Age Of Anxiety Essay

In response to The Hammer of Witches and the papal bull issued by Pope Innocent VIII, major witch hunts broke out in Europe. Moreover, these were aided by new technology, the printing press, which helped to spread the mania, even across the Atlantic to America. It is not surprising that the witch hunt started around the13-15th century. During this time, Europe was overpopulated and in a poor condition with dirty streets, crime and diseases everywhere. There had to be a scapegoat for all of the mess which the church decided was witchcraft. A complex social matrix was created once an accusation was made: the accusers would try to prove the source of what had been troubling them, and ideally to gain control over that source by forcing her to back away and remove the

In 17th-century Colonial America, contact with the supernatural was considered part of everyday life; many people believed that evil spirits were present and active on Earth. This superstition emerged 15th century Europe and spread with the colonization of North American puritan colonies. Women were believed to be the most susceptible to demonic behavior; females were considered simple targets for Satan due to being viewed as the weaker sex physically, spiritually, and morally. Women who did not conform to the Puritan ideals at the time were usually ostracized, institutionalized, or brutally murdered. In 1692, thirteen women were famously put on trail for accusations of witchcraft; famously known as the Salem Witch Trails. Most of these women were put on trial and later burned to death for erratic and un-Godly behaviors, 78% of the people charged were women who were accused of doing devilish things such as; speaking out against church officials, being a financially wealthy widow, having pre marital sex, or just being too beautiful. According to Michael Coren’s Why Catholics are Right “five million women were killed by the Church as witches… witch hunts began in the sixteenth century in Europe and that between 30,000 and 50,000 men and women were burned to death for

From the time of the 1690’s the entirety of Salem, Massachusetts were Puritans. “The Puritan lifestyle was restrained and rigid: People were expected to work hard and repress their emotions or opinions. Individual differences were frowned upon.” (Salem Witch Trials, The World Behind the Hysteria). These people believed that doing anything sinful would result in punishment from God. Just as much as they believed in God, they also believed in the Devil. Keeping up with the Puritan code, it led to the first women being accused of witchcraft. They were viewed as pariahs, and seen differently. Had the Puritan government let the afflicted defend themselves, not be so dependent on religion, not investigating the facts or scrutinize the trials the killing of many could have been prevented. The hangings from the trials would ultimately be the last in America.

For starters, the most significant change was the scientific revolution; this change caused the court to require hard evidence, which in witch trials was impossible. Without the evidence, witches could no longer be convicted and burned at the stake. This lack of convictions led to lack of accusations, which then ended the witchcraze. In addition to this, Levack discusses the changes in the legal system and procedures. According to Levack, “the central judicial authorities of early modern European states did more to restrain the process of witch-hunting than to abet it.

The witch trials in continental Europe, which lasted from the late 1300s until around 1650, resulted in an execution of "between 200,000 and 500,000 witches, 85% or more of whom were women."1 There is wide debate between historians arguing about whether or not this is a mass act of sexism—some stating that large groups of men gathered together to blame women for all of their village 's misfortunes, while others state that there were still a high number of males executed for witchcraft, and that anybody could be considered a witch. There is no getting around the fact that gender was a very important factor in the European witch trials, seeing as a majority of victims across the country were women. That being said, the idea of witch-hunts being sexist and specifically targeted towards women is false, rather, the label of "witch" was more frequently added onto powerful women who were viewed as sinful threats to society, resulting in the high number of executed females.

“The European Witch-Hunts, c. 1450-1750” by Steven Katz describes witch-hunts and how females played a huge role as victims. This journal proves that not only were most women accused of being women but they were also the victims. The author of this journal brings up data and information to back up his theory that women were the victims because people were afraid of women having to much power. This journal is a good article for anyone researching witch hunts and the impact it had on females and why.

Witch hunts blazed across Europe over the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries not just killing innumerable innocent people, but stripping women of much of the power they had once held, and changing society's perceptions of women all together. The economic hardships, religious rivalries, and troubled politics of the time made accusing your neighbors of witchcraft convenient. Where there was war and poverty, or merely bad luck, peasants would assume witchcraft and rush to blame an old, defenseless woman in trials which involved unbelievable cruelty and horrible sadism. As religion and the Catholic Church began to complement and perpetuate the increasing hysteria, European society as a whole could do nothing but

Following the Middle Ages, as the Renaissance and Reformation began across Europe, an intense fear of witches was provoked among citizens. Witches were characterized as individuals who were possessed by the Devil, and were believed to be threats to the order and wellbeing of society. Individuals accused of witchcraft endured trials that typically resulted in execution. Satanic worshipping was considered heresy, thus was these executions were considered justified. While witch-hunting occurred throughout Europe, the most prevalent areas were regions of Germany, as well as other Protestant areas such as Switzerland, England, and Denmark. Although individuals were often persecuted as witches out of a fear of the unknown that sparked mass hysteria in the Renaissance, the desire for religious conformity to Christianity throughout the Reformation and the exploitation of fear as a means of political control also lead to an increase in persecutions throughout the 15th and 16th centuries.

The beginning of the witch craze began in Europe in the start of the mid 1300’s. Over a hundred thousand people were executed after being accused of witchcraft. Most of these people were women and it was most common for witch trials to happen in Central Europe, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Belgium. Executing witches only became practiced around the 18th century during this time. This is when accused witches would be burned at the stake. It was common for people to be alive while being burned but they were usually beheaded or strangled before their bodies were burned. The estimated amount of people burned during this time were about 20,000 people. The hunt for witches soon declined when people started to realize that they were going to far with the executions and they became fearful that innocent people were dying. The demand for more evidence when someone was accused became bigger and the executions decreased. But Salem, Massachusetts became victim to the trials soon after.

First of all, innocent people were incriminated of witchcraft because of others prejudices. The accused often had specific physical attributes which they were judged for. For instance, “People who were different in anyway, through age, physical disability, or mental disability, were picked out by those who wanted to believe there was some specific reason why things had gone wrong.” (ref: news.bbc.co.uk) These people were punished because of the physical and genetic traits they shared. Furthermore, the alleged witches had similar personality traits.

The merging of magical deeds with the idea that women were consorting with the devil made the moral panic intense, increasing puritan panic. Because two taboos had become intertwined, the town of Massachusetts became engrossed in the topic of witches. While men were also the victims, women were the center of the burnings, and were usually seen as outcasts that exposed an area or town to a negative reputation. This is highly sexist, as women had few lifestyle options, and if they deviated from what was expected, they were at risk of being accused of witchcraft. Weeding out unpleasant townsfolk was a major criteria for trials. In this period, women generally belonged to a father until married. Outcasts usually defined women who were homeless and not married. This meant women were dependent on men, working to please a male dominated society where their lives were strictly controlled. Those who were raped were at fault for their victimization. Women in this age were solely housewives, without an education and held no power or land. Perhaps the few freedoms females enjoyed that were not advised by fellow colonial women were view with jealous eyes, and punished by the resentful. Another interesting and ironic fact that the actual term ‘witch hunts’ became used metaphorically to describe moral panics in general. Even though the thought is sickening to modern readers, the process of burning the accused was a legal act until 1750.

Life in general is consisting of metamorphic events. These changes are part of human history as well as his culture. In this paper I would tried to compare two different period of that history, commonly known as age of anxiety and contemporary humanity. These two periods are somehow interrelated, one Preceding the other. The age of anxiety was made up of many horrific events which determine later on how Nation are build and alliance are concluded in the world. This period was mark primarily by the biggest war recorded that the human kind have seem, War world I and world II. It was also a greet period of Invention of many technologies. Contemporary humanity can be considered as a post child of Anxiety era. That period has seen a

During the Middle Ages in the 1700s, there was a witch craze throughout Europe. Witches were reported, tortured, and punished. Roughly 100,000 of them were put on trial, many of whom were tried in southeastern Europe. As several Europeans of this era were Roman Catholics, witches were perceived as having connections with the Devil. Because of this, the three major reasons for the execution of witches were religious beliefs, social prejudices, and personal disputes.

Many innocent women happily welcomed death by confessing to witchcraft in order to end their excruciating torture during the witch hunt craze between 1450 and 1750. Since many records were lost, destroyed or never kept, the best estimation of the total deaths is several million (4). The main cause of the witch hunts was the Church inflicting fear upon the common and educated man by lying to them about what witches do and who they are. The Church also directly and indirectly increased the pain that accused women would go through during their torture. The Church made it clear, to all those who would listen, that all women were evil and capable of witchcraft. 'The Bible's Apocrypha states, 'Of woman came the

The witch-hunt that blazed a trail across Europe (and indeed the world) over the 15th to 18th centuries stripped women of much of the power they had historically held. Not 100% of all accused Witches were female but 75% to 90% of accused witches in Europe were in fact women (Levack, 1987, p.124).