FREE THE WITCH HUNTS PDF

Robert Thurston | 368 pages | 02 Feb 2007 | Taylor & Francis Ltd | 9781405840835 | English | London, United Kingdom | History & Causes | Britannica

Throughout the medieval era, mainstream Christian doctrine had denied the existence of witches and , condemning it as pagan superstition. Ina papal bull by Gregory IX established a new branch of the inquisition in Toulouse, France, to be led by the Dominicans. It was intended The Witch Hunts prosecute Christian groups considered heretical, such as the Cathars and the Waldensians. Records were usually kept by the French inquisitors but the majority of these did not survive, The Witch Hunts one historian working inCharles Molinier, refers to the surviving records as only scanty debris. The records seem The Witch Hunts have often been targeted by the accused or their friends and family, wishing to thereby sabotage the proceedings or failing that, to spare their reputations and the reputations of their descendants. Difficulty in understanding the larger witchcraft trials to come in later centuries is deciding how much can be extrapolated from what remains. Inwith the papacy in nearby Avignon, the inquisitor of Carcassonne sentenced a monk to the dungeon for life and the sentence refers to The skeptical Canon Episcopi retained many supporters, and still seems to have been supported by the theological faculty at the University of Paris in their decree fromand was never officially repudiated by a majority of bishops within the papal lands, nor even by the Council of Trentwhich immediately preceded the peak of the trials. But inthe The Witch Hunts witch trialslasting six to eight years, started in the French-speaking lower Valais and eventually spread to German- speaking regions. This time period also coincided with the Council of Basel — and some scholars have suggested a new witch-phobic doctrinal view may have spread among certain theologians and inquisitors in attendance at this council, as the Valais trials were discussed. It is unclear whether the three men were aware of each other's work. The coevolution of their shared view centres around "a common challenge: disbelief in the reality of demonic activity in the world. Nicholas Jacquier's lengthy and complex argument against the Canon Episcopi was written in Latin. It began as a tract in and was expanded into a fuller monograph in Many copies seem to have been made by hand nine manuscript copies still existbut it was not printed until Adeline eventually recanted this view, most likely under torture. The most important and influential book promoting the new heterodox view was the by Heinrich Kramer. Kramer begins his work in opposition to the Canon Episcopi, but oddly, he does not cite Jacquier, and may not have been aware of his work. The Gutenberg printing press had only recently been invented along the Rhine River, and Kramer fully utilized it to shepherd his work into print and spread the ideas that had developed by inquisitors and theologians in France into the Rhineland. It inspired many similar works, such as an influential work by Jean Bodinand was cited as late as by Increase Matherthen president of Harvard College. The Witch Hunts is unknown if a degree of alarm at the extreme superstition and witch-phobia expressed by Kramer in the Malleus Maleficarum may The Witch Hunts been one of the numerous factors that helped prepare the ground for the Protestant . The period of the European witch trials, with the largest number of fatalities, seems to have occurred between and There has been discussions whether the witch hunt was most intense in Catholic or Protestant regions. However, the intensity of persecutions had not so much to do with Catholicism or as such, The Witch Hunts there are examples from both Catholic and Protestant regions in Europe, where the witchcraft persecutions were intense as well as the opposite. In Catholic Spain and Portugal for example, witch trials were The Witch Hunts because the Inquisition preferred to focus on the crime of rather than witchcraft, while Protestant Scotland had an intense witch hunt. The mass witch trials which took place in Southern Catholic Germany in waves between the s and the s could continue for years and result in hundreds of executions of all genders, ages and classes. Inthe North Berwick witch trials occurred in Scotland, and were of particular note as the king, James VIbecame involved himself. James had developed a fear that witches planned to kill him after he suffered from storms while The Witch Hunts to Denmark in order to claim his bride, Anneearlier that year. Returning to Scotland, the king heard of trials that were occurring in North Berwickand ordered the suspects to be brought to him—he subsequently believed that The Witch Hunts nobleman, Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwellwas a witch, and after the latter fled in fear of his life, he was outlawed as a traitor. The king subsequently set up royal commissions to hunt down witches in his realm, recommending torture in dealing with suspects, and inhe wrote a book about the menace The Witch Hunts witches posed to society, entitled . There had never been a lack of skepticism regarding the trials. Inthe authorities of the Roman Inquisition acknowledged its own trials had "found scarcely one trial conducted legally". Although the witch trials had begun to fade out across much of Europe The Witch Hunts the midth century, they continued on the fringes of Europe and in the American Colonies. The Witch Hunts Salem witch trials were a brief outburst of witch-phobia which occurred in the New World when the practice was waning in Europe. In the s, Winifred King Benham and her daughter Winifred were thrice tried for witchcraft in Wallingford, ConnecticutThe Witch Hunts last of such trials in The Witch Hunts England. Even though they were found innocent, they were compelled to leave Wallingford and settle in Staten Island, New York. Rationalist historians in the 18th century came to the opinion that the use of torture had resulted in The Witch Hunts testimony. Witch trials became scant in the second half of the 17th century, and their growing disfavor eventually resulted in the British Witchcraft Act of In France, scholars have found that with increased fiscal capacity and a stronger central government, the witchcraft accusations began to decline. During the early 18th century, the practice subsided. Jane Wenham was among the last subjects of a typical witch trial in England inbut was pardoned after her conviction and set free. The last execution for witchcraft in England took place inwhen Mary Hicks and her daughter Elizabeth were hanged. Janet Horne was executed for witchcraft in Scotland in The Witchcraft Act of put an end of the traditional form of witchcraft as a legal offense in Britain. Those accused under the new act were restricted to those that pretended to be able to conjure spirits generally being the most dubious professional fortune tellers and mediumsand punishment was light. In Austria, Maria Theresa outlawed witch-burning and torture in The last capital trial, that The Witch Hunts Maria Pauer occurred in in Salzburg, which was then outside the Austrian domain. In the later 18th century, witchcraft had ceased to be considered a criminal offense throughout Europe, but there are a number of cases which were not technically witch trials, but are suspected to have involved belief in witches at least behind the scenes. Despite the official ending of the trials for witchcraft, there would still be occasional unofficial killings of those accused in parts of Europe, such as was seen in the cases of Anna Klemens in DenmarkKrystyna Ceynowa in Polandand Dummy, the Witch of Sible Hedingham in England In France, there was sporadic The Witch Hunts and even murder in the s, with one woman reportedly burnt in a village square in Nord. The case The Witch Hunts the supposed witch was dismissed upon the failure of the alleged victim, who had sworn out a warrant against him, to appear for the trial. However, some of his other accusers were convicted on criminal charges for their part in the matter, and various libel actions were brought. InBridget Cleary was beaten and burned to death by her husband in Ireland because he suspected that fairies had taken the real Bridget and The Witch Hunts her with a witch. The persecution of those believed to perform malevolent sorcery against their neighbors continued into the 20th century. Intwo Russian farmers killed a woman and injured five other members of her family after The Witch Hunts that they had used folk magic against them. Peculiar standards applied to witchcraft allowing certain types of "that are now ways relating Fact, and done many Years before. Witnesses were called to testify to motives and effects, because it was believed that witnessing the invisible force of witchcraft was impossible: "half proofes are to be allowed, and are good causes of suspition". Various acts of torture were used against accused witches to coerce confessions and cause them to provide names of alleged co-conspirators. Most historians agree that the majority of The Witch Hunts persecuted in these witch trials were innocent of any involvement in Devil worship. In Italy, an accused witch was deprived of sleep for periods up to forty hours. This technique was also used in England, but without a limitation on time. The use of torture has been identified as a key factor in converting the trial of one accused witch into a wider social panicas those being tortured were more likely to accuse a wide array of other local individuals of also being witches. A variety of different punishments were employed for those found guilty of witchcraft, including imprisonment, The Witch Hunts, fines, or exile. The scholarly consensus on the total number of executions for witchcraft ranges from 40,—60, [54] not The Witch Hunts unofficial lynchings of accused witches, which went unrecorded but are nevertheless believed to have been somewhat rare in the Early Modern period. The Witch Hunts at estimating the total number of executions for witchcraft have a history going back to the end of the period of witch-hunts in the 18th century. A scholarly consensus only emerges in the second half of the 20th century, and historical estimates vary wildly depending on the method used. Early estimates tend to be highly exaggerated, The Witch Hunts they were still part of rhetorical arguments against the persecution of witches rather than purely historical scholarship. Notably, a figure of nine million victims The Witch Hunts given by Gottfried Christian Voigt in in an argument The Witch Hunts Voltaire 's estimate of "several hundred thousand" as too low. Voigt's number has shown remarkably resilient as an influential popular mythsurviving well into the 20th century, especially in feminist and neo-pagan literature. The estimate was only reliably placed belowin scholarship of the s. There were many regional differences in the manner in which the witch trials occurred. The trials themselves emerged sporadically, flaring up in some areas but neighbouring areas remaining largely unaffected. There was much regional variation within the British Isles. In Ireland, for example, there were few trials. There are particularly important differences between the English and continental witch-hunting traditions. In England the use of torture was rare and the methods far more restrained. The country formally permitted it only when authorized by the monarch, and no more than 81 torture warrants were issued for all offenses throughout English history. Italy saw much fewer witchcraft accusations, and even fewer cases where witch trials ended in execution. Inthe establishment of the Roman Catholic Inquisition effectively restrained secular courts under its The Witch Hunts from liberal application of torture and execution. In contrast with other parts of Europe, trials by the Venetian Holy Office never saw conviction for The Witch Hunts crime of malevolent witchcraft, or "maleficio". The number of people tried for witchcraft between the years of by region Holy Roman The Witch Hunts 50, Poland: 15, Switzerland: 9, French Speaking Europe: 10, Spanish and Italian peninsulas: 10, The Witch Hunts 4, [ citation needed ]. Various suggestions have been made that the witch trials emerged as The Witch Hunts response to socio-political turmoil in the Early Modern world. One form of this is that the prosecution of witches was a reaction to a disaster that had befallen the community, such as crop failure, war, or disease. Moreover, the average age at first marriage had gradually risen by the late sixteenth century; the population had stabilized after a period of growth, and availability of jobs and land had lessened. In the last decades of the century, the age at marriage had climbed to averages of 25 for women and 27 for men in England and the Low Countries, as more people married later or remained unmarried due to lack of money or resources and a decline in living standards, and these averages remained high for nearly The Witch Hunts centuries and averages across Northwestern Europe had done likewise. In south-western Germany, between andthere were witch trials. Of the trials that took place in southwestern Germany, occurred in Catholic areas and in Protestant territories. Of this number, were tried and executed in Protestant territories and 2, in Catholic territories. A study in the Economic Journalexamining "more than 43, people tried for witchcraft across 21 European countries over a period of five-and-a- half centuries", The Witch Hunts that "more intense religious-market contestation led to more intense witch-trial activity. And, compared to religious-market contestation, the factors that existing hypotheses claim were important for witch-trial The Witch Hunts, income, and state capacity—were not. It has been argued that a translation choice in the King James Bible justified "horrific The Witch Hunts rights violations and fuel[ed] the epidemic The Witch Hunts witchcraft accusations and persecution across the globe". The proper translation and definition of the Hebrew word in Exodus was much debated during the time of the trials and witch-phobia. From the s onward, there was a "massive explosion of scholarly enthusiasm" for the study of the Early Modern witch trials. Inspired by ethnographically recorded witch trials that anthropologists observed happening in non-European parts of the world, various historians The Witch Hunts sought The Witch Hunts functional explanation for The Witch Hunts Early Modern witch trials, thereby suggesting the social functions that the trials played within their communities. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, various feminist interpretations of the witch trials have been made and published. One of the earliest individuals to do so was the American Matilda Joslyn Gagea writer who was deeply involved in the first-wave feminist movement for women's suffrage. Inshe published the book Woman, Church and Statewhich was "written in a tearing hurry and in The Witch Hunts snatched from a political activism which left no space for original research". She also repeated the erroneous statement, taken from the works of several German authors, that nine million people had been killed in the witch hunt. Intwo American second-wave feminists, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English The Witch Hunts, published an extended pamphlet in which they put forward the idea that the women persecuted had been the The Witch Hunts healers and midwives of the community, who were being deliberately eliminated by the male medical establishment. Salem Witch Trials - Events, Facts & Victims - HISTORY

In the late s the Salem Village community in the Bay Colony now Danvers, Massachusetts was fairly small and undergoing a period of turmoil with little political guidance. After some young girls of the village two of them relatives of Parris started demonstrating strange behaviours and fits, they The Witch Hunts urged to identify the person who had bewitched them. Their initial accusations gave way to trials, hysteria, and a frenzy that resulted in further accusations, often between the differing factions. By the end of the Salem witch trials, The Witch Hunts people had been hanged and 5 others had died in custody. Additionally, a man was pressed beneath heavy stones until he died. After weeks of informal hearings, Sir , governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colonyinterceded to add some formality to the proceedings. Over the following year The Witch Hunts trials were held and many people imprisoned. As the trials continued, accusations extended beyond Salem Village to The Witch Hunts communities. By May everyone in custody under conviction or suspicion of witchcraft had been pardoned by Phips. The haphazard fashion in which the Salem witch trials were conducted contributed to The Witch Hunts in U. The Salem trials also went on to become a powerful metaphor for the anticommunist hearings led by U. The events in Salem in were but one chapter in a long story of witch hunts that began in The Witch Hunts between and and ended in the late 18th century with the last known execution for witchcraft taking place in The Witch Hunts in Some three-fourths of those European witch hunts took place in western Germanythe Low CountriesFrancenorthern Italyand Switzerland. The number of trials and executions varied according to time and place, but it is generally believed that somepersons in total were tried for witchcraft and between 40, to 60, were executed. Witches were considered to be followers of who had traded their souls for his assistance. There is little doubt that some individuals did worship the devil and attempt to The Witch Hunts sorcery with harmful intent. The process of identifying witches began with suspicions or rumours. Accusations followed, often escalating to convictions and executions. The Salem witch trials and executions The Witch Hunts about as the result of a combination of church politics, family feuds, and hysterical children, all of which unfolded The Witch Hunts a vacuum of political authority. There were two Salems in the late 17th century: a bustling commerce-oriented port community on Massachusetts Bay known as Salem Town, which would The Witch Hunts into modern Salemand, roughly 10 miles 16 km inland from it, a smaller, poorer farming community of some persons known as Salem Village. Squabbles over The Witch Hunts were commonplace, and litigiousness was rampant. Parris, whose largely theological studies at Harvard College now Harvard University had been interrupted before he could The Witch Hunts, was in the process of changing careers from business to the ministry. He brought to Salem Village his wife, their three children, a niece, and two slaves who were originally from —John Indian, a man, and Titubaa woman. There is uncertainty regarding the relationship between the slaves and their ethnic origins. Some scholars believe that they were of African heritage, while others think that they may have been of Caribbean Native American heritage. Parris had shrewdly negotiated his contract with the congregation, The Witch Hunts relatively early in his tenure he sought greater compensation, including ownership of the parsonage, The Witch Hunts did not sit well with many members of the congregation. In the process Salem divided into pro- and anti-Parris factions. They screamed, made odd sounds, threw things, contorted their bodies, and complained of biting and pinching sensations. The hallucinogen LSD is a derivative of . Given the subsequent spread of the strange behaviour to other girls and young women in the The Witch Hunts and the timing of its display, however, those physiological and psychological explanations are not very convincing. The litany of odd behaviour also mirrored that of the children of a Boston family who in were believed to have been bewitched, a description of which had been provided by Congregational minister in his book Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions and which may have been known by the girls in Salem The Witch Hunts. In February, unable to account for their behaviour medically, the local doctor, , put the blame on the supernatural. Although it provided no answers, its baking outraged Parris, who saw it as a blasphemous act. Pressured by Parris to identify their tormentor, Betty and Abigail claimed to have been bewitched by and two other marginalized members of the community, neither of whom attended church regularly: Sarah Goodan irascible beggar, and Sarah Osborn also spelled Osbornean elderly bed-ridden woman who was scorned for her romantic involvement with an indentured servant. Both The Witch Hunts and Osborn protested their own innocence, though Good accused Osborn. Initially, Tituba also claimed to be blameless, but after being repeatedly badgered and undoubtedly fearful The Witch Hunts to her vulnerable status as a slaveshe told the magistrates what they apparently wanted to hear—that she had been visited by the devil and made a deal with him. The magistrates then had not only a confession but also what they accepted as evidence of the presence of more witches in The Witch Hunts community, and hysteria mounted. Other girls and young women began experiencing fits, among them , Jr. Significantly, those that they began identifying as other witches were The Witch Hunts longer just outsiders and outcasts but rather upstanding members of the community, beginning with Rebecca Nursea The Witch Hunts woman of some prominence. As the weeks passed, many of the accused proved to be enemies of the Putnamsand Putnam family members and in- would end up being the accusers in dozens of cases. Salem witch trials Article Media Additional Info. Article Contents. Print print Print. Table Of Contents. Facebook Twitter. Give Feedback External Websites. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article requires login. External Websites. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. See Article History. Top Questions. Read more below: Setting the scene. Read more below: Three witches. Read more below: The trials. Read more below: Aftermath and legacy. . A witch and her , illustration from a discourse on witchcraft, ; in the British Library MS. Get exclusive access to content from our First Edition with your subscription. Subscribe today. Witch trial in Salem, Massachusetts, lithograph by George H. Walker, Load Next Page. This Halloween, remember witch hunts were created by a patriarchy terrified of older women

The European witch hunts have a long timeline, gaining momentum during the 16th century and continuing for more than years. The Witch Hunts have ranged from about 10, to nine million. Most of The Witch Hunts accusations took place in parts of what are now GermanyFrancethe The Witch Hunts, and Switzerlandthen the Holy Roman Empire. Although men were also accused of witchcraft, about 75—80 percent of those executed during the witch hunts were women. Women were subject to cultural prejudices that framed them as inherently weaker than men and, thus, more susceptible to superstition The Witch Hunts evil. In Europe, the idea of women's weakness was tied to Eve's temptation by the Devil in the Bible, but that story itself cannot be blamed for The Witch Hunts proportion of women accused. Even in other cultures, witchcraft accusations have been more likely to be directed at women. Some writers have The Witch Hunts argued, with significant The Witch Hunts, that many of those accused were single women or widows whose very existence delayed the full inheritance of property by male heirs. Dower rightsintended to protect widows, gave women in such circumstances power over property that The Witch Hunts usually could not exercise. Witchcraft accusations were easy ways to remove the obstacle. It was also true that most of those accused and executed were among the poorest, most marginal in society. Women's marginality compared to men added to their susceptibility to accusations. Some of the earliest histories of the European witch hunts used the trials to characterize the present as "more enlightened" than the past. And many historians viewed witches to be heroic The Witch Hunts, struggling to survive against persecution. Others considered witchcraft to be a social construct that revealed how different societies create and shape gender and class expectations. They examine the facts of historic witchcraft cases to determine which parties would have benefitted and why. Share Flipboard Email. Jone Johnson Lewis. Women's History Writer. Jone The Witch Hunts Lewis is a women's history writer who has been involved with the women's movement since the late s. She is a former faculty member of the Humanist Institute. Updated February 20, Year s Event B. The Hebrew Scriptures addressed witchcraft, including Exodus and various verses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. This text influenced later canon and condemned maleficium bad-doing and sorilegium fortune-tellingbut it argued that most stories of these acts The Witch Hunts fantasy. It also argued that those who believed they could somehow magically fly were suffering from delusions. This opened the possibility of the Inquisition, concerned with heresy, being involved with witchcraft investigations. He assumed that consulting demons included making a pact with them, which was by definition, apostasy. Aquinas accepted that demons could assume the shapes of actual people. Among the charges were heresy, witchcraft, and devil-worship. This was one of several assassination The Witch Hunts around that time against the pope or a king. It argued that much of what was thought to be witchcraft was not supernatural at all but natural trickery. The second English Witchcraft Act was passed. The charges included the murder of 10 by witchcraft. Ten were found guilty and executed, one died in prison, and one was found not guilty. They claimed to be the victims of Father Urbain Grandier, who was convicted of sorcery despite refusing The Witch Hunts confess, even under torture. The Witch Hunts Father Grandier was executed, the "possessions" continued to occur until It was a forgery claiming massive witchcraft executions in the 14th century. The evidence was, essentially, fiction. He depicted witch hunts as Catholic persecutions. In this book about the witch trials, she argued that witches represented a pre-Christian "old religion. ThoughtCo uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. By using ThoughtCo, you accept our. Mater Gratian's compiled canon law, including writings from Hrabanus Maurus and excerpts from Augustine. Pope Alexander IV accepted that sorcery and communication with demons amounted to a kind of heresy. In his "Summa Theologiae," and in other writings, Thomas Aquinas briefly addressed sorcery and magic. The Church moved The Witch Hunts eliminate the Knights Templar. Death swept through Europe, adding to the willingness of people to see conspiracies against Christendom. Pope Innocent VIII issued "Summis desiderantes affectibus," authorizing two German monks to investigate accusations of witchcraft as heresy, threatening those who interfered with their work. The " Malleus Maleficarum " was published. Many historians point to this period as one in which witchcraft trials, and Protestantism, were rising. Ivan IV of Russia issued the Decree ofdeclaring witch trials were to be civil matters rather than church matters. Many historians consider this period, especially the years —, as the one with the largest number of witchcraft cases. The Pendle witch trials in Lancashire, England, accused 12 witches. The Loudun witch trials took place in France after Ursuline nuns reported being possessed. Mary Trembles and Susannah Edward were hanged, the last documented witch in England itself. Salem witch trials took place in the British colony of Massachusetts. French writer Jules Michelet advocated a return to goddess worship and saw women's "natural" inclination to witchcraft as positive. Matilda Joslyn Gage published "Women, Church and State" which reported that nine million witches had been executed. Gerald Gardner published "Witchcraft Today " about witchcraft as a surviving pre-Christian pagan religion. Anthropologists explore the beliefs different cultures have about witchcraft, witches, and sorcery.