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Witchcraft (Pop culture (Elite cultures (Nobles (Rich men, aristocrats,…
Witchcraft
Pop culture
Geographical variations
Southern Europe
Carnivals and fates where around, the culture focused on the outdoor world and women where tightly restricted
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Rural/ Urban
Urban Cultures often had slightly more money and more access to the arts and thus more intelligent society. But also had a greater amount of disease, higher levels of state interference and tax
Urban Cultures would be poorer, have a harsher life and work scheduled and would be further from more advanced society. They would have less disease lower tax but would be at the grips of the church and vulnerable to criminals. This lack of security lead more hunting in rural areas
Elite cultures
Nobles
Rich men, aristocrats, royaty and land owner. Old money and a lot of power which only goes up as time goes on. They would often have isolated spats of heavy involvement in the trials
Religious elite
Elite Clergy and up. Ran the church and had a good amount of control in the beginnings of the early modern period. Facilitators in trials very often
Scholars/ Artists
Shakespeare and the like, learned people, often sceptical of the religious authorities and mostly ascribed to their own society
Midlings
Upper merchants or exquisite craft's men. Rich enough to take on some aspects of the upper classes but not within there societies. Often uninvolved in Witchcraft process
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Class Mind map
Burke
Say pop culture is beliefs values customs and practises belonging to the vast majority of Europeans who were non noble and non clerical.
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Suggests the elite both religious and otherwise have their own popular cultures such as fox hunting.
The idea was more general and this culture would be generally transient, meaning it can never be the soul reason
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Pagents and festivals
Process
They involved drinking and church bashing, funded by the local lords for the benefit of the locals
End
Removed by the starts of the protestant groups. Indicated a loss of the authority of local leaders in favour of monarchy
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Franche-comte, Lorraine, Luxembougre and the spanish netherlands
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Lorraine had an independent hunt under a duke killing 800 witches. Later they had other hunts and trials resulting in around 2000 additional victims from 3000 trials
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Germany
Cologne
Political
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Ferdinand intervened once Witch Hunting gained momentum, appointing a commission, this failed as the commissions took over a wrought havoc
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Bamberg
Political
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New Witch-Bishop, lead much more powerful hunts, around 600 dead
Witch-House built to torture confessions from the accused, it was often credited even at the time for getting innocents to confess
Judged who were more lineament about the legal proceedings, such as Dr George Hann saw themselves and their entire families persecuted and hunted.
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Trier
Political
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Hunt wasn't bound to stereotypes for very long. Even the elite where accused, possible political motives.
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Social
Infighting caused in the college amongst the religious elite, religious strife motivations
Local education leaders zealously supported hunts. They accused a lot of people through an alleged Witch they had in custody
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Decline
Intellectual scepticism
Scientific revolution pressed the rule that if it couldn't be proven or logically explained it did not exist, discrediting Witch Craft and Magic.
Leading intellectuals such as Galileo and Newton published theories and explanations for the universe and life which made no reference to religion in any form thus alienating the declarations of Witchcraft from the Church.
Considered a significant factor in the loss of the power of the church but only a minor factor in the decline of Witch-Hunting and belief in the practice of magic generally
Political scepticism
Witch hunts taught the authorities that hunting was counter productive as it was often the fear that people lived in that drove them to abandon religious spiritual guidance or social rules.
As the level of intelligence of the average surf rose the use of Witches as Scape-Goats ceased its effectiveness as cold weather or a lack of proper practice would be blamed for local disasters like crop failures
Politicians eventually gained control of the church as opposed to the other way around and they injected anti Witch craft measures into place and were far less prepared to kill for perceived religious crimes.
Religious scepticism
The Church began, by the start of the 1700's to take a much less active or committed role in Witch-Hunting on the side of both the protestants and Catholics. The theory became that god was infinitely more powerful than the devil and as such the people had no need to try and contain Witchcraft as god wpould police it himself and was under no threat.
The Church declared that spiritual evidence was not valid evidence as it wasn't sufficiently reliable to be considered in a case this important.
An attitude of live and let live emerged with the concept of Witchcraft. The religious authorities became of the belief that Witches would be punished for any diabolism in the after life and as such didn't see it as worth risking their own place in heaven by killing them.
Finally Church authorities began to ascribe the practice of Witch Craft as a symptom of human weakness and desperation, either preferring not to intervene or do so in a humanitarian way.
Sabbats were acknowledged as far-fetched as no one had ever discovered one who wasn't a convicted Witch and as such they were generally thought of to not exist at that stage.
Legal scepticism
Torture and spectral evidence where gradually banned or phased out in the various countries as both would eventually come under scrutiny as perversions of justice.
Judges often dismissed or found favourably on Witchcraft cases as it became a view amongst many judges that the evidence was often unreliable and the accusers the same
A fair few judges didn't believe in Witches due to having received and education and those that did often thought that punishing them would be pointless as it would only play the devils game and would drive the fears that had started issues like this in the first area.
Ecclesiastical courts of the early 17th and 16th century lost a lot of their power around this time period though either deregulation, loss of right to high profile cases or extreme scrutiny by the crown court.
Finally confessions under torture in the 18th century were often completely dismissed as not binding.
France
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Areas of significance.
Coastal areas were significant for the following reasons:
They had no official government
They often had no specific Church representations but gathered for worship anyway
Affectively under marshal law
By far the highest amount of executions of the country in these areas such as Normandy and Languedoc.
Cases of significance
Nuns of Laudon
Nuns despised the leader of their church and were thought to be possessed. This lead to the arrest and execution of the local parish leader.
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Hopkins (England)
Acts
Pre 1542
Church Courts handled the majority of cases involving Witchcraft. This meant that in the vast majority of cases the accused would be known by the Jury and Vice Versa. This lead to a general practice of punishment for absolution as opposed to deletion. Records show that convictions were low and a lot of the punishments were per functional in nature and often included swearing to lead an improved life
More serious crimes with Witchcraft as an accessory would be seen by secular courts which would punish for the crime not the method meaning that even when people executed they wouldn't be so for Witchcraft
1542
Now Illegal to conjurer spirits or practice sorcery generally with punishment of death on all crimes, it is not tough that this act was ever enforced as we have no record of any executions in its name
1563
Capital offence to :Cause harm to anyone or any animal with Witchcraft, use it to search for lost treasure. Witchcraft for any other purpose was punishable by a year in jail and the second offence by death. This act was inspired by catholic plots against Elizabeth the queen
1604
Killing or the use of body parts with magic was now the only first time capital offence and there was still imprisonment for those who practices sorcery, this is basically the drop off of hunting in England
Witchcraft texts
Discourse of the damned art of Witchcraft, William Perkins, a puritan and leading expert on theology
A guide to grand Jury Men with Respect to Witches, a legal advisers written by a clergyman
A treaties against Witchcraft, written by Cambridge educated Clergyman Henry Holland
Large amounts of the clergy wanted to establish a godly commonwealth thus targeted Witches but were always more concerned with the other christian sect or general heretics
Hopkins
Civil wars
Religiously motivated conflict, the king represents a more moderate approach to the religious state whilst his opponents were mostly extremists such as puritans
The Puritans were extremely fearful of the devils and this allowed them to circumvent restrictive practices of the crown to hunt massively
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Gave rise to a semi consensus amongst the more fervent religious figures that Witchcraft and all non religious pursuits should be rooted out
Witch Trials
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Staunch Puritan, Thomas Bowes was entrusted with the confession
Hopkins jumped in to assist with extracting extra names with Thomas, they tortured her a huge amount and extracted more names
They waited for familiars to appear, these allegedly did arrive later on and included a toad and strangely enough an imp
They forced her to admit that she allowed the devil to use her body, Clarke essentially became canon material for all of the procedures the Puritans wanted to ascribe to Witches
Sabbats
Essentially forced into common parlance by Hopkins when he extracted a confession from a 'witness,' Rebecca West. This was because confessions weren't enough for a conviction
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This lead to a inflammation in the amount of the accusations they could make and as such can be seen as decisive
Chelmsforpd
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Non official trials due to the pressure of the civil war, JP came into the area and escalated the trials
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Trials done on mass, essentially broke down any chance they had at a fair trials and lead to many of them getting persecuted
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