Rise of Witch Hunts

Economic changes
1. Bad conditions encourage witchcraft accusations
  1. Inflation
  2. Poverty
    1. Charity crisis
    2. Disease
  3. Harsh climatic conditions
    1. Famine
      1. Behringer argues this was linked to intense witch hunts in Bavaria.
  4. War
2. Levack: connection between economic change and witch-hunting less apparent in some parts of Europe.
  1. E.g: Scotland.
Community impetus
1. Scapegoats
2. Small communities
  1. Majority of witches from small, agricultural villages. part of a peasant economy
    1. Strong superstitious beliefs among an uneducated and conservative peasantry
    2. Too small to escape undesirable people
3. Community regulation
  1. Persecuted groups who were outside norm/marginalised.
  2. Regulation of behaviour
    1. Basque region: witches taken to court by peasants if they can't make good any damage they were perceived to have done - community acted as arbiters.
4. Town hunts
  1. Politically-inspired sorcery based on town politics
  2. Plague-spreaders prosecuted as witches
  3. Heavier toll as hunts spread as bigger communities, urban tensions.
  4. E.g: Wurzberg & Bamberg
5. However: Structure of society consistent for much of period - influences beyond community developments had impact on rise/fall
Social changes
1. Religious reform
  1. More integration between parish & higher level religious institutions (Rowland)
    1. Suggests beliefs can filter down.
    2. European witch-beliefs reflected both Christian demonology and local contexts of witchcraft accusations.
  2. Witch-hunts relieved anxiety in times of religious change
    1. Levack: Prosecution of evil individuals who were undermining the moral order provided a means by which people could acquire confidence in their own moral sanctity and ultimate salvation.
2. Mood of anxiety
  1. People more aware of the dangers of witchcraft and more eager to counteract it
3. Demographic changes
  1. Growth of unattached female population
  2. Changes in the structure of the family
  3. Pressure by a growing pop on a limited supply of resources
4. However, many of the personal conflicts/misfortunes (illness/death of child) which led to accusations, were a constant feature of village life which could have developed in good or bad times (Levack).
Elite Factors
1. Religious
  1. Maleficium reinterpreted and ‘diabolized’
    1. By Catholic inquisitors
    2. By Protestant pastors
    3. Addition of diabolical pact facilitated widespread persecution
    4. Homogeneity of witchcraft from this integration of local beliefs into wider, uniform system of elite persecution.
2. Centre to periphery (Acculturation)
  1. Elite conrol communications, churches, courts & schools.
    1. Make use of this control to persuade the peasants to change their superstitious behaviour and to learn reason and order (H&A).
    2. Often priest or medical expert whose help a community sought who the blamed ‘evil wishing’ and prompted witch-hunt (Roper)
3. Institutionalized repression
  1. E.g: Christian IV of Denmark, 1626 letter to chancellor: said deal severely with the witches of Copenhagen and Elsinore: “We have unfortunately far too many of these creatures, and it is desirable that they be thoroughly swept away once and for all, so that the house of free of this filth”.
4. Legal system
  1. Had to permit torture, lack appeal structure
    1. Unusual combination. Explains the great upsurge of persecution in Scotland, Poland etc.
    2. The legal system of France, England, most of Spain, were far more complex so this type of unrestrained persecution never took off.
5. However: persecution not top-down/ oppressive technique? Support by rulers was precondition for widespread persecution, not its fundamental cause (Briggs).

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Rise of Witch Hunts

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	Created by x-becca-f-x almost 11 years ago