Comparing The Experiences Of Women During The Medieval Witch Trials

Experiences of Women During the Medieval Witch Trials

Introduction

Between the time period of 1450 to 1750, roughly 50,000 people were executed in Europe due to the witchcraft craze that was occurring (Apps et al., 2013). Without a doubt gender played a key role in the persecution of witches. Unfortunately, history has shown that women tend to be easier targets for witchcraft accusations as compared to men. Throughout this paper, I will be exploring numerous sources comparing the similarities and differences between men and women’s experiences during this time and the reasons why certain people were targeted for witchcraft crimes. The main goal of this paper is to address the experiences that women faced as they were being persecuted. However,

One of the more interesting stories of witchcraft is the trial of Isabel Atcheson and Jane Simpson in England, 1664. Both of these women were accused of casting a sudden illness on Dorothy Heron. Atcheson and Simpson were imprisoned and interrogated for these accusations (Willumsen, 2022). Dorothy Heron claimed that Jane Simpson had tried selling cherries to her, and asked for a higher price than she had for others. When Heron confronted her about this, Simpson then threatened her. A few days after the incident, Dorothy Heron had come down with an illness. Dorothy was severely ill for a while, and doctors could not figure out what was wrong with her. A pivotal moment in the case came when Dorothy claimed she saw the two women in her room in the middle of the night, where the two women eventually disappeared into thin air. Dorothy’s husband, Anthony, admitted in court to seeing the figure of Jane in their room that night. After this night, Dorothy asked for the two girls to come to her house, where she wanted to get blood from Jane and Isabel. She believed that getting blood from the ones who cast a spell on her would cure her illness. The two accused agreed, and Dorothy was healed about an hour after getting their blood. The fact that Dorothy had completely recovered actually hurt their case against Jane and Isabel, and eventually the two

Now that I have explored both genders, it is important to compare both men and women’s experiences. One aspect that I found interesting was that both men and women who were accused of witchcraft tended to have occupations in fields like healing. I explored this a little bit above, however women such as lay nurses and men such as gravediggers were occupations that were easy targets. There is also a common theme around death and occupations that can have negative energy due to dealing with death. For both genders, historians have argued that “folkloric medicine, herbal curses, and traditional knowledge about the natural world helped shape what came to be dangerous ideas about diabolical witchcraft” (Apps et al., 2013). Finally, men who were accused of witchcraft, in large numbers, were accused because when a witch hunt occurred it caused mass panic, as well as men who were accused were usually related to a female suspect (Apps et al., 2013). Both genders are constantly overlapping when it comes to witchcraft accusations during medieval