A Look at How The Supernatural Belief Towards Witches Spread Through Europe

As one of humanity's most complex historical processes, the European Witchcraze between 1560 and 1660 is approached as a product of interweaving factors, which historians have long debated the respective significance of. Both socioeconomic advances such as the growth of print, and grievances such as the poverty seen during rapid population growth, contributed to people's anger towards 'witches', increasing their ability to persecute them through sometimes religious, though often secular judicial means. The existing folk mythologies pertaining to witchcraft transcended social class, and were transformed by religious input. This allowed for a society with a belief in witchcraft which helped to provide a language through which the gender struggle, local disputes, social shifts and concerns over economic difficulty – in that order of precedence, beginning with the most important – could be expressed or explained.

Since biblical times, a ‘witch’ has been an individual perceived to possess various attributes, ranging from the maternal ‘cunning folk’ who used ‘magic’ to cure illness, reveal criminals (etc); to the folk feared and despised for their theoretical rituals- such as a Sabbat; though due to contextual contrasts across the continent and throughout history, there is no single definition for a 'witch'. The renaissance population would have defined a 'witch' and 'magic' as things wholly real, and would have 'acted accordingly' The general perception of witches during early modern England’s ‘Witchcraze’, were laid out in the Malleus Maleficarum of 1487. The book became the definitive guide for witch hunting after it spread in the late 16th century, and portrayed the idea that a witch was member of an organised ‘anti-religion’ that worshipped the devil. Although it is undeniable that literature like this only came to influence the masses due to the expansion of the printing press which increased the availability of vernacular text, spurred on by Luther's principle of 'sola scriptura'. The Maleficarum displays a collection of apparently feminine traits, such as a rebellious speech and dangerously free-thinking temperaments- any traits that could damage Church influence- as indicative of witchcraft. The text derived Femini from 'fe' & 'minus' as women were 'deceitful' & 'impure', & weaker in their religious fervour than men. Although, as Dominicans Kramer and Sprenger were sexually repressed, even by late medieval monastic standards, by their strict vow of celibacy that transformed their ignorance of women into loathing. Though since the Eve's 'fall', the Abrahamic world has perpetuated the story of female susceptibility to evil , still reflected in literature of the time.

The infamous Demdike of Pendle was a 'very old woman’ like many of the accused, with Gifford calling the hunts a 'broyle against old women'. Levack points out that male and female interaction in society affects all relations, as an integral part of the process of accusation and persecution. Witch hunts are an extreme manifestation of the ongoing mechanisms for social control of women within the wider context of social change and the reconstruction of a patriarchal society. He adds that change alone however cannot explain craze, as it is clearly not specific to this period, and therefore the craze was sex-related but not sex-specific. Hester also adds that the growing social change resultant from Protestantism and the growth of literacy meant men increasingly sought to assert their former authority, leading to a male-female conflict over economic resources . Cohn points out however, that in pre-witch hunt period 'heretics' seemed to take place of witches, and that the craze simply marked an administrative change to account for a cultural shift.

Barstow and other feminist historians claim that up to 90% of those accused were women, and that they were purges of women only. However, this figure is debated and is impossible to pin down due to the lack of central record keeping in the period. It is certain though that between a fifth and a quarter of those executed for witchcraft were men in parts of Europe the witch-hunts even mainly targeted men, such as in Iceland where 92% of the accused were men, in Estonia 60% and in Moscow, two-thirds of those accused were male; with even the successful, male playwright Christopher Marlowe being among the English victims . The trial material cited by Thomas actually indicates the prevalence of women-women accusations in both England and Europe, therefore disproving the hypothesis of male upon female violence.

Women were generally in a less advantageous situation in the changing economy, especially amongst the peasantry and artisan classes, which were particularly relevant to growing capitalism and were also where most accusations occurred. This could be a potential explanation for their dominance of the statistics. The marital status of women was intrinsically linked to their financial independence. Labouring, older, widowed, poor, or those competing with men in a craft/trade, such as brewing in which widows were more vulnerable to accusations, undoubtedly as a result of an attempt to maintain the male monopoly on the economy. Women also had a natural power over life & death, and they were sexually stereotyped as having insatiable lusts and immoral pleasure-seeking nature due to their ability to achieve multiple orgasms.

Witches also tended to be women past childbearing age, and were then useless to a patriarchal society. Plowden's description of the witches as 'gnarled old women' with eccentric habits holds some weight, as it acknowledges the non-conformity of the accused' behaviour, with 'old' indicating their inability to fill a role in society. Lotherington emphasises the involvement of tight knit rural communities where everyone had a role in the persecutions, as if someone didn't conform to one they were publicly shamed. Throughout 16th and 17th century Europe, both men and women who didn't conform faced brutal opposition from authorities, seen from the Inquisition’s auto-de-fe’s, to the slaughtering of the ‘Witches’.

With (males) Dee & Raleigh both escaping Elizabeth's secret service, headed by a Puritan. Scarre & Callow argued that most of the male accused in England were artisans, farmers, merchants, or clerics, despite the assumptions that these group[s were the most likely to ‘conform openly’. This evidence shows that the brutality of the trails was certainly not the manufactured 'gendercide' some have suggested, and at one point during the Würzburg trials of 1629, even children made up 60% of those accused, although this had reduced to 17% by the end of the year.

Although the social revolt explanation has long been rejected by historians, it would be careless to dismiss the fundamentality of communities and their economic affairs in the craze. Villages were torn apart by wars, and Germany lost up to 20% of its population.

There was a guilt complex amongst the wealthy in regards to beggars in rural settings particularly, which led to the blaming of misfortunes such as those of war, weather, and health, upon poorer, older citizens who burdened the secure, in order for people the explain away negative reactions to their uncharitable behaviour. The Pendle case is a prime example of such guilt interacting with family feuds on a micro social scale.

Alizon, either travelling or begging on the road to Trawden Forest, passed John Law and asked him for some pins (it is not known whether her intention was to pay for them or whether she was begging). He refused and Alizon cursed him. It was a short while after this that John Law suffered a stroke, for which he blamed Alizon and her powers. When this incident was brought before Justice Nowell, Alizon confessed that she had told the Devil to lame John Law. Alizon then accused her grandmother, Old Demdike, and also members of the Chattox family, of witchcraft. The families had been feuding for years, perhaps since one of the Chattox family broke into Malkin Tower (the home of the Demdike’s) and stole goods to the value of £100 today .

Such social tensions were common in such small communities where interdependence was easily disrupted, and in this way accusations such as those in Pendle could be seen as a form of 'social cleansing', which just happens to usually disadvantage old women like Demdike demonised in popular belief & literature like the Malleus. However, socioeconomic issues were worsened by the spread of the beginning of Calvinism's cultivation of capitalism from the 'Protestant work ethic', which caused growth overall, but did not initially provide for the ‘losers’ amongst the growing population. Economic grievances were furthered through the price rises due to inflation from bullion imports from the New World to Spain and eventually the rest of the continent, that failed to correspond with wage rises; tithes to Catholic and Protestant Churches alike; and generally harsher taxation as government centralisation failed to align with the means of subjects. The role of ordinary people from below is evident in woodcuts, local court records, and folk ballads from the era .

In 1610, Inquisitor Salazar visited the Basque Country to investigate Witchcraze, commenting 'there were neither witches nor bewitched until they were talked and written about'. This indicates that the growth of literacy in urban areas from the 1400s onwards, due to the emergence of books fairs as the printing press made literature accessible, contributed to the formation of anti-witch hysteria. Even for those who still had no access to the print, woodcuts,& posters depicted witch execution and defame-devil pacts such as the 1589 hanging of Chelmsford witches and familiars, though it is difficult to calculate how many saw and were truly influenced by these. It is theorised that these hellish images of Sabbats and the like contributed to the hallucinations many accusers reported- too many too all be fabricated.

France's Wars of Religion, Germany's 'Thirty Years War', and England's Civil War bred instability and its daughter- suspicion- across the continent, making people quick to ostracize outsiders or those who further threatened the 'natural order'. England experienced its biggest number of witchcraft persecutions during the political upheaval that unravelled during the Civil War, which allowed vigilantes liked Hopkins to fill a power vacuum. Hopkins styled himself as the Witchfinder General, after initially interrogating old, disabled E.Clarke of Manningtree- eventually convicting 31 others as accomplices to her ‘witchcraft’. This seems to evidence the correlation between political stability and witchcraft cases. During Hopkins reign of terror, daily wages were around 2.5p in East Anglia, while Hopkins was raking in £15 to £23 per town cleansed of witches, dressed fashionably in latest Puritan fashions, and was able to employ two assistants to help him in work. The natural political instability of war time shifted government focus from the judicial system, so people were able to law into their own hands and act according against witches, as Hopkins/Sterne did. Wars also desolated much agricultural land in rural areas, leading to further food shortages. Explanations such as Pavlac’s Disaster theory, conclude the Witchcraze as broadly a product of such unrest, however although war often corresponded with heightened accusations, this is more due to the opportunity it often provided to act outside the law, rather than direct cause and effect.

The predestined nature of Protestant values meant that good works were abolished, and the poor were left without aid in many situations in the short-term, though this can't account for Catholics. In general this meant that witchcraft was a socio-economic offence rather than a heresy, with the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian keeping a magician whom was a humanist abbot with a reputation for necromancy on the dawn of the craze, in the heart of a Europe where the most witches were executed, but whom was not punished as he was wealthy and bore no burden to society.

Socioeconomic turmoil and the flooding of people into cities impaired any effort to stem the growth of new disease & illness. There was mass panic as popular belief explained the plague as punishment from God for all sins that had been committed.

Syphilis changed people's appearances to 'hellish' ones, and was a disease with no effective cures that had a presiding sexual undertone.

These epidemics were far behind the medicine of the time's control, and old, women healers who were often in contact with such diseases, were turned on by people searching for scapegoats. The Witchcraze also corresponded with onset of the fall in temperature (and therefore reduction of optimal agricultural conditions) known as the ‘Little Ice Age’. The poorer crop yields this phenomenon was responsible for, had a detrimental effect on trade and health across Europe, which was worsened by urban population growth in the case of famine. The belief that ‘witches’ could control weather was popular, and the poor economic conditions were an opportunity for these individuals could be used as scapegoats as they were in the case of disease, an argument popularised by Trevor-Roper, with existing culture surrounding old women and heretics making 'witches' the obvious targets. Behringer’s research for example, shows that uncharacteristically cold May of 1626, coincided with renewed witchcraft accusations among peasants in Franconian town of Zeil .

As the Witchcraze in question exploded in the post-Reformation world, various historians have attributed the tragedy as a tactic used by both Catholics and Protestants alike, to punish the other, and it is certainly true that religiously hegemonic states like Spain & Italy were not part of the same craze as the rest of the theologically torn continent. Germany, the motherland of Protestantism, lost up to 20% of its population in the 30 years war of religion, and along with Switzerland (heartland of movements led by Zwingli and Calvin in the 1500s, the two most prominent Reformation thinkers second only to Luther) was the location of the most witchcraft persecutions. The witchcraft persecution in Würzburg in the years 1626-1631 showed this, as witchcraft accusation was a tool used for the Catholic reconquest of the city. This example demonstrated the theory of Catholic versus Protestant hysteria proposed by Trevor-Roper, who compared the hunting to that of the Jews of the Third Reich . He did acknowledge however, that there were little correlation between periods of religious conflict and witchcraft cases, indicating other factors at play.

Rural areas were the primary locations of the witch-Hunting, and always had trends of higher religious conservatism that made them more susceptible to fear of outsiders. this was also true in the Holy Roman Empire, where the system of cuius regio eius religio after 1555, which proved consistently malleable to the ambitions of German territorial leaders. This meant that regularly shifting borders often made both Catholics & Protestants minorities amongst the other's majority. However, the trials as those in Valais 1428-47 that predate the Reformation, displayed similar beliefs about witches, and therefore indicate that the 1560-1660 trials were not primarily caused by religious upheaval between Catholics and Protestants. It is worth noting that the Civil Wars fought across the continent over the period were all spurred, to some degree, by religious divides(e.g: Puritans V more conservative Anglicans in England), though these wars were not direct causes of the frenzies.

Religion was the largest vehicle of literature at the times, and most intellectuals were still educated through the Church or were members of it. The use of the printing press boomed simultaneous to the Reformation, and the majority of the literature produced reflected religion and it's change. Trade fairs and routes brought new books into urban centres across Europe, and literacy rates grew more than in the countryside. The elite and emerging middle classes who read were met with old ideas about witchcraft that the nature of the new access to culture and increasingly capitalist climate was allowing to spread. Popular culture was spread too, with Shakespeare's Macbeth importing to England the idea of a coven of witches already prominent on the continent, extending the population's ability to accuse. Macfarland emphasised that the worst witchcraft periods in England for example were in the 1580s, while newly-crowned Elizabeth was attempting to cull the Catholic threat , during James experience with both Catholic and Protestant disappointment, after he chose main Anglican after his accession to the throne in 1603 ; then during the tumultuous civil war in the 1640s- all periods of religious issues, a pattern mirrored across the Holy Roman Empire.

On 5 December 1484, just months after his coronation as Pope, Innocent VIII issued the papal bull to inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, authorising the systematic persecution of witches in Germany. The book the two produced was intended as a handbook to Catholics, warning them of the ways of the 'Witches' population believed in. This is just one example of literature produced with the approval and influence of religious and political authorities, such a James V of England’s very own Daemonologie, that were all successful in encouraging populations to identify and persecute witches, a component outlet for socio economic grievance that may otherwise be directed at these semi-autocrats.

However, elite literature such as this may not have been successful in ensuring the craze, if the popular superstition they speared to assure populations of the truth of, had not already been accepted as primitive explanations for uniquely horrific events such as disease and famine to the early modern human. This theorem is proved further, when vast evidence shows that Protestantism had a huge & growing influence on the eve of the Witchcraze. This meant that when Papal support was finally withdrawn, it failed to reduce witchcraft accusations amongst Catholics- some of whom viewed the issue as secular- and had no influence in Protestant states like in England by 1560, and little in Catholic hegemonies such as Spain , whose Inquisition persecuted 'heretics' rather than 'witches' for the same offences. The nature of the time period makes it impossible to categorise social and religious beliefs and reactions as mutually exclusive .

Judicial reform was of course required to legalise and therefore increase the witchcraft hysteria. The influence of the reformation was leading to an increasing assumption of state over control of previously ecclesiastical matters, as Renaissance intellectuals revived Roman Law which heavily promoted use of torture in heresy cases. The fact that almost all cases took place in secular courts rather than ecclesiastical ones(especially in England), reduces the importance of religion. Although, one must take into account the influences of priests and judges, due to the rarity of a (fair) jury. In Germany for example, sources evidence a Learned(often ecclesiastical) obsession with the sabat, under a legal system which allowed clergyman unparalleled degree of influence in their territories, and permitted university professors to become full members of judicial mechanism (Roman legal theories of professors dominated).

Witchcraft was not explicitly defined as a crime in English law until 1542 , as the centralising of governance was beginning to crack down on localism, leading to enforcement of edicts from the top of society . This elite input can be viewed religiously, as an attempt to create a 'godly community', although the changes were executed by those in lower society. Levack is correct in stressing the abandonment of the lex talionis as an important factor in England, as it allowed people to accuse others of a crime, but removed the historical promise of punishment of the accuser if the defendant was found innocent. This meant people had 'less to lose', and meant that the system was often abused for the chance of getting rid of an enemy, without any need to consider immediate potential consequences. In his The Examen of Witches (published in 1590), Burgundian Henri Boguet gives details of the testimonies of 40 witches he'd examined, and his charging of children.

Though intertwined with judicial affairs, political motives and issues created the context in which witches could be prosecuted in such numbers. In England, areas in close proximity to monarchy in London were unlikely to participate in the craze, indicating the importance of periphery, rural communities which source show were more compromised by war and religious change across Europe. The extent of centralisation of authority and law in was highly relevant, with witch-trial figures being considerably lower in Spain, Italy and England where parliaments were more powerful and advanced than the rest of Europe, apart from anomalies in times of conflict. The less centralised Scotland executed twelve times as many witches as England, despite having a smaller population. The Holy Roman Empire, comprised of over 300 territories, many effectively autonomous from the Emperor, allowing Bishops and Princes to take advantage of the lack of central leadership, and support the spread of anti-Witch hysteria in response to economic ruin. The printing press helped to spread new ideas such as the 'Reason of State' doctrine that prompted a need for centralised power in the elite, leading to conflicts and the reaction of scapegoating by ecclesiastical and secular authorities alike.

The most important legal difference between Europe and England, was the prohibition of torture to attain confession in the latter, due to changes during Elizabeth’s reign’s attempt at reconciliation between religious groups. Numbers of witch executions were considerably higher in Scotland and mainland Europe, where brutal torture methods made confessions more common, and burning at the stake was a more regularly permitted punishment .

The motives of the elite may have been more pivotal in more centralised countries like England, where King James I(1603-25), who genuinely feared witches and believed the storm that threatened to sink a ship during one of his journeys, was the work of witches. He proceeded to have the two women he thought responsible burned at the stake while one was still alive, he had huge influence over witchcraft legislation. Although in his later years he came to realise that many witchcraft accusations were made with ulterior motives, he had already popularised his ideas about witches and their evil.

Found some court procedures to be immoral, outlawed denunciation by children in court[9 yr old Jennet Device got her mother & 11 yr old sister hung in 1582; John Smith, Leicester nine hung on his evidence, James intervened and sent the boy to be cared for by the Archbishop of Canterbury where he confessed his perjury]Though it was J1 whom authorised the King James Bible which changed Exodus 22:18 from 'Thou must not suffer a poisoner to live', replacing 'poisoner' with 'witch'.(Farrington, 62)

For early modern Europeans, the existence of diabolical magic was a foregone conclusion, as self-evident as the earth's orbit around the sun is for us. They did not "believe" that witches existed: they knew it, and they acted accordingly. Despite the pressures of many factors on the triggering of the Witchcraze in Europe between 1560 and 1660, including England’s spike in persecutions between the years 1640-1660, socio-economic circumstances appear to have contributed the most. Social factors take into account shifts in religious and superstitious beliefs that led to accusations. Economic pressures explain the strain on societies leading to war and famine that set the scene for scapegoating through existing belief systems. Though other factors such as organised religion must be accounted for separately too, with the reformation and renaissance mind-set generating the insecure landscape that led to changes which temporarily created opposition from those who disliked the pitfalls of new ideas, and demonised those who wanted to progress; along with inter-religious accusations of heresy. Additionally, the misogyny that characterised the majority of accusations, in which women were the main targets, was inseparable from Christianity's teaching of female inferiority. This however did not eliminate men or children from accusations, as the primary offence of the ‘Witches’, was simply heresy. The judicial changes from authorities in both England and the Continent were key in allowing the craze to legally progress, but could be seen an effect of the social change that prompted scholars to reconsider traditional practices, and the elite to expand centralisation. The devastating impacts of poor harvests and disease both represented elements of nature beyond the control of the population, and thus merited the only explanations available- superstitious ones. Although socioeconomic factors cannot be the only cause of such a diverse process as the Witchcraze, and all must be taken into account, both economic and social context intertwine and shape the political and religious lives of all throughout history and their violent evolution in this period can be seen as the trigger for all the other factors.

Source Analysis

Levack's Witchcraze in Early Modern Europe was the most useful and informative source I used. The book provides an overview of factors such as the economy, social & religious attitude, and 'top-down' political ones, and examines how the craze was shaped differently depending on the region and it's culture, unlike the Malleus' narrow evidence of social and religious causes. The source is one of the most reliable I used, as Levack evidences his points with relevant, contemporary sources which explain the various, interdependent factors leading to the Witchcraze. However, Levack does tend to prioritise judicial changes as the primary cause of the craze, despite his own evidence suggesting a much wider context, and so somewhat fails to explain with other factors as much.

The source I found the most accessible was Barstow's Witchcraze: New History of the European Witch Hunts. The book presents an understanding of the social context of the Witchcraze, and gives examples of the huge gender discrimination involved with the trials. It also makes reference to statistics showing that the majority of those accused were women, and the effects religious dogma such as Eve's original sin had on cultural attitudes toward women. This provides a good social background for the topic, that supports her argument. However, the author is concerned with promoting her feminist ideology, and therefore purposely cherry-picks evidence and ignores that which disproves her view that misogyny was the main cause of the Witchcraze. The author also has no academic background in the period she examines.

The most useful source for religious and social causes was the Malleus Maleficarum. In terms of usefulness it indicates the misogynistic and superstitious attitudes of the era leading up to the Witchcraze, from a contemporary perspective. The book was actually used as a handbook to identify 'witches', and thus its contents indicate some the reasons why the accusations occurred. The authors make disparaging comments about females, justified by their Catholic belief in Eve's 'original sin' etc.

As a primary source produced by late medieval Dominican monks, the most devout, sexually repressed and thus incredibly misogynistic order, it is not surprising that it focuses on how certain female traits indicated 'witchcraft'. The source is one of many insights into why certain people wished to persecute or identify 'witches', and therefore cannot be representative of the wide-ranging spectrum of reason for people's accusations of 'witchcraft' that differed by location, culture, religion, social class and more.

Most useful for an overview of the European Witchcraze was Thomas' blog article from the British Museum website, On Witchcraft. The article was a decent point at which to begin my research of such a broad topic, with the short article managing to broadly contextually define a witch; detail the micro-social circumstances that involved regular people in the persecutions; along with religious causes- in particular those involving misogyny. The source was written in hindsight, and therefore Thomas had access to more sources than those studying or involved in the topic closer to the time. This indicates that the article provides a more objective view than sources like the Malleus, which actually originated prior to 1560 but was evidence of social and religious influences on the imminent hunts. However, as a single article this source does not deliver a detailed evaluation of each cause of the Witchcraze, but provides a basic outline. This source was therefore useful for my initial planning, as it brought key factors to my attention, but it does not contain enough detail or evidence to be a substantial reference for any substantial points in my essay.