Witchcraft Essay

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

Spielvogel states that “Europe’s longtime adversaries-war, famine, and plague-continued to affect population levels” (Spielvogel 437). Europeans also experienced another temperature drop that hurt harvests and led to a shortage of food (Spielvogel 437). Anxiety and anger over Europe’s worsening state led people to make allegations of witchcraft in order to explain the worsening conditions in Europe (Spielvogel 437). To summarize, heightened tensions within small communities because of Europe’s longtime worsening conditions played a part in why there was so much hysteria over witchcraft.

Witchcraft wasn't new to the world, it had been occurring in Europe for hundreds of years. From the 14th-16th century, 40,000- 50,000 individuals in Europe were executed for the suspicion of witchcraft. Religion was very pertinent to the people of this era. Anything that was written in the bible or created by the church was law, it says in Exodus 22:18, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." By the year of 1231, Pope Gregory IX declared that it was legal to expose and punish any belief different from Roman Catholic doctrine. Pope Innocent the VIII deemed witchcraft a heresy, with the punishment being death. Everyone followed this decree as witchcraft was wrongful in the eyes of the church. ("Search")

Twenty four people died during the Salem Witchcraft trials of 1692, and at least a hundred more were sent to jail under the accusation of witchcraft. These trials first began when Betty Parris, Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis, and Mary Walcott were behaving oddly. The girls dashed under furniture, contorted in pain, and hallucinated, among other things. The people of a small Massachusetts colony called Salem panicked, not knowing what was causing the girls to act so oddly. There were three major reasons why this happened: childish behavior, religious beliefs and personal tensions between the two sides of the colony.

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

The most contributing factor in the witchcraft hysteria was due to the unstable colonies of the Americas. During the early 1600’s the new colonies had rough times establishing religion. Eventually the 13 colonies passed a law indicating that religion and state

Many people focus on the Salem witch trials in the early times of the United States colonies. Not many people really learned much about all of the trials that happened in Europe before, during, and after the Salem witch trials. In Europe there were tens of thousands of people were accused and killed for witchcraft (Lochloinn). There were many tortures and ways to kill accused witches. Some punishments were cruel, grueling, and long. Other ways would be quick and less painful. The people that accused others of witchcraft were afraid because they thought witches would harm them (Lambert).

Witchcraft and sorcery might be considered a myth or a legend in our modern day society. In fact, we may even find the craft entertaining and harmless. To some, it is hardly anything to fear as there is absolutely no such thing as wizards or witches. Magic itself is a rather pleasurable diversion often use at children’s parties with clowns, top hats and bunnies. Or perhaps it could only be found at Hogwarts, Camelot, or some other mythical land invented by our favorite authors. Regardless of how we may feel about witchcraft, there was a time, during the Puritan era in the 17th and 18th century when it was a prevalent contagion, as was the smallpox, and was extremely dreaded. All those who practiced magic or even suspected to contribute to the art would be put to death. All it took was a mere accusation with no real evidence to condemn a woman (or man) to the gallows or burn on the pyre. All measures necessary to rid the world of such evil would be implemented by the Puritan government and Increase Mather was just the man to ensure these methods were never applied. “He argued that it would be better that ten witches go free than the blood of a single innocent be shed” (Madden, Mathew.)

The idea of witchcraft has been around for a long time and can track all the way back to the Old Testament. When it comes to the early modern period of European history, witchcraft began around 1450 and starts to decline around 1750. The witch-hunts and witch trials play as a major factor in European history, although at the end of it all, thousands of people were killed. Before the accusations of witchcraft, the Europeans were confused about little things that they wanted an explanation on. Because of their confusion, they began to jump to conclusions about the things they were confused about.

Internal village conflict was an integral aspect of the accusations of witchcraft, with local problems assumed to have a local cause, especially in the cases of bad weather (Rapley, 2007); serious crop failure, according to Walinksi-Kiehl (2002), was the initial stimulus for the trials. Economic stagnation during this period as well as consequences of the Thirty Years War, such as the ravaging of the countryside by armies and rogue soldiers, also influenced the mass accusations of witchcraft (Walinski-Kiehl, 2002; Rapley, 2007). Another significant cause for the trials was the judiciary’s attempt to eradicate the population’s traditional superstitions to conform to the beliefs of the elite, which is evident in the trial of the 50-year-old folk-medicine practitioner, Walberg Guetin, who was forced through torture to admit to using demonic aid in her practices (Walinski-Kiehl, 2002). Bamberg officials were also obsessed with the sabbath, believing it to be the center of diabolical witchcraft. People were accused simply on the basis of attending the sabbath, whether witchcraft was performed or not, and the more people who admitted to attending and named others who attended, the more officials believed it to exist (Rapley, 2007; Levack, 2016). The vast majority of accused were convicted because others named them under torture as

In the Elizabethan era of Europe witchcraft was greatly feared among citizens and became the cause of major disruptions in society. From the early 1500s to late 1700s the witchcraft craze rose, spread and declined in England, therefore leading to the placement of various witchcraft acts during this period.

Witchcraft was known, as a practice, in which, one would give themselves, over to the devil; in return, sorcery would be gained (Witchcraft Documents [15th Century], 1996). Due to fear, and the misunderstandings, of natural disasters, witches were said, to be the cause of a multitude of events. Uneducated, about the scientific reasoning, behind; miscarriages, the destruction of crops, any lifeform that had perished, in addition, to any other mishap; inevitably, witchcraft would be to blame (Witchcraft Documents [15th Century], 1996). In an attempt, to preserve Catholicism, Pope Innocent VIII, supported, the persecution of witches.

According to Davies (1999), legislature in the 1700s considered that the view of witchcraft is no longer meaning campaign appealing anything significant. However, it was not meant that the Witchcraft Act of 1736 brought the profound denials of witchcraft. While there was a fear against a danger of Satan and his vassal and criticism against the Act, most educated people believed that there was no existence of witches.

Witchcraft has a history to it; it started long before the middle ages and is still practiced now. During the fifth century, Christian theologian St. Augustin of Hippo proclaimed that all Pagan magic and religion was invested and controlled by the Devil. He thought that the Devil’s purpose was to lure all of humanity away from the truths of Christianity. Conversely, he also believed that there was no such thing as magic. If a pagan believed in magic, then it was their “error” to do so. No one should believe in some divine power other than God’s but because of St. Augustin’s thinking, the church had no reason to persecute the so called witches or believers in magic. If magic wasn’t real then there was nothing to worry about. Later on in the