Manhood, Witchcraft and Possession in Old and New England by Erika
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Manhood, Witchcraft and Possession in Old and New England by Erika Anne Gasser A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History and Women’s Studies) in The University of Michigan 2007 Doctoral Committee: Professor Carol F. Karlsen, Chair Professor Susan M. Juster Professor Michael P. MacDonald Associate Professor Susan Scott Parrish © Erika Anne Gasser All rights reserved 2007 Dedication To my parents Gary and Nancy Gasser ii Table of Contents Dedication.......................................................................................................................ii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................v Introduction.....................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 MANHOOD, WITCHCRAFT AND POSSESSION......................................14 Writing about Witchcraft-Possession .................................................................28 Writing about Men.............................................................................................40 Writing About Men and Witchcraft....................................................................47 Chapter 2 A MAN UNMADE: JOHN SAMUEL AND WITCHES OF WARBOYS........61 The Female Witches in Warboys........................................................................69 Gender and Hierarchy in Warboys .....................................................................80 John Samuel: Manhood in Warboys...................................................................93 A Family Unmade............................................................................................ 104 Chapter 3 GENDERED LANGUAGE IN ENGLISH WITCHCRAFT-POSSESSION 108 Manly Credit.................................................................................................... 120 Manly Reason, Unmanly Excess...................................................................... 136 Trade and Occupation...................................................................................... 145 Manhood and Social Order .............................................................................. 151 Chapter 4 PASSING A CENTURY, CROSSING THE ATLANTIC ........................... 164 Men, Women, and Witchcraft-Possession ........................................................ 174 Possession and Religio-Political Propaganda ................................................... 185 Healing and Testing Possessed Bodies............................................................. 205 Chapter 5 TO UNMAKE A MINISTER: GEORGE BURROUGHS IN SALEM........ 226 Foundations of New England Witchcraft-Possession........................................ 232 The Trial of Reverend George Burroughs ........................................................236 Historians and New England Witchcraft-Possession ........................................ 247 Sacrificing One for the Credit of All ................................................................ 254 iii Chapter 6 GENDER IN NEW ENGLAND WITCHCRAFT-POSSESSION................ 263 Cotton Mather, Margaret Rule, and the Question of Credit............................... 271 Contesting Manhood: Debating Margaret Rule’s possession ........................... 280 Contesting Manhood: Defending the Mathers ................................................. 295 Patriarchy and Possession ................................................................................ 308 Epilogue...........................................................................................................................317 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 322 iv List of Tables Table 1 Total Possessed Individuals ..................................................................................... 179 2 Total Male Possessed............................................................................................... 180 3 Total Female Possessed ........................................................................................... 181 v INTRODUCTION From the end of the sixteenth century to the start of the eighteenth, struggles among English Anglicans, Puritans and Catholics resulted in warfare, the execution of royals, and riots over prayer books and altars. The same controversies that dominated the political, religious, social and cultural climate of early modern England and colonial New England shaped witchcraft and demonic possession cases, which in turn revealed local versions of these tensions in smaller battles, executions, and riots. To be sure, legal prosecution of witches was relatively rare in the Anglo-American world. But witchcraft- possession cases—because of the way they merged crucial sectarian arguments with a subject of considerable popular interest—were widely published and disproportionately influenced political and religious discourse. Each instance of suspected witchcraft or affliction by devils had the potential to reveal cosmic truths about the extent of the Devil’s powers, the possibility of miracles in a post-apostolic age, and God’s favor for those He empowered to restore order.1 English witchcraft differed from that of continental Europe in several ways, the most important of which were related to Catholic doctrine and law. In much of Europe, for example, inquisitors interrogated accused witches without requiring the presence of 1 To differentiate their practice of dispossession from Catholic exorcisms, Puritans claiming their emphasis on prayer and fasting rather than holy water or relics more precisely reflected the rite as it was described in the Bible. In Mark 9:14-20, when a young afflicted man was brought to Jesus, Jesus stated that such a demon was only expelled through prayer and fasting. 1 those who accused them.2 In many cases, applications of torture were used to extract confessions from the recalcitrant. The image of the European witch being burned at the stake persists today; many presume that witches in England and New England were also burned, rather than hanged.3 This archetypical witch image is invariably female. While historians differ about the precise ratio of male to female witches across Europe, scholars agree that approximately seventy-five to eighty per cent of executed witches were women.4 Unlike European witches, Anglo-American witches faced trials under England’s accusatorial legal system. Witnesses were required to appear in court to testify 2 For a comprehensive view of England’s laws in comparison with Europe, and Catholic versus Protestant witchcraft overall, see Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 521-559. For the influence of continental witchcraft on England, see Cecil L’Estrange Ewen, Witchcraft and Demonianism: A Concise Account Derived from Sworn Depositions and Confessions Obtained in the Courts of England and Wales (London: Heath Cranton, ltd., 1933), 41-48. For an explanation of the particular role of Catholicism in European—particularly French—witchcraft-possession cases, see Sarah Ferber, Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France (London: Routledge, 2004), 4; 64-69; 125-126. 3 Keith Thomas explains that witches in England were hanged, except in cases of petty treason such as murdering their husbands or masters. See Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Scriber, 1971), 443, 2n. 4 This ratio fluctuated considerably depending upon the location and outbreak. At times the executed were nearly exclusively female; in certain areas of Scandinavia and Russia, however, witches were predominantly male. For estimates on the numbers of executed witches, see G.L. Kittredge, Witchcraft in Old and New England, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929), 277-284; Thomas, 535-536; Norman Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-Hunt (London: Chatto, 1975), 253-254; Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed., (London: Longman Press, 1995), 25; 124; Alan Charles Kors and Edward Peters, eds., Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700: A Documentary History, 2nd ed., revised by Edward Peters (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 17- 19, and James Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in Early Modern England, (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press), 1996, 125. For the gender ratio in European witchcraft, see E. William Monter, Witchcraft in France and Switzerland: The Borderlands during the Reformation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976), 118-121 and H.C. Erik Midelfort, Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany 1562-1684 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972), 178-186. For broader regional comparisons, see Owen Davies and Willem de Blécourt, eds., Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and magic in Enlightenment Europe (New York: Manchester University Press, 2004. See also Valerie Kivelson, “Through the Prism of Witchcraft: Gender and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Muscovy,” in Barbara Evans Clements, Barbara Alpern Engel, Christine D. Worobec, eds., Russia’s Women: Accommodation, Resistance, Transformation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 74- 94. Kivelson writes that the “judicial process in Russia had elements in common with both the European Inquisitorial and the gentler English mode of investigation.