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Witchcraft during the 17th century
Witches in the 16th century
Witchcraft through the centuries
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Recommended: Witchcraft during the 17th century
In England, during the 15th and 16th centuries, the previously underground and ignored practice of witchcraft became an offense that was punishable by death. Women were the majority of the citizens who were tried for the crime of witchcraft. The belief that they were given their supernatural powers by the devil and aimed to crush all Christian values and people caused their excessive persecution.1 This paper will explain why most individuals accused of witchcraft in England were women and will be backed by primary sources from a variety of historical individuals and also secondary sources from various historical backgrounds. King James I was particularly interested in witchcraft and through his life changed his opinion about how those suspected of witchcraft should be treated. Before 1590, the practice of witchcraft and its adherents were generally ignored. When King James I published the documents of Daemonologie, the persecution of those suspected of practicing witchcraft accelerated because James and his followers believed that witches were a threat to him and all other Christians.2 Reginald Scot became one of the few opposed to the accusations of witchcraft and he detailed his beliefs in his book, Discoveries of Witchcraft, written in 1584. When the witch- hunts were coming to end, hundreds of mostly English women would be tortured and then hanged. The accusations would generally cease by the 18th century, when people became tired of the false accusations, unnecessary tribulations, and the deaths of many innocents.
King James I was the King of England from 1567 to 1625. King James is important because under his authority more trials were held than any other time before in England.3 King James's ship carrying him an...
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...understanding. It is in part because of the beliefs of that time that many people held that men were superior to women in body and mind. That spiritual and physical weakness they perceived in women caused them of consorting with the Devil to easily accuse women. The accused women that were hanged were executed because of the individuals who believed that they were superior than them. This kind of dangerous thinking meant death for women who were seen as a threat to the scared men.
Works Cited
Ankerloo, Bengt Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Period of the Witch Trials. The Athlone Press 2002.
Burns, William Witch Hunts in Europe and America. Greenwood 2003.
James the 1st Daemonologie Dodo Press 1597.
Kors, Alan Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700. University of Pennsylvania Press 2000.
Scot, Reginald Discoveries of Witchcraft. Dover Publications 1584.
The Devil in the Form of a woman by Carol Karlsen details the particular treacheries towards several women of all ages inside colonial The us. This particular thought ended up being created by the male driven culture of the Puritans.. Other than as an evident disciple to the activist institution connected with traditional imagined, the girl delicate factors the particular criticalness connected with witchcraft allegations for ladies inside New England. She contends for that relevance and criticalness connected with women's areas in the devouring madness connected with witchcraft inside seventeenth century United States. She unobtrusively states that many diversions were being used to mince away witchcraft practices along with the publication of material describing the matter. This describes that a certain type of woman gambled denunciation away from scope to help the woman group gain correct portrayal in the public forum.
Sebald, Hans, Ph.D. Witch-Children: from Salem Witch-Hunts to Modern Courtrooms. New York: Prometheus Books, 1995.
Throughout the late 17th century and into the early 18th century witchcraft prosecutions had been declining. This trend was the result of a multitude of social developments which altered the mentality of society. One of the predominant factors in this decline was the Scientific Revolution, the most important effect of these advances was making society question concepts of witchcraft. Along with this new mental outlook, we see that the Reformation had a similar effect on social opinion concerning witchcraft and magic. These two developments changed societies view on the occult and this led to a wider scepticism concerning witchcraft, this favoured those who had been accused and therefore caused a decline in prosecutions. Beyond the two trends mentioned however, it is important to consider judicial reforms and an improved socio-economic situation which reduced tensions within society. These two changes were certainly not as influential as the Scientific Revolution and the Reformation but heavily altered the circumstances in which accusations were normally made. With the altered social attitudes and mental outlook these changes in living situations all contributed to bring about the decline in witchcraft prosecutions.
Witchfinders is a book by Malcolm Gaskill that looks upon strategies that were employed by two Christian crusaders in their quest to mitigate witches in England. The book explores England’s important story and the biggest witch hunt. In the book, Gaskill brings out issues relating to religious and social lives in a very fascinating way. The whole book brings to right ways that witch-finders used to support their brutality and bloodshed in the ancient England notably through biblical justifications. In the book either, the author brings out the demonic ways of the 1640s in East Anglia and through keen analyzes of the factors that are being stipulated in the book one can factor out the rotten society in the time and to some degree relate this to the current society and religious behaviors. The current paper looks upon the short and long term factors
Morton, Peter Alan, and Barbara Dähms. The Trial of Tempel Anneke: Records of a Witchcraft Trial in Brunswick, Germany, 1663. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2006.
Hinds, Maurene J. Witchcraft on Trial: From the Salem Witch Hunts to the Crucible. Library ed. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2009. Print.
During the 1690s, the Salem Witchcraft Trials occurred. However, they did not start in Salem, they occurred first in Danver (Starkey vii). This atrocity of an event was first started because of the fantasies of very little girls. These girl’s accusations created the largest example of witch hysteria on record (Starkey viii). During this time, the authorities had arrested over 150 people from more than two different towns (Gragg ix). Salem however, was not the only town that had girls saying there were witches in their town (Godbeer ix). Many people tried to escape, but that didn’t go to well for them (Godbeer x).
The term witchcraft is defines as the practice of magic intended to influence nature. It is believed that only people associated with the devil can perform such acts. The Salem Witch Trials was much more than just America’s history, it’s also part of the history of women. The story of witchcraft is first and foremost the story of women. Especially in its western life, Karlsen (1989) noted that “witchcraft challenges us with ideas about women, with fears about women, with the place of women in society and with women themselves”. Witchcraft also confronts us too with violence against women. Even through some men were executed as witches during the witch hunts, the numbers were far less then women. Witches were generally thought to be women and most of those who were accused and executed for being witches were women. Why were women there so many women accused of witchcraft compared to men? Were woman accused of witchcraft because men thought it was a way to control these women? It all happened in 1692, in an era where women were expected to behave a certain way, and women were punished if they threatened what was considered the right way of life. The emphasis of this paper is the explanation of Salem proceedings in view of the role and the position of women in Colonial America.
The epoch of Medieval European history concerning the vast and complicated witch hunts spanning from 1450 to 1750 is demonstrative of the socioeconomic, religious, and cultural changes that were occurring within a population that was unprepared for the reconstruction of society. Though numerous conclusions concerning the witch trials, why they occurred, and who was prosecuted have been founded within agreement there remains interpretations that expand on the central beliefs. Through examining multiple arguments a greater understanding of this period can be observed as there remains a staggering amount of catalysts and consequences that emerged. In the pursuit of a greater understanding three different interpretations will be presented. These interpretations which involve Brian Levack’s “The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe,” Eric Boss’s “Syphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-Century Europe,” and Nachman Ben-Yehuda’s “The European Witch Craze of the 14th to 17th centuries: A Sociologist’s Perspective,” share various opinions while developing their own theories. The comparison of these observations will focus upon why the witch trials occurred when they did, why did they stop when they did, why did the witch trials occur when they did, and who was persecuted and who was responsible for the identification and punishing of witches.
Once the accusations began, many innocent people in the community were taken away. They were then either forced to admit that they were witches, to free themselves from a public hanging, or deny that they were witches, saving their integrity, but subjecting themselves to an unjust public hanging.
The Salem witch trials began with the accusation of people in Salem of being witches. But the concept of witchcraft started far before these trials and false accusations occurred. In the early Christian centuries, the church was relatively tolerant of magical practices. Those who were proved to have engaged in witchcraft were required only to do penance. But in the late Middle Ages (13th century to 14th century) opposition to alleged witchcraft hardened as a result of the growing belief that all magic and miracles that did not come unambiguously from God came from the Devil and were therefore manifestations of evil. Those who practiced simple sorcery, such as village wise women, were increasingly regarded as practitioners of diabolical witchcraft. They came to be viewed as individuals in league with Satan. Nearly all those who fell under suspicion of witchcraft were women, evidently regarded by witch-hunters as especially
Were the witch-hunts in pre-modern Europe misogynistic? Anne Llewellyn Barstow seems to think so in her article, “On Studying Witchcraft as Women’s History: A Historiography of the European Witch Persecutions”. On the contrary, Robin Briggs disagrees that witch-hunts were not solely based on hatred for women as stated in his article, “Women as Victims? Witches, Judges and the Community”. The witch craze that once rapidly swept through Europe may have been because of misconstrued circumstances. The evaluation of European witch-hunts serves as an opportunity to delve deeper into the issue of misogyny.
McBain, J. ‘The Salem Witch Trials: A Primary Source History of the Witchcraft Trials in Salem, Massachusetts’, (Rosen Publishing Group, New York, 2002)
Sidky, H. Witchcraft, lycanthropy, drugs, and disease: an anthropological study of the European witch-hunts. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 1997.
Witchcraft persecution peaked in intensity between 1560 and 1630 however the large scale witch hysteria began in the 14th century, at the end of the Middle Ages and were most intense during the Renaissance and continued until the 18th century, an era often referred to as the Enlightenment or Age of Reason. Representation of witches, nay, representation in general is a political issue. Without the power ot define the female voice and participate in decisions that affect women -similar to other marginalised groups in society- will be subject to the definitions and decisions of those in power. In this context, the power base lay with men. It can be said that the oppression of women may not have been deliberate, it is merely a common sense approach to the natural order of things: women have babies, women are weak, women are dispensable. However the natural order of things, the social constructs reflect the enduring success of patriarchal ideology. As such, ideology is a powerful source of inequality as well as a rationalisation of it. This essay will examine the nature of witchcraft and why it was threatening to Christianity.