The European Witch Hunts In The Inquisition And The Hammer Of Witches

Their private parts would be searched multiple times for the devil’s mark, or they would have to go through various tests to prove themselves guilty or innocent. If witch-hunters struggled to find obvious evidence of the “devil’s marks” on a suspect’s body, they might resort to the even more horrifying practice of “pricking”. It was noted in many witch hunting books that the devil’s marks were insensitive to pain and couldn’t bleed, so examiners would use specially designed needles to repeatedly stab and prick at the accused person’s flesh until they discovered a spot that produced the desired results. In England and Scotland, the torture was performed by well-paid professional “prickers”. It is hard to believe that many of them even used dulled needlepoints to identify fake witch’s marks. Along with pricking, the unfortunate suspect might also undergo the scratching test. Victims that suffered from the witch’s curse were told that they would find relief by scratching the accused person with their fingernails until they drew blood out of the accused. If their symptoms improved after clawing at the accused’s skin, it was seen as an evidence of

During the late fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, thousands of individuals were persecuted as witches. It was thought that these individuals practiced black magic and performed evil deeds, the deeds of the devil. This all happened during a time of great change in Europe, during the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the consolidation of national governments. They were persecuted for a variety of reasons, but three major ones were religious reasons, social prejudices, and the economic greed of the people. Religious leaders such as Martin Luther and John Calvin influenced the ideas of their followers. Religion dominated the time period and it’s easy to see how many opinions

Witch hunts have been going on for a long time- since the 15th century. The earliest known witch trials in which the accused were associated with the fully developed stereotype of the demonic witch was in the valais with trials of 1428, that took place in the western Alps. Witch hunts mean a search for and subsequent persecution of a supposed witch in other words hunting for witches so they can kill them.

The large-scale witch-hunts that occurred from 1638 to 1651 gathered momentum via major happenings in the political, societal, and religious domains developing at the time. Individuals who had either political, religious or economic power in society, also known as elites, together had absolute control over the pursuit and prosecution of individuals who partook in witchcraft. The clergy played a crucial role in the witchcraft prosecutions and were slower than the state and localities to desert their beliefs in the reality of witches as the prosecution of witchcraft was, in their eyes, an effective tool to eradicate social deviance. Though local authorities and the Parliament did contribute to the witch-hunts significantly, without the kirk of Scotland declaring and encouraging this sanction on witchcraft, both other parties would not have taken the actions they ultimately did. This essay will provide a brief description of events that took place from 1638 to 1651 and then utilize evidence from a multitude of sources to argue that the religious elites were the most influential of these forces during the witchcraft prosecutions that occurred in the 1640s.

The three main reasons for the persecutions of many innocent victims in Europe which last from about 1480-1700. Was, first, age, gender, and a persons class. Second, was the public opinion and peer pressure of people. And third, was very strong religious beliefs. The techniques of the witch hunts were the most helpless, or the ones that are blamed by somebody else ,in other words scapegoating . These techniques are the very same we used today in many political, economic, ideological conflicts. So we some what have witch hunts

Were the witch-hunts in pre-modern Europe misogynistic? Anne Llewellyn Barstow seems to think so in her article, “On Studying Witchcraft as Women’s History: A Historiography of the European Witch Persecutions”. On the contrary, Robin Briggs disagrees that witch-hunts were not solely based on hatred for women as stated in his article, “Women as Victims? Witches, Judges and the Community”. The witch craze that once rapidly swept through Europe may have been because of misconstrued circumstances. The evaluation of European witch-hunts serves as an opportunity to delve deeper into the issue of misogyny.

In the 1680’s and 1690’s there was mass hysteria in New England over supposed witchcraft. The most famous outbreak was in Salem, Massachusetts, hence the name Salem Witch Trials. In Salem, there were young girls who started acting strangely, and they leveled accusations of witchcraft against some of the West Indian servants who were immersed in voodoo tradition. Most of the accusations were against women, and soon the accusations started to shift to the substantial and prominent women. Neighbors accused other neighbors, husbands accused their wives, etc. and it kept going on for a while. There was this nature of evil and the trials didn’t end until nineteen Salem residents were put to death in 1692, more importantly before the girls

Witch hunting was the persecution and possible execution of individuals considered to be ‘witches’ loyal to the devil. It was an all too common occurrence from 1603-1712 all over Europe. However in order to understand why this happened the context must be taken into account. It was a time of change, the Renaissance - the rebirth of culture, ideas and attitudes to living. The Reformation had also only been implemented in England in the last 80 years back from 1603, when it had previously been catholic for centuries. The English civil war from 1642 to 1651 is argued to have played a part in the intensification of the witch hunts in England due to the peak in executions whilst it was on going. Some historians have taken the view that in time of crisis certain groups can be victimised like in wars, famine, disease outbreaks and changes in society structure.

The idea of witchcraft was a frightening thought for many villagers that believed sorcery existed. A person who possessed magic and power was branded a witch and was considered evil. The evil they used had caused fear and lead to the belief that they were bonded with the Devil. Their magic could control the mind and body of the innocence, objects, and could even be used to inflict death. Since witches disguised in human form, it was very hard to depict who was and was not a witch. Therefore, when an unforeseen phenomenon occurred, such as sickness in animals or the devastation of crops, many concluded that there was a witch walking amongst them. The willpower to capture and punish witches lead to the formation of witch-hunters (Mastin,

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

This explains why many individuals falsely testified against those that were being tortured and maimed so they would not be accused of being witches. “Only a few were able to withstand severe and prolonged torture without admitting to what they thought their interrogators wanted to hear. ”[4] Those who believed that real witches existed, and were an insult to God, trusted that the legal process of punishing would be assisted with divine power which would protect the innocent from accusation or prevent them from giving way under torture and making false confessions of guilt. King James put it in his Daemonologie that, “God will not permit that any innocent persons shalbe slandered with that vile defection: for then the divell would find waies anew, to calumniate the best.

Through a historical standpoint, humanity can be seen as a cyclic development in which old inclinations are further manifested to suit new social orders. As a result, issues that caused mass hysteria in an earlier era are often repeated again and we, just as the people of the old eras, are unable to recognize the flaws in our logic until it is too late. The witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries are perfect example, in that looking back today they seem like a stain on the history of mankind, but at the time being not many people stopped to think about the horrific acts they were committing As time progressed, and people no longer felt the need to ruin entire villages in order to fulfill their own philological desires, witch hunts, like many other trends, also came to an end. As of now, this end in mass witch-hunts can often be symbolized by the story of Anna Göldi, who not only signifies the change in how people thought, but also signifies the occurrence of excessive accusations in times of fear and ignorance.

The Reformation was a period when several religious leaders began to challenge the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, causing many to convert to an amended version of Catholicism called Protestantism. This change sparked another movement called the Catholic Reformation or otherwise known as the Counter Reformation. Not only did this movement attempt to oppose Protestantism, but also sought to eliminate corruption within the church, educate the clergy, and reclaim areas that were lost to Protestantism (Levack). During this time, the number of witch hunts and trials also escalated, but this practice was not an unfamiliar concept. Witchcraft during the Middle Ages was condemned as a sin and a pagan practice encouraged by the devil.

By giving scripture like “Exodus 22:18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” and “Leviticus 20:27 A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them” This was the start of the trails of Burning Witches. People were charge of being a witch even when they were not. By the early 1500, they were burning people who they thought were Witches. There were given a book of Hammer of Witches book offered hints to judges and prosecutors to find out if a woman/man was a Witch in 1484. There are 30 to 40 thousand witches were put to death for being accused of being a witch but some historians believe that figure is low. There 75% to 80% of them were women and 20% to 25% of them were men who were accused and put to death during the 14th and the 17th centuries. There are still witch-hunts today in sub-Saharan Africa and above all in South Africa to where there are thousands of lives each year killed for superstitious beliefs.

There were some witch trials in the Middle Ages which later widespread during 15th century mainly in the German-speaking lands, but those prosecutions were done by the civic authorities.