Witchcraft Persecution In Europe

Question 1

What is witchcraft?

Answer 1

Implies maleficium (evil doing), a particular kind of magic that involves harming other people by supernatural power

Question 2

What is rhe difference between magic and witchcraft?

Answer 2

Witchcraft is harmful magic of the low kind

Question 3

Kramer on witches

Answer 3

• Malleus Maleficarum, 1486
• handbook of witchcraft

Question 4

Witches and the devil

Answer 4

• late medieval catholic theologians drew a link between witchcraft and diabolism and regarded witchcraft as the worship and service to Satan
• whereby the witch willingly submitted herself or himself to the powers of darkness

Question 5

Witch-hunts and religious conflict

Answer 5

• unevenly spread across Europe, most intense in Germany send Switzerland
• religiously homogenous or monolithic states experienced only sporadic witch hunts

Question 6

Décline of witch hunts by the 18th century

Answer 6

1. Légal and judicial developments: demand for evidence, restrictions on torture
2. Changes in mental outlook: natural explanations for mysterious or supernatural
3. Religious factor: the split of western Christianity into roman Catholicism and a number of Protestant confessions became permanent
4. Changes in social and economic spheres

Question 7

What did Kramer say about female witches?

Answer 7

‘The natural reason is she is more carnal than a man… all witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable’