Trial of Temple Anneke Essay

It is important to understand the meaning of witchcraft to be able to identify what caused the massive witch-hunt in Europe. During the medieval to the early modern period witchcraft was identified as the practice of harmful, black or maleficent magic caused by a witch (Levack, 1987, p. 4). They also describe them as evildoers that associate with the Devil, kidnap children, and murder others. These accusations were untrue rumors made by the Catholic Church to promote Christianity and punish those who did not follow the church beliefs. (Levack, 1987, p. 7)

The Great Noise Witchcraft can be traced back to the time of cavemen, with most witch trials being held in the 1500's-1800's. The most well known witch trial/witch hunt in Sweden is that of "Det Stora Oväsendet" (The Great Noise), which occurred between 1668-1676, where close to 280 people-men and women- were decapitated then burned. Included in these people were Malin Matsdotter, Brita Zippel and Anna Zippel; three of Sweden's most notorious witches in history. Malin Matsdotter, at 63 years old, was accused by her daughters of taking children-including her grandchildren-to Satanic rituals to use as sacrifices. Matsdotter adamantly refused to confess even after torture, so the court took that as Satan controlling her and burned her to death, as the law stated that if one did not confess to being a witch after

In the mid-seventeenth century there was a great increase in the number of witchcraft accusations, more precisely in a little country located in southern Europe called Malta. At this time in Europe there was a system of tribunals, a court of justice, created by the Catholic Church called the Roman Inquisition (Carmel. 1993: 316-317). According to Caramel Cassar, the purpose of these tribunals at first was to keep the Catholic faith alive and to eliminate the spread of the Protestant faith (Carmel. 1993: 316-317). Unfortunately at the start of the seventeenth century the Catholic Church had a bigger

Witchcraft was defined for the masses by the publication of the Malleus Maleficarium also known simply as the Handbook. Written by two Dominican friars in 1486 it’s purpose was to be used as a handbook to identify, capture, torture, and execute suspected witches. Opinions stated as facts and written in the Malleus Maleficarium, “handbook”, were based their faith, church doctrine, and the Bible. No doubt a religious masterpiece in it’s time this handbook is a neatly woven together a group of beliefs, experiences, wisdom of ancient writers, religious ideas, and God inspired writings that justify it’s purpose. Written by and used by Catholics this handbook proved useful for Protestants as well. Based on biblical interpretation and ideas the handbook provided Protestant Church leaders biblical authority to prosecute witchcraft as well. Translated into today’s vernacular phrases such as, “everybody knows that women are feeble minded” or “everybody knows that women are more superstitious than men” and “all women have slippery tongues” are included in the handbook and presented to the reader as foregone conclusions. Specific

Rebecca Nurse was a suspect during the Salem Witch Trials. A minister said, “You are a witch. You know you are a witch,” to Rebecca. Rebecca answered, “You are a liar. I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink.” This proves that once a victim is condemned, it is almost impossible to prove them

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 16th century, different societies with distinctive social and common religious views have assisted in the harsh treatment towards witchcraft. The accounts in Salem provided its reasoning on the unexplainable acts and questions being associated with the devil producing an execution of hanging. Whereas in Europe implemented its action of persecution and torture on the influential publication of Nicole's Remy and Jean Boldin. Depending on the social and religious components in a particular community, contributes to how one perceives a witch and how they will communicate and administer the participant of witchcraft.

When analyzing all of the information provided in the two books, Witchcraft in Europe by Alan Charles Kors and Edward Peters and Magic and Superstition in Europe by Michael D. Bailey, there are a multitude of common themes that appear repeatedly in both pieces of work on the topic of witchcraft. These common themes vary in topic with some relating to the stereotypical appearance of witches, the actions witches performed, or even the legal procedures involving the conviction of witches. These themes do not only show themselves in those two pieces of work, but also in The Trial of Tempel Anneke by Peter A. Morton. While common themes can be seen in reference to Tempel Anneke’s trial, there are also many

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

Haxan is a study that shows how women in the Middle Ages were treated. Director Benjamin Christensen uses witchcraft in his film as a way to show that the same persecution that women suffered back then is similar to the one that they suffer now when doctors say that they are “hysterical.” What is true is that none of these women back then were suffering from hysteria, but were being misjudged and turned into subjects of oppression, just as women are now. Christensen uses Haxan to criticize Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis by providing his own take on the hysteria of the Middle Ages through a feminist perspective. Haxan, a silent film premiered in 1922, is divided into seven different chapters.

The Everyday Humanities series presents, “Medieval Women and the Story of the European Witch,” featuring Christine Nuefield, PhD. Her talk will explore medieval-era hysteria about witchcraft. Nuefield will also explore why women represented a disproportionate of the convicted and summarily executed.

In the scholarly source The Astronomer and the Witch, Rublack spoke about a 75-year-old illiterate woman that was depicted as a witch just for being a woman and old. In the 17th century anybody more importantly old woman could be accused of being a witch, and this is what happened to Katharina Kepler. As Rublack states, “Anyone could be drawn into witchcraft. It was a horrific idea which, in some areas, began to corrupt social trust” (pg. 1). Rublack here believes that in the 17th century it is easy to believe and to accuse anybody to be a witch.

An other element in the development in witchcraft in Europe was Christian heresy. It had been established by the fifteenth century. Its chief elements were pact with the devil, formal repudiation of Christ, the secret nocturnal meeting, the ride by night, the desecration of the Eucharist and the crucifix, orgy, sacrificial infanticide and cannibalism (417). At the first formal trial in 1022 is were sorcery was linked with the Devil. "In this trial the accused was said to hold orges underground at night, to call up evil spirits, to kill and cremate children conceived at previous orgies and use their ashes in blasphous parody of the Eucharist, to renounce Christ and desecrate the crusifix, and to pay homage to the Devil" (417). Ideas introduced by courts suggested the differences in witchcraft and in sorcery, that suppossed these two religions were alike.

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).

There are documented examples of persecution of witchcraft going as far back as Classical Antiquity and the Old Testament. For example, in Ancient Rome black magic was treated as a capital offence by the Law of the Twelve Tables . The early legal codes of most European nations contain laws directed against witchcraft. For instance, the oldest document of Frankish legislation, the Salic Law, punishes those who practice magic with various fines, especially when it could be proven that the accused launched a deadly curse. All throughout history, there have always been cases of conjures, cunning, sorcerers and witches. Normally these individuals were women, who were believed to have supernatural powers over human beings and nature. Thus, some people