HI266 Deviance and Non-conformity
Supernatural
deviants and
witches
Naomi Pullin
n.r.wood@warwick.ac.uk
Aims of today
1. Pre-modern magic and popular belief
– debates about witchcraft
2. The European witchcraft persecutions
3. Conclusions:
- Were the European witch-hunts a
‘war’ against women?
- Should we view this phenomenon as
a ‘witch-craze’?
Pre-modern belief
• Widespread belief in magic and the
supernatural
• ‘White’ witches established part of
pre-modern culture
• Harnessed by the Church’s teachings
about God’s work in the world
(Providence)
Pre-modern belief
Maleficia / Maleficium –
wrongdoing/harm by occult means
Keith Thomas: ‘Witchcraft’ = allencompassing term to describe
good and maleficent individuals
Supernatural Deviants
Lycanthrope /
Lycanthropy –
werewolf/ism
Trial of Jean Grenier
(1603) from
Gascony
Demonology
James VI Scotland
- Demonologie
(1597)
Jean Bodin Demonomanie des
sorciers (1580)
Bodin’s Demonomanie
‘To throw some light on the subject of
witches, which seems marvelously strange
to everyone and unbelievable to many.’
‘A Warning to all those who read it, in
order to make it clearly known that there
are no crimes which are nearly so vile as
this one, or which deserve more serious
penalties’.
Witchcraft ‘sceptics’
Johann Weyer (1515-1588)
Reginald Scott (1538-1599)
Witchcraft ‘sceptics’
Michel de Montaigne
(1553-1592)
‘It is putting a very high
price on one’s
conjectures to roast a
man alive for them.’
Demonology
Malleus Maleficarum
(The Hammer of
Witches) (1486)
Attributed to
Heinrich Kramer
Malleus Maleficarum
'Magicians, who are commonly called witches,
are thus termed on account of the magnitude
of their evil deeds. These are they who by the
permission of God disturb the elements, who
drive to distraction the minds of men, such as
have lost their trust in God, and by the terrible
power of their evil spells, without any actual
draught or poison, kill human beings.'
Malleus Maleficarum
‘The reason determined by nature is that
a woman is more given to fleshy lusts
than a man […] they rouse themselves to
vigorous action with evil spirits in order
to assuage their sexual appetites.'
European Witchcraft Phenomenon
Trial of Agnes Heard, Essex 1582
• Accused by John Wade of bewitching to
death a cow, 10 sheep and 10 lambs
(valued at £4)
• Accused by her neighbour Bennet Lane of
bewitching objects she had borrowed
European Witchcraft Phenomenon
Trial of Ursula Hider, Germany (1589)
• Accused of killing two children
• Confesses under torture of having meetings
with the devil and attending Sabbaths
• No evidence, yet results in ‘guilty’ verdict
because of power of devil to deceive
Searching for the witches ‘mark’
‘Witchfinders’
Matthew
Hopkins
(c.1620-1647)
gains
prominence in
Essex in 1640s
‘Witchfinders’
Nicholas Rémy
(1520-1616)
gains prominence in
Lorraine and the
French Comte in the
1580s
Andrea Dworkin,
Woman Hating
(1974)
‘The persecution of
a whole sex’
Jean Bodin
'When we read books by those who
have written about witches, it is to find
fifty female witches, or even
demoniacs, for every man'.
Anne Barstow, Witchcraze (1995)
‘Witchcraft persecutions of
the sixteenth- and
seventeenth- centuries
remain the most hideous
examples of misogyny in
European history.'
Loudon Possessions
Urban Grandier sentenced 1633
‘Gender-related’ but not ‘gender
specific’
Christina Larner, Witchcraft and Religion
(Oxford, 1984)
Robin Briggs,
Witches and
Neighbours (1996)
Conclusions
• Significant moments of tension linked
to social and localised factors.
• Symbiosis of intellectual and popular
belief in magic and witchcraft.
• Not gender-exclusive crime
Conclusions
• Not exceptional, but part of a wider
phenomenon of ‘supernatural deviants’.
• Tells us more about the society in
which accusations emerged than the
phenomenon itself.