The end of witch-hunting in Europe Flashcards
Did European witch-hunting decline simultaneously?
Occurred at different times across Europe.
Dutch republic- decline evident by 1600. (last burning 1603)
Poland- mid-eighteenth century.
What did Levack think was the main cause for the decline in witch-hunting?
New legal procedures.
Judges and writers started to doubt that those accused were actually guilty.
How did judicial authorities reduce witchcraft persecutions?
Authorities staffing the central institutions of states would take measures to control the actions of local judges or inferior courts.
How did judicial authorities reduce witchcraft persecutions?
Example
Northern France, people subject to the jurisdiction of ‘parlement’ of Paris (royal court where people were found guilty of capital offences) could appeal.
What caused the ‘parlement of paris’ to intervene?
What did they do?
A witch panic in Champagne-Ardennes. 1587-8, hundreds of lives and the abandonment of just legal procedures.
Demanded all death sentences for witchcraft be reviewed, adopted 1604.
How did the witchcraft persecutions decline in the Holy Roman Empire?
Criminalis Carolina, imperial code of 1532.
When local courts dealt with difficult cases, they had to consult with the jurists in law faculties of near universities.
Who argued against witchcraft and what did they say?
Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld:
- Unreliable, people confessed to stop pain.
- Not fair to torture people through superstitious means.
Give dates of torture being abolished in different countries.
Prussia- 1754
Saxony- 1770
Sweden- 1782
France- 1788
Did the reduction of the use of torture prevent witchcraft accusations?
No, more of a humanitarian concern.
Witchcraft had already declined in most areas by the point of its abolition.
Why were judges more reluctant to accept witchcraft accusations/evidence?
- Confessions were usually attributed to mental illness.
- The revelation that many that had been possessed had been faking their symptoms.
- Many supernatural phenomena’s could have had natural causes. If natural causation was possible, the witch was not guilty.
- Judges increasingly unwilling to accept testimonies of children and criminals, wouldn’t be allowed in moral cases.
Witchcraft eventually became hard to prove.
How did the experience of witch-hunting make it decline?
Instead of being viewed as a way of purifying (Puritans) it just evoked fear, more counterproductive than anything.
Why did the Reformation cause a reduction in witchcraft accusations?
- Encouraged more careful readings of the bible, apart from Exodus, little talk of witchcraft.
- Growing tendency to stress the sovereignty of God. If malefica existed, God was allowing it (omnipotent). We should allow it.
Why did witchcraft persecution decline after the Thirty Years War?
Ended 1648.
Tolerance to different religions, Protestants, Catholics, Puritans etc. stopped trying to pursue the dominance of their religion or to purify the country.
Dutch republic first saw a decline in witchcraft, and was the earliest to allow religious toleration.
Who was Bekker?
Balthasar Bekker. Dutch Calvinst.
Wrote between 1691-1693, four volume treatise ‘The Bewitched World’, attacking witch beliefs.
The Devil was no more than a symbol of evil, he could not interact with the world.
How did social and economic developments make witch hunts decline in Europe?
- Inflation reduced.
- Real wages improved.
- Plague epidemics worked themselves out (some evidence).
- Effects of warfare reduced.
