Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Witch-Hunting Explanations (The early modern state (16th + 17th centuries-…
Witch-Hunting Explanations
Feminist Interpretations
Timing of witch hunts-linked by some feminist historians to growing concern about female conduct. Economic change, especially growing commercialisation-claimed elevated public profile of women that challenged male dominance, ‘gender crisis’
Barbara Ehrenreich & Deidre English (1973) claimed that most of the women who were persecuted had been community healers & midwives. Argued they were persecuted by male medical establishment in order to eliminate female midwifery skills and extinguish knowledge about birth control in an effort to repopulate Europe. Theory disregarded fact that majority of those accused-neither healers nor midwives. Many parts of Europe, midwives were more likely to be found helping witch-hunters to examine suspects than being accused of witchcraft
Selfish Motives
Relatives of the accused might stand to inherit property
Governments might wish to acquire a witch's property
Some lawyers and officials may have encouraged witch hunting in order to make money
Witch finders sometimes profited by offering their services to local communities to help identify witches
Witch craft cases were not very lucrative because the economic status of most witches was low
Social and economic context
Class conflict
Claimed that witch-hunting was a method used by socio-economic elites as a form of control to consolidate their dominance over poorer sections of the population
People were frightened by prospect of economic decline- became less accommodating & tolerant in their dealings with the poor
'Mini ice age'
The weather had a huge impact on crops and wild stock leading to inflation, meaning many sought scapegoats
Temperatures not a major cause of the witch hunts as the weather still carried on the same after the witch hunts finished
Disease
Medicine moving to more observational basis. John Gaule in 1646 criticised Stearne and Hopkins “every disease whereof they neither understand the cause, nor are acquainted with the symptoms must be suspected for witchcraft.”
Witch hunt in 1571 was more focussed on seeing plague spreaders and witches as one and the same
In Geneva, Milan and other cities, witches were sometimes blamed for 'plague spreading'
Functionalist interpretation: pressure from below
Most historians believe that witch persecution was driven more by attitudes from 'below' than pressure from the church and state 'above'
Macfarlanes study of witchcraft in Essex, demonstrated that in England witchcraft accusations were the result of interpersonal tensions between Villagers
Macfarlane and Thomas showed that accused witches were usually unpopular antisocial people, known for begging from neighbours and verbally cursing those who turned them away
According to Thomas and Macfarlane, the witch trials had a functionalist purpose: they were used to eliminate antisocial members of the community and release pent-up local tensions
Popular anxieties about the threat from witches forced- often reluctant- authorities to take action
Far more suspected witches because of fears of neighbours than an account of politically directed hunts
The early modern state
16th + 17th centuries- several European states grew in size + power
Ruler brought the various territories over which they claimed jurisdiction under more effective political and legal control
Rulers took a heightened interest in religious matters- Scotland- government and church sought moral conformity- Historian Larner regards this as vital factor in constructing ideological base for large scale witch hunting- good citizen- good christian
Witch hunts unlikely without state assistance
Few governments of strong states actively promote witch hunting- real initiative came from localities
Generally central or higher courts of most countries did more to restrict witch hunting than to encourage it- unlike many local courts
Central judicial authorities- less likely to be affected by hysterical mood- more committed to the proper operation of a judicial system
Government and legal system often made major difference to extent of witch hunting
England had long history of political and judicial centralisation and relatively few witch craft persecutions
Holy Roman Empire proved highly vulnerable to witch hunts in absence of central judicial regulations
Worst witch hunts occurred where central authority was weak
Impact of reformation and counter-reformation
Religious changes
Fear of the devil
Reformation increased Europeans' fears of the devil
In both Catholic and Protestant circles there arose a zealous commitment to purify the world by declaring war against Satan and Witches
Luther and Calvin stressed the Devil's presence- Luther saw his whole life as a struggle against Satan
Calvinist theologians perceived the witches' pact with the devil as being diametrically opposed to the Calvinists' covenant with God
Their concern at the threat posed by Satan encouraged many of their followers to take action against his agents- witches
Some of the most intense witch-hunts took place in German principalities governed by Catholic prince-bishops who pursued witches in an effort to purify society as well as to promote their own image as the true defenders of Christian values
The Bible
Reformation established bible as the sole source of religious truth for most protestants:
Also a new insistence on the literal interpretation of the scriptures
Exodus 22:18 declared: 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'- text used by preachers and judges to justify campaigns against Witchcraft
The godly state
Reformation bred a new moral mentality- the determination to create a godly state
In many places there was a considerable amount of legislation against moral offences- Sodomy, fornication, prostitution and adultery all came under attack- as did Witchcraft
Goal of establishing a godly state was not restricted to Protestant states-Catholic rulers pursued the same ideal- their efforts often finding expression in witch hunting
Religious conflict
Reformation and Counter-reformation led to bitter conflicts between Catholics and Protestants and between different Protestant denominations
Witch craft, it was claimed was most severe in countries or regions where either large religious minorities lived within the boundaries of a state or the people of one state adhered to one religion and the people of a neighbouring state adhered to the other
Rough correlation between religious disunity/ conflict and witch hunting
Hunting Witches allowed Protestant or Catholic communities to prove that God was on their side- and that they were on Gods
May be that religious conflict made communities more fearful of moral subversion and more eager to rid their communities of corrupting influences like witchcraft
The reformation and intense witch hunting coincided in time- some historians claimed that reformation served as the mainspring of the European witch-hunt
However: witch hunting began century before Luther nailed Ninety-Five Thesis to church door at Wittenburg in 1517, from 1520-1560, early years of reformation, relatively few witchcraft prosecutions, difficult to establish direct casual connection between the reformation and witch-hunting
Mass hysteria
Occurred in a number of small German states when suspicion grew into accusations, accusations into trials, which turn generated more accusations
Historians not keen on crude concept of mass hysteria
Ignorance and delusion
Easy to explain witch hunts as result of superstition and general stupidity
Past societies operated under different cultural reality to our own
Most historians illiterate peasants and the educated elite alike, believed: that witchcraft existed, and the existence of the Devil, who worked to turn mankind away from the path of righteousness
Some evidence for beliefs- people who did practise harmful magic, others freely confessed to making pacts with the devil, when judicial authorities tried to eradicate witchcraft, they were not dealing with an entirely fabricated threat
Early modern Europeans able to explain misfortune without leaping to witchcraft, but some misfortunes seemed bizarre, undeserved or both- thus the concept of maleficium was a rational reaction- an explanation for the inexplicable
Anthropological explanations
Early modern Europe and Modern Africa may have had similar beliefs but the cultures in which those beliefs were, and are, embedded, and from which they derived, mean they are very different
Dangerous to study witchcraft in Modern Africa and assume it was the same in Early Modern Europe
The reality of witch craft
Some of those accused of witchcraft practised harmful magic- some may eve have devoted themselves to satan
Some scholars have supported the view that early modern witchcraft was pre-Christian religion adhered to by the peasantry but attacked by the church and the secular authorities
The view that witchcraft is an ancient and coherent faith has been largely discredited by historians
No evidence that early modern witchcraft was n organised and structured religion or that witches gathered in large numbers for any purpose, diabolical or otherwise
Connections between early modern and modern witchcraft seem to be non-existent. Modern witchcraft is an invented religion, a synthesis of beliefs which owes little to the early modern period