Middle Ages Magic and Witchcraft

Question 1

What are the three periods of the middle ages in regards to magic?

Answer 1

Conversion Period: 5th-12th century
12th Century Renaissance
Late Middle Ages: 14th-15th Century

Question 2

How is the conversion period identified?

Answer 2

A period of identity formation specifically for the christian community
- greco roman influences dying out
- transition to orthodoxy
- increased accusations of heresy
- establishment of creeds

Question 3

how was magic defined during the conversion period?

Answer 3

magic depicted as illusionary and deceptive
1. not seen as a real thing
2. seen as paganism
Hagiographies
1. writings by saints
2. medical texts that scholars identified as magic such as amulets, healing by touch
3. manipulation of nature that midern science doesn’t explain but considered good as they are practiced by saints

Question 4

How is the 12th Century Reinaissance identified?

Answer 4

Beginning of the crusades
western contact with eastern populations
rise of scholasticism and universities
distinction between high and low magic deepened

Question 5

How was astrology and alchemy viewed during the 12th century renaissance?

Answer 5

secretive, scholarly, eventually named occult sciences

Question 6

How are the Late Middle Ages identified?

Answer 6

witches and witchcraft being associated with trickery, the devil, heresy, a growing belief that magic is real, prosecution of magic practitioners

Question 7

What were the Teutonic Crusades?

Answer 7

Western Europes attempt in converting Eastern Europe to Christianity

Question 8

What European country was the last to convert to Christianity?

Answer 8

Lithuania

Question 9

Why was the baptism of Mindaguas significant?

Answer 9

• significant because it was the first instance but it didn’t matter to the populations
• if you wanted power and recognition you needed to go through certain rituals

Question 10

Why did the Christians build a cathedral over a pagan temple?

Answer 10

because the land/site was still significant to people, allowed them to take over the sacredness of the space

Question 11

What is the Malleus Maleficarum?

Answer 11

A text written by Heinrich Kramer going preaching against witchcraft and saying that magic is real

Question 12

When and why did witches start to be deemed as untrustworthy in Lithuania?

Answer 12

After the success of the Roman Catholic Church in the 17th centyry

Question 13

What is significant about the Malleus Maleficarum

Answer 13

Was made extremely popular due to the printing press, first paper document linking witches to the devil, places emphasis on the evil aspect of witches

Question 14

What were the 3 parts of the Malleus Maleficarum?

Answer 14

Part 1: Developed Theological Theory
Part 2: Discusses recruitment of witches and types of witchcraft
Part 3: Recommendations on how to prosecute witches

Question 15

What was in Part 1: Developed Theological Theory of the Malleus Maleficarum?

Answer 15

proving the existence of witches, magic, and witchcraft
said that anyone who thought witches/magic werent real were heretic
discussed why women were more likely to be a witch rather than men

Question 16

How does the malleus explain why women are more likely to be witches?

Answer 16

women are more impressionable and have slippery tongues: more susceptible to being in league with the devil cos they are naive, impressionable, and ready to receive evil spirits, cos women are more emotional

Question 17

What were some of the recommendations made on how to prosecute a witch?

Answer 17

• wanted prosecution in secular courts
• advocate of the witch could get ex communicated if defending heresy
• described how to obtain a confession
  
  • done through certain amounts of torture and persuasion

Question 18

What is the Sauducismus Triumphatus?

Answer 18

A book written by Joseph Glanvill (1668) and published posthumously in 1681 by Henry More

Question 19

What does the Sauducismus talk about?

Answer 19

Glanvills experience of witch trials, argued for the existence of witches and the supernatural, said its all in the bible, discusses the witches sabbat and the island of Blockula, the witches bottle

Question 20

How was magic viewed in the Late Middle Ages?

Answer 20

seen as evil, this shift impacted common/low magic practices the most while high magic was still seen as a science
- more perceived evidence of witches and witchcraft emerged

Question 21

How did the shifting views of magic in the Late Middle Ages affect people?

Answer 21

outsider groups seen evil in addition to magic, more accustations and prosecutions of witchcraft

Question 22

How was witchcraft understood during the witchhunts/trials?

Answer 22

1. practice of maleficia (harmful magic)
2. diabolism (devil worship)

Question 23

What were harmful magic practices?

Answer 23

• caused storms, causing death of people or animals, producing impotence
• reflect fear of sorcerer and their sense of power associated with nature
• representing the wildness and unpredictability of nature opposed to civilized humanity

Question 24

What was Diabolism?

Answer 24

• the devotee would renounce christianity, make a pact with satan and got a reward
• this pact would include the Obscene kiss
• had witches “Sabbats” consisted of collective satan worship
• role of flight
• opposition to normatice behaviour such as homosexual/heterosexual orgies, desecration of the cross, nudity, incest, child sacrifices

Question 25

Why were most of the witch trials ran by secular courts?

Answer 25

Had looser rules on torture methods

Question 26

What did a typical witch trial process look like?

Answer 26

an individual arouses suspicion, neighbours try to address the problem, resort to an accusation, local elites make a formal charge, arrest the accused, local judges try the case

Question 27

When did the Witch Hunts occur?

Answer 27

Between 1450-1750, were usually sporadic and localized

Question 28

What happened during a witch trial?

Answer 28

calling witnesses, search for witches mark, interrogation and torture/pain (sleep deprivation as a tactic) Judges would try and get witches to name accomplices

Question 29

What were the Mora Witch Trials?

Answer 29

A mass trial in sweden after children accused people of abducting them,

Question 30

Who was usually deemed a witch during this time?

Answer 30

Mostly women
Particularily old, widowed women, lower class citizens

Question 31

Witch Trials in America

Answer 31

Most famous being in Salem, due to puritans ,economic divide, religious reasons

Question 32

What were the reasons for the witch hunts?

Answer 32

Attacking specific targets such as women or lower class/socially outcast people
attack on midwives and healers due to the displeasure that they held authority
pagan hunts
large social change