last min witchcraze revision

Question 1

Why was there a growth in witch hunting in the 15th century?

Answer 1

With the introduction of the printing press late in the century, pamphlets and an increase in literature transmitted knowledge about demonic witchcraft rapidly

Question 2

What was the impact of Malleus Maleficarum?

Answer 2

The Malleus Maleficarum (Witches’ Hammer) was the first witchcraft treatise that had a major impact.
First published in 1486 it was reprinted 13 times before 1520 (16 times by 1660).
It was written by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Spreger, two Dominican friars.
The book was based on Kramer’s investigations as an Inquisitor for Southern Germany.
The treatise lent a new urgency to eradicating witches who in Kramer’s view were mainly women.
The upsurge of witch trials in the 1490s in Central Europe can be seen as a result of MM. In Italy however persecutions decreased.
Wolfgang Behringer claims that the years after 1470 were years of crisis due to plagues. People sought scapegoats so Kramer may have been just playing on people’s fears.

Question 2

Why was there a major difference between elite and popular views of witchcraft?

Answer 2

The ruling elite believed in the Devil’s Pact more than the illiterate peasantry possibly because the idea was circulated among literature and pamphlets which peasants couldn’t read.
Peasants were more concerned with the potential harm that they, or especially their crops, could receive due to Maleficarum.

Question 3

When was the main period of witch hunting and what type of people were usually persecuted?

Answer 3

Some 40,000-50,000 witches, the majority of whom were poor single, women over 50, were executed mainly in the period 1560-1660

Question 4

Why can the witch hunts be regarded as essentially a judicial operation?

Answer 4

Brian Levack argues that the witch hunts was essentially a judicial operation.
The majorities of those executed were legally tried and sentenced.
Continental courts tended to concentrate power in the hands of individual judges

Question 5

To what extent did torture create witchcraft?

Answer 5

Torture was used on the Continent but very rarely in England.
Confessions under torture confirmed the evidence from witchcraft treatises.
When torture was used the rate of convictions could be as high as 95%. When it wasn’t used it was below 40%.
Torture ensured that more people were accused as alleged accomplices. Chain reaction hunts became possible.

Question 6

What was the impact of the Reformation on witch-hunting?

Answer 6

The Reformation increased European’s fear of the Devil, which increased fear of witches and urgency to eradicate them.
Protestants tried to eradicate Catholic superstitious beliefs and practices. This could have led to campaigns against witches.
The Reformation sparked a new determination to create a godly state and there was a new insistence on literal interpretations of the bible

Question 7

To what extent did state – building contribute to witch hunting?

Answer 7

In the 16th and 17th centuries, several European states grew in size and power.
Rulers took a heightened interest in religious matters. The good citizen became the good Christian.
The state assisted and encouraged witch hunting

Question 8

Was witch hunting essentially driven from below?

Answer 8

Alan Macfarlane and Keith Thomas held this belief in the 1970s.
Their studies conveyed that witchcraft accusations in England were caused by interpersonal tensions between villagers.
They show that accused witches were usually unpopular, antisocial people, known for begging and cursing those who turned them away.
Far more suspected witches died because of their neighbours’ fear than politically directed hunts.

Question 9

How important were socio-economic factors in the rise of witch hunting?

Answer 9

Socio-economic changes included:
 Population increase (Englands doubled from 1540-1660).
 Rise in prices
 Growth of towns
 The break in traditional village community.
 The ‘mini ice age’ led to a demand for scape goats.
 The impact of disease.
 Class conflict

Question 10

Was witch hunting essentially women hunting?

Answer 10

Women were more likely to be accused for a number of reasons:
 Female Occupations – Being a midwife made women venerable to accusations as women and infants often died during the act. Many women were ‘cunning folk’ who used white magic as healers, which meant they could be easily accused when their clients experienced misfortune. Dairy communities experienced more accusations as women had more autonomy and milk and butter could be easily spoiled.
 Economic Position – Women were more likely to be poor which placed them at the margins of society. The historian Eve Labouvie calculated that 43% of all women accused in Trier belonged to the lowest class of villagers.
 Believed to be morally weaker – Women were seen as morally weaker, supported by the Bible (Adam and Eve) and Malleus Maleficarum which asserted that women were more gullible and prone to infidelity and carnality.
 Challenges/failed expectations of patriarchal society – Elderly, single and widowed women were treated with suspicion of being more like possessed by the Devil. 40% of witches accused in Essex between 1560-1680 were single women.
Some feminist historians have seen witch hunts as a by product of the patriarchy and misogyny. It is unlikely that the witch hunts were created as a direct hate of women, however many accused were threats to the patriarchy. A high proportion of accusers were women but they might have been being victims of patriarchal beliefs

Question 11

How did witch hunting develop?

Answer 11

Witch hunts did not start spontaneously in those communities that were ideologically, legally, politically, socially and economically prepared to experience them.
Plague, famine and the preaching of clergy which appear to have caused a hunt in one area, produced nothing in another.
In most cases what triggered the initial change was a personal tragedy or misfortune that an individual interpreted as an act of maleficent magic. Sometimes communal misfortune was responsible for the initial impetus to round up witches.

Question 12

What were the main features of large witch hunts?

Answer 12

Many large scale witch hunts were chain-reaction hunts in which victims named accomplices.
Judges heard cases from different areas within their jurisdiction and did so over a long period of time.
Hunts often occurred in waves, each occurrence of trails had its own dynamic.

Question 13

Why was there so much witch hunting in the HRE?

Answer 13

The Empire exercise very little control over the activities of the various judicial tribunals.
There were no:
 Itinerant judges to ensure that the Carolina (legal code) was upheld.
 Procedures for regular appeals to the imperial Supreme Court.
Local courts were required to consult with the law faculty of neighbouring universities in witchcraft cases. As Us were the centres of dissemination of demonological theory, consultation with them helped to introduce diabolical ideas to local magistrates

Question 14

Where else did witch hunting occur on a large scale?

Answer 14

France had a population only slightly smaller than the HRE. There was some 3000 witch prosecutions and 1000 executions.
Ten thousand witches are estimated to have been executed in Switzerland.
In Poland at least 1000 were executed.
The largest witch hunts took place in Southern Germany

Question 15

Which countries saw relatively little witch hunting?

Answer 15

The Dutch Republic had a population of over a million, yet fewer than 150 witches were executed and they ended earlier than any other part of Europe.
Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia had very rare persecutions.
There were probably fewer than 500 executions for witchcraft in Southern Europe

Question 16

Why was witch hunting so intense in Southern Germany?

Answer 16

The intensity of witch hunting was particularly prominent in small ecclesiastical territories like Wurzberg and Bamberg.
In most cases the trail of witches in Germany was entrusted to courts which exercised jurisdiction over a relatively small area.
German judges had a latitude in handling witchcraft cases ‘that zealous witch-hunters in other parts of Europe would certainly have envied’ (historian Brian Levack).
Levack believes the small size of jurisdictional units helps explain why the largest witch hunts took place in Germany.

Question 17

What were the main features of the Trier witch hunt (1581-93)?

Answer 17

Witch hunting in the prince-bishopric of Trier is associated with the suffragen bishop Peter Binsfield.
The factors that helped him to persecute witches were:
 In the 1580s there had been poor harvests and therefore bad economy. People sought scapegoats.
 A newly established Jesuit College enthusiastically supported Binsfield. They kept boys who claimed they had attended sabbats and could identify witches.
Most witches conformed to the usual stereotype of female, old and relatively poor. But as the hunts progressed no even the noble and rich were safe.
In 1587, Dr Dietrich Flade was accused of attending a sabbat. Flade had served as councillor to the Prince-Bishop, chancellor of the university and chief prosecutor. It is possible that he began to oppose the witch trials.
Flade, tortured until he confessed, was burned. The persecutions resulted in the burning of former Lord Mayors, councillors and scores of parish priests. There were more than 1000 deaths

Question 18

What were the main features of the Bamberg witch-hunt (1626-31)?

Answer 18

Bamberg was a small independent Catholic bishopric.
Witch hunting began under Prince Bishop Aschhausen. He burned 300 suspected witches.
It resumed with even more ferocity under Prince Bishop Dornheim. He was nicknamed Witch-Bishop as he was responsible for the deaths of 600 victims and even built a special witch-house complete with a torture chamber.
In the mid 1620s Bamberg had been devastated by war, crop failure, famines and plagues.
The vice chancellor Dr George Haan had served the bishops of Bamberg loyally for many years. However his relative leniency as a judge made him suspect of being a witch sympathiser.
This resulted in Haan, his family and five councillors (who had been accused by Haan under torture) all being burned.
Johannes Junius was one of the councillors. Under torture he named accomplices including friends and relatives. He and all of his family (save one daughter) were executed.
The terror of Bamberg receded in the summer of 1631. This was partly due to Emperor Ferdinand’s opposition, Dornheim’s exile and the Swedish King’s intervention

Question 19

Wurzberg (1626-31)

Answer 19

Witch hunting reached its climax during the reign of Prince-Bishop Ehrenberg. Some 900 people were executed.
Victims came from all sections of society regardless of age, profession or gender.
Those burned included nobles and mayors, Ehrenberg’s own nephew, nineteen Catholic priests and children of seven of those accused.
In 1631, Ehrenberg died and the Swedish King took over which brought the witch trials to an end

Question 20

Cologne (1626-34):

Answer 20

Subject to Prince-Elector Ferdinand, Archbishop of Cologne, about 2000 people were burned.
Ferdinand had been educated in Trier while the witch hunts had taken place.
During the first fifteen years of his reign there were few witchcraft prosecution. A series of terrible crop failures seem to have led to the witch hunts.
Only after persecutions had gained momentum at a local level did Ferdinand intervene, appointing witch commissioners.
These soon went out of control, implementing their own policies and terrorising whole regions.

Question 21

What were the main features of English witch persecution?

Answer 21

It is likely that some 500 witches were executed in England between 1500 and 1700.
There was only one mass witch hunt: that associated with Mathew Hopkins and John Stearne in East Anglia

Question 22

How important was Puritanism with regard to witch hunting?

Answer 22

Historians have generally regarded Puritans as more likely than Anglicans to persecute witches.
The most serious witch hunt occurred in a Puritan dominated area led by Puritans.
However while some Puritans like William Perkins argued for the extirpation of witches others accepted views like Reginald Scotts’.

Question 23

Witch cake

Answer 23

In February 1692, Mary Sibley approached John Indian and Tituba (both slaves/servants in Parris’ house) to bake a witch cake. This cake, containing the urine of the effected girls, was fed to the dog who was supposed to sniff out the witches responsible. Instead the girls condition worsened

Question 24

The Court of Oyer and Terminer

Answer 24

The Court of O and T was a temporary court created in May 1692 by William Phips (Governor of Massachusetts). It was set up specifically to convict accused witches. The Court accepted the use of spectral evidence (witness testimony that a person’s ghost or spirit appeared) which made it very easy for anyone to be accused. Of the 156 people imprisoned, 79 were charged solely on the grounds of spectral evidence. They used the archaic ‘touch test’, their questioning style was more accusatory than trying to determine the suspects innocence and they accepted child testimonies.

Question 25

Innovation in the scientific world

Answer 25

The decline of witch hunting did not have one specific cause nor did it decrease at the same pace across Europe. Scientists began to adopt a policy of questioning the natural world more and rejecting religious dogma. The idea that the world functioned like a machine discredited the work of God and the Devil more accurately. New chairs were introduced at universities and scientific academies were created in France and Italy. Gresham College in London during the mid seventeen century had scientists and philosophers congregate to share their ideas and theories. The Royal Society in England served a similar purpose and other European countries set up organisations comparable to it. Publications: Publications in the 17th and 18th centuries condemning witch craft or disproving it with science and maths were essential to its descent. Balthasar Bekker’s The Bewitch World (1691-93) comprised of four volumes containing an adamant criticism of witch hunting, denying the Devil’s Pact and many other accusations that had been associated with the Devil. Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principle of Natural Philosophy (1687) proved the fundamental laws of mechanics in nature. Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method (1637) argued that knowledge can be obtained through the use of scientific and mathematical methods. Thomas Ady wrote three books that were critical of witch hunting, attacking the delusion of witch craft and using the Bible as the foundation of his argument. John Webster’s Displaying the Supposed Witchcraft (1677) used medical and scientific evidence and ridiculed the Devil’s Pact. Francis Hutchinson’s Essay Concerning Witchcraft (1718) used natural philosophy developments to support the notion that witch craft was fictitious. He explained that many of the events that people saw as witch craft and maleficium were actually caused naturally.

Question 26

Changes in the legal system

Answer 26

Courts began to avidly denounce the use of torture and throughout the mid to late 18th century many European countries abolished it. In Germany, during the seventeenth century, as the concept of demonology began to be met with more contempt, universities and the scholarly elite were more careful about their advice to local courts. European judges during the seventeenth century became increasingly mistrustful of the evidence presented in witch craft cases and stricter measures were taken. Spectral evidence and the testimony of children were met with more scepticism and accusations of maleficium had to be proven with a lot more validity

Question 27

Changes in religion

Answer 27

There was a lesser emphasis, from both Catholic and Protestant reformers, to create a ‘godly’ state and there was also a closer reading of the Bible which discovered that there were few references to witchcraft and none to worshiping the Devil. The end of the 30 Years War marked a period of religious calm and toleration began to be common in Protestant communities. The Dutch Republic adopted a policy of religious tolerance earlier than other European counties which resulted in it being one of the first to have a decline in witch hunting.

Question 28

Socio-economic changes:

Answer 28

Inflation decreased, there was an improvement in real wages and the effects of war on civilians was significantly reduced. This meant there was less cause to be resentful and suspicious of one another. There is also evidence that plague epidemics decreased, the mini-ice age came to an end and there were less crop failures. This meant that there was no need to seek scapegoats