Elizabethan Witchcraft and Witches - Elizabethan Superstitions

Witchcraft

Throughout Shakespeare’s life, witches and witchcraft were the objects of morbid and fevered fascination. A veritable witch-mania characterised the reign of Elizabeth I, and many people suspected of being witches were cruelly persecuted. Those who were convicted faced the prospect of being cruelly burned to death.

Although some voices were raised against this superstitious and barbarous persecution, most people probably believed in witches. Hundreds of pamphlets describing the lurid details of many witchcraft trials were printed. They enjoyed enormous sales: the equivalent of today’s popular newspapers, or films and books about the supernatural.

Witches were credited with diabolical powers. For example, they could predict the future, fly, sail in sieves, bring on night in daytime, cause fogs and tempests, and kill animals. They cursed enemies with fatal wasting diseases, induced nightmares and sterility, and could take demonic possession of anyone. Witches were able to raise evil spirits by concocting a horrible vrew with nauseating ingredients.

It was believed that witches allowed the Devil to suck their blood in exchange for a ‘familiar’: a bird, reptile or beasts as an evil servant. Accused witches were examined for the ‘Devil’s mark’: a red mark on their body from which Satan had sucked blood.

Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 and was succeeded by King James. Under his rule, the morbid interest in witches continued. In 1604 an Act of Parliament decreed that anyone found guilty should be executed. Old woman who lived alone and who kept cats were in danger of torture and death if they were accused of witchcraft.

King James was as fascinated as witchcraft as any of his subjects. In 1590 a group of witches tried to kill him. Their plot was discovered and they were brought to trial at North Berwick. The claims of one witch, Agnes Sampson, were sensational. She had collected toad venom to poison the king, christened a cat, tied pars of a dead man’s body to it, sailed out to sea in a sieve and thrown cat and body-bits overboard to raise a storm to sink he king’s ship.

King James personally interrogated one of the accused witches, Dr Fian. The poor doctor was horribly tortured: ‘His nails upon all his fingers were riven and pulled off… his legs were crushed and beaten together as small as might be, and the bones and flesh so bruised that the blood and marrow spouted forth in great abundance’.

Fired by his experience of the trial, King James personally investigated other witchecraft cases. In 1597 he published Demonologie, a book on witchcraft. When he became King of England in 1603 he ordered its immediate printing in London.

In King James’s England, although deep divisions existed between Protestants and Catholics, nearly everyone believed literally in heaven and hell, and lived in fear of eternal damnation: a consequence of witchcraft. The Elizabethan Period - Elizabethan Witchcraft and Witches The Elizabethan Period and the intellectual era of the Renaissance introduced English persecution of Elizabethan Witches and Witchcraft. Ironically, this period of great learning brought with it a renewed belief in the supernatural including a belief in the powers of witchcraft, witches and witch hunts! Ironically the introduction of the printing press, one of the greatest tools in increasing knowledge and learning was responsible! Johannes Gutenberg introduced the printing press c1456. The first printed books were bibles or contained religious themes. Unfortunately many of these books promoted ideas about witches and witchcraft which in turn led to the intensified witch hunts of the 15th and 16th centuries! Additional new renaissance thinking and books about Astrology, Alchemy and Magic increased the interest in witchcraft, witches and witch hunts even further. The 1562 Elizabethan Witchcraft Act was passed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It was an act 'agaynst Conjuracions Inchauntmentes and Witchecraftes'.

The Elizabethan Belief in Witches During the Elizabethan era people blamed unexplainable events as the work of witches. There were frequent outbreaks of the deadly Black Death (Bubonic Plague) for which there was no cure. The fear and anger about this terrible disease had to be directed at someone - witches were the obvious target. When people died from terrible diseases, when animals died, when there was a bad harvest, when houses were burnt down in fires even when foods curdled - witches were the obvious targets. During the Elizabethan era there was limited medical knowledge or facilities and there was no form of insurance. Such events as those described above were devastating and there was no means of minimising their terrible effects on the lives of Elizabethans - someone had to be blamed - witches were the obvious targets.

Queen Elizabeth and the Punishment of Elizabethan Witches The hysteria and paranoia regarding witches which was experienced in Europe did not fully extend to England during the Elizabethan era. Queen Elizabeth I passed a new and harsher witchcraft Law in 1562 but it did not define sorcery as heresy. Witches convicted of murder by witchcraft were to be executed but the punishment for witches in England was hanging, not burning at the stake which was the terrible death that was inflicted on French and Spanish witches. Lesser crimes relating to witchcraft resulted in the convicted witch being pilloried. Torture was not allowed as part of the investigatory or punishment procedure for witches. As the Witchcraft Law did not define sorcery as heresy the matter of religion was not involved in the prosecution of witches. The attitude of Queen Elizabeth was certainly more lenient than those of her neighbours in France and Spain. Her mother, Anne Boleyn had been accused of being a witch (Anne Boleyn had a sixth finger growing from her fifth small finger. Anne also had a prominent mole on her neck - these deformities were seen by her enemies as a sure sign that Anne Boleyn was a witch.) Queen Elizabeth was known to consult John Dee and she also showed an interest in Astrology. Perhaps these explain her leniency towards witches.