The Witchcraft Craze

Background Witchcraft was not a new phenomenon in the 16 th and 17 th centuries – its practice had been a part of traditional village culture for centuries. It came to be viewed as both sinister and dangerous when the medieval church began to connect witches to the activities of the devil, transforming witchcraft into a heresy that had to be wiped out. After creation of the Inquisition in the 13 th century, some people were accused of a variety of witchcraft practices, and following the biblical injunction “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” they were turned over to secular authorities for burning at the stake.

Witchcraft and the Church The search for scapegoats to explain the disaster of the Black Death in the 14 th century led to a rise in the persecution of people accused of sorcery. In a 1484 papal bull, Pope Innocent VIII made official the belief of the Catholic Church about such practices. To combat these dangers, Innocent sent two Dominican friars, Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer, to Germany to investigate and root out the witches.

Based on their findings, they wrote Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of the Witches), which until the 18 th century remained one of the standard handbooks on the practices of witchcraft and the methods that could be used to discover and try witches.

Witchcraft in 16 th and 17 th Centuries What distinguished witchcraft during this time from previous developments was the increased number of trials and executions of presumed witches. More than 100,000 people were prosecuted throughout Europe. As more and more people were brought to trial, the fear of witches as well as the fear of being accused of witchcraft escalated to frightening proportions. Larger cities were affected first, but the trials also spread to smaller towns and rural areas.

The Accused From an account of the witch persecution in the German city of Trier, we get a glimpse of who the accused were: “Scarcely any of those who were accused escaped punishment. Nor were there spared even the leading men in the city of Trier.” It implies what is borne out what in most witchcraft trials – that women of the lower classes were more likely to be accused. Where lists are given, those mentioned most often are milkmaids, peasant women, and servant girls. In the witchcraft trials of the 16 th and 17 th centuries, 80% of those accused were women, most of them single or widowed, many over 50 years of age, and from the lower classes.

The Process Accused witches usually confessed to a number of practices. Many confessions were extracted by torture. But even when people confessed voluntarily, certain practices stand out. - sworn allegiance to the devil - using evil incantations, etc. to wreak havoc on neighbors by killing livestock, injuring children, or raising storms to destroy crops

Factors: Religious Uncertainty Trials often occurred in areas where Protestantism had been victorious or where Protestant/Catholic controversies still raged Both sides accused the other of being in league with the devil.

Factors: Social Old communal values that stressed working together for the good of the community were disintegrating. New economic ethic emerged which espoused that each person should look out for himself. Property owners became more fearful of the growing number of poor and transformed them psychologically into agents of the devil.

Old women susceptible. Many were no longer able to be recipients of charity in traditional society. They had to survive by selling herbs, potions, and remedies for healing.

View of Women Malleus Maleficarum had argued that there was a direct link between witchcraft and women. Women were seen as inferior to men both mentally and morally. Because of their moral weaknesses they were open to temptation and hence vulnerable to the allures of Satan. These views were repeated all of the witchcraft treatises written in 16 th and 17 th centuries.

The Waning of the Hysteria By mid-17 th century, the witchcraft hysteria began to subside. Destruction of the religious wars had forced people to accept a grudging toleration, causing religious passions to subside. As governments began to stabilize after the period of crisis, fewer magistrates were willing to accept the unsettling and divisive conditions generated by the trials. More and more educated people were questioning old attitudes toward religion and finding it contrary to reason to believe in the old view of a world haunted by evil spirits.