Witchcraft Dbq Essay

Throughout the span of the late fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, many European countries grew increasingly unstable successive to religiously insecurities. As a result to the establishments and the reconstruction of religions, as recorded in the Reformation, tensions to purify individuals accused of heresy and witchcraft intensified. Subsequently, the organization of the brutal inquisitions and executions for alleged witchcraft found its presence in many nations like Spain. European countries were greatly influenced to prosecute individuals implicated as witches by cause of traditional religious ideals, societal- enforced misogyny and desire to maintain social status. During the era of the “witch hunt” in Europe, a profuse number of those

In 1552 during the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther preached concerning the relations of how women work for the devil and used their supernatural abilities to prompt tragedies (Document 2). Luther stated how the witches are the devil’s “whores”, a word generally, only associated with women. He goes on to explain how women are the embodiment of dark lord sent down to Earth to deceit and punish mankind. With the point of view of a respected male voice (under the influence of societal suppression among women) Martin Luther’s speech generated misogyny and furthermore stimulated the persecution of women deemed as witches. Another example of how misogyny influenced the european witch trials is represented in the 1613 pamphlet showing how witches were being found everywhere and how to identify if a woman was practicing witchcraft or not (Document 7). This pamphlet serves as important historical evidence, for it was created during the Scientific Revolution under the production of the printing press. The printing press provided faster publisment and circulation of ideas in Europe, and in this case, it allowed for all people (literate and illiterate) to understand works of propaganda. The mass production of this work which displayed a drawing of a woman being tied and forced out of a

In 1682, Roger North spoke touching on the significance of the execution of the accused witches like the elderly. North described how it was dire for the judge’s to provide justice to those who have been depraved by the devil’s work who of which pose a great threat to the innocent common people (Document 4). In this instance, the unaccused class (like North) withholds a higher social hierarchy who use manipulation to denounce others lower than himself (like the elderly) to maintain their social status in individual security. Correspondingly, W. Fulbecke composed a document disclosing the civil law should be involved in uncovering and exterminating the elderly. Fulbecke persuades how elderly spirits have been corrupted and taken over by evil and uses the elderly’s sickness as evidence for his clause. Fulbecke’s writings emphasize how those in law oppressing the lower classes like elderly with little to no evidence as a way to direct a scapegoat. Those in law are more respected and trusted and by blaming the elderly they were able to give the people the illusion of reason and intelligence during the wave of witch hysteria ultimately, benefiting their social status. Also, in an eyewitness report, a man addresses witch persecutions found in Trier, Germany in 1592. The man explains the brutality of the trial’s nature