Supernatural deviants and witches HI266 Deviance and Non-conformity Naomi Pullin

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’ = all- encompassing 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’.

Johann Weyer ( ) Witchcraft ‘sceptics’ Reginald Scott ( )

Witchcraft ‘sceptics’ Michel de Montaigne ( ) ‘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 ) gains prominence in Essex in 1640s

‘Witchfinders’ Nicholas Rémy ( ) 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

Christina Larner, Witchcraft and Religion (Oxford, 1984) ‘Gender-related’ but not ‘gender specific’

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.