Witchcraft

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Witchcraft

• In Early Modern Europe

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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.)

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Why then?

• A response to change? What change?

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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Dangerous witches

• Weak, so susceptible to devils 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
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Where?
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The witchcraft scares began where the Italian
states, German states, France, and Switzerland
meet. Why? Protestant-Catholic conflict? Pagan
cults?
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Witchcraft prosecution was most intense in

• Scotland
• Parts of England
• Southwest German states
• Switzerland
• Austria
• Low countries
• Why?

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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 . . .

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The Elite View of the Witch
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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.

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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.
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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.
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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.
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Women in League with the Devil
This demon has bird-like characteristics, showing
the animality of evil.
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The woman worships the reptilian-avian-monkey
demon. Note his human torso, legs, and arms.
And his modesty.
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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.

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The Witch in Popular Culture
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• Pre-Christian beliefs exist along with
  Catholicism
• Syncretism
• Catholicism overlays pre-Christian belief
• Catholic practice arises from pre-Christian
  belief
• Look it up!

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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

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Peasant witch with Magical PowersThis witch is
probably cooking up a potion. Note the dead
animal and animal parts on the floor.
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This witch is causing a pain in the foot.
Creepy-crawlies are associated with witchcraft.
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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.
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These witches are cooking up a storm.
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As are these. Witches were often portrayed as
naked. Why?
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Again, naked witches brew up a storm. Notice the
witch flying on a goat in the background and the
animal parts on the ground
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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.)
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Applying flying ointment. Some historians
speculate that drugs were involved in witchcraft.
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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.
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The witches would meet in a remote place, often
a meadow.
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A good witch, not necessarily a night flyer,
fighting demons
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Church Elite Transforms pre-Christian Ceremony
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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 demons
  rear, the opposite of kissing the popes ring.

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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.

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Finding witches

• Some made a profession out of it.

Matthew Hopkins, English witch hunter, 1644
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Catholics and Protestants

• Catholics
• Lower rate of convictions
• More accusations of malefice
• More emphasis on Devils Sabbat

• Protestants
• Higher rate of executions
• Fewer accusations of malefice
• More emphasis on diabolic pact

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England vs. the Continent

• 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)

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The Trials

• How to prove someones a witch?
• Devils mark or witchs tit (post 1560)
• Testimony by witnesses
• Torture

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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

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And. . .

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

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Torture
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Water torture
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Why? Just cruel?
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Why confess?

• Mythomaniac
• Really is a witch
• Desire to save soul

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Executions

• Burned, hanged, executed by other means

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Burning
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Hanging
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Burning (England)
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Drowning
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Why did the period of many witchcraft trials end?