10 facts about witchcraft in the 17th century

Midwives, of course, were experts in female anatomy. Consequently, witchcraft became almost synonymous with social deviance. In England, Scotland, Scandinavia and Geneva, witch trials were carried out by Protestant states. For further discussion of this case and others, please tune into the latest series of our On the Record podcast. Hello thanks for your comment, thats really interesting. You have to keep to the rules. This pattern took shape in 10501300, which was also an era of enormous reform, reorganization, and centralization in both the ecclesiastical and secular aspects of society, an important aspect of which was suppressing dissent. But other, older people think differently. Between 1560 and 1630, there was a surge in the number of accusations of witchcraft and witch trials called the Great Hunt . Alice Nutter was the wealthy widow of a farmer. Please select which sections you would like to print: Professor of History, the University of California, Santa Barbara. Witches were considered Satans followers, members of an antichurch and an antistate, the sworn enemies of Christian society in the Middle Ages, and a counter-state in the early modern period. Open Document. The outbreak at Salem, where 19 people were executed, was the result of a combination of church politics, family feuds, and hysterical children, all in a vacuum of political authority. In any group of people with large numbers, there are always going to be outcast, whether its just a birthmark or a personality tweak. Resentment and fear of the power of the hag, a woman released from the constraints of virginity and then of maternal duties, has been frequently described in Mediterranean cultures. Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Trials for witchcraft took place across Europe, with some areas persecuting alleged witches much more actively than others. It is stark, disturbing evidence of what was done to ordinary people, by other ordinary people. When you look at the intellectual, social and cultural world of the 17th century, witchcraft made perfect sense, says Professor Owen Davies, author of America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft After Salem. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Save 70% on the shop price when you subscribe today - Get 13 issues for just $49.99 + FREE access to HistoryExtra.com, A very brief history of witches by Suzannah Lipscomb, Enjoying HistoryExtra.com? 2. Torture was not allowed in witch cases in Italy or Spain, but where used it often led to convictions and the identification of supposed accomplices. The next stage is that all this evidence is put to a jury, who decide whether to take it to trial or not. It is these marks that the surgeons and the midwives were looking for in the inspection certificate mentioned above. However, witches bodies were burned in Scotland, though they were strangled to death first. Witchcraft spells just like all other spells are indeed real. However, whether something is real or not really depends on perceptions and what the person was looking wants to see. If you are looking for evidence that witchcraft is not real, then you will see evidence to that effect. By 143550, the number of prosecutions had begun to rise sharply, and toward the end of the 15th century, two events stimulated the hunts: Pope Innocent VIIIs publication in 1484 of the bull Summis desiderantes affectibus (Desiring with the Greatest Ardour) condemning witchcraft as Satanism, the worst of all possible heresies, and the publication in 1486 of Heinrich Krmer and Jacob Sprengers Malleus maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), a learned but cruelly misogynist book blaming witchcraft chiefly on women. Imagine youre standing on a hillside. Web1. A statue to commemorate one of the Pendle witches can be found in Roughlee, where the alleged witch Alice Nutter is thought to have lived. Professor Diane Purkiss debunks eight of the most common myths about witchcraft. What did witchcraft mean to early Christians in Britain? In England, witchcraft became a crime in 1542, a statute renewed in 1562 and 1604. The Pendle witches were kept in Lancaster Castle's damp cells in 1612. In England condemned witches were hanged rather than burnt in line with the status of witchcraft as a felony under the common law. En route to her forced relocation to the Tucher country estate, Katarina is met by a crazed archer, Hans-Wolfgang, carrying a baby under his cloak. Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE). Crude practices such as pricking witches to see whether the Devil had desensitized them to pain; searching for the devils mark, an oddly-shaped mole or wart; or swimming (throwing the accused into a pond; if she sank, she was innocent because the water accepted her) occurred on the local level. There is no counsel for the defence. During the 1600s there were many opinions and lifestyle changes because of witches, this time period is slightly before and during the Salem Witch Trials. Young women were sometimes accused of infanticide, but midwives and nurses were not particularly at risk. The fylgia is associated with a persons luck or fortune. The divide between Protestants and the rest of their communities continued to increase until the early seventeenth century, when the Puritans departed across the Atlantic in pursuit of a godlier way of life. But there was one element of English witch beliefs that did provide the possibility of physical evidence the belief in familiars. But certificates such as this one, providing documentary evidence of exactly what was done, what was found, and by whom, are extremely rare. A panel nearby says that they are prehistoric burial mounds. meatcher-imaging via Flickr. 4. Somebody would complain to the local justice of the peace (JP) that you had bewitched an animal, or a foodstuff, or a child. Both Protestants and Catholics were involved in the prosecutions, as the theology of the Protestant Reformers on the Devil and witchcraft was virtually indistinguishable from that of the Catholics. WebSeventeenth-Century New England JOHN DEMOS IT is faintly embarrassing for a historian to summon his colleagues to still another consideration of early New England witchcraft. Historic England Ref AA96_04839. The process began with suspicions and, occasionally, continued through rumours and accusations to convictions. The accounts of the Barber-Surgeons company from the period carefully noted the disbursement of 10s 6d for the examinations of the four women, brought to our hall by the Kings command to be searched 5. Men and women imprisoned as witches are believed to have died in the cells of Colchester Castle. She has to be marred, lopsided. You can bury them, but that doesnt mean theyre gone. It was therefore assumed that they could be put to work ruining the work of other householders. The malevolent sorcery more often associated with men, such as harming crops and livestock, was rarer than that ascribed to women. Most accused children had parents who had been accused of witchcraft. In the series youll hear about a famous cannibalism case as well as legal evidence preserved in our archiveswhich reveal LGBTQ spaces otherwise lost to history. Scholastic philosophy meant that all of created nature became an object of scrutiny from which scholastics could create a model that applied to everything. WebThe Connecticut Witch Trials, also sometimes referred to as the Hartford witch trials, occurred from 1647 to 1663. As such, most witches across Europe received the usual penalty for murder hanging (though in Scotland and under the Spanish Inquisition witches were burned). Explanations of the witch hunts continue to vary, but recent research has shown some of these theories to be improbable or of negligible value. 8. Witch doctors, whose job it was to release people from evil spells, seldom existed in the West, largely because even helpful magic was attributed to demons. Witches Facts. A witch is an individual that practices witchcraft. Witches were not always considered to be evil. Originally they were considered to be magical and capable of healing, bringing good luck, and providing protection. Witchcraft began as a pagan religion that worshipped both a masculine and feminine god. This number is extremely high for such a small nation; with less than a quarter of Englands population at this time, Scotland had three times the number of trials. Witches were really goddess-worshipping herbalist midwives. Elsewhere in Europe, suspected witches could be tortured into confession, but under English law, torture was illegal. Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated, An examination of witches in the 17th century. How did this idea develop? But one in five witches were male across Europe, and in some places, males predominated in Moscow, male witches outnumbered women 7:3; in Normandy 3:1. These thinkers rejected the idea that elderly women could do magic that flouted the will of God. An examination of witches in the 17th century. Please be aware that this blog includes some graphic content and may not be suitable for all readers. And dont let her give you anything, especially anything connected with food, and extra-especially food itself. In later centuries, constant attempts to defeat heresy brought to light a number of figures who were difficult to reconcile with Christianity. The number of trials and executions varied widely according to time and place, but in fact no more than about 110,000 persons in all were tried for witchcraft, and no more than 40,000 to 60,000 executed. The answers to these questions shine a light on a witchcraft scare that rocked 17th-century England, and tell us much about beliefs in witchcraft and how they affected ordinary people at that time. From the Salem Witch Trials to the witches ofMacbeth, the figure of the witch is embedded in our culture. There were additional hunts in Spanish America, where the European pattern of accusations continued even though the differences between the folklore of the Europeans and Native Americans introduced some minor variations into the accusations. In other countries, including some of the Scandinavian countries, men were in a slight majority. People who practiced magic, often referred to as cunning folk or wise folk, were respected and valued by their communities. So the places where pagans buried their dead are especially fraught. [Next time, I should proof-read!]. But for many educated people of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, these characterisations of white and black witchcraft would unquestionably seem to have If you are found guilty, you could become one of the 30,00060,000 people who were executed for witchcraft in the early modern era. A group of volunteers from The Friends of Balaam's Wood Local Nature Reserve clearing brambles at Gannow Green Moated Site, New Frankley in Birmingham, Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Subscribe:iTunes|Spotify|RadioPublic|Google Podcasts. By the 1590s, the last decade of Elizabeth Is reign, the idea of the witch in England had crystallised as an old, very poor woman, lame or blind in one eye, and inclined to lose her temper over personal slights. Top image: An illustration from a 1619 pamphlet showing Anne Baker of Bottesford, Joan Willimot of Goodby and Ellen Greene of Stathern, who were all tried for witchcraft (Hulton Archive/Getty Images). Witchcraft is an area of history that most people feel familiar with. They cant pass the cross, and they stop there. It is estimated there were between four and six thousand witchcraft trials in Scotland, most of which were in the lowland areas of the country, especially Aberdeenshire. We consider the circumstances in which alleged witches were accused, and the power of both neighbourhood accusation and elite sanction (James VI and Is book on the subject of witchcraft, Daemonologie, published in 1597, is a case in point). She described how she was visited by the devil sometimes as a brown coloured dog, sometimes as a white cat and at other times like an hare and that she had two duggs or papps in her private parts where the familiars sucked her blood 4. The second is like the nipple or teat of a womans breast but of the same colour with the rest of skin without any hollowness or issue for any blood or juice to come from thence. 2. srietzke via Flickr. Thank you, your email will be added to the mailing list once you click on the link in the confirmation email. In my own region of Bruges and West Flanders Local courts were more credulous and therefore more likely to be strict and even violent in their treatment of supposed witches than were regional or superior courts. Whatever their origin, familiars come from that popular underworld of ideas and tales. Suspected witches were occasionally subjected to ordeals such as swimming, whereby the accused was dunked into a river in an attempt to prove guilt or innocence. Out of these murky beginnings, we discover how the witch became the subject of the chilling persecutions of the 16th and 17th centuries. Hornbeam Arts via Flickr. The terms witchcraft and witch derive from Old English wiccecraeft: from wicca (masculine) or wicce (feminine), pronounced witchah and witchuh, respectively, denoting someone who practices sorcery; and from craeft meaning craft or skill. Roughly equivalent words in other European languagessuch as sorcellerie (French), Hexerei (German), stregoneria (Italian), and brujera (Spanish)have different connotations, and none precisely translates another. Mother Shipton's Cave in Knaresborough and a nearby 'petrifying well' are among the country's oldest visitor attractions. First, the witch hunts did not occur in the Middle Ages but in what historians call the early modern period (the late 14th to the early 18th century), the era of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. Witchcraft | Definition, History, Varieties, & Facts | Britannica The 1604 Witchcraft Act under James could be described as a reversion to that status quo rather than an innovation. The pagan dead are like nuclear waste. The Devil was deeply and widely feared as the greatest enemy of Christ, keenly intent on destroying soul, life, family, community, church, and state. WebBetter Essays. She doesnt have to be female. Accusations similar to those expressed by the ancient Syrians and early Christians appeared again in the Middle Ages. The pagan dead are like nuclear waste. Witch fever reached new heights when witchcraft was again classed as a felony in 1562 under a statute of Elizabeth I. One of the most important aspects of the hunts remains unexplained. What caused the behavior of the afflicted witnesses? (London. The idea that you can separate out part of yourself, a part that may look exactly like you, and send it to work your will on the bodies of others, is central to the idea of witchcraft. The Witchcraft Act of 1563 had established witchcraft as a felony in England and Wales and, as such, suspected witches could be tried in the assize courts. The total number of people tried for witchcraft in England throughout the period of persecution was no more than 2,000. Since 1970 careful research has elucidated law codes and theological treatises from the era of the witch hunts and uncovered much information about how fear, accusations, and prosecutions actually occurred in villages, local law courts, and courts of appeal in Roman Catholic and Protestant cultures in western Europe. Another accusation that often accompanied maleficium was trafficking with evil spirits. The origin of witchcraft The history of witchcraft. Probably, witchcraft dated about 2500 years ago in Paleolithic era. During this era, both nature and humans were seen as inseparable elements. Humans admitted trees, rocks and streams were deities while Earth was seen as the mother. The mother Earth was seen as the source of womb and tomb. The Prehistoric witchcraft 6 Pages. These figures include estimates for cases where no records exist. If you like, you can add to it, or deny that you said bits of it, but that might just make you look inconsistent. Wardens Yearly account and audit book covering 1603-1659 (archive ref D/2/1 p308v). She writes They are almost always described as deviants disorderly women who failed to, or refused to, abide by the behavioral norms of their society. Weve looked at the beliefs of ordinary people. Lancaster Castle's monumental gatehouse would have welcomed the 10 accused who would have trekked 50 miles or so from Pendle to be thrown into the castle's damp cells and left for months. This was one witch-hunt that did not discriminate; people of all ages, genders, and classes were killed during the Bamberg Witch Trials. As a result of these growing trends of witchcraft, 1 Lestrange C. Ewen. The intensity of these beliefs is best represented by the European witch hunts of the 14th to 18th century, but witchcraft and its associated ideas are never far from the surface of popular consciousness andsustained by folk talesfind explicit focus from time to time in popular television and films and in fiction. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Later in the century, when populations were larger and there was no need to have as many children, the couples that were targeted were suspected of witchcraft on the basis of raising their children in ways that were perceived by others in the community as ungodly and would lead them towards the Devil. In the 16th and 17th centuries people across England, irrespective of status, believed in witches. The legal use of torture declined in the 17th and 18th centuries, and there was a general retreat from religious intensity following the wars of religion (from the 1560s to 1640s). There was neither a witch-cult nor any cult, either organized or disorganized, of a Horned God or of any Goddess; Western witches were not members of an ancient pagan religion; and they were not healers or midwives. Pendle Hill, where 12 'witches' were charged with the murder of tem people. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraftthe devils magic and 20 were executed. The most common suspicions concerned livestock, crops, storms, disease, property and inheritance, sexual dysfunction or rivalry, family feuds, marital discord, stepparents, sibling rivalries, and local politics. Many others knew that old women could be persecuted by their neighbours for no reason other than that they werent very attractive. Most of those accused were also poor and elderly; many were widows, and menopausal and post-menopausal women are disproportionally represented among them. The dead yearn for the lives they enjoyed, which means they may want to take back from the living. The large-scale persecution, prosecution and execution of witches in these centuries was an extraordinary phenomenon. In Mexico the Franciscan friars linked indigenous religion and magic with the Devil; prosecutions for witchcraft in Mexico began in the 1530s, and by the 1600s indigenous peasants were reporting stereotypical pacts with the Devil. Witch marks are ancient boundary spells. Nine million witches died in the years of the witch persecutions. By the late 16th century, many prosperous and professional people in western Europe were accused, so that the leaders of society began to have a personal interest in checking the hunts. While most cases at the assizes concerned one or two people (usually, although not invariably, women), in this case around 19 people were put on trial. As more young women began to exhibit symptoms, mass hysteria ensued, and three women were accused of witchcraft: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborn and Tituba, an Suzannah Lipscomb is professor of history at the University of Roehampton and is the writer and presenter of 13 TV history documentary series . Were the Salem witch trials caused by moldy bread? 7. Seventeenth-century American colonists were more apt to benefit from piracy rather than to suffer from it. Nobody was goddess-worshipping during the period of the witch-hunts, or if they were, they have left no trace in the historical records. In the 11th century attitudes toward witchcraft and sorcery began to change, a process that would radically transform the Western perception of witchcraft and associate it with heresy and the Devil. [Less important; was in the first line should be were] She certainly doesnt have to have a hat and a broomstick. The visible role played by women in some heresies during this period may have contributed to the stereotype of the witch as female. By the 14th century, fear of heresy and of Satan had added charges of diabolism to the usual indictment of witches, maleficium (malevolent sorcery). Yet one general explanation is valid: the unique character of the witch hunts was consistent with the prevailing worldview of intelligent, educated, experienced people for more than three centuries. Such figures were typically created without reference to witchcraft at all, but led to the creation of the figure of the heretic witch. This is where the familiar of the witch begins to take shape: like the dead, fed on blood, and like the dead, malevolent. What role did Tituba play in the Salem witch trials? witch is a person who employs magical entities, which may include powers she carries within her body, to harm other people. The witch executions occurred in the early modern period, the time in Western history when capital punishment and torture were most widespread. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Before the 14th century, witchcraft was much alike in villages from Ireland to Russia and from Sweden to Sicily; however, the similarities derived neither from cultural diffusion nor from any secret cult but from the age-old human desire to achieve ones purposes whether by open or occult means. Thats correct; it could be authorised by the monarch or the Privy Council. Corrections? Witches are everywhere. SP 16/251 WebWitchcraft in Europe during the 17th century was common. Source Historic England Archive BB98/02592. Thursday 8 April 2021 | Dr Jessica Nelson | Records and research | 9 comments. Youll want to defend the thresholds of your body and your house. 3. As an accused witch, you could be tried in a church court, at quarter sessions (local courts), or at an assize court, where you could be condemned to death. The problem of defining witchcraft is made more difficult because the concepts underlying these words also change according to time and place, sometimes radically. In England, most of the accusers and those making written complaints against witches were women. If you suspect one of your neighbours is a witch, do not ever let her have the last word in a conversation. Little Ice Age, Big Consequences., https://www.history.com/news/little-ice-age-big-consequences, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/early-modern-witch-trials/, Lambert, T. A History of the Witch Trials in Europe., Lanchester, J. Before Europeans established colonies in America, magical practices and traditions were an essential part of European life. But who could such women be? The actual numbers are far lower, but still striking: between 1482 and 1782, around 100,000 people across Europe were accused of witchcraft, and some 4050,000 were executed. Widely influential, it was reprinted numerous times. To understand this, well have to go on a journey. Although these figures are alarming, they do not remotely approach the feverishly exaggerated claims of some 20th-century writers. It is a sad, sorry and often harrowing tale but it is one that needs to be heard. After that, the jury will decide on your guilt. Anyone willing to feed them on blood can hope to put them to work in a series of worrying deals. In places in England, you can almost feel it underneath the soil the weight of the past and the freight of its dead. Prosecutions of witches in Austria, Poland, and Hungary took place as late as the 18th century. People genuinely feared witchcraft at the start of the seventeenth century, influenced by the religious beliefs of the Puritans, but opinions changed.

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