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Persecution of witchcraft lecture notes

Persecution of witchcraft lecture notes

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Persecution of witchcraft

- 1450-1750 thousands of persons, mostly women, were prosecuted by courts og law in Europe

and the New World for practicing witchcraft

- Burning at the stake or in England, hung

- Peaked in Germany, Scotland and Switzerland

- What made people so fearful of crimes?

- Witchcraft implies maleficium (Latin, literally, “evil doing”), a particular type of magic that

involves harming other people by means of some extraordinary, occult or supernatural power.

- Magic = broader concept – beneficial or harmful. High/low magic.

- High Magic – alchemy (metals to gold) and divination (secret knowledge e.g. predict future)

- Low magic – little education. Oral transmission. Individual experimentation.

- Witches = low magic. Overwhelming majority in western and central Europe – came form

lower levels of society

- Necessity of equipment for sorcery – beneficial or harmful. Maleficium is exclusively evil.

- Witches’ evil eye

- Devil = antichrist. Witch must make a pact with the devil. Homage to Satan. Sexual activity?

- Witchcraft = service of Satan. Willingly submitted to powers of darkness. Witch causes evil

willingly.

- Alleged connection between Witchcraft and diabolism – catholic writings. magic only formed

by demonic power. Changed the nature of crime. Withes were made to be not only felons but

heretics and apostates. Instead of serving God – the devil.

- 1484 – Pope Innocent 8

. 2 German Dominican flyers to hunt witches in South West

Germany. Kramer – authorities objected the violence. Cramer in exile – justification =

Malleus Maleficarum (The hammer of female witches), published in 1486. Very

misogynistic. Women are more carnal – more carnal lust in witchcraft. Kramer = Christian

monk, perhaps more peculiar views.

- Future books less misogynistic, still female based

- Cleansing of Catholicism – reforming, Period – 1520-1615. Also include the period of witch-

hunting height. Historians automatically assumed the reformation was a catalyst for witch-

hunting. Chronology coincides.

- Witch-hunting began 100 years prior to reformation. Reformations early years – relatively

few witchcraft prosecutions across Europe. Hands full with Protestantism. Difficult to

establish any direct causal link between the two developments.

- Hugh Trevor-Roper – Protestant and Catholic Reformations probably intensified the process

of witch-hunting and helped the craze to spread from place to place.

- Awareness of evil increased during the reformations.

- Fear of devil growing at same time as willingness to fight

- Major Protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin warned all Christians of the

omnipresence of Satan but were not specifically preoccupied with witchcraft.

- The 16th-century German Catholic theologian Peter Canisius mentioned the Devil more often

than Christ in his catechism.

- Luther and Calvin – heretic nature of witchcraft.

- Luther’s mother – cavorting with devil.

- Catholic and protestant communities – zealous commitment to rid world of Satan and

minions. Millenarian beliefs – end of the world.

- Witch-hunts spread unevenly across Europe

- Geographical areas with a lot of religious tension – religious divisions fostered political

instability and violence. Persecutions often come in the wake of that violence.

- Religiously homogeneous or monolithic states experienced only sporadic witch-hunts and

relatively low number of witch executions.

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Persecution of witchcraft - - - - - 1450-1750 thousands of persons, mostly women, were prosecuted by courts og law in Europe and the New World for practicing witchcraft Burning at the stake or in England, hung Peaked in Germany, Scotland and Switzerland What made people so fearful of crimes? Witchcraft implies maleficium (Latin, literally, “evil doing”), a particular type of magic that involves harming other people by means of some extraordinary, occult or supernatural power. Magic = broader concept – beneficial or harmful. High/low magic. High Magic – alchemy (metals to gold) and ...
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