witchcraft Flashcards
early origins witchcraft England
-origins in Theodore of tarsus and Alfred the great
- from 15thc people arriving eg w stories of witchcraft or witch persecution as her fled to eng
-seeming lack of suspicion until 1563
some loose suspicion pre 1653
treatment of treasur hunting-
witchcraft act 1541- directed at quack doctors- notestein
this act rolled back under Somerset, lack of resistance from church evidence minimal controversy witchcraft caused
treatment treasure hunting
experimnetures conjure and dig like dowsing- Henry 8th sold rights to practice in locality, low price seem indicate minimal consideration of importance gave to it
1563 act
- catalysed by Fortescue affair 1558
- criminalised murder, injury and property damage done by witchcraft
- no evidence of demonic pact but specific fixation on maleficium
Fortescue affair
1558
wealthy Catholic, he had cast a horoscope for the Queen’s life which predicted her death
1558
fortescue affair
witchcraft under elizabeth
-trails and elections lower first half e reign, ramp up second half
- opposite direction to gov interest which decreased
- sharps words- no trials and executions ‘steadily increased’ throughout the elizabethan reign
witchcraft under james
rises further
by 1633
- minimal trails
- 11 year old boy Edmund Robinson actually taken from his village and made to recant by the Privy Council. (1633)
- 1636: Elizabeth Stiles acquitted due to patchy evidence, encouraged to level a slander suit and given three of the most pre-eminent junior lawyers – John Glanvile, Henry Rolle and Nathaniel Finch – to do so.
civil war witchcraft
reignites
hopkins witchfinder general- responsible 300 trials 100 esecutions
-focus on devil for eng- due to Hopkins interrogation technique
- low level of acquittals- resembling panic- use of tortue
uses sleep deprivation on victims
1650s witchcraft
popular scepticism in eng growing
Richard franck and officer Cromwell army recounted how he and regiment laughed at a hag threatened to curse them in Scotland
1660 onwards witchcraft
sharp emphasises importance of growing rationalisty
religion as origins of withcraft
- fact many curses bastardised catholic aves, creeds, paternosters or odes often in latin create assc
- religious unorthodoxy frowned on
- Robert Wallis- Catholic Church in reformation attacked doctrine of transit as magical act
- reformation changes
reformation led to growing witchcraft
- new religion less effective-
- heightened conformity makes more noticeable and punishable
- more engaged informed and ecucated religious laity
- response to unfulfilling ‘new ‘ religion - as linked to new religion less effective
port less effective
explaining ones own misfortune
expunging ones own guilt
maintaining community cohesion
as poor relief
refuting of puritan argument
glifford
sharp
Clifford on puritan argument
no godly zeal but furious rage
sharp- puritan argument
arminianism as a source of moderation causes the decline in number of trails
arguments against puritanism
- water punishments and wider disorders with witch trial son scriptural roots- as heretical as witches
- Matthew hokins no conscious faith at all
- eng- toleration of cunning men- interesting considering lack of theological emphasis, no demonic pact
- civil war heightened- political
- timing
- theological/church
refutation puritan argument- civil war
- parliamentary hotspots- east anglia
- yet in these areas emphasis on social control
- ups in parliamentary zones encouraged trials as a source of zeal and militancy w larger parliamentary taxes- general greater pressure
refutation puritan argument- timimg
Witch trials occurred in the 1560s and 70s before Puritanism had taken hold; neither did they end in 1583 with the fall of Grindal or in 1586 with Bishop Alymer’s crushing of Puritan Classical movement
refutation of puritan argument- theological
Collinson: illustrated no correlation between presence of a Puritan minister and witchtrials.
- As written in Scott, both Calvin and Augustine were sceptics and argued the age of miracles was over.
-Church courts were more lenient and had a higher acquittal rate.
- Only 5% of charged were church recusants, no correlation.
science and witchcraft
Isaac Newton (providentialism) and Boyle (all sorts of occult!), Dee shows the line; Diderot believed in the cult, yet one of the faces of the Enlightenment
politics and statebuilding- witchcraft
- Elizabeth influence
- increasing under James inc treasure hunters
- fits into ideas of social control and rise of sumptuary laws
- Elmer
- declines post 1688
politics and witchcraft- e
empowered ups launch investigations
1566 trial in Cheshire, sir John Fortescue, sir Gilbert Gerrard, John southcote all present
evidencing high level of official interest
politics and witchcraft and Ames
- modifies law along lines of demonic pact
- av persecutions under james 2x elizabeth
- 17/37 executions under James not related to mruder- unlikely to result in death sentence before modification
- treasure hunters under James threatened with imprisonment and pillory and executionf or a second offence 0 new
Elmer and witcraft
importance seeing witchcraft and politics togethr
argues for the need to consider the 1661 trials in light of rage of party during the restoration
why decline in witch trail and suspicion post 1688
acceptance of pluralism
clark and waite
charity refused model
- Macfarlane and Thomas argued that accusations reflect an inner tension in Scotland between the obligation to give charity- Leviticus 25:35 which persisted bu the waning communal values and sense of social responsibility which had gone alongside it
- removes cult from refusal
- witch epitomised older social sanctions and collectivist ideolog- each individual responsible for other
- explains why flow of accusations from slightly richer to poorer, younger to older
- radical not con phenomenon
charity refused model examples
out of 43 trails uncovered by Macfarlane in Essex pamphlets all 43 had this in common - narrative of begging refused, grumbling, misfortune happening to refuse, accusation
- Only 50/460 accusations in the assizes 1563-1603 place the victim and perpetrator in different villages
Maliowski- charity refused model
evidence of this exact phenomenon in his fieldwork in Melanesia in the 20th Century: witchcraft allegations alleviate the frustration and anxiety presented by a problem. It is also a useful way for a community to stigmatise witches which it perceived as a drain on itself.
Voltmer: “climate of credulity”
gender
- prukiss- men accused demonstrably higher wealth and status incoprerated into wider comp- throckmortens and Samuels in carboys 1593
- 50-70y av- not attack ideal women more likely to be widows in need on charity
stats gender
Yorkshire: Victims 22 male, 21 female
Accusations 19 male, 27 female (and at a time when women very rarely give evidence in the assizes)
law and witchcraft
judicial rev- depersonalised justice and made frivolous suits easier
Macfarlane tension over impartible inheritancee
ryrie and witchcraft
bureaucracy is inimical to panics
diff in eng and Scottish legal treatment
Scottish use of torture
- eng trial by jury and longer process
- eng cases happen by the assize courts whereas in scot 90% held locally and presided over by local gentry, clergymen or occials - linked to village politics more likely to take dubious evidence at face value- hence eng execution 22 and scot 83% Philip greogry
historian on legal changes
voltmer- growth of state monopoly over jurisdiction meant witch hunters act on behalf of state /controled by state not by indeoendents behalf king or god
IThis shift helped reduce the number of witch trials because the state often required stronger evidence and was more skeptical of witchcraft accusations.
more state control over trial
small pop diff eng and scot
scot 1k executions lamer- double that of eng
country much smaller
eng trials isolated on another
scot more suceptivble to mass panic occur on top of usual ‘background rate’
anthropologies max gluckman- accusations and blaming of individ is inevitable in a small fae to face socitey
scotland and rleigion- witchcraft
-29th c rationalists stress importance f bigoted clerics
- murray- paganism
- cowan- attack on witch attack on folk beliefs an attempt to install uniform gold religion
- lucky 18410 scotch witchcraft was the result of scotch puritanism
gender- scot
ruling class campaign of terror- giants women
- women in scot more independent than in eng
- but largely similar for both eng and scot
scotland witchcraft chronology
much later
1590-91- increase witch-hunts response politics
1597- more commissions
1639, 1649- pronouncements tighten up on villains inc witches
1661-2- privy council concerned witchcraft
decline
1590-91 wc scot
Expression of Scottish-Danish solidarity; witch-hunts generated at the same time in Edinburgh and Copenhagen to account for the naval misfortunes precluding Anne and James’ union,.
1597 wc scot
culimation of a policy emphasising the danger of witches and handing out more and more unaccountable commissions. Ends abruptly with their withdrawal,
- 49- wc scot
Pronouncements on the need to tighten up on ‘villains’ including witches
1661-2- wc scot
Privy Council expresses concern about the scale of witchraft and the need to regain control; esp the Earl of Haddington.
decline witchcraft scotland
Decline: privy council expressing concern about torture.
wc and wt and politics- scot
while accepting that accusations come from the prosaic, argues that it was politics which dictated the trials.
witchcraft and gender- scot and eng origins
- Eve and the Fall; Aristotelian hierarchies which view women as imperfectly human
- Biological: through menstruation (Pliny’s quote) and childbirth women were already seen to have somewhat occult powers
- Also, as receivers in the sexual act viewed as insatiable
- Given the anthropological truism that witchcraft belief often reflect in inversion of a society’s positive values, interesting that witches are reverse saints.
- female stereotype so strong in 12c Russia that when looking for witches they simply rounded up the female population.
religion scot wc
- religion more intense in scot
- reformation through gendered lens- larger witchcraft a rearguard against women becoming autonomous religious individ, pro more intensely patriarchal than catholics
- Reginald Scott puritan evangelist but became a conformist for self preservation
less compelling religion and scot wc
with beliefs not shift with theology of reginme
Episcopalian to covanting pres
from below- scot wc
Different, less controlled feudal structure: feuferme
“never want”, 12d silver
Miller and Martin have argued diabolism not as important as Larner suggests
High proportion of communal farming
High proportion of Scottish men go away on military campaign.
accounting diff eng and Scottish wc
- diff legal system
- thus state
- although also geography
- interplay elite and popular beliefs
diff eng and scot wc- diff legal systems
- good acre q whether commissions truly as ferocious as made out
- but contempt hoping to persecute lobbied for a commission revelaling
- eng assize court, professionell central judges- Essex conviction rate 46% execution rate 24%
- scot- central cr 57%, circuit cr 46%, most commonly court of judiciary 96%
- eng exception- Hopkins trails during cw when assizes out of session
diff eng and scott- state link
- growth modern state saw folkloric trad of witches increase
- eng decline post 1625
- scot increase post 1661
how and why did post 1661 scot wt increase
- cw eng not suppressed witchcraft enough
-corrlation between trials of 1661 and the ‘prickers’ (poking blemishes on witches body- said witches have areas where not hurt , judicial wariness set in. - April 1662 Proclamation: suspected witches cannot be arrested without a special warrant; no pricking or torture.
- Judicial scepticism – c.f. Lord Advocate George Mackenzie – higher standard of evidence desired.
- 1671 Central Courts introduced in Scotland.
why link w state
- Christina Larner has convincingly linked each of the five big spikes to discrete high-political phenomena.
- England: see the change which followed Elizabeth’s replacement by James. Importantly, this is a judicial change and the background rate seems to have stayed almost completely static.
geography- scot v eng diff wc
larner- connects lack of trails Gaelic scot, highlands and Gaelic ireland to a lack of state penteration
- Hutton more convincing it to the presence in these places of diff folkloric belief
- varies cause ill, with less terrifying aura
evil eye prominent belief- thought any gave it out did so unintentionally so not be punished
interplay elite and pop beliefs- diff eng and scot wc
- George Southcombe argues that popular beliefs in both Scotland and England were essentially centred on Maleficium. And it was when the elites got involved – especially in the trial – that Diabolism entered.
- See the Familiar – a distinctively English preoccupation. The elites had no reason to believe this: even if Satan did choose to come back to earth, why would he do so as a cat or a frog, and not a dragon or a lion? But, confronted with this folkloric belief and needed somewhere to discuss Diabolism, they conflated the two. This even made it into the 1604 legislation which made it illegal to feed or reward such animals.
medieval hiatus why
- hutton - separation of church and state in which a wealthy and self secure catholic church no need persecute witches
- when were- witches persecutes by elites- often political reasons- who had say to influence otherwise uninterested justice system- accusation against earl of mar 1479
- larner- reformation
larner- reformation shift
transfigured the witch from a ‘creature of the farmyard’ to an ‘enemy of God and the Godly society’.
protestant church and witch
- persecuting witch act of godly discipline which should be seen on a continuum with adultery, fornicationa nd breaking sabbath- explaining conspicuous punishments
- Douglas
goodacre
background Hopkins trials
Douglas wc protestant church
witchcraft evidence social health not illness
goodacre protestant church wc
male anxieties about female sexuality (fornication with the Devil); 2) Reformation programme of moral discipline.
backdrop mattew hopkins trials
ideological cleansing against unreliable clergymen in the eastern counties, semi-official outbreak of iconoclasm in Suffolk. Thus, had Godly spirit and legal decentralisation of Scotland, and produced the same results.
state not important
Robert briggs
scotland and state wc
influence of state went right to top- pc deciding whether cases are compelling enough t o go to trial
- apparent lack of trials Gaelic regions could be because chiefs simply haven’t left documents
eng state never aspires to be as godly as scottish
shift for peasants to act on witches
vindictive individual’ or witch-hunter (Louise Yeoman); or a church court (Stuart Macdonald) to get them to act on it.
unusual cases
1697 case of Christian Shaw, shows how popular belief ready to ignite, only put down by newly reticent state.
- 1705 lynching of Janet Cornfoot because the people still wanted and expected the state to persecute but now had their desires frustrated.
what did increase in persecutions cw show
assize not in session
hopskzs ran riot 1644-47
eng had potential to be virulent persecuting society but legal system restrained it
gender eng v scot
84% scot
93% essex
- scotland though sex w devil- perverted sexual rep
eng perverted rep of motherhood- notion of witch feeding and caring for familiar - witches mark breasts familiar sucks form
James I turned to witchcraft
-felt witches trying to kill king and queen by calling up strong storms James Anne and encountered returning to scotland
- began own witch hunt as Denmark had been doing
accused in James I witchtrail
eg agnes sampson- under torture confused to things so ‘miraculous and strange’ even James found diff to ebleive
apparently whispered to king telling him the words he and Anne had spoken to each other in private on first night of wedding
- 70 people in this trial caused of witchcraft
James I showing interest wc
1597- daemonologie- treatise witchraft
laid ou info how to identify and punish witch
- eg use of charms and herbs
- mark of devil - eg Agnes Sampson trial saved head attempt find mark eventually finding on ‘her priviteies’
James on gender
mostly women witches - ‘frailer than man is’ and so were more easily entrapped in the ‘snares of the Devil’
- proved w bible- witchcraft ‘plainly prohibited’ referencing exodus 22.18, ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’
the only acceptable punishment for convicted with death
guidelines used until 1727
older treasure on witchcraft
1486- malleus malefircarum or Hamer of witches
- written by German catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer
- self justification (maccullocj) for attempts prosecuting alleged witches in tyrol 1484- not sucess- expelled from city of innburk and dismissed by local bishop as senile and crazy
malleus malefecarum
- calls sorcery ehrsy- crime at time- recommends secular courts prosecute it as such
- contains reproduction of a papal bull by pope innocent viii- sorcerers real and harmful though involvement in he acts of satan
- signed by the doctors of theological faculty of uni of cologne- agree
-three elements
church early statement on wc
canon episcopi- ad 900-witchraft forbidden by church (but before that) and explained viewpoint
stated witchcraft and magic delusions those believed such thing ‘had been seduced by the devil in dreams and visions’
malleus three elements new for witchcraft
evil intentions f wicth
help of devil
permission of god
prosecution malleus
section iii sets out how to prosecute
method of initiating process and assembling accusations
interrogation inc torture and formal charging off accused
women who did not cry during trial automatically believed to be witches
gender and malleus
women more susceptible to demonic temptations through manifold weaknesses other sex
believed weaker in faith and more carnal than men
- women ‘prone to believing and because the demon basically seeks to corrupt the faith, he assails them in particular’
- loose tongues
- more lustful than men
- title itself is feminine
- accuses witches of infanticide cannibalism, casting evil spells against enimies and power to steal mans penis
later witch trails
1661- lancashire cont yet growing scepticism , precedent set Pendle case 1612
1662- Bideford witch trials in Devon- hree women—Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles, and Susanna Edwards—were tried and executed, despite growing doubts about the validity of witchcraft evidence.
