Post on 03-Jan-2016
Magic & WitchcraftEngland and the Continent
15th – 18th Centuries
With thanks to Professor Ken Wrightson
Magic
• Magic within the popular culture of early-modern England– Common practice– Large body of beliefs that stood outside
the world of formal religion.– Not an alternative religion.– The “debris of many different systems of
thought.”
• “It was a large, loose, pluralistic affair without any clear unifying principle. It encompassed superhuman beings and forces, witches and wise men and a mass of low-grade magical and superstitious practices. The whole was less than the sum of its parts.”- James Obelkevich
Popular Magic
• The means were well known by everyone.
• Specialists– Cunning Folk
• Wise Women• Clever, or, Cunning Men
• Power was considered to be inherited• Records indicate there was a wise
woman or clever man within ten miles of any village.
Why would you seek these people?
• Medical Reasons– Ursula Kemp
• Bewitching• Livestock• Recovery of property• Advice & telling of fortunes• Therapists and counselors• Cheap, available, & knowledgeable• The popular equivalent of astrologers who
served a more elite clientele• Counted among the medical practitioners
of their time
Reaction of the Church
• Did not like popular magic• Officially- all power over life comes from
God– God’s nature could not be commanded or
manipulated– Misfortune was a test of faith– Misfortune was punishment– Any validity was due to evil spirits– The case of Reverend Ralph Josselin– Exodus 22:18
Witchcraft• A specific kind of magic causing injury or death.• The malevolent and malicious use of supernatural
powers against another or their property.• Maleficium
– devil worship- much more serious than just popular magic
• Surge in the late 16th and early• 17th centuries.• “A combination of popular superstition and
ecclesiastical fantasy” (Henry Kamen)• Peculiar to Western Europe, end of 15th, Through 16th
C.– No evidence of ecclesiastical reaction in Orthodox
areas.
Witchcraft, con’t
• Continental Europe and Scotland–Witchcraft is a heresy–Religious zeal–Decline in persecutions• Spanish Inquisition 1610• French Parlement 1640
Witchcraft in Early Modern England
• A Crime, not a heresy– An antisocial crime
• The Ecclesiastical stereotype• Continental ideas known, but not adopted• 1542- a felony (unlawful purposes)
– Death on 2nd conviction
• 1563- felony to invoke evil spirits– “”
• 1604- felony to bewitch and injure– To dig up (the deceased) for the
purposes of witchcraft– To consult with or feed an evil spirit
Witchcraft in E.M. England
• Trial evidence–Very few trials involving acts with
the devil• They did not fly• No witches sabbats• No conjuring of demons and devils• Very little sex with devils (widespread
on continent)• The had familiars
Witchcraft in E.M. England
• Trials, con’t– Trials Focused on simple maleficent acts– Condemned were hanged not burned– Unlike on the continent, (most)
prosecutions were instigated from below- not above• No evidence the authorities wanted witch hunts• Exception- 1645-1647, matthew Hopkins
– Personal profiteering
– They were sporadic and occasional
Witchcraft in E.M. England
• Trials– Torture (unlike Scotland and the Continent)– Records no longer exist w/ exception to the
“Home Circuit”– Three spikes in trial activity- Why?
Witchcraft in E.M. England
• Trials, con’t– Economic downturn producing paranoia from
below?– Political expediency?
• 1561- William Cecil-> Act of 1563(2nd Pr)– Ursula Kemp- 1582
• 1604 and james I• “Good and Godly laws passed by Good and Godly
regimes”• To oppose witchcraft establishes legitimacy among the
Christian (all sects)• Loss of the protective magic provided by the Medieval
Church
Witchcraft in E.M. England
• Whom were tried?– Witches were usually women and
frequently elderly– widowed– Often accused of bewitching neighbors– Often poorer– Physical deformity– “begging with menace”
– Accusations arose from tensions between economically marginal women and their better-off neighbors
Witchcraft in E.M. England
• Whom were tried?–Misogyny?• Morally weaker and more prone to temptation
–Probably not• Accusations initiated by other women• Magistrates (male) heard and often dismissed cases• Juries were universally male and failed to believe or even hear the cases• ?
Witchcraft in E.M. England
• Conclusion– In England there were no mass witch hunts with the
exception of the 3 spikes mentioned.– In England the hunts pop up spontaneously and from
below. (unlike in Scotland and on the continent)
– The cases could only have taken place with the existence of laws that enabled them. BUT• The Scientific Revolution and Newton’s Laws• How do you PROVE the accusations?• The laws were avoided or ignored• The laws were symbolic and contingent in their origins.
– In the end (W.A. of 1735) there were no hunts because state and church authorities did not want one.
– But this all came too late for Ursula Kemp.