Religion, Superstition & Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe

Those who claimed to know the future and weren’t prophets were convicted of blasphemy and witchcraft and were punished. It was considered witchcraft because fortune-telling required a direct relationship between a human or witch and unholy spiritual powers. During the Middle Ages, witchcraft in ecclesiastic or church courts was presided over by church-appointed officials. This may have caused biased opinions and also links to religion being a cause of the harsh punishment. In medieval judicial proceedings, torture was sometimes used as a means of extracting information concerning witchcraft, and confessions were not uncommon. Historical evidence states that many confessed out of fear of being tortured and not because they were truly guilty.

During the 1600’s there were many opinions and lifestyle changes because of witches, this time period is slightly before and during the Salem Witch Trials. In any group of people with large numbers, there are always going to be outcast, whether it’s just a birthmark or a personality tweak. That’s just life. Well in the 1600’s if you were born with red hair and freckles and both ur parents were brunette and brown eyes, then you were considered and outcast and possibly even referred to as a witch. If you were socially awkward in any way or any kind of a social outcast then you would fall into the category of a witchcraft person. If accused of being a with many things were possible to happen, killed banished. Neither are very good alternatives but it is a choice. Most people think of a witch as an older women with a huge wart, tall black hat, and riding on a broom. However this is not

During the Medieval period, avid church goers and clergymen had many fears regarding heresy, one of which was the spread of doubt within the faith. In a time when only churchmen could read and write, it was their teachings of the

Witchcraft in the 1400s going on to the 1700s gained massive popularity due to several factors. Some of these factors included hallucinogens contained in the “oyl” women used to anoint themselves, manipulating the hysteria and using it as a form of social control to make people conform to the norms of the society and lastly, using it to explain misfortunes that afflicted the people of the community and the neighboring ones.

A common Basque saying goes, “before God was God and boulders were boulders, Basques were already Basques.” This saying highlights the Basque’s enduring inhabitance in the mountains between Spain and France. The existence in the Pyrenees is remarkable considering the population’s repeated persecution. The bombing of Guernica is one of the most notorious instances of Basque persecution, which was Pablo Picasso’s inspiration for arguably his most recognizable painting, Guernica. Another period of persecution in the Basque region was the Inquisition during the early seventeenth century. Pierre de Lancre initiated the Inquisition on the French side in 1609, which swiftly spread to Logroño, a region on the Spanish side, by 1610. The Inquisition

Witches, are they real or fake? That question continues to be asked today. However, in the Middle Ages, a time period blurred by war, religious incursions, and disease, witches may have or may have not have existed, but something that was just as bad if not worse did. Witchcraft accusations. Witchcraft accusations unleashed a whole host of new problems such as: rampant persecution and paranoia, and the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and the use of politics rather than religion when they so often went hand in hand.

Superstition and the Witch-hunts in Early Modern Britain The people of Early Modern Britain were deeply superstitious and this aspect to their character had a major bearing on the course that the events of the witch-hunts took. The belief in witches was as illogical as many of the other beliefs that were popularly held in Early Modern Britain. The populous held many beliefs that were not based on fact. These beliefs would be very old and passed on from generation and built in to the character of every person.

With Europe entering the 17th century, its citizens were still undergoing the prosperity that coincided with the emergence of the Renaissance. Economic growth, newly-structured capitalistic movements as well as trans-Atlantic expansion, became the successes of Europe and, as a result, its citizens overcame the overwhelming death toll (due to previous wars and the notorious Black Plague ). This led to an explicit reevaluation of life, the importance of religion, and prospects of power—which all soared to an all-time high. One example of a reevaluation of the “prospects of power” would be the decrees and regulations undertaken by monarchs of the 17th century in response to the Church. Often times, secular rulers would amass power and favorability

In the 17th century, many people believed that witches had the ability to hurt or even kill. Anyone could be accused, but individuals who differed from their neighbors were watched carefully. Suspicious signs included extreme age, physical disability, mental impairment, bad temper and irritable personality. Fear grew so strongly from this superstition that communities in Europe and the American colonies staged witch hunts, and many alleged witches were arrested, tried and executed. Historians have many explanations for this persecution, including mass hysteria, individual grudges and the desire to blame someone for social or personal problems. To counter the power of any witches who were unidentified, some wary people filled jugs with items like nail clippings, hair, pins and nails. For full protection, the bottles had to be buried near the front or back door or hidden in the chimney.

In the 9th century, the Canon Episcopi stated, “bishops and their officials must labor with all their strength to uproot thoroughly from their parishes the pernicious art of sorcery and malefice…if they find a man or women follower of this wickedness to eject them foully disgraced from their parishes” (Levack, The Witchcraft Sourcebook, 2015, p. 36). Known for its leniency, the Canon Episcopi is in stark contrast to that of later writings and practices relating to the punishments of convicted witches. Once an offense mandating banishment, witchcraft began escalating into an offense liable to execution by burning (Levack, The Witchcraft Sourcebook, 2015, p. 35). Brought on by changes in government, witch-hunting and the trials that followed would soon take a gruesome turn. Thus, the prosecution of witchcraft was best suited in a court of law exercising established criminal procedures as opposed to employing procedures regarding crimen exceptum, or expected crimes.

Lastly, Jesus’s belief and Augustine doctrine are helpful in realizing that we the Church do not attend to accuse our brethren of being unholy. The church is a refuge, not a space to point the finger and say what row is going to hell or what row is on the way to heaven. We are there to hear about the Lord and Jesus says do not try to uproot the tare it could harm the

This included stealing of his neighbors fruit for no other reason besides the fact that he wanted to commit the sin. Then he would boost about sleeping around with women even though he hadn’t because he wanted the attention. These experiences are how Augustine believed that humans were inclined towards original sin, and could only be saved from the grace of God. Next, in his work about the Holy Trinity, Augustine wrote about how the Holy Trinity was one substance, including the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and not separate. “This does not, however, make three gods or three creators. The Father, the Son and the Spirit are each one Person, and any person affirms himself for himself”(De Trin, VII, 11). Lastly, in the City of God, Augustine wrote that the fall of the Roman Empire was not at the hands of the Christians. In this, he also emphasized his original position on original sin, and include statements of good versus evil. Furthermore, Augustines work were vital to debating points in the first council that defined the Holy Trinity(First Council of Nicaea), set up by Constantinople.

Chapter 10 – Chapter ten confronts the problem within the church of adding to the service. The history of the church is given from the Post-Apostolic worship to the medieval

Good treatment was given to the subject of apostacy that would eventually creep into the early church. As well as it remaining in the present century. The author made good use of modern examples of the unauthorized Catholic hierarchy, councils, observances of “religious holidays, creeds, pouring and sprinkling in place of immersion, instrumental music, and man-made doctrines. I have no complaints of the rest of the treatment of chapter two. The flow and the language used seemed to be well-balanced as far as I could tell.

In this paper, I plan to discuss two topics from DeYoung and Gilbert’s book: the starting point of the church’s mission and the “end of the end of the story”. Even though, the subject of the Mission of the Church is profoundly deep and has enormous applications, it seems that both the essence of the mission (its starting point), and the ultimate goal of the mission, (its ending point), are extremely vital to the entire paradigm of the church’s mission.