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Ap Euro Witch Dbq Essay

631 Words3 Pages

At some point during the 15th century, Witchcraft was a normal part of everyday life. Witches accompanied religious ministers to help the ill or to deliver a baby. They were regarded as having spiritual power in their communities. When something went wrong, no one questioned the ministers or the power of the witchcraft. Instead, they questioned whether the witch intended to inflict harm or not. Later, Fueling concerns about the harmful influence of magic and the devil urged people to take decisive action in the battle with witches and magic. It was against this emotionally charged backdrop that Henry VIII introduced the first English statutes addressing witchcraft in 1542, followed by new, stricter, legislation by Elizabeth I in 1563 and James I in 1604. …show more content…

There was much superstition and ignorance in the 17th century England and hundreds of women were wrongly accused and punished. From 1484 until around 1750 some 200,000 witches were tortured, burnt or hanged in Western Europe and England. Most supposed witches were usually poor old women. Women who weren’t lucky enough to look beautiful. Any woman who was ‘crone-like’ with broken irregular teeth , sunken cheeks and a hairy lip was assumed to be a witch ! Owning a cat was also taken as a proof against these women as the cat was the most common sign of witches .

The witch trials took place in the 15th and early 16th centuries, but then the witch scare went into decline, before becoming a major issue again in the 17th century due to the work of Mathew Hopkins.. Matthew Hopkins was an English witch-hunter whose career started during the English Civil War. He called himself the Witch finder General . His witch-hunts mainly took place in March 1644 and lasted until his retirement in 1647. He was responsible for more people being hanged for witchcraft and was responsible for the increase in witch trials

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The first set of witchcraft persecutions occurred during Elizabeth 1st reign, this was Around 1563. Commonly people associated witches with a woman and the beliefs were the following of that they have made a pact with the evil spirit Satan. The rush of the witch persecutions mainly happened after 1563 and by the time period of 1750 roughly 200,000 witches were tortured, burnt, or hung across the whole of Western Europe. Therefore, in this essay, I will be mainly focusing and arguing which of the hysteria surrounding witchcraft and witchcraft trials had a greater impact in Britain or the American colonies in the time period of the 17th century. And I will be arguing it following different factors which could contribute to this such as the social factors geographical factors, religious factors and also control law and order.

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Accused and Betrayed Throughout the late 1600’s women had been accused of being a part of witchcraft. In this time women went through many disgusting torture treatments and got charged with many different things. When a women had been accused she would be “treated” with many different types of torture until they had died or had admitted to doing witchcraft. Some of the tortures were called: “The Garotte”,” Dunking the Witch”, and “The Boots”.

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As Whitney mentioned, the witch hunts occurred in the 17th century were due to the fears of women becoming “economically and psychological” independent, and threatening the male control of property and social order. Those women were viewed as “discontent” meaning the refusal of accepting their predetermined social status (Whitney 85). In contrast, men who had high authority and social status like the Putmans and Parris could purposely manipulate women and instigated the public resentment to falsely accuse, and cruelly eliminate their enemies such as Rebecca and other accused witches. Certainly, the girls and women in the Putman and Parris’s families who made the false accusations of witches and witchcraft were wielded by

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Around 1486 in Europe women were discriminated against and treated as a lesser being to men, making women look weak and insignificant thus causing them to turn to witchery for strength. “...early modern European discrimination against women was the conviction of thousands of women for witchcraft. ”(A&B). People like Heinrich Kramer were large influences on people. “Kramer also argued that women were particularly susceptible to the crime…”(A&B).

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Bridget Bishop, a resident of Salem, was the first person to be tried as a witch. Surprisingly, Bishop was accused of witch craft by the highest number of witneses. After Bishop, more than two hundred people were tried of practicing witchcraft and twenty were executed. Many of these accusations arose from jealous, lower class members of society, especially towards women who had come into a great deal of land or wealth. Three young children by the names of Elizabeth, Abigail, and Ann were the first three people to be “harmed” by the witches.

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As I said, what they possibly though were witchcraft back then could be something treatable by now. Unlike in 1690’s, they didn’t have proof to back their hypothesis that it was bewitching. But now that the reason behind the said incidents were already established and proved wrong by people who studied what might have happened back then. People might still believe witchcraft does exist in present time solely because they have no idea that it might just be an illness that they had no idea about. That the reaction of people around toward something can affect greatly on how things can be

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During the 16th century, many people believed that witchcraft, rather than the workings of God's will, offered better reason of sudden and unexpected bad fortune, such as the death of a child, bad harvests, or the death of cows and bulls. Witch-hunting became something that you constantly think about in some parts of the country. In 1736 Parliament passed an Act undoing the laws against witchcraft but charged fines on people who claimed to be able to use magical powers. Secondly, When witchcraft was proven to be a crime?

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Witchcraft, as brutal as it sounded, most likely was not as extreme as the cases were sought out to be. One hundred thousand people were accused of witchcraft while fifty thousand people were executed and tried as guilty for the crime in Europe (Strayer, 658). Out of these thousands of people, eighty percent of the convicted were women

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