Witch trials in England
In England, witch trials were conducted from the 15th century until the 18th century. They are estimated to have resulted in the death of perhaps 500 people, 90 percent of whom were women. The witch hunt was at its most intense stage during the English Civil War (1642–1651) and the Puritan era of the mid-17th century.[1]
History
Chronology
Witch trials are known to have occurred in England during the Middle Ages. These cases were few, and mainly concerned cases toward people of the elite or with ties to the elite, often with a political purpose.[2] Examples of these were the trials against Eleanor Cobham and Margery Jourdemayne in 1441, which resulted in lifetime imprisonment for the former, and an execution for heresy for the latter.
It was, however, not until the second half of the 16th century that a widescale witch hunt took place in England. The cases became more common in the end of the 16th century and the early 17th century, particularly since the succession of James VI and I to the throne. King James had shown a great interest in witch trials since the Copenhagen witch trials in 1589, which had inspired the North Berwick witch trials in Scotland in 1590. When he succeeded to the English throne in 1603, he sharpened the English Witchcraft Act the following year.
Witch trials were most frequent in England in the first half of the 17th century. They reached their most intense phase during the English Civil War of the 1640s and the Puritan era of the 1650s. This was a period of intense witch hunts, known for witch hunters such as Matthew Hopkins.
Legal situation
The Witchcraft Act 1541 was enacted in England; but was repealed in 1547. The Witchcraft Act 1563 introduced the death penalty for any sorcery used to cause someone's death. The Witchcraft Act 1603 reformed the law to include anyone to have made a Pact with Satan.
The witch trials
In England, it was not as common as in some other nations to be accused of having attended a Witches' Sabbath or having made a Pact with Satan.[1] The typical victim of an English witch trial was a poor old woman with a bad reputation, who was accused by her neighbours of having a familiar and of having injured or caused harm to other people's livestock by use of sorcery.[1]
About 500 people are estimated to have been executed for witchcraft in England.[4][2]
Normally, people sentenced for witchcraft in England were executed by hanging. An exception was made when the person had committed another crime for which people were executed by burning at the stake. For example, when Mary Lakeland was burned at the stake in Ipswich on 9 September 1645 after having been judged for witchcraft, she was not burned for the crime of witchcraft, but because she had used witchcraft to murder her husband: this latter crime constituted petty treason, for which the punishment was burning.[5] Similar logic justified the execution by burning of Margaret Read, of King's Lynn, in 1590; and of Mary Oliver, of Norwich, in 1659.[6]
Political and religious influences
Historian John Callow argues in his 2022 book, The Last Witches of England, that witchcraft trials and convictions were influenced by political and religious tension between nonconformist Whigs, on the one hand, and the adherents of Anglican Toryism, on the other hand, after the English Civil War.[7]
End of witchcraft prosecutions
The 1682 Bideford witch trial resulted in the last people confirmed to have been executed for witchcraft in England, but the last person to be executed was probably Mary Hicks in 1716, whose story is recorded in an eight-page pamphlet published in the same year.[8]
Jane Wenham (died 1730) was one of the last people to be condemned to death for witchcraft in England, although her conviction was set aside. Her trial in 1712 is commonly but erroneously regarded as the last witch trial in England.[9]
The Witchcraft Act 1735 finally concluded prosecutions for alleged witchcraft in England after sceptical jurists, especially Sir John Holt (1642–1710), had already largely ended convictions of alleged witches under English law.
Colonies
Witch trials occurred also in the English colonies, where English law was applied. This was particularly the case in the Thirteen Colonies in North America. Examples of these were the Connecticut Witch Trials from 1647 to 1663. The most famous of these trials were the Salem witch trials in 1692. Two women were acquitted of witchcraft charges in the Province of Pennsylvania in 1683 after a trial in Philadelphia before William Penn.
See also
References
- ^ a b c Ankarloo, Bengt & Henningsen, Gustav (red.), Skrifter. Bd 13, Häxornas Europa 1400–1700: historiska och antropologiska studier, Nerenius & Santérus, Stockholm, 1987
- ^ a b William E. Burns: Witch Hunts in Europe and America: An Encyclopedia
- ^ Sir John Holt. Archived 5 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine National Portrait Gallery.
- ^ Macfarlane, Alan; Sharpe, J.A. (1999). Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England : a regional and comparative study. Database:Taylor & Francis. pp. 62–63. ISBN 9780203063668.
- ^ David L. Jones The Ipswich Witch: Mary Lackland and the Suffolk Witch Hunts
- ^ Nigel Pennick: Secrets of East Anglian Magic. 1995
- ^ Callow, John (2022). "Chapter 8, The politics of death, and Chapter 9, Disenchantment". The Last Witches of England, A Tragedy of Sorcery and Superstition. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-7883-1439-8.
- ^ "Mary Hicks Witch of Huntingdon". Early Modern Medicine. 11 April 2018. Archived from the original on 20 January 2023. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
- ^ Guskin, Phyllis J. (Autumn 1981). "The Context of Witchcraft: The Case of Jane Wenham (1712)". Eighteenth-Century Studies. 15 (1). Charles Village, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press: 48–71. doi:10.2307/2738402. JSTOR 2738402.
Further reading
- Baring-Gould, Sabine (1908). Devonshire Characters and Strange Events. London: John Lane.
- Barry, Jonathan (2012). Witchcraft and Demonology in South-West England, 1640-1789. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Callow, John (2022). The Last Witches of England, A Tragedy of Sorcery and Superstition. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-7883-1439-8. Archived from the original on 4 September 2022. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
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- Witchcraft in early modern Britain
- Channel Islands Witch Trials
- Witch trials in England
- Witchcraft in Orkney
- Witch trials in early modern Scotland
- Witchcraft in early modern Wales
- Windsor Witches (1579)
- St Osyth Witches (1582)
- Witches of Warboys (1589–1593)
- North Berwick witch trials (1590)
- Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1597
- Pendle witches (1612)
- Northamptonshire witch trials (1612)
- Samlesbury witches (1612)
- Witches of Belvoir (1619)
- Bury St Edmunds witch trials (1645, 1662, 1655, 1694)
- Great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50
- Alloa witch trials (1658)
- Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661–62
- Bute witches (1662)
- Bideford witch trial (1682)
- Paisley witches (1696)
- Pittenweem witches (1704)
- Islandmagee witch trial (1711)
- Witch trials in Hungary
- Witch trials in Poland
- Kasina Wielka witch trial (1634)
- Northern Moravia witch trials (1678)
- Szeged witch trials (1728–29)
- Doruchowo witch trial (1783)
- Witch trials in France
- Labourd witch-hunt of 1609
- Aix-en-Provence possessions (1611)
- Loudun possessions (1633–34)
- Louviers possessions (1647)
- Normandy witch trials (1669–70)
- Affair of the Poisons (1679–1682)
- Trial of the Wizards of Lyon (1742–1745)
- Witch trials in the Holy Roman Empire
- Rottweil Witch Trials
- Derenburg witch trials (1555)
- Wiesensteig witch trial (1562–1563)
- Rottenburg witch trials (1578–1613)
- Trier witch trials (1581–1593)
- Pappenheimer family witch trial (1600)
- Fulda witch trials (1603–1606)
- Ellwangen witch trial (1611–1618)
- Eichstätt witch trials (1617–1630)
- Würzburg witch trials (1626–1631)
- Bamberg witch trials (1626–1631)
- Baden-Baden witch trials (1627–1631)
- Mergentheim witch trials (1628–1631)
- Esslingen witch trials (1662–1666)
- Witch trial of Fuersteneck (1703)
- Witch trials in Denmark
- Witch trials in Estonia and Latvia
- Witch trials in Finland
- Witch trials in Iceland
- Witch trials in Norway
- Witch trials in Sweden
- Põlula witch trials (1542)
- Copenhagen witch trials (1590)
- Gyldenstierne-sagen (1596)
- Køge Huskors (1608–1615)
- Finspång witch trial (1617)
- Vardø witch trials (1621)
- Akershus witch trials (1624)
- Ramsele witch trial (1634)
- Rosborg witch trials (1639–1642)
- Vardø witch trials (1651–1653)
- Kirkjuból witch trial (1656)
- Vardø witch trials (1662–63)
- Kastelholm witch trials (1665–1668)
- Mora witch trial (1669)
- Torsåker witch trials (1675)
- Katarina witch trials (1676)
- Rugård witch trials (1685–86)
- Thisted witch trial (1696–1698)
- Witch trials in Italy
- Witch trials in Catalonia
- Witch trials in Portugal
- Witch trials in Sicily
- Witch trials in Spain
- Val Camonica witch trials (1505, 1518)
- Mirandola witch trials (1522–1525)
- Navarre witch trials (1525–26)
- Lisbon witch trial (1559–60)
- Benandanti (1575–1650)
- Witches of Laspaúles (1593)
- Basque witch trials (1609)
- Terrassa witch trials (1615–1619)
- Witch trial of Nogaredo (1646–47)
in Europe
- Witch trials in the Netherlands
- Witch trials in the Spanish Netherlands
- Stedelen witch trial (1397–1407)
- Valais witch trials (1428–1447)
- Geneva witch trials (1571)
- Amersfoort and Utrecht witch trials (1591–1595)
- Bredevoort witch trials (1610)
- Roermond witch trial (1613)
- Spa witch trial (1616)
- Lukh witch trials (1656–1660)
- Salzburg witch trials (1675–1681)
- Liechtenstein witch trials (1679–1682)
- Witch trials in Virginia (1626–1730)
- Connecticut Witch Trials (1647–1663)
- Maryland Witch Trials (1654–1712)
- Witch trials in New York (1642–1790)
- Salem witch trials (1692–1693)
- Witchcraft and divination in the Old Testament (8th–2nd centuries BC)
- Directorium Inquisitorum (1376)
- De maleficis mulieribus (1440)
- Formicarius (1475)
- Summis desiderantes affectibus (1484)
- Malleus Maleficarum (1487)
- De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus (1489)
- Laienspiegel (1509)
- De praestigiis daemonum (1563)
- The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584)
- Newes from Scotland (1591)
- A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcrafts (1593)
- Daemonolatreiae libri tres (1595)
- Daemonologie (1597)
- Magical Investigations (1599)
- Compendium Maleficarum (1608)
- A Guide to Grand-Jury Men (1627)
- The Discovery of Witches (1647)
- Treatises on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants (1751)