Persecution Of Witches Research Articles

The First Time I Called Myself a ‘Witch’ Was the Most Magical Moment of My Life: Unmasking the Influence of Christianity in the Persecution of Witches Through Cultural Hegemony

Whereas Christianity and biblical narratives continue to constructively form human, theological, spiritual, and social existence, it cannot be downplayed that these two central components sometimes lead to destructive perceptions, actions, and behaviours. This is because Christianity and the Bible have continually influenced the comprehension of humanity and spirituality for centuries. With particular reference to witchcraft, particularly in the South African context, this article aims to unmask and scrutinise the influence of Christianity in the persecution of witches. To do this, this article elicits three biblical pieces of textual evidence from the Bible as one of the historical Christian narratives. To unmask and address the phenomenon of interest, cultural hegemony as a theoretical framework is applied to these three biblical pieces of textual evidence. As a result of this endeavour, this article makes three notable findings. First, as Christianity could be appreciated for constructively shaping social perceptions, actions, and behaviours, it should be implicated in certain immoralities. Second, some of the historical injustices, such as witch-hunts and the killing of witches, have, in large part, been propagated by Christian and biblical ideologies. Third (last), Christianity, as a dominant culture of its time, ought to be unmasked within the contemporary contexts for the very reason that it continues to (re)shape contemporary societies, and it is undoubtedly patent that it may continue to (re)shape future generational societies. This article’s recommendations and closing remarks underscore the necessity to examine Christianity alongside its biblical voices recurrently.

“Not a drop of tears, or any sweat from fear came from her”: Interrogating Mind, Body, and Emotions in Early Modern German Witch Trials

In early modern German witch trials, how defendants looked and moreover how they behaved on trial—physically and emotionally—was crucial to whether they were deemed innocent or guilty. This was particularly the case in trials of witchcraft, a crime that often left little tangible evidence in its wake. Indeed, notions of the body are integral to understanding early modern witchcraft beliefs, particularly at a time when the boundary between mind and body was viewed as porous and permeable. This was a time when emotions were seen to have physical consequences, and this belief played a key role in witchcraft cases. Through a close reading of a seventeenth-century trial of witchcraft from a history of emotions perspective, this article examines the ways in which the body, mind, and soul were interrogated in the heartland of early modern witch persecutions: the Holy Roman Empire.

Witchcraft: A Survey of Medieval Ecstasy

The article examines the phenomenon of witchcraft in medieval Europe, focusing on the role of ecstasy as a key element of the witch’s experience. It shows how witchcraft was conceived as a heretical and demonic activity that involved flying through the air, having sex with devils, and joining in night-time gatherings. It also analyses the historical and religious factors that influenced the formation and expression of witchcraft beliefs, such as the impact of classical mythology, folkloric traditions, Christian theology, and popular superstition. Moreover, it investigates the legal and theological reactions to the alleged danger of witchcraft, such as the papal bull of 1484 that authorized the persecution of witches, the influential treatise Malleus Maleficarum that established the witch stereotype, and the various trials and executions that occurred across Europe. The article uses various types of evidence, such as literary works, court documents, and theological writings, to demonstrate the richness and diversity of medieval witchcraft conceptions and discourses. It also explores different regional and temporal variations of witchcraft, such as the differences between Germanic and Latin cultures, or between early and late medieval periods. The article aims to provide a comprehensive and nuanced overview of witchcraft in medieval Europe, as well as to highlight its relevance for understanding the social and psychological dynamics of pre-modern societies.

The Witch in the Closet: Disney's Frozen as Adaptation and Its Potential for Queer and Feminist Readings

The Witch in the Closet: Disney's <i>Frozen</i> as Adaptation and Its Potential for Queer and Feminist Readings

Permanent Revolution: The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism by James Simpson

Reviewed by: Permanent Revolution: The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism by James Simpson Carole M. Cusack Simpson, James, Permanent Revolution: The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism, Cambridge, MA, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019; hardback; pp. xv, 444; R.R.P. US$35.00; ISBN 9780674987135. James Simpson, a literary historian of the late medieval era, has contributed to the study of early modernity in Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and its Reformation (Harvard University Press, 2007). His insights always lead to the present era and illuminate aspects of the past that are often ignored or elided. In Permanent Revolution: The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism, Simpson argues that the triumphalist narrative of Whig history, which viewed the Reformation as the direct ancestor of modern liberalism, depends on taking the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as the entry point for historical studies. However, historians starting with Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses in 1517 expose a different Reformation, which was illiberal, repressive, and characterized by phenomena often termed medieval, including ‘iconoclasm, slavery, persecution of “witches”, judicial torture in England, Biblical fundamentalism, political absolutism’ (p. 6). Part 1, ‘Religion as Revolution’, argues that evangelical Protestantism produced theology that was inherently revolutionary, in that it demanded the destruction of what came before (Catholicism) to remake the world according to God’s will. Simpson further asserts that the radicalism of Puritan theology proposed ‘permanent revolution’ in which anti-Catholicism dissolved in the face of violent internecine conflict between factions within Protestantism itself. Part 2, ‘Working Modernity’s Despair’, posits that while forms of despair are detectable in the later Middle Ages, an epidemic of hopelessness resulted from Protestants who ‘placed despair-producing inadequacy and depravity […] front and brutally center of a theological program’ (p. 58). Predestination of the elect resulted in a psychology that was very different from the concern in Piers Plowman with how Christians may work toward salvation. Simpson contrasts the dramatic moment of being born again (which involved the absolute rejection of the past [End Page 264] self) with the idea of advancing virtue by incremental self-reform. This section concludes with analyses of literary texts, including Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, poems by Thomas Wyatt and Fulke Greville, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Part 3, ‘Sincerity and Hypocrisy’, continues the discussion of psychology, noting that, like despair, hypocrisy was not deeply important in medieval thought, but accusations of hypocrisy were characteristic of Protestantism, as revolutionaries ‘often fall victim to profound self-doubt and doubleness precisely because they set the bar for wholly consistent, unitary authenticity at so high a level’ (p. 114). This requirement of absolute sincerity is especially dangerous to theatre and the visual arts and produces an iconoclastic culture. This section ends with a review of a range of theatrical texts. Part 4, ‘Breaking Idols’, considers phases in the history of Puritan iconoclasm, from the early, ‘energetic’ years from 1538 to 1553 to the ‘more painful, unjoyful’ (p. 161) years from 1558 to 1625. First, images of the saints were banned, and idolatry was condemned. Second, Simpson argues that ‘the seductions of the image’ (p. 175) were combatted in the human mind itself, and he analyses William Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale (1610–11) as an artistic rehabilitation of the image as true and therapeutic. Part 5, ‘Theater, Magic, Sacrament’, discusses the shift from medieval Catholic allegory to Protestant literalism, noting that Evangelicals’ hostility to theatre was essentially identical to their opposition to Catholic sacraments, a rejection of the view that performative language could ‘mak[e] something happen in the world’ (p. 205). Simpson contrasts the Corpus Christi cycles of the Middle Ages with John Bale’s evangelical plays and notes how in the former God acts in a theatrical manner, but in the latter only diabolical figures perform magical actions. Evangelical hostility to magic in the theatre was played out in the world via persecution of witches, which had medieval precursors but was intensified from 1580 to 1620 and then throughout the Civil War, tailing off after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Part 6, ‘Managing Scripture’, tackles the Protestant triumphalist narrative of the Bible democratizing...

Latvian Laumas: Reflections on the Witchisation of Tradition

In Baltic languages, the word laume/lauma initially referred to a certain supernatural being (Lithuanian laumė, Latvian lauma/laume, Prussian *laume). The analysis of written sources and folklore related to this supernatural being allows for the conclusion that Lithuania is both the core and the relic area of the laumė tradition, where the original beliefs have been retained; while Latvia, located at the periphery of the tradition territory, is the innovation area, where the perception of this supernatural being was substantially transformed. It was humanised and incorporated in the witchcraft belief system prior to or during the period of witch persecution (the 16th to 18th centuries). The article attempts to analyse the corpus of lauma tradition in order to clarify its position in the historical typology of Latvian witchcraft beliefs. The first chapter briefly describes three chronological stages of the development of Latvian witchcraft beliefs (night, dairy, and diabolic witches), characterises the lauma folklore sources and previous research. The second chapter analyses the lauma text corpus and attempts to find out which stages of the historical typology of witchcraft beliefs are reflected in the lauma folklore of the 19th–20th centuries. In the third chapter the hypothesis about the transformation of laumas from supernatural beings to dairy witches is argued.

The Female Burden Visualized: Cinematic Representation of Women during Epidemics

The Female Burden Visualized: Cinematic Representation of Women during Epidemics

ОТ МОРАЛЬНОЙ ПАНИКИ К СОЦИАЛЬНОМУ ИНСТИТУТУ И ОБРАТНО: ВЕРА В КОЛДОВСТВО В ИСТОРИИ ЧЕЛОВЕЧЕСТВА

In the paper, witchcraft beliefs in the modern world are considered within the framework of the ethological and structural-functional approaches, the concepts of “moral panic” and “the image of a limited good”. The author analyzes the ethological foundations and social functions of witchcraft beliefs and demonstrates that the idea of witchcraft turns out to be a function of social relations, communication needs and creative abilities (one might say, a side effect of those universal human needs and abilities). The article consistently demonstrates how, in the hunter-gatherer and early farming communities, witchcraft beliefs and related practices become an important cognitive tool and mechanism of social regulation, and how, as society grows and becomes more complex, those ideas and practices become a symptom of social distress (when persecution begins and whole groups of demonized fellow-countrymen begin to be persecuted). The author shows that the witchcraft belief, which remaining latent in collective consciousness, are getting stronger in situations of social upheaval and economic crises, and the persecution of alleged witches may resume today. Up-to-day cases from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Russia demonstrate such state of affairs.

Signing the Body: Marks on the Skin in Early Modern France by Katherine Dauge-Roth

Reviewed by: Signing the Body: Marks on the Skin in Early Modern France by Katherine Dauge-Roth Erika E. Hess Dauge-Roth, Katherine. Signing the Body: Marks on the Skin in Early Modern France. Routledge, 2020. ISBN 978-0-754-65772-9. Pp. xvi + 318. Dauge-Roth focuses on five types of bodily signs: devil's marks, divine stigmata, Amerindian tattoos on French colonists, pilgrim tattoos, and judicial brands. In each case, she draws from a wide variety of interdisciplinary sources from the mid-sixteenth through mid-eighteenth centuries to examine the history and specificity of each type of mark while also revealing the manner in which all participated in a larger, modern, cultural fascination with the material text––whether written on paper or skin. In her study of devil's marks, for example, Dauge-Roth discusses the history and importance of these marks in the witch trials that seized Europe from the late-fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. According to widespread belief during this period, Satan placed multiple marks upon the bodies of new initiates during the sabbat. Through texts written by medical examiners, demonologists, theologians, and judges, the reader learns that the devil's marks varied in size and shape but were generally hidden to avoid detection. They were often invisible to the naked eye, and when penetrated with a needle or probe, they did not bleed or elicit pain. Dauge-Roth cites Henry Boguet, a sixteenth-century witch trial judge from the Jura region, who states unequivocably: "There is not a witch who is not marked in some part of her body" (30). Yet, as Dauge-Roth demonstrates, the importance given to the devil's mark during this period is new. It "played no role in the witch persecutions of the later Middle Ages" (31). Rather, it aligns with changes to modern jurisprudence and the importance given to the material evidence of the mark as an "authoritative sign of proof, locatable and verifiable upon the witch's skin" (32). Turning to an analysis of divine stigmata, Dauge-Roth recounts the story of the seventeenth-century Ursuline prioress, Jeanne des Anges, who was exorcized along with several other demonically possessed nuns in her convent. Although Jeanne des Anges's exorcists were the first to write about the events, she went on to write her own memoir and also toured through France exhibiting her inscribed hand––ostensibly written through the divine intervention of an angel. As Dauge-Roth states of Jeanne des Anges: "She clearly understood writing—both on paper and on skin—as a potent medium for making a new identity for herself" (97). Other self-fashioned cutaneous marks that played important roles as "signifiers of identity" in the early modern period include the Amerindian tattoos that French colonists to New France acquired as they negotiated their "composite identities" (158), and the pilgrim tattoos that many European travelers sought as material souvenirs of their travels to the Holy Lands. Finally, Dauge-Roth discusses judicial brands used to mark and identify slaves and criminals, as well as other forms of marking to indicate possession or control, or for commercial or administrative purposes. This fascinating and frequently surprising work will be of great interest to students and scholars of European history and culture. [End Page 244] Erika E. Hess Northern Arizona University Copyright © 2021 American Association of Teachers of French

‘Viral’ Hunts? A Cultural Darwinian Analysis of Witch Persecutions

Abstract The theory of Darwinian cultural evolution is gaining currency in many parts of the socio-cultural sciences, but it remains contentious. Critics claim that the theory is either fundamentally mistaken or boils down to a fancy re-description of things we knew all along. We will argue that cultural Darwinism can indeed resolve long-standing socio-cultural puzzles; this is demonstrated through a cultural Darwinian analysis of the European witch persecutions. Two central and unresolved questions concerning witch-hunts will be addressed. From the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, a remarkable and highly specific concept of witchcraft was taking shape in Europe. The first question is: who constructed it? With hindsight, we can see that the concept contains many elements that appear to be intelligently designed to ensure the continuation of witch persecutions, such as the witches’ sabbat, the diabolical pact, nightly flight, and torture as a means of interrogation. The second question is: why did beliefs in witchcraft and witch-hunts persist and disseminate, despite the fact that, as many historians have concluded, no one appears to have substantially benefited from them? Historians have convincingly argued that witch-hunts were not inspired by some hidden agenda; persecutors genuinely believed in the threat of witchcraft to their communities. We propose that the apparent ‘design’ exhibited by concepts of witchcraft resulted from a Darwinian process of evolution, in which cultural variants that accidentally enhanced the reproduction of the witch-hunts were selected and accumulated. We argue that witch persecutions form a prime example of a ‘viral’ socio-cultural phenomenon that reproduces ‘selfishly’, even harming the interests of its human hosts.

The Witch-cleric Stereotype in a Seventeenth-Century Lutheran Context*

Abstract This article enhances our understanding of the development and dynamism of early modern witch stereotypes by focusing on the stereotype of the witch-cleric, the Christian minister imagined by early modern people as working for the devil instead of God, baptizing people into witchcraft, working harmful magic and even officiating at witches’ gatherings. I show how this stereotype first developed in relation to Catholic clerics in demonology, print culture and witch-trials, then examine its emergence in relation to Protestant clerics in Germany and beyond, using case studies of pastors from the Lutheran territory of Rothenburg ob der Tauber from 1639 and 1692 to explore these ideas in detail. I also offer a broader comparison of beliefs about Protestant witch-clerics and their susceptibility to formal prosecution with their Catholic counterparts in early modern Germany, showing that cases involving Protestant witch-clerics were part of a cross-confessional phenomenon that is best understood in a comparative, Europe-wide perspective. In addition to showing how the witch-cleric stereotype changed over time and spread geographically, I conclude by arguing that three distinct variants of this stereotype had emerged by the seventeenth century: the Catholic ‘witch-priest’ and Protestant ‘witch-pastor’ (who were supposedly witches themselves) and the overzealous clerical ‘witch-master’, who was thought to do the devil’s work by helping persecute innocent people for witchcraft. Despite these stereotypes, however, relatively few clerics of either confession were tried and executed as witches; overall, patriarchy worked to protect men of the cloth from the worst excesses of witch persecution.

Estirpò ancora delli suoi paesi le strighe - The one (and only) report on the persecution of witches in the Nemanjic state

In the Copioso risretto de gli anali di Rausa (1605), written by the Ragusan chronicler Jakov Lukarevic (Giacomo Luccari), we find a report on the persecution of witches in the Nemanjic State. According to Lukarevic, grand zupan Stefan Nemanja and tsar Stefan Dusan persecuted witches in their country, and moreover, tsar Dusan burned the books of magic called ?Grominjak? in Slavic language. This report can?t be confirmed by any other historical source, contemporary or later, but we think that Lukarevic didn?t invent the story. We reckon that Lucarevic based his report on the persecution of witches on certain historical events. The persecution of heretics during Nemanja?s reign could?ve been that on which Lukarevic based his story of Nemanja?s persecution of witches. In the time of Stefan Dusan the legislation sanctioned the practice of magic (though, the practitioners are predominantly termed as males); perhaps the tsar has persecuted individually some wizards or sorcerers that had broken the law. But this certainly couldn?t have been a true witch hunt, like those that Lukarevic could?ve witnessed in his time. Likewise, Grominjak in fact could?ve been the same as gromovnik, an astrological and meteorological manual used in mediaeval Serbia for divination by thunders and earthquakes; this handbook could?ve seemed to Lukarevic as a real grimoire used for summoning demons. And since numerous manuscripts of gromovniks have survived, they obviously hadn?t been systematically destroyed by the authorities. Our conclusion is, therefore, that Jakov Lukarevic knew of some real events that were influenced by his own experience and knowledge which ultimately shaped his story into one of an early modern witch hunt ?transported? into mediaeval Serbian state.

Witch persecutions and torture: Comment on Alison and Alison (2017).

In their article Alison and Alison (2017) argue that historical experiences speak against the efficacy of torture. In this comment experiences from the witch persecutions in Europe during the 15th to 17th centuries that support this notion are discussed. Converging data suggests that torture was often instrumental in making large numbers of suspects confess to flying children through the air to nocturnal satanic meetings, during this period. A comparison of the number of false self incriminating confessions given during the Swedish witch trial in the parish of Rättvik 1671 (before royal sanction of torture was given) and the parish of Ockelbo 1675 (after royal sanction of torture was given) is used to illustrate this point. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother by Ulinka Rublack

Reviewed by: The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother by Ulinka Rublack Alinda Damsma Keywords Ulinka Rublack, Alinda Damsma, witchcraft, Johannes Kepler, witch trial, early modern witchcraft, early modern magic, magic and science ulinka rublack, The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xxxii + 359, 42 ill. The Jesuit Friedrich Spee, a fierce opponent of the witch persecutions, wrote in his Cautio Criminalis (1631) that "the only way trials are conducted [End Page 122] is so that in the end the truth does not shine brightly throughout Germany, but bonfires."1 However, Ulinka Rublack's monograph describes a remarkable witch trial in which the truth ultimately did cast its brilliant shine, thanks to the accused woman's stout defendant: the astronomer Johannes Kepler, famed for his discovery of the three laws of planetary motion. As a man of science, Kepler was skilled in defending his astronomical insights and refuting his academic opponents, but upon learning that his aged, illiterate mother, Katharina Kepler, had been accused of witchcraft, he put his telescope aside and used his brilliant analytical and rhetorical skills to conduct her defense, which eventually led to her release. In this thoroughly researched and beautifully written study, Rublack offers the reader a welcome balanced treatment of the Kepler case, one of the best documented witchcraft trials in Germany, which lasted from 1615 until 1621. Having dusted off the rich archival sources, Rublack atmospherically and vividly paints a picture of Katharina's world and beliefs. Adopting the microhistorical approach, Rublack not only gives voice to Katharina, but also to the rest of her family and the community she lived in, at a time when the witch craze was ravaging early modern Germany. Rublack reconstructs a haunted world in which bad events were explained as the work of the Devil and his band of witches. No one was safe from the Devil's temptation, and paranoia reigned. The reader thus gains an in-depth understanding of how the witch craze impacted ordinary people in a small Lutheran community in the Duchy of Württemberg. Most originally, Rublack presents Katharina's trial as the hitherto untold story of how witchcraft accusations transformed family dynamics. Subsequently, her monograph does not just focus on Kepler, his mother, and their relationship, but also on the witch trial as a family tragedy. Rublack sets the scene by guiding the reader through early modern Leonberg, Katharina's hometown. She explains in rich detail how communal life was governed by daily patterns and seasonal rhythms. Thanks to Rublack's engaging and vivid writing style, the reader gets a real sense of what life must have been like for Katharina in this bustling market town. Despite her middling wealth, Katharina faced much hardship because her husband—unwilling to settle down—had left her to raise their four children, and was never heard of again. Katharina nevertheless managed to fend for herself, thereby showing great resilience and resourcefulness. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, she finally seemed to have entered calm water. [End Page 123] However, Katharina's life took a dramatic turn in August 1615 when, at the age of 68, she was accused of being a witch. She had allegedly given the local glazier's wife a poisonous brew which had made her ill. All of a sudden, the illiterate aged widow was caught up in the machinations of the witch persecutions, instigated by an overzealous ducal governor. What follows is a gripping account of a six-year legal battle in which Katharina narrowly escapes physical torture, which most likely would have resulted in a confession, and consequently, the death sentence. In great detail and with painstaking effort, Rublack reconstructs the six-year-long case and the anxiety it causes among Katharina and her children. Throughout those years Johannes tirelessly confronts the judicial system, exposing some of the causes of the German witch craze in the process, such as the deeply embedded cultural fear of old women. However, although the trial unfolds against the backdrop of the scientific revolution with Kepler himself being a man of science, Rublack rightly does not describe...

Witch Beliefs and Witch Trials in the Middle Ages: Documents and Readings by P. G. Maxwell-Stuart (review)

Reviewed by: Witch Beliefs and Witch Trials in the Middle Ages: Documents and Readings by P. G. Maxwell-Stuart Brian A. Pavlac Keywords Maxwell-Stuart, witch belief, witch trial, witch hunting, Medieval witchcraft, magic, Malleus Maleficarum P. G. Maxwell-Stuart. Witch Beliefs and Witch Trials in the Middle Ages: Documents and Readings. New York and London: Continuum, 2011. Pp. 228. The introduction of Maxwell-Stuart’s collection of sources, Witch Beliefs and Witch Trials in the Middle Ages: Documents and Readings, begins with his description of a world that has been substantially lost to our modern minds. He describes a universe (called universum) created by a rational act of God, where heaven, the earth, and hell were linked together in a meaningful purpose. Living among us humans, according to this worldview, were magical creatures, ghosts, faeries, and hobgoblins, some of whom sought to harm, others to help. Magic and religion offered two methods to control these potentially dangerous spirits. The Church considered its methods of interaction with the divine as licit while condemning other more magical approaches concerning the supernatural (such as worshiping demons) as illicit superstition at first, then as idolatry and apostasy. Maxwell-Stuart cautions us today against dismissing demon worship as “fantasy, lies, or gossip” (p. 7). Instead, we should see magic as “rational and logical” (p. 12) ways of understanding God’s plan for the universum. Maxwell-Stuart goes on to assert that nineteenth and early-twentieth-century scholars of witchcraft belonging to the so-called “rationalist” school rejected the old rational and logical universum as irrational in a postindustrial [End Page 104] age based on science and anticlericalism. Among those scholars was the German Joseph Hansen, who assembled a large compendium of extracts, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Hexenwahns und der Hexenverfolgung im Mittelalter (published 1901, available online, e.g., through Google Books or the Internet Archive) focusing on German, French, Italian, and Spanish sources in Latin from the thirteenth century to about 1540. Maxwell-Stuart now offers his selection of primary source documents from Hansen’s tome translated into English. The first part contains full translations of twenty-three papal letters, decrees, and the like, along with brief summaries and snippets of several more of the same from between 1258 and 1526. The second presents eighteen more translations of Hansen’s accumulated scholarly treatises and observations about demonology and witchcraft, with many more summarized. Maxwell-Stuart skips Hansen’s sections devoted to the Malleus Maleficarum (of which he has published a good abridged English translation) and Johannes Nider (whom Hansen blames for the strong streak of misogyny in the hunts). Hansen’s Part 6 supplies both Maxwell-Stuart’s Part 3, containing seventeen records from courts of various inquisitions, as well as his Part 4, presenting thirty-three proceedings of “secular” courts (although these include courts of prince-bishoprics). With these translations, Maxwell-Stuart offers a great service for the interested reader trying to understand witch-hunting. Papal documents exhibit leadership from above, crowds of townspeople show pressure from below (e.g., Part 4, no. 17), while payments to guards and executioners demonstrate the mundane routine of persecution of witches (e.g., Part 4, no. 10). Most of the documents are short, two pages or fewer, and to the point. A major exception is the extended “Recollectio,” an anonymous tract of 1460 about “Waldensians” (Part 2, no. 11), which provides an in-depth examination of most aspects of witch-beliefs, accusations, and criminal procedures. Oddly, Maxwell-Stuart does not give the tract its title, yet refers to it later by that name in a commentary on another source. Another fascinating long example is the detailed trial of Antoinette, wife of Jean Rose (Part 3, no. 13). It is almost heartbreaking to follow how torture breaks her will. Explaining such persecution still remains a challenge for scholars of the witch hunts and probably always will. Maxwell-Stuart, as his introduction indicates, seems to think that in its fear of people choosing an alternative of magic to control the supernatural world, the Church went from disdaining magic as superstition into seeing it as a full-fledged heresy. The documents here confirm that general progression of...

Introduction

Introduction

Pyewacket: A Familiar Spirit of the Witchfinder General

AbstractThe name of a witch’s familiar, Pyewacket, was reported by the Witchfinder General of England, Matthew Hopkins, at the height of the witch persecution in the middle of the seventeenth century. It has eluded explanation so far. It is suggested that it derives from the name of a village presently in the State of Maine, and that it became known in England through family connections between Hopkins and the Governor of Massachusetts John Winthrop.

The Mark Twain and Robert Ingersoll Connection: Freethought, Borrowed Thought, Stolen Thought

The Mark Twain and Robert Ingersoll Connection: Freethought, Borrowed Thought, Stolen Thought

Religious Life and Observant Reform in the Fifteenth Century

AbstractAcross Europe after 1400, calls for reform echoed through the ranks of nearly every major religious order. They emerged and took root independently in ways as diverse as the late‐medieval religious and political landscape itself, yet also shared a range of common aims and characteristics. Collectively known as the Observant Movement, these efforts at reform produced some of the most important religious figures of the middle ages (Catherine of Siena and Savonarola, Bernardino of Siena and John of Capistrano, Jiménez de Cisneros, Thomas of Kempen, even the young Observant friar Martin Luther). They also reflected and inspired much that became central to late medieval religion and culture. Our textbooks, surveys and scholarly overviews long neglected the Observant story. But the last few decades of research have begun to remedy that neglect, bringing Observant reform to the center of a range of current scholarly concerns. This article surveys the emergence of that recent work, and some of its major themes: the connections between religious life and the histories of women and the laity; Observant preaching and teaching and their connection with humanism, as well as with the persecution of witches, Jews and others; the links between Observant reform and the later histories of the Reformation and the Atlantic world. It concludes with a consideration of the challenges and opportunities for future scholarship.

Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction (review)

Reviewed by: Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction Marion Gibson Malcolm Gaskill . Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. 146. OUP's Very Short Introduction series has established itself as the first port of call (other, of course, than the oracular Wikipedia) for scholars, students, and the general reader in subjects from Jung to medical ethics to privacy law. [End Page 230] So it is no surprise to see Malcolm Gaskill's volume on witchcraft join the set. Witchcraft is a subject of wide public interest as well as being studied in a wide range of university and college courses, from general introductions to early modern history to specific modules devoted to witch trials and their literatures. A volume on witchcraft was certainly needed, and it will surely be a popular title. The book begins enticingly—Gaskill admits engagingly that he's a victim of circumstance and passion. Witchcraft is a subject that just won't leave him alone. Most readers of this journal will know exactly what he means. This Very Short Introduction therefore sets out to explore why witchcraft is such a compelling topic, along with surveying the main features of its history, historiography, and contemporary cultural relevance. Gaskill is a fine writer: clear, direct, chatty, authoritative. He brings the subject to life with provocative analogies. Witches are special, different from other victims of persecution like Cathars and Lollards because, bizarrely, they are the subject of board games and children's TV shows. He teases and challenges the reader. Have you ever been truly hungry? If not, how can you judge those who accused their neighbors of spoiling their crops? Ever fantasized or hated? You too could have been a witch-hunter. Gaskill begins by embedding witchcraft belief into the longest possible durée, the (pre)history of human religiosity, inquisitiveness, and competitiveness. The persecution of witches, then, was no sudden "outbreak," madness, or even a category error. Human beings were, in certain senses, made to hunt witches. The book invites the reader to deal with this conclusion and move on, through the definition of terms like "superstition" and "rationality" to the specific notion of heresy in early modern Europe. Here we encounter a range of the usual suspects, necessarily discussed because their cases and theories are important (Jean Bodin, Johann Weyer, Reginald Scot, Alice Kyteler, Bridget Bishop, Cotton Mather, John Junius, Margaret Murray, Aleister Crowley, Edward Evans-Pritchard, Keith Thomas, Gerald Gardner, and so on). But the book also features less immediately obvious commentators on historical witchcraft and its religious context: Samuel Butler, Samuel Pepys, Dan Brown. The book takes pains to connect what scholars think they already know to the wider world of popular culture and general interest, making for a genuinely inclusive and thought-provoking read. Gaskill also talks about the duties of historians to their subjects—general introductory books like this one do allow a judicious stepping-back from the detail of texts to a general consideration of both why and how we should be studying the records of torture and execution that constitute our understanding of many witchcraft episodes. Good historians, he suggests, must accept a [End Page 231] relativist approach that does not condemn or excuse torturers, witchfinders, or those who consume images of their activities. Yet this statement is contextualized by repeated discussion of recent witch-hunting activities in Africa and indeed in Europe—the murder of Victoria Climbié, for example. How should we respond to such events, given our now quite deep and complex knowledge of their historical parallels? The book does not attempt to answer the question, but it opens it up for the reader's consideration. Overall, the approach is one of liberal relativist understanding: as Gaskill sums up (this time in discussing extreme feminist assertions about "millions" of executions), "when people get upset, they make mistakes." I remained uneasy with this as I read, despite wondering what else Gaskill could have said. The spread of witchcraft accusation around the world is a challenge to which witchcraft historians ought to be uniquely placed to respond. Is it enough to say that we understand and that it has all happened before? Witchcraft may be history for...