Sheet Review for Final Exam Evans-Pritchard Prichard was the anthropologist who studied the Azande. He developed the notion of the stomach sack which was revealed after death. According to Pritchard, witchcraft is a subconscious act while sorcery a conscious act of magic. The trait of witchcraft is passed down from generation to generation Azande Tribe located in central Africa who Pritchard studied. Witchcraft is not only inherent but there is a physical reminder (black sack). Homeopathic Magic: Magic is imitative. You imitate what action you want to occur and direct it towards someone or something else. Contagious Magic Contagious magic is actually taking something that has been in contact with the person. It is believed that these things have a lingering effect. Social Strain Gauge This was a theory developed by Max Marwick which claims that witchcraft is simply a measure of social tension in a community. He claims that accusations occur among social relationships which contain social tension or stress. For example, among co-wives there is a high degree of stress who often compete over the love and attention of the husband. Religio/Superstitio This is a Roman concept describing excessive religious devotion and irregular piety Maleficium It is the Roman term that originally meant ,,crime and it becomes the most important medieval term for diabolical witchcraft Canon Episcopi The Canon Episcopi provides the earliest link between witchcraft and heresy but also gives a strong statement about the diabolical nature of heresy. This text is the starting point for all systematic discussions of sorcery and witchcraft from the 14th century on. In this document, witches held pacts with the devil. It further dismissed the physical reality of witchcraft. Belief in witchcraft also is associated with a weakness in faith. Eradicate these people from the church and districts. It was a warning to bishops. Regino of Prm Author of the Canon Episcopi Burchard of Worms The Burchard of Worms makes the transition away from the physical aspects of witchcraft and focus more on the moral implications. He makes the distinction that those who believe in love spells or believe in incantations, then you are weak of faith. His works talk about punishments inside of the church. He writes the Decretum Waldensians They are a 12th Century, non-dualist heretical sect, accused of worshipping the Devil in the form of a goat Arras trial, 1459 Malleus Maleficarum (1486)
Heinrich Institoris (Krmer) He is the primary author of the Malleus Maleficarum. He was a German inquisitor whose fervor for witchcraft prosecutions and trials made him famous or infamous depending on your point of view Jakob Sprenger He was the co-author of the Malleus Maleficarium. He was also a German inquisitor. He was not a huge contributor to the book but he wanted to add extra authority to the work as a whole. Pope Innocent VIII Summis desiderantes affectibus All Hallows Eve Walpurgis Night Devil's Mark This is a mark generally some sort of protrusion of flesh, on the body of the witch where demons were said to suckle. Witch's Mark (witch's teat) The witches mark is a part of your body that is numb and a dead spot Devil's Pact An explicit pact with the devil. Thomas Aquinas says there is a pact but it is not necessarily physical. Aristotelianism
Neo-Platonism Scholars rediscovery of Greek texts Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) He is a 15th-16th century writer who described a witchcraft trial at Meung, near Orleans, involving a parody of the Christian sacraments (black mass). He described the trial at Orleans. Albrecht Drer He was the teacher of Grien Hans Baldung Grien He was an artist who often depicted blatant sexual nature and nudity associated with witchcraft Martin Luther He led the Protestant Reformation. It was mainly in response to the Church giving out excessive amounts of indulgences. He reinforced culture about witches. He emphasized the bible and had strict interpretations of the text. Therefore, because demons are mentioned in the bible they are real. Jean Calvin He believed in predestination and that certain people can go to heaven. However you must lead a perfect lifestyle through belief in God. He believed that people voluntarily commit to sin and that if you were a witch it was voluntary. He gave his Sermon on Deuteronomy. Protestant Reformation Led by Martin Luther who wanted to decrease the power of the pope and the Catholic Church and focus more on biblical interpretation.
Counter-Reformation Dietrich Flade of Trier Flade was a jurist and a high official in the government of Trier. He was the highest-ranking official ever convicted and executed for witchcraft. He was accused by Peter Binfeld of being a witch because he disliked Flades relaxed ways. Under torture, Flade admits to accusations and is hung. Queen Elizabeth I She was a protestant queen of England. In 1563 she passed the Elizabethan statute, which specified punishment only for murder. She assumed the title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The Act of Supremacy 1559 was passed requiring public officials to take an oath acknowledging Elizabeths control over the Church. She was a hardcore persecutor of witches and witchcraft. The 1562 Elizabethan Witchcraft Act was passed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. She blamed unexplainable events on witches John Dee He was the advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. He was accused of alchemy and high magic. He was allegedly attempting to communicate with angels through a crystal-gazer. He had a strong connection to both science and magic and believed divine power could be discovered through mathematics Chelmsford witches (1566) The trials at Chelmsford were one of the ways Queen Elizabeth attempted to prosecute witchcraft. 64 were accused and 53 were found guilty. The accused were tried for maleficium, the use of diabolical power to cause harm, not for heresy. Most of the accused confessed to the charges although torture was not allowed as part of the investigatory or punishment procedure for witches. The accused were women who were said to harm people. North Berwick witches (1590-92) These were trials in Scotland which implicated nearly seventy people. These confessions were extracted by torture and were a prime example of how torture was used to obtain false confessions. These trials stemmed from accusations that witches had created a storm intended to sink the ship King James VI was traveling on Agnes Sampson One of the accused North Berwick witches, Agnes Sampson was examined by James VI. She was fastened to the wall of her cell by a witch's bridle, an iron instrument with four sharp prongs forced into the mouth, so that two prongs pressed against the tongue, and the two others against the cheeks. She was kept without sleep, thrawed with a rope around about her head, and only after these ordeals did Agnes Sampson confess to the fifty-three indictments against her. She was finally strangled and burned as a witch. King James VI (Scotland), I (England), He was a firm believer in magic witchcraft and attempt to persecute witches in both England and Scotland. He was a proponent of torture as shown through the Agnes Sampson confessions. He also commissioned a new version of the Bible which made some new interpretations of maleficarium and other ancient words Daemonologie (1597) It was was a pamphlet written by King James VI in form of 2 person dialogue... the person was convincing the other person of witchcraft. His book was written to instruct his subjects and to denounce in no uncertain terms the rampant witchcraft of his day, whose practitioners he also prosecuted. This book supported the Christian character of this king Warboys Witches (1589)
This is an English trial in the Throckmorton household, which is the first instance of child accusers. Charges of witchcraft derived from rich, mean little girls. It sets a precedent for events that will happen later in Salem Alice Samuel She was an old women accused of witchcraft in the Warboys Witches trials. Alice Samuel was an old women accused. A young girl Jane fell ill with epilepsy. Alice visits Jane, who says she looks like a witch and within a few months Janes four sisters show epileptic symptoms. The doctor blames Alice for sickness. This is an example of spectral evidence, something invisible to people who are not bewitched, manifestation of familiar. Lancashire Witches (1612) The trials of Lancashire were mass trials of twenty alleged witches. Ten of the twenty accused were hung. Lancashire became associated with witces. Some of the suspected witches protested their innocence to the end; some were acquitted when evidence against them was found to have been fabricated. Thirty Years' War (1618-48) This period experienced the worst witchcraft trials. Bamberg witch house This was a prison in Bamberg which contained torture chambers lined with pages taken from the bible. Johannes Junius He was the Mayor of Bamberg who was accused and burned for witchcraft in 1628. He was severely tortured and was made to confess to accusations of witchcraft. Also, he was forced to accuse other members of the community. He snuck a letter out to his daughter which gives evidence that his confession was extracted through extreme torture. Friedrich von Spee, Cautio Criminalis (1631) He was a 16th-17th century poet who writes confessions from witches. He saw from a first hand perspective that torture was inaccurate. He wrote the Cautio Criminalis in which he attacked the procedure of witchcraft trials and the ways confessions are brought about Father Urbain Grandier He was a French priest accused and convicted of witchcraft in the 17th century through a plot by the nuns of Loudun because of his lust and sexual acts. He also becomes associated with exorcism as he attempts to perform exorcisms. Nuns at Loudun (1636) They fake seizures and accuse Grandier of witchcraft in order to get him out of power. Matthew Hopkins (1645-46), Witch Finder General He is the most notorious English witch hunters whose career flourished in the time of the English Civil War. He held, or claimed to hold, the office of "Witch-finder General" as bestowed by the Puritan Parliament, and practiced his witch-finding in the counties of Suffolk and Essex. He was paid for every witch he caught. He gets out of control so people start investigating and he stops. While torture was technically unlawful in England, he used various methods of browbeating to extract confessions from some of his victims. He used sleep deprivation as a sort of bloodless torture. He also used a "swimming" test to see if the accused would float or sink in water, the theory being that witches had renounced their baptism, so that all water would supernaturally reject them.
He also employed "witch prickers" who pricked the accused with knives and special needles, looking for the witches mark that was supposed to be dead to all feeling and would not bleed. It was believed that the witch's familiar would drink their blood from the mark as milk from a teat. Poor Laws (1597-98) Attempted to legislate policy for the homeless because they basically wanted to make begging illegal. This was ambivalent because charity had always been a mainstay in Christianity. There is a little bit of class hatred that is in play here, and when beggar women were prosecuted, there was popular support against them. People were afraid to reject beggar women because they didnt want to become victim to their witchcraft. Issobell Gowdie (1662) She was a crazy woman who confessed to witchcraft and having wild sex parties with the devil and his "big" member. We do not know if she was tortured or she actually believed it happened Johannes Weyer De Praestigiis Daemonum (1563) He was the first major critic of the witchcraft craze. He claims that witchcraft is not real but sorcery does exist. The belief in witchcraft is a diabolical invention. He wrote De Praestigiis Daemonum which denounced ignorant Catholic priests. He agrees with Hippocrates that illness was the cause of science and could be cured by science. Outlandish accusations are subject of illusions and it is impossible for people to actually perform accused acts. He used the term mentally ill to describe women convinced of being witches. He wanted to abolish persecutions. Melancholia Jean Bodin, Dmonomanie (1580) He is essentially the enemy of Weyer. He underscored the importance and effectiveness of torture. He was a lawyer, philosopher, historian and a major political theorist. He was a firm believer in torture as a way to determine who was a witch. In his book, he writes some of the most unenlightened ideas about witchcraft, in which he accused Weyer of being a witch because Weyer had proposed medical explanation for many natural occurrences and sickness Reginald Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) He claims that accusing witchcraft is irrational and non Christian. It was written to show that witches did not exist, by exposing how apparently miraculous feats of magic were done. The book is often deemed the first textbook about conjuring. Scot believed that the prosecution of those accused of witchcraft was irrational and un-Christian, and he held the Roman Church responsible. All obtainable were copies burned on the accession of James I in. To this day the book is considered a "Bible" to magicians as it is one of the first English publications to explain how magical effects could be performed Michel de Montaigne Those who believe in witchcraft are weak minded. For an accused to be convicted he believed that there needs to be clear evidence, not confession. He was skeptical of witchcraft evidence and called for toleration and an admission of ignorance. He claimed that the supernatural does happen but it is rare and almost impossible Ren Descartes He was a French philosopher who said that nature was describable by observable laws. This means that demons and other witchcraft ideals could not exist Benedict de Spinoza He was a rationalist thinker who had a metaphorical view of the Bible. He claimed that demons are a metaphor for the real temptations of man.
Thomas Hobbes Joseph Glanvill, Sadducismus Triumphatus (1681) He was a religious man who promoted religious tolerance, rationalism and the scientific method. He applied scientific methods to prove existence of witchcraft and demons. He criticized people who are skeptical of the existence of witchcraft. Alonso de Salazar Frias He was a Spanish inquisitor of the 17th century who expressed concern and skepticism over the procedure for investigating witches. He wanted to and helps end the persecution of witches in Spain. He claims the legal process is corrupt. Dr. Balthasar Bekker, The Enchanted World (1691) He was a Dutch priest of the 17th century who attributed witchcraft to a misunderstanding of the natural processes of the world. He believes that people see magic but it is really a lack of knowledge. This is a real shift in witchcraft. Natural Magic Mora, Sweden (1668-76) In the 1660s, there was a major outbreak of witchcraft. Authors like Becker take these trials as evidence to denounce witchcraft. In Mora, Sweden, Charles appointed a royal commission that found that some 300 children confessed to being possessed to attend a Sabbath at Blakulla. The children were allowed to confer before they testified so they could get their stories straight. Eventually, charges started to reach people who lived in the capital of Sweden, and king Charles was forced to put an end to it. By 1675, the accusation starts to spread to the capital, and they start to move up the food chain as prominent individuals are being accused. The craze eventually stops when a Doctor claims that the whole craze was the result of the imagination of the children. All in all, after Charles XI put a halt to it, about 200 people were executed. Blocula (or Blkulla This was a mountain in Mora where dancing, drinking, rampant sex and demons were usual night time activities. Children claim they performed the sabbat under influence of witchcraft King Louis XIV anti-witchcraft statute He was the 17th-18th century King of France who was the first to institute a statue against witchcraft persecution in France. The Paris police investigated and found a secret group of poisoners who Louis set up a court to prosecute. But then one of his mistresses is accused so he stops. Rev. Increase Mather He was the puritan minister of the Mass Bay Colony. He believed in moderation in the use of spectral evidence. He deemded the judges and trials but strongly denounced the spectral evidence used by them. He believed that it was better that ten suspected witches should escape, than that one innocent person be condemned. There was no official judiciary. Rev. Cotton Mather He presides over some of the Salem trials. He is very influential. He was the friend of a number of the judges in the Salem Witch trials. He warned against ignoring spectral evidence though he accepted that it should not be heard in court, only as evidence needed to begin investigations. He was the minister of Bostons Old North church. Martha Goodwin and Goody Glover, Boston (1689) Martha Goodwin is a young girl who begins experiencing bizarre behavior after arguing with Goody Glover. Four of the five Goodwin children fall ill. The doctor concluded that nothing but witchcraft could
be the origin of the illness. Goodwin claimed she became ill right after she saw Glover stealing laundry. Glover is hanged and is the last woman to be hanged in Boston. This is the type of confession which is anger followed by mischief. Dirty look followed by illness. Salem Village (1692) This village in Massachusetts is most famous for the witch trials of 1692. Sarah Good Sarah Good was one of the first three people to be accused and then convicted of witchcraft at the Salem witch trials in. She was accused by Betty Hubbard and Ann Putnam, Jr. Goods husband testified that he was afraid of her, that she was an enemy of God. She was executed in July of 1692. Good was pregnant in jail and her baby died. Dorcas Good She is Sarah Goods four year old daughter. She is accused also of being a witch and is jailed with her mother. She is accused of biting the group of girls already ill. She later accuses her mother of being a witch Sarah Osborne She is one of the first people to be accused of witchcraft beginning in 1692. Betty Paris and Ann Putnam Jr. became ill with an unknown sickness. Both girls claimed that Sarah Osborne, Tituba and Sarah Good had been afflicting them. Osborne died in jail. However, Osborne was in bad legal standing with the Putnam family and her accusation may have been the product of issues with the Putnam family Tituba Indian Tituba is the first woman accused of being a witch in Salem. Better Paris (Samuel Parriss daughter) and Abigail Williams (Bettys cousin) accused her of practicing witchcraft. They began having episodes and claimed Tituba put them in trances. They also claimed that in their dreams Tituba was pinching and biting them. Tituba confessed to being a witch and that she was the one afflicting the Parris girls. She further accused Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne as her accomplices. She was released on bail by an unknown individual and moved to another town. Rev. Samuel Parris He was the puritan minister of Salem village during the witch trials. His daughter and niece began the craze by accusing Tituba. He began the process of escalating the witchcraft accusation hysteria. There is an ongoing power struggle between the church and legal. Essentially Samuel Paris vs. town committee. Thomas Putnam, Jr. He was the mayor of Salem village and Ann Putnams husband. He is a very respected man and makes many accusations. His daughter Ruth was one of the accusing girls. They accuse Goody Osborn of killing seven babies. Putnam family is extremely wealthy and prominent in the village. His accusations are taken very seriously. Ann Putnam, Jr. and Sr. Ann Putnam Jr. was one of the most active accusers during the trials. She claimed that she had been afflicted by more than 60 different people. She was the only girl to offer an apology for her part in the Salem witch trials Abigail Williams She was one of the first accusers along with Ann Putnam Jr, and Betty Paris. After her cousin Betty Parris became ill, Abigail also began to have fits and run around rooms. A local doctor suggested the possibility of bewitchment, and from that point on, the girls were asked to name their tormentors, which they did Giles Cory
He was accused of being a witch but refused to enter a plea. Under the standards of law the time, the court could not try him unless he pleased guilty or innocent. If he was convicted and executed, ownership of his property would revert to the state. The law provided that those who refused to plead should be pressed until they decided to plead. Corey died after having rocks pressed on him for two days. Sir William Phips He was a colonial governor of Massachusetts appointed directly by England. He appointed a special commission (court of oyer and terminar) to try the witchcraft cases but did nothing to stop the witchcraft mania, and suspended the sittings of the court only after the atrocities had been committed. George Burroughs He became the minister of Salem village in 1680 which lasted until 1683. He was charged and arrested for extraordinary lifting that could not be done by a normal man. He was accused by an enemy in his former congregation. He was convicted of witchcraft and conspiracy with the Devil. He was killed and was the only minister who suffered this fate. His first and second wife through spectral evidence come to Ann Putnam (dreams) and explain how George Burroughs killed them. He recites a prayer perfectly, yet Cotton Mather gives a whole speech which ultimately condemns him Gov. Thomas Hutchinson The Witchcraft Delusion of 1692 He was the colonial governor of Massachusetts from 1771 to 1774. Francisco Goya Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown. He painted many unusual paintings including references to witchcraft and war. One of these is the famous work Saturn Devouring Hs Sons which shows a mythological scene of God Saturn consuming a child. Ann Izzard She tells the Reverend Nicholson that her neighbors claim to have discovered through such charms that she is a witch and blame her for the illness of the three young women, and have threatened her and her children. She offers to have herself weighed against the church Bible as a means of proving that she is not a witch. Following the services that morning, the Reverend Nicholson warns the congregation of the possible consequences of acting on their belief that Izzard is a witch. Apparently, however, his words have some calming effect, and nothing of note occurs for several weeks, when on Thursday, May 5, Izzard and her son, together with another woman, are at St. Neots market. This woman does not take Izzard's advice about loading the wagon, and when it overturns on the way home, the event is taken to be proof that Izzard is indeed a witch:
Study Questions (examples only) 1. To what extent does the study of witchcraft in African societies help us to understand the pattern of witchcraft accusations and resolution in Europe and America? 2. Does Evans-Pritchards famous formulation concerning the Azande belief system that ,,witchcraft, oracles, and magic are like three sides to a triangle have relevance to the study of European or American views of witchcraft? 3. What appears to have been the popular view of witchcraft in the period prior to about 1350? After? 4. What factors come together at the end of the Middle Ages that appear to lead to the ,,witchcraze of the early modern period? 5. What is the ,,devils pact and what role does it play in the history of European witchcraft? 6. The authors of the Malleus Maleficarum offer several answers to their argument that superstition is chiefly found in women. What are they, and to what extent had the nature of witchcraft and the search for witches already assumed a feminine (or even misogynist) character by the late 15th century?
7. What is the relevance of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation with respect to the distribution of the early modern witchcraze? 8. What factors explain the relative mildness of witchcraft prosecution in England versus the harsher outbreaks in countries such as Scotland or Germany? 9. Several witchcraft outbreaks involve substantial testimony given by children, including those at Mora, the Warboys witches, and the Salem village witches. What features do these cases have in common and what lesson, if any, is to be learned from their example? 10. What conclusions can be drawn from the witchcraft accusations and trials in colonial New England, excluding the case of Salem in 1692? 11. The most famous American witchcraft case, that of Salem, has been analyzed from a variety of perspectives--child-rearing practices, Puritan belief systems, the actual presence of maleficia, ergot poisoning, religious hysteria, and the Indian (Wabanaki) wars. Review the various interpretations of Salem and assess how well they explain the outbreak of witchcraft there. 12. Historians have sometimes placed special weight on the roles of prominent individuals, such as James VI and I, Christian IV, Samuel Parris, and Cotton Mather for the nature, direction, and severity of particular witchhunts. What are the advantages and disadvantages of such ,,biographical approaches? 13. A number of writers, for example Johannes Weyer, De Praestigiis Daemonum (1563), Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), Alonso de Salazar Frias (1610), Friedrich von Spee, Cautio Criminalis (1631), disputed the reality of witches and their possible harm to society. Discuss the main lines of their arguments and account for the relative inability of these authors to alter the course of the early modern witchcraze. 14. Discuss the persecution of Ann Izzard, and explain the relevance of her case for understanding the changes which come about in the nature of elite and non-elite witchcraft beliefs by the early 19th century. 15. How are witches represented in different forms of folk narrative or literature? How do authors and filmmakers use and/or exploit the image of the witch? 16. In your view, what are the most important dimensions (psychological, social, economic, historical, political, religious, etc.) that must be addressed in trying to explain any given case of demonic possession or witchcraft accusation?