WITCHCRAFT Flashcards
(39 cards)
What is important to note with witchcraft?
Victims (the accused)
The accuser (also victims of sickness, death, and crops dying) (Stress drove them to believe there were witches among)
What was Magic in Early Modernity?
Magic traditions in Christianity and Europe
: resurrection, transubstantiation, miracles, etc.
*There are also magical folk practice
Magic and Religion solved different problems, what were they?
Magic: Short term
- solves immediate problems like illness, bad luck, unfulfilling personal relationships
- interconnected disciplines: astrology, palmistry, etc.
Religion: Long term
- solves big, long-term problems about the afterlife, morality, and cosmic justice
*Religion also gives life meaning
What does the Clergy think about Magic?
Magic challenges religion’s explanatory power = Clergy treat magic as a rival
What was the renaissance natural magic?
Masculine intellectual tradition of renaissance
- Use natural materials (not spirits) to cause changes in the world
related to alchemy, astronomy, and astrology
Two big natural magic followers:
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
Marsilio Ficino
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463 – 1494): young upstart magician who became an acolyte of Savonarola and burned his books, assassinated by a fellow practitioner
*Marsilio Ficino (1433 – 1499): Catholic priest and scholar of natural magic (especially astronomy/astrology)
*Accused and acquitted of heresy
Were the witch hunts solely catholic or protestant?
Was everywhere
Both Protestant and Catholic clergy saw themselves as direct competitors to magic
*And accused each other of being magic-adjacent
*Protestants: the Catholic Church’s emphasis on ritual, hierarchy, and mystery is basically magic
*Catholics: the Protestant emphasis on autonomous interpretation opens the door to demonic forces
What is Idolatry?
Worshipping something that is Not God (ex. devil, a cool rock u found, eric)
What is Heresy?
Worshiping God according to wrong belief (ex. Protestants and Catholics accuse each other of this)
What is Superstition?
Worshiping God the wrong way (ex. Folk practice, kind of hedging bets with God)
Smaller crime then other two
What is a witch?
You are one with alliance with the Devil (gain power!)
-
How is power conveyed to Witch?
*Sex with the devil
*A deal with the devil in which the witch hands over their soul
What did Witches do?
*Flying ointment
*Killing infants and new mothers
*Killing cattle
What were witches “accessories”?
*Familiars
*Brooms
Who qualified as witches?
- Both men and women
- People outside expected gender roles were targeted:
Masterless women: women who have no man (husband, father, brother, etc.) to govern them
*Women who have never married or had children
*Men who are disagreeable (didn;t get along with other men), have no children, either married to accused witches or unmarried
Witchcraft accusations are highly regional
How did people Identify witches?
- Need strange things happening in community first
- Look for devils mark on a woman:
*A mark on the witch’s body that is dead to sensation and does not bleed
*A third nipple from which a familiar can drink blood
*A mole or birthmark in a meaningful shape
When was peak of witch craze?
peak of the witch craze was roughly 1580-1630
What were the “swimming” and “pricking” methods of investigation? (also other)
*Swimming: Based on the theory that witches renounced their baptism, it hypothesized that a witch thrown into water would be similarly renounced by that water and float (tied to chair, toss in water. Ifsink, they’re human & fish them out)
*Pricking: Poking the Devil’s Mark with something sharp to demonstrate that it was numb and did not bleed
*Other methods included sleep deprivation, cutting witches, and judicial torture
How is the witch craze often framed?
The witch craze is often framed as men fearing women, but women’s fears are also central to witch persecution
What made neighbors turn on neighbors?
Genuine terror
- Triggered by local tragedies
- Reproduction and farming issues
- Worried about social reproduction
- So “masterless women” who haven’t had a child or work for a business are excluded from reproduction of society (thus targeted)
What were witches blamed for?
Witches were often blamed for mass tragedies = East Anglian witch persecutions during the English Civil Wars
*“Something is wrong with society, and we must get to the bottom of it before it destroys us”
Why did witches confess? (Two reasons)
- Ppl who were accused of being witches were also scared of witches
- W/ interrogation might believe they are accidently guilty
Transference: a psychological process by which strong feelings about one person or concept are transferred onto another - Torture
Witches don’t just reluctantly confess but come up with these incredibly lurid scenarios (see the readings) and confess to more than they were accused of
Did the Spanish Inquisition have witch hunts?
Incidentally, the Inquisition pursued very few witchcraft allegations because it was more interested in the crime of heresy
What were the witch hunts like in Germany?
Southern Germany = Notorious
Accused: e generally older, “masterless” women but young women, men, and even children were also accused (NOTE: children are typically just victims elsewhere in Europe)
Widespread hunts and violent executions
