Witch craze. The History of Witch Craze & Witch Hunters 2022-10-28
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The "witch craze" was a period in European history during the late Middle Ages and early modern period when persecution of individuals accused of witchcraft was widespread. This period is also known as the "Burning Times," as accused witches were often burned at the stake. The witch craze began in the 14th century and reached its peak in the 16th and 17th centuries, before eventually declining in the 18th and 19th centuries.
During the witch craze, people were accused of practicing witchcraft for a variety of reasons. Some were accused because they were considered to be outsiders of mainstream society, such as beggars, widows, and elderly people who were seen as a burden on the community. Others were accused because they were thought to have unusual abilities, such as the ability to heal or predict the future, and were therefore seen as a threat to the established order. Still others were accused simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and were easy targets for accusations.
The witch craze was fueled by a variety of factors, including social, economic, and political changes that were occurring in Europe at the time. The late Middle Ages saw significant social upheaval, with many people feeling a sense of uncertainty and fear about the future. The witch craze can be seen as a way for people to cope with this fear by blaming and punishing those who were seen as a threat to society.
The witch craze also had a strong religious component, with many people accusing witches of worshipping the Devil and participating in satanic rituals. This fear of the Devil and the belief in his ability to influence people's lives was fueled by the teachings of the Catholic Church, which saw the Devil as a real and present threat.
The persecution of accused witches was often carried out by the Church and secular authorities, who used a variety of methods to identify and punish those accused of witchcraft. These methods included torture, trial by ordeal, and the use of witch-hunters, who were paid to find and prosecute accused witches.
The witch craze eventually began to decline in the 18th and 19th centuries, as scientific and rational thinking began to replace superstition and fear as the dominant way of explaining the world. However, the legacy of the witch craze lives on, as the persecution and execution of accused witches remains a dark chapter in the history of Europe.
The Symbolism of ‘Young Goodman Brown’ Explained
Some historians study the beliefs, or the written works that helped spread the craze, this is a field that most modern historians would call Intellectual History. The fact that these happenings were not only attributed to the supernatural, but where held as completely true, show the superstitious beliefs that so many held during the witch craze. They in turn credit the wider social conditions for the overwhelming representation, which Barstow deems improbable. The Pope signed the famous Summis Desiderantes if you were there, you would have thought it was famous a edict recognizing the existence of witchcraft, the existence of witches and he gave the church power to hunt witches. Witchcraft And Society in England And America, 1550—1750. To Summarize: The witch-craze needed a foundation to begin.
She furthers her argument by stressing the importance of understanding the role of the patriarchy, a system of society or government through which men hold the power, in defining the societal norms, hence anything beyond the perceived expectation could easily be affirmed as opposition and thus prosecution was very likely. Kramer really got everything he needed from the one run through Innsbruck, to write the Malleus. What do I mean by foundations? The Dark Side of Christian History. Papacy and Curia: Pope Innocent VIII, "who with his bull Summis desiderantes affectibus of 1474 gave powerful encouragement to the witch-craze and had witches tried, but on the other hand did not hesitate to recognize his illegitimate children publicly and have their marriages celebrated in the Vatican with pomp and splendour. Ruiz — The Witch Craze Witchcraft in Europe In the late 15th century in Europe, over 80 thousand people were put to death because they were thought to practice witchcraft.
The Witch Craze in Europe: A Talk by Professor Teofilo F. Ruiz
This book is a gripping account of the pursuit, interrogation, torture, and burning of witches during this period and beyond. The witch-craze was born out of the superstitious beliefs of the pre-Enlightenment and Reformation era, when people believed the forests were enchanted with mythical creatures and there were common fears of spells and curses, and other superstitions. Witches and Witch-hunts: a Global History. . The witch-craze was a distinctive persecution of women by the Church. The witch-craze was in small partly the result of naive superstition, and in large part an intentional persecution of women. For the day he received a top-notch education, learning not only religion but physics, philosophy, science and metaphysical philosophy.
Why was there a witch craze in the 16th and 17th century? [Solved] (2022)
Similarly, the Pope also spread the notion that the evil and chaos of people were caused by the devil. This week I based most of the writing off the work of Hans Peter Broedel and his work The Malleus Maleficarum: and the Construction of Witchcraft- Theology and Popular Belief. The next morning, he sees the same villagers he had witnessed the night before, but now they are carrying on with their ordinary, upstanding lives. Once Kramer got what he imagined a witch was, from his first victim, he would torture the others until they gave him the same answers, and then he would mark down their confessions. Goodman Brown becomes withdrawn from the community, and even starts to doubt whether what he witnessed actually took place, or whether it was all a dream.
However, in November2009, it was reported that 118people had been arrested in the province of Makkah that year for practicing magic and "using the Book of Allah in a derogatory manner", 74% of them being female. Throughout the early medieval period, notable rulers prohibited both witchcraft and pagan religions, often on pain of death. Author information Name: Prof. The Decline of Witch Hunts Professor Ruiz concluded that around the 1660s, magic was beginning to be shunned and put to the side. Gone were the days of monks etching fancy letters in their illuminated manuscripts. Midwives were among the favorite targets because stillbirths were thought to be their way of sacrificing babies to the devil.
These anxieties resulted in severe aggression, and on one occasion around 816AD, Agobard could hardly prevent a crowd from killing three foreign men and women, perceived as Magonian people. Additionally, the witch-craze was not an era of human rights and justice, and people were accused of witchcraft by unknown accursers and tortured until they confessed. Steyler Verlag, Nettetal, 1987. The Summiput the church on the offensive to combat the heresy that would later be known as witchcraft. This ultimately allowed for their demonization and provided a form of explanation to the fantasies often associated with witchcraft or even the unexplainable. The occupations, funnily, go up based on their level and importance in society at the time.
I believe this fact is wrongly ignored. In 1484, after a series of sermons touting the dangers of witchcraft, Kramer took a letter to Pope Innocent VIII, asking for the opportunity to become a witch-hunter. But, of course, the mother of all witches is the cackling, potion-brewing, broom-riding crone-archetype that we see every year around Halloween. The events described could be misjudged, exaggerated or equally invented for an alternate purpose. The common folk, who were mostly uneducated and illiterate, mindlessly followed their religion, and when the Pope, and other religious leaders planted the idea of the Devil, they hung onto it and began persecuting in the name of God. Get your paper price 124 experts online The witch craze spread throughout the common-people of Europe, this due to a strong support to the persecution of witches advertised by influential religious leaders.
The Major Reasons Of The Witch Craze In Europe: Free Essay Example, 1410 words
Retrieved 18 October 2021. While primary sources are king, the arguments of other scholars usually fuel the conversation. How Kramer got his evidence further shows the confirmation bias of these Inquisitors. University of Chicago Press. These preconditions were codified and "incorporated into the theological system" and allowed for the publication in 1487 of this pernicious Malleus maleficarum, commonly known in english as the Hammer of the Witches first translated by Montague Summers.
Major Reasons For the Persecution of Witches in Europe Essay Example
This is ultimately what made witchcraft, heresy. This was known about sorcery at the time, and once this sorcery was tied into heresy, it became a church issue. Retrieved 6 February 2011. In the 15th century there was a surge of people tortured and executed for practicing witchcraft that began in the pre-Reformation era and continued throughout the Reformation and did not finally end until the proliferation of the Age of the Enlightenment. Among the sabbath is his own wife, Faith. This was a culture Hawthorne knew well, and one of his ancestors, John Hathorne, was even involved in the witch trials at Salem. Kramer was highly ambitious, and nobody hated heresy more than Kramer did.
Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany by Lyndal Roper
Retrieved 13 September 2013. My aim with this newsletter course, it to break down many aspects of the witch-craze. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. However, the background to this is the archaic anxiety about magical knowledge and practices which was so widespread among the people. This was a continental event in Europe, affecting every nation of the period, spreading from Germany and Austria, through Italy, France, England, Scotland and onwards. This meant your inquisitors could torture and execute perceived heretics.
