WITCHES

Question 1

Witch-hunting was scattered across time and place and never gave any sign of

Answer 1

of coalescing into a general movement

Question 2

The real centre of the witch hunt was the area that encompassed the

Answer 2

Holy Roman Empire, Switzerland and the various French-speaking duchies and principalities that bordered Germany
By comparison, all other areas were temperate in their pursuit of witches and mild, with a few exceptions, in their treatment of them

Question 3

There was certainly a general European witch-hunt in which various countries participated to a larger or smaller extent, and this can be calculated by the extent to which regions experienced the

Answer 3

‘witch panic’

Question 4

The witch panic, branded by

Answer 4

‘an unrestrained and paranoid pursuit of large numbers of witches’ , only really took place in west-central Europe, occupying 75% of all witchcraft prosecutions

Question 5

POINT 1

Answer 5

the nature of witch beliefs in a particular region and the strength with which they were held

Question 6

POINT 2

Answer 6

system of criminal procedure used in courts, as differences in the procedures had profound effects on the process of witch hunting, greatly influencing the chances of conviction and execution

Question 7

POINT 3

Answer 7

The degree of central judicial control over the trials - most cases central control did not necessarily serve as a restraining force and local authorities were often more determined to detect, prosecute and execute witches than those who occupied higher positions in Church or state, and more likely to violate the procedural rubrics of central governments

Question 8

POINT 4

Answer 8

the degree of religious zeal manifested by a populace, as it inspired many judicial authorities to pursue, interrogate and convict witches

Question 9

Final line intro

coalesce… typical

Answer 9

Each coalesce to explain generally why the witch craze was more prevalent in west-central Europe with external incongruities, yet it is vital not to aggregate the witch-crazes of early modern Europe crudely, as there was no such thing as a ‘typical’ case, nor an analogous inception or response across and within regions

Question 10

nature of witch beliefs and the strength to which they were held in a particular region produced

Answer 10

disparities in the prevalence of the witch craze across early modern Europe

Question 11

Wherever witchcraft was defined primarily as maleficium and not as Devil-worship, witch hunts tended to remain

Answer 11

limited in scope, mainly because the suspicion that one person practiced sorcery did not lead to a search for accomplices

Question 12

The witch craze was arguably most prevalent in Germany where a belief in ? was widespread

Answer 12

diabolism

yet there was still no ‘national witch hunt in ‘Germany’

Question 13

Russia = stark contrast 2 G - belief?

Answer 13

a belief in diabolism was virtually absent

Question 14

Yet in England, the Nordic countries and Spain, the crime of witchcraft could be defined either way with theories of diabolism receiving only

Answer 14

occasional expression and commanding only limited subscription -
the pattern of witchcraft prosecutions included both a number of individual trials for maleficium, which can be defined generally to any magical act intended to cause harm or death to people or property, as well as a few larger hunts for Devil-worship

Question 15

witch craze in England witnessed accusers overwhelmingly concerned with

Answer 15

maleficium, to which judges paid a great deal of attention and there was little difficulty in producing accounts of both the pact and sabbat -
commonest notions were that witches travelled to the sabbat by air, mount broomsticks and fly up the chimney, and the more moderate persecutions in England were the result of the folkloric rather than diabolist nature of English witch beliefs

Question 16

Trials in Ireland were also surprisingly rare, stemming not only from an unsettled state of Irish justice but also the lack of a

Answer 16

diabolism that failed to penetrate Ireland to any appreciable extent

Question 17

trials in ireland opposed to ? where

…import from G

Answer 17

Poland which experienced a greater intensity of witch-hunting, attributable to the presence of theories of diabolism which emerged as a foreign import from Germany

Question 18

in terms of type of belief… what large factor was v important ?

Answer 18

communication
German diabolism was transferred through the large German speaking population in Poland and through the close commercial and cultural links between Poland and Germany

Question 19

The Poles had a long tradition of maleficium as well as England and the Nordic countries, but the spread of diabolism through

Answer 19

oral and print culture, as well as through common language and commercial connections transformed the nature of witch beliefs in other contexts

Question 20

the major English witch hunt in 1640 was in response to the sabbath where ‘witches dined with the Devil’, as opposed to

Answer 20

previous panics against cannibalistic infanticide or flight

Question 21

Yet witch hunting in Britain can be defined by a relative mildness perhaps due to its disconnection from the

Answer 21

continent
the close relationships between Continental regions facilitated by a common language was not a feature of Britain with its overseas neighbours

Question 22

For example, the learned witch beliefs were received first in the parts of Poland that were close to Germany which had a large

Answer 22

large German speaking population, akin to Finnish witch beliefs from northern Swedish speaking provinces and from the lower Baltic countries of Estonia and Livonia

Question 23

G AND P
From these areas ideas spread to other provinces of the country, a process that was largely facilitated by the translation of

Answer 23

Malleus maleficarum into Polish 1614
News of witch hunts and executions in other parts of a country could easily fan popular and elite fears and create a mood that was conductive to witch-hunting in a village or town

Question 24

Due to such communications many hunts spread from village to village and were aided by dissemination of

Answer 24

pamphlets or treatises discussing witchcraft

Question 25

One with hunt in Franche-Comté at start of 1600 began shortly after the publication of Henri Boguet’s

Answer 25

Discours des sorciers published in 1602
another occurred in the same province in 1657 only after inquisitors proclaimed a monitoire in each province requiring anyone with information about acts of witchcraft to make it known to them

Question 26

Interruptions in communications also become important for the reduced prevalence of witchcraft in certain areas as they caused a slower

Answer 26

transmission of ideas, and thus the witch craze was felt lesser in areas that felt interferences to the transmission of beliefs

Question 27

interruption of communication example

Answer 27

the sudden and unprecedented devastation caused by the wars of mid 17th century Poland against Sweden and Russia triggered a civil war
delayed inauguration of witch craze/trials

Question 28

Witchcraft trials were conducted in a wide variety of ways that complicated the

Answer 28

‘inquisitorial’ procedures of European courts, which England did not follow anyway
much disparity across Europe in the methods used to initiate cases and in the rules regarding the use of torture, as well as in the customs for the appointment of advocates and procedures for appealing sentences

Question 29

The Dutch system of criminal procedure played a key role in keeping the total number of prosecutions

Answer 29

low, as opposed to Germany which followed an inquisitorial procedure and allowed the use of torture

Question 30

dutch/ holland and torture

Answer 30

torture was never employed excessively and in 1594 the central court in the province of Holland forbade the use of torture as well as the swimming tests in witchcraft cases
This stimulated its early decline and end of prosecutions throughout the republic

Question 31

Witches in the Netherlands also brought countersuits of

Answer 31

Witches in the Netherlands also brought countersuits of slander against their accusers, and they too played role in bringing witch hunting to an early end

Question 32

countersuits in N.lands unlike

Answer 32

the British Isles which did not possess inquisitorial procedures, which was the system that led to the use of torture, and the Privy Council instead distributed torture commands

Question 33

During the ?? this strict enforcement was disrupted and in both England and Scotland, torture was used without warrant more frequently and even illegally

Answer 33

civil war

turn led to chain reaction hunts of 1590-1 and 1661-2

Question 34

chain reaction hunts shared also by ?

Answer 34

German witch craze, and the majority of persecutions occurred independently of the others and were not part of any judicial chain.

Question 35

Scottish persecutions were far more prevalent than in England, due to the custom of

Answer 35

granting commissions to local magistrates to try witches without the supervision of itinerant judges

Question 36

what did Scot lack of supervision of itinerant judges mean

Answer 36

meant that both the conviction rate and the execution rate were higher than when cases were heard before the central judges of Edinburgh, or before the circuit judges at the English assizes

Question 37

Scot lack of supervision of itinerant judges mean DIF 2 NORWAY… HOW?

Answer 37

the main form of criminal procedure in Norway which was accusatorial, on the testimony of 2 eyewitnesses required for conviction, and as a result experienced a more prevalent witch craze than that of the British isles

Question 38

Norway - witchcraft became a?

Answer 38

crimen exceptum and public prosecutions based on rumour could be used in witchcraft cases – thus its prevalence only heightened

Question 39

The different systems of criminal procedure resulted in heightened and reduced occurrences and intensities of witch crazes, with the inquisitorial procedures generally

Answer 39

limiting the extent to which persecutions amounted

Question 40

? procedures also had an effect upon the reception of witch beliefs among authorities

Answer 40

legal

for it was often only under torture that certain witch beliefs could be legitimized through confessions

Question 41

political outlay of regions were also of vital importance for prevalence… pattern:

Answer 41

The relative mildness of English, Swedish, Russian and Spanish witch-hunting can be attributed to some degree to the success of central secular or ecclesiastical authorities in restraining the enthusiasm of local authorities for waging conflict against witches

Question 42

In England virtually no trials took place until the passage of the … alike Denmark

Answer 42

witchcraft statute of 1542, alike witchcraft trials in Denmark which reached its peak only after King Christian IV issued a ‘Decree concerning Sorcerers and their Accomplices in 1617’.

Question 43

statue of D AND E dissimilar to G where ? can be understood as the single most imp. reason 4 the high concentration of witchcraft trials there

Answer 43

the political weakness of the empire…
The German Empire was a very loose confederation of numerous small kingdoms, principalities, duchies, and territories that acted either as sovereign or near- sovereign states; some had foreign rulers such as the Spanish Netherlands and some were ecclesiastical territories under the control of a prince-bishop or abbot

Question 44

in G a large number of imperial cities operated with

Answer 44

relative autonomy and the judicial effects were politically diverse, with decentralization giving judicial autonomy to relatively small political units

Question 45

The German empire provided diminutive legal unity and exercised very little

Answer 45

judicial control over the activities of the various tribunals that heard witchcraft cases

Question 46

G - The supplication of a legal code …?

Answer 46

‘Consititutio Criminalis Carolina’ in 1532 for the entire Empire did not provide effective as there lacked both the numbers for enforcing it and the itinerant imperial judges to ensure that the code was upheld

Question 47

An example of this type of jurisdictional independence outside political and ecclesiastical control which was never permitted to high courts occurred in the principality of

Answer 47

Ellwangen which took the lives of almost 400 between 1611 and 1618

Question 48

Even the larger political units within the Empire, being either weak patrimonial estates or themselves confederations of smaller entities often

Answer 48

failed to exercise effective judicial control over the various courts within their territories, thus a prevailing pattern of jurisdictional particularism in Germany meant that witch hunting could go easily unchecked

Question 49

Judicial restraint in the ? explains the relative mildness of witch hunting there
akin 2?

Answer 49

Nordic countries
akin 2 the Parlement of Paris which exercised an appellate jurisdiction over most of northern France and subsequently set the standards for the other provincial parlements resulting in a relatively low number of witch prosecutions

Question 50

Thus the degree of central judicial control over trials was a vital determinant of the intensity of witchcraft persecutions, where a greater prevalence was generally concomitant with

Answer 50

firmer central judicial control

Question 51

religious zeal… Jurisdictions that convinced and executed witches in great numbers were known for their

Answer 51

Christian militancy, religious intolerance and their vigorous participation in either the Reformation or the Counter-Reformation

Question 52

Differences between witch hunting between England and Scotland, between Poland and Russia, and between Italy and Germany can all be attributed in some measure to the

Answer 52

elusive differences in religious enthusiasms among those who conducted witch hunts

Question 53

the worst persecutions of Germany were considered that of the Cologne archbishop Ferdinand of Bavaria in the late

Answer 53

16th century, effecting a ‘pious zealotry’ along with the Eichstätt prince-bishops as part of the Counter Reformation against heretics of the new Protestantism sects

Question 54

‘pious zealotry’ of G opposed the actions of

Answer 54

the mainly Protestant territories of early modern Europe, with the exception of England, which escaped full-scale witch-hunting

Question 55

Unlike the prosecutions of witches by papal inquisitors in Italy, the local secular authorities of Protestant territories resisted

Answer 55

both popular and ecclesiastical pressure to prosecute alleged witches

Question 56

secular authorities of protest territories in stark contrast to

Answer 56

Catholic reform movements accounts for the prevalence of witch-hunting against Protestant reform and millenarianism in early modern Europe

Question 57

Catholics in ? and ? pursued witch persecution connected to a general hardening of attitudes among the social and political elites towards forms of secular culture which exhibited a ‘dubious moral character’

Answer 57

Poland and Germany

Question 58

The regions experiencing a religiously charged witch craze prevalence were linked to the

Answer 58

religious instability of such countries – for it was areas that experienced religious change or felt the threats of it tended to pursue witches with the greatest determination.

Question 59

religious zeal… instable religious areas far more likely 2 b preoccupied with?

Answer 59

diabolical witch beliefs and to allow their magistrates to use torture to protect the Christian faith
religious reasons reinforced other reasons for intense witch-hunting, just as its absence enabled secular officials to develop a more moderate attitude towards the process

Question 60

Geographical patterns of witch-crazes in early modern Europe are hard to define as witchcraft and the prosecutions of the phenomenon were by no means

Answer 60

means systematic or analagous, reflective of the disorderedly political and religious makeup of the European regions and ‘countries’

Question 61

The new spirit of intolerance towards religious dissent encouraged witchcraft prosecutions as religious dissent shared many similarities with witchcraft as forms of

Answer 61

religious rebellion
To a large extent the intolerance of one stimulated a greater intolerance of the other, as seen in the burning of Polish witches which coincided with the rise of the more militant uncompromising Catholicism

Question 62

above all… the changing

Answer 62

political and religious backdrops of each region, experienced to different extents at different times and unevenly in terms of associated conflicts, provide an insight into the divergent regional abilities to engage in witch crazes
Poland and Germany exploited witch crazes for religious and political motivations, whilst also building on economic crises such as agrarian crises and natural disasters to find a place to source the blame – as seen in Trier 1580 to 1599

Question 63

The concentration of the great majority of witchcraft prosecutions in the west-central core of Europe had religious as well as political and judicial causes as it was the most ecclesiastically

Answer 63

volatile region in all of Europe at the very centre of Protestant Reformation

Question 64

Western-central Europe was most ecclesiastically unstable with certain areas changing their religious affiliation more than once, and others becoming

Answer 64

religiously pluralistic, and thus the witch craze found most fertile ground here

Question 65

Above all, the religious and judicial characters of regions calculated

Answer 65

their abilities to incept and propagate the witch craze – and this was best seen in western-central Europe.