Early Modern Witch Craze Research Paper

The early modern ‘witch craze’ refers to a period where prosecutions of witches rose to an extent not seen before in history, Maxwell-Stuart defines this period as being between 1580 and 1660 specifically, with it being at its most intense between 1590 and 1630 . Witchcraft in early modern Europe, was believed to be a real phenomenon that was associated with harmful magic (maleficia) and Devil worship. As result of this belief, it is possible around 100,000 were accused of and executed on charges of witchcraft. The topic has fascinated historians, and there is a huge amount of existing historiography. There have been several theories on what shaped the early modern witch craze. Scarre attacks several, such as Jules Michelet’s mid nineteenth

Throughout pre-modern history, there was a common consensus that magic and sorcery existed , and the stereotype of a witch as an elderly woman, flying to ‘Sabbaths’, meeting with other witches and the Devil and practicing maleficia only came into being in the High Middle Ages. It is very possible that rather than due to religion, fear developed among the common populace as a result of this stereotype, plus a fear of the potential effects these ‘witches’ could have on their lives and local towns in such unstable times. However for the Church and the learned classes, what shaped the witch craze was religious fear. The Church only really took notice when witchcraft began to become tied to demonology. There was a genuine belief within the early modern confessions that witchcraft and pacts with the Devil were becoming an anti-Christian movement and were a legitimate threat to Christianity and the souls of humanity, and that they had to stamp the threat out. This was not always the case however as the example of Spain proves. The Inquisition in Spain did follow European opinion and did see witchcraft as a crime, but it was treated with doubt and caution, and thus Spain largely was not a participant in the witch craze. The Inquisition’s main concern with witches was whether heresy was involved. Spain however was not

In On The Councils and the Church (1529), Luther explains witches are rightly burned at stake because they have aligned themselves with Satan. It can be seen here that he is not condemning witches for practicing harmful magic, but for allying themselves with the Devil. For Luther, a Reformation icon whose works were widely circulated and highly influential, it is a religious crime, shaped by a Christian fear of the Devil. Additionally, in the Netherlands, in the 1560s, there was an upsurge in the prosecution of witches. Soon after that, came strong attempts to suppress Anabaptism, a similar pattern occurred in Germany. This again shows the importance of religion in shaping the witch craze, witches it would seem were persecuted in these instances for very similar reasons to Anabaptists, mainly their disturbance of the social and religious order. Religious paranoia and tensions were high, and many were living through a period where religion was more unstable than it had ever been. It is easy to see how in a land full of religious instability and fear, those on the margins of society could become victims of mainstream