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.
The rise in witch hunts was a way to take control over women. Women typically played vital roles as caretaker, healers, and nurturers using combinations of experience gained from practices and new techniques to heal the ill. These skills which were once respected as sacred were now being sought out as works of malevolence. Priests and educated doctors viewed women as threats to their practices. Women were blamed and used as scapegoats for birth defects, male impotency and lack of control of their sexual desires.
Witchcraft was relentlessly thought as the work of the devil with only sinful and immoral intentions. Julio Caro Baroja explains in his book on Basque witchcraft that women who were out casted from society and unable to fulfill their womanly duties became witches as a way to compensate for her failed life. They were thought to be a threat to society as they dwindled in evil magic. This misunderstanding may have originated from the literary works of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, in their published book, “Malleus Maleficarum”. Accusations of being adulterous, liars and dealing with the devil materialized because of the...
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...they don’t understand. Reactions of witch-hunts were based on misconceived panic and anxiety of anything outside of the common religious beliefs. Because of poor record keeping, the exact numbers of men and women persecuted on the account of being witches may never be accurate enough to decide if it was an issue of misogyny.
Citation
Anne Llewellyn Barstow, “On Studying Witchcraft as Women History,” pp. 279-288 in J. Mitchell, Helen Buss Mitchell (2010) Taking Sides. Clashing Views in World History. Volume I: The Ancient World to the Pre-Modern World. 3rd ed. Dubuque, IA: MeGraw-Hill
Robin Briggs. “Women as Victims? Witches, Judges and the Community,” pp. 288-296 J. Mitchell, Helen Buss Mitchell (2010) Taking Sides. Clashing Views in World History. Volume I: The Ancient World to the Pre-Modern World. 3rd ed. Dubuque, IA: MeGraw-Hill
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.
Witchcraft has always fascinated many people and been a very controversial topic in North America during the seventeenth and 17th centuries. Many people believe that witchcraft implies the ability to injure or use supernatural power to harm others. People believed that a witch represented the dark side of female presence and were more likely to embrace witchcraft than men. There are still real witches among us in the Utah who believe that witchcraft is the oldest religion dealing with the occult. However, the popular conception of a witch has not changed at least since the seventeenth century; they still caused panic, fear and a variety of other emotions in people.
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.
Many believed that these witches observed a nocturnal Sabbath where they worshipped the devil and paid their homage to him. They were also accused of being an organization known for its cannibalistic practices of infanticide incest. Another component of this cumulative concept was the belief of the flight of witches. The belief for this was contributed to by the assumption that witches took flight from their homes to goto nocturnal meetings without their absence from home being detected. The belief in “flying night witches” was shared by many cultures in the modern world. These women were referred to as strigae, which was one of the many Latin terms for witches. As the reader first opens the legal foundations of witch-hunting, one finds that historically it was a judicial process from discovery to elimination. Levack states that before the thirteenth century European courts used a system of criminal procedure that made all crimes difficult to prosecute.
Puritans believed in the devil and his role as strong as they believed in God and his role. For many centuries, Puritans had the idea that the weakest individuals in society often committed diabolical acts and sins. Furthermore, Satan selected the most vulnerable individuals to do his bidding, among these individuals, women were often held responsible for many sins, including witchcraft. (Godbeer 12). According to Richard Godbeer, in his book, The Salem Witch Hunt, “it was Eve who first gave away to Satan and seduced Adam.” (Godbeer 12). In 1692, witchcraft became a panic among Puritan society. Even though both men and women were accused of witchcraft, women were seventy-six percent more likely to be accused in Salem than men. (Godbeer 12). Puritan society was a male dominate society and men looked down upon women. There were two particular reasons to why women were often accused of being witches. The first reason, was in due to the Puritan belief that women were the source of evil. The second reason was because of certain events that associated with accusations. These events were being of relatively low social status and income, being rich or financially independent and being a midwife or nurse.
The notorious witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts occurred from June through September. It is a brief, but turbulent period in history and the causes of the trials have long been a source of discussion among historians. Many try to explain or rationalize the bizarre happenings of the witch hunts and the causes that contributed to them. To understand the trials and how they came to be, we must first examine the ideals and views of the people surrounding the events. Although religious beliefs were the most influential factor, socioeconomic tensions, and ergot poisoning are also strongly supported theories. A combination of motives seems the most rational explanation of the frenzy that followed the illness of the two girls. This paper looks closely at the some of the possible causes of one of the most notable occurrences in history.
Concerning why the witch hunts occurred when they did the agreed upon opinion by all three author’s is the social unrest and uncertainty felt due to the Protestant Reformation and the schism it created amongst the populace, the effects of recovering from plague and war, and the enforced patriarchal structure of a society that was changing. It was during the Reformation that Christian...
The world never seems to learn from its mistakes. Experiences that humanity never wanted to see again are surprisingly still present in today’s society. The Salem Witch Trials of 1693 are one of these experiences. Witch-hunts usually involve moral panic or mass hysteria, and in Salem’s case, the hanging of 19 people (Notes). Unfortunately, witch-hunts are still seen today. They target large masses of innocent people, often times because they fit a certain stereotype. Most of society does not want witch-hunts but personal and society values clash creating a hysteria-filled witch-hunt. The Crucible truly embodies the atmosphere and origin of witch-hunts. It shows that fear, strong beliefs, and greed cause both ancient and modern-day witch-hunts.
Throughout the witch trials many were accused, both male and females; however, most of the time women were to blame for witchcraft. Individuals could be considered witches if there was an argument between neighbors,
The witches of older literatures were the stereotyped images showing more a hybrid creature with some similarity to a woman. These women were isolated and alienated from the society and lived on the fringes of civilization. They became trope for something much larger. It was the personification of the inner fear of man towards women. “These are the same fears that led early modems to demonize the domestic scold or any woman attempting to usurp patriarchal power structures or gender hierarchies” (Williams 3). They were repulsive and did not evoke any empathy or pathos but rather we felt only fear and
In 1487, two Dominican inquisitors Henirich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger wrote the Malleus Maleficarum, in English can be translated to the Hammer of Witches. The Malleus Maleficarum was a one of a kind document, meaning that it was the first document that laid the official groundwork for how to prosecute people who were believed to have used witchcraft. Kramer and Sprenger believed that women were more likely to be prosecuted as witches than men because they believed that women had wicked tendencies. This belief has angered many women in the present day and they believe that this document has a deep prejudice against women. This paper will state the reasons why Kramer and Sprenger believe that women are more likely to be witches as well as
Sidky, H. Witchcraft, lycanthropy, drugs, and disease: an anthropological study of the European witch-hunts. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 1997.
For many centuries to the present day, Christians have lived in fear of witches. They were known as to be the devils child who only practiced black magic and thought of as the Christians “persecution”. Witches have been known to mankind since the 1200’s. Throughout the 1400’s, the examination of witches was more focus and moved from the Jews. In the church’s law, it was stated that the belief of existence and practices of witchcraft was “heresy”. Because of what the Christians believed, churches would then torture and hunt down anyone who they thought were witches and killed the many women and only a few of the men. They even made them make the confession of flying through the midnight sky, being in love with the devil himself, practicing black magic and even turning into animals.
Hans Baldung 'Grien', 1510. The Hammer and the Hunt 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
A witch hunt is usually thought of as a search for witches or practitioners of black magic. Throughout history however there have been many witch hunts, although those who were persecuted were not always called witches. Other names for them were communists, spies, and heretics. The arrests spawned from these witch hunts were usually based on false accusations, and the fates of those on trial, such as those portrayed in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, were usually decided before the trial even began. After discovering about witch hunts time and time again one begins to wonder why there have been so many witch hunts all over the world in all different times. Many experts believe that the causes of witch hunts, no matter what time period, is the result of “everyone is looking for someone to blame” (Shermer) for the troubles in their lives when they cannot take the responsibility themselves.