The witch-craze was brought upon by a variety of different factors, however, the most prominent factor and one that will be used to build an argument in its favour is judicial torture. This essay will give a brief description of judicial torture, describe some of the significant uses of this form of torture and why it was practised so universally across Early Modern Europe. Using Brian Levack’s The Witch-Hunt of Early Modern Europe, and a variety of other sources this essay will argue that judicial torture was the prime reason for the distinct rise of witchcraft, both the practice and of people being accused. It will further go into detail on why this reason is significantly better than other theories for the rise of witchcraft.
Judicial Torture is the use of torture by the state or a judicial figure to gain information from victims and quite often gain a confession. It was used
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This text has an interesting approach towards judicial torture, as it begins in saying the Church does not allow their own practitioners to torture those that are accused. While this may be the case for how the Church made itself appear, a lot of the torture handed out to witches was done by the own Churches inquisitors and a lot of judges were religious in nature. Many of the sources used, including Augustine, says that while torture has its uses, it is ultimately useless if the suspect just gives into the pain. While this reference doesn’t specifically relate to witches, it does relate to heretics. Heretics and witches were quite commonly treated the same, as this text and cross-referencing with other sources uncover. The strength in this text comes from showing how the Church itself didn’t want to be known as torturers but permitted their own to conduct judicial torture to gain a response out of those they needed