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Traces | the UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History Gwendolyn Prosecuting Witchcraf in an Bellinger Age of Upheaval: How the Reformation Transformed English Witch Trials Fantastic visions of witches boiling the fat of babies, copulating with demons, and renouncing their baptisms to dedicate themselves to the devil haunted sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Alleged “witches” were accused of conjuring storms, killing livestock, and bewitching their victims into illness and death. Tese women and men were believed to practice malefcarum, or evil deeds provoked by the devil or demons, which they supposedly used to harm innocent people in order to create misery and chaos.1 Tales of twisted midnight sabbaths of devil worship characterized by tables of rotting food and perverted orgies swept across the kingdom, creating alarm. Rumors proliferated about how the witches consumed human fesh under the veil of darkness and in the secrecy of forests, how seemingly ordinary villagers tiptoed from their beds and few into the night using potions of baby fat. During the Black Mass, the devil himself supposedly built an army of 1 Henricus Institoris and Jacobus Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum, trans. Christopher S. Mackay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 11 Traces | The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History Tales of twisted midnight sabbaths of devil worship swept across England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Rumors proliferated about how the witches consumed human flesh under the veil of darkness and in the secrecy of forests, how seemingly ordinary villagers tiptoed from their beds and flew into the night using potions of baby fat. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia.) witches to spread turmoil across the land.2 During this period the English crown broke with the Catholic Church, forcing the English to make sense of witchcraf in a new age dominated by secular rather than religious authority.3 While a general decline in the dominance of Catholic authority in Europe occurred throughout Europe during the seventeenth century, in England the break was complete. One institution especially afected by this shif was the court system, as ecclesiastical courts lost infuence to the increasingly centralized royal courts. At the same time, the strength of the English king led to a fairly organized court centralization project, in contrast to the Holy Roman Empire during same period. 4 Te English developed new social and political roles as they sought to combat witchcraf through the English court system during its secularization. Because witchcraf was both a religious and a secular 2 Information from this paragraph can be found in Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). 3 Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971). 4 Gregory Durston, Witchcraft and Witch Trials: A History of English Witchcraft and Its Legal Perspectives, 1542 to 1736 (Chichester: Barry Rose Law Publishers, 2000); J.A. Sharpe, Crime in Early Modern England, 1550-1750 (London: Longman, 1999). 12 Gwendolyn Bellinger crime, it helps illustrate how people employed these new roles. By examining the works of demonologists, political philosophers, and judges, and accounts of local trials, this article investigates how monarchs, judges, and common people acquired new positions of authority and molded popular ideas about witchcraf and witch trials through the courts during this time of transition. Teir involvement in witch trials shaped views about witchcraf and about the efcacy of the trials themselves. Over time, the heightened enthusiasm of small communities and untrained people led to an increasing sense of skepticism about witchcraf among judges and a reevaluation of how best to eradicate witchcraf within the kingdom. While Keith Tomas suggests that the waning of Catholicism in England led to the decline of magical beliefs and superstitions, this article argues rather that religious change prompted English society to combat witchcraf in new ways. Te ways in which people navigated the legal system in order to gain authority over witchcraf varied according to their position in society. Monarchs held a divine position and were expected to safeguard their kingdoms from all threats, even supernatural ones. Teir efort to combat disorder enabled a system for witch trials to be conducted in which witches were described as an immediate threat to the kingdom. In the courts, royally appointed judges maintained a special role, designated by God, to root out and prosecute witches. Te involvement of judges, and their testimonies and demonologies, helped create a sense of consistency in legal proceedings against witchcraf and popular notions about how to characterize and identify a witch. Common people, too, perceived their own sense of authority in witch trials. Afer the Reformation, they increasingly felt capable of judging the piety of their neighbors and were more likely to accuse others of witchcraf. By relying on the popular notions of witchcraf described by judges, common people increased the enthusiasm for witch trials, prompting judges to become more skeptical of their testimonies. Extensive research exists on witch trials in Europe, especially the nature of the trials and the reasons that people believed in witchcraf. Most notably, Stuart Clark’s Tinking with Demons: Te Idea of Witchcraf in Early Modern Europe and Keith Tomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic ofer detailed analyses of the views of witchcraf in early modern Europe. Unlike these works, this article does not ask why people condemned witches but rather investigates the transition of identity for diferent “sources of authority” 13 Traces | The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History during an important period of both religious and political change in English history. Demonstrating how these people viewed themselves in relation to a perceived threat to society illustrates how, in times of dramatic change, people seek to better understand their position in society in order to protect their interests and preserve their well being. Te Relationship Between Kingly Authority and Witchcraf John Cunningham was placed in a cart outside of his prison on January 23, 1591. Tere he sat, bound for Castle Hill, unable to stand because of the miserable condition of his body. Afer Cunningham endured the Scottish “boots,” a torture device used to crush the leg bones, witnesses recorded that “bloud and marrowe spouted forth in great abundance” from his legs “whereby they were made unserviceable for ever.”5 Cunningham, referred to in the records as “Doctor Fian,” a young schoolteacher from Northern Brunswick, was accused of bewitching a gentleman and attempting to bewitch a young girl.6 King James VI of Scotland and his council oversaw Cunningham’s examination, torture, and confession. Afer retracting his confession of guilt, Cunningham endured more torture, including the boots and the removal of his fngernails.7 Despite this torture, he maintained his innocence. Interpreting Cunningham’s silence as the result of a heart hardened by the devil, James and his council found Cunningham “guilty of renouncing his Christian baptism and pledging himself to the devil,” and sentenced him to death for this “crime against God, the King, and the country.”8 James commanded that Cunningham be strangled and then thrown into a great fre. Because of the remnants of these chilling accounts of Scottish torture and execution, James VI of Scotland has earned the title of “witch hunter” in modern scholarship. James ruled Scotland from 1567 until his death in 1625 and succeeded the throne of England from Queen Elizabeth I in 1603. Scholarship on James’s role in early modern witch trials is based on his 1597 publication of Daemonologie, a book supporting the hunting and condemnation of witches, and on the North Berwick witch trials of the 5 “News From Scotland,” in Daemonologie, ed. G.B. Harrison (London: The Bodley Head Quartos, 1924), 28. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., 34. 14 Gwendolyn Bellinger John Cunningham, a young teacher from North Brunswick, was accused of witchcraft in 1591 and tortured using a device known as "the boots," which crushed the leg bones. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia.) early 1590s. Te trial of John Cunningham provides one example in these frst of many Scottish witch trials. His story ofers a glimpse of the Scottish monarch’s role in relation to the supernatural. Monarchs in the British Isles rarely ordered witch trials directly, let alone oversaw the process. Even James, afer ascending to the English throne, grew skeptical of the prevalence of witches within his kingdom. James’s written work serves as an excellent example of how demonologies can be viewed as a form of political philosophy. James argued that political authorities possessed a unique role that enabled them to combat the devil’s infuence in society. Two aspects of King James’s philosophy are critical to understanding this new concept of the monarch and his afliation with witchcraf: 1) the new relationship between monarchies and Christianity and 2) the expectation that a monarch should keep order and peace. Demonology was the systematic study of demons and witchcraf, ofen 15 Traces | The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History King James VI of Scotland has earned the title of "witch hunter" in modern scholarship for his role in early modern witch trials. James was believed to be immune to witches’ spells because of his divine position as king. Portrait by John de Critz, c. 1606. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia.) 16 Gwendolyn Bellinger including advice to judges on distinguishing witches and their behavior, and advice for their arraignment and punishment. Ofen the works discussed the witches’ disdain for God and their malevolent practices, perverting Christianity and harming neighbors. James’s work mirrors popular demonologists in this time. Although they were considered more radical than the average intellectual, demonologists should not been dismissed as anomalies. Tese men were important fgures in their society and their works circulated widely.
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