)? • OR . . .

  15. The Elite View of the Witch

  16. Elite View of the Witch • Rising fear of devil • Notions about women • associated with original sin (Eve) • Associated with animality, the body – the body is earthly, opposed to the soul • See Malleus Maleficarum (Sourcebook, pp. 57-68, 123-127) • Association of sorcery (making magic) with heresy (holding an opinion or acting in opposition to the orthodox doctrine of the church). This association is unique to Early Modern Europe.

  17. This influential work, written by two Dominicans, Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, was published in 1484. Its ideas of witches were held by many of the elites.

  18. Rising Power of Devil The devil in this picture shows signs of paganism – he seems to be part goat. The “witch” is actually an alchemist, one of those intellectuals who sought to turn lead into gold and other “magic.” He could be Faust. This is just one version of the witch under the power of the devil.

  19. Seduction by the devil The goat-like demon here presents his back end to the woman. A common element of ritual life is that of reversal or “upside-down-ness,” which plays upon opposites. The demon shows the most vulgar part of his body, the opposite of the face, perhaps.

  20. Women in League with the Devil This demon has bird-like characteristics, showing the animality of evil.

  21. The woman worships the reptilian-avian-monkey demon. Note his human torso, legs, and arms. – And his modesty.

  22. Diabolism and the Witch: The Elite View • The witch makes a pact (the diabolic pact) with the devil in order to gain supernatural power. • This is heresy because she (or he) gives allegiance to the devil rather than God and so repudiates divine authority.

  23. The Witch in Popular Culture

  24. Pre-Christian beliefs exist along with Catholicism • Syncretism*: • Catholicism overlays pre-Christian belief • Catholic practice arises from pre-Christian belief *Look it up!

  25. The Peasant Witch • A healer, white witch, cunning woman • A witch able, by magic, to cause disaster (malefice, evil eye) • Deaths • Storms • Bad harvest • Siamese twins • Is usually a socially approved deviant

  26. Peasant witch with Magical PowersThis witch is probably cooking up a potion. Note the dead animal and animal parts on the floor.

  27. This witch is causing a pain in the foot. Creepy-crawlies are associated with witchcraft.

  28. A witch stealing milk rides on a Star of David. Sometimes prejudice against Jews was linked to witchcraft. However, Jews could not be heretics because they were not Catholics.

  29. These witches are cooking up a storm.

  30. As are these. Witches were often portrayed as naked. Why?

  31. Again, naked witches brew up a storm. Notice the witch flying on a goat in the background and the animal parts on the ground

  32. Some witches had the ability to fly, sometimes out of body, usually at night. They possibly were members of pre-Christian fertility cults. Example: the benandante of Fruili (good witches), born with a caul (amniotic sac) on their heads as a sign they were witches, supposedly flew out of their bodies to a meadow to fight for the harvest against bad witches. (See Carlo Ginzberg, Night Battles.)

  33. Applying flying ointment. Some historians speculate that drugs were involved in witchcraft.

  34. More flyers. The man in red is a common figure in tales about night-flying witches. He is usually the leader. The witches flew on brooms, yes, but also on animals.

  35. The witches would meet in a remote place, often a meadow.

  36. A good witch, not necessarily a night flyer, fighting demons

  37. Church Elite Transforms pre-Christian Ceremony

  38. Witches’ Sabbat (or Black Mass) A pre-Christian rite (harvest festival, say) transformed by church doctrine into an upside-down mass? According to this piece of lore, which probably emanated from the elites, the participants worshiped the Devil instead of God and engaged in lewd behavior that aped some part of Catholic ritual. For instance, they would kiss the demon’s rear, the opposite of kissing the pope’s ring.

  39. Persecution of Witches • Both Protestants and Catholics persecuted witches. • Often several members of a family were accused of witchcraft. • The typical witch in Western Europe was female, alone, and old. • Trials occurred in secular as well as ecclesiastical courts. • Witchcraft was a crime as well as a sin.

  40. Finding witches Some made a profession out of it. Matthew Hopkins, English witch hunter, 1644

  41. Catholics Lower rate of convictions More accusations of malefice More emphasis on Devil’s Sabbat Protestants Higher rate of executions Fewer accusations of malefice More emphasis on diabolic pact Catholics and Protestants

  42. England Common law forbade torture Accusation more often from below Explanation as guilt of accuser Continent Torture Accusation more often from above More trials (superstructure of myth of Satanic witches and sabbat) England vs. the Continent

  43. The Trials How to prove someone’s a witch? • Devil’s mark or witch’s tit (post 1560) • Testimony by witnesses • Torture

  44. Why were persecutions supported by the folk? • Widow witch danger to family • Accuser and accused in social relation • Peasants infantilized and terrorized by state • Collective psychodrama • Oppressive social structure

  45. And. . . • Scapegoating • Power fight • Code of neighborliness replaced by competition • Outlet for aggression • Rural malaise

  46. Torture

  47. Water torture

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