9/22.09. Heresy & Overview of European Witch Persecutions

Film Clip: Witchcraft through the Ages (Sweden 1920s: Witches’ Sabbath)

Lecture: Canon episcopi (cont’d) & Heresy

Importance for Witch-Persecutions

Heresy:

Heresy:

Heresy & Persecution:

In-Class Writing Assignment:  With reference to the reading assignments (Brauner’s “Modern Witch”):  what factors do you think contributed most to women being persecuted as witches?

Lecture: Heresy & Persecution of Witches

Previous forms of heresy, conspiracy theory, pact with devil (N. Cohn): 

European Witch-Persecutions: Overview

15th - mid-18th century (1435-1750) in Europe. 

Dispute over number of "witches" executed.

“Burning Times” or the “Women’s Holocaust”

3 Elements Necessary for Creating a Witch Trial:

Three Phases of the Witch-Persecutions: 

Phase 1:

1435-1520:  the first wave of witch-trials = began in the French Alps and Switzerland as the Inquisition hunted out heretics and discovered “witches” in the process. Spread to N. Italy and Germany after 1480s.  At beginning both men & women were brought to trial; after 1490 = increasingly women and in large numbers.

1484 — Pope Innocent VIII’s bull: Summis desiderantes affectibus

1487 — H. Kramer & J. Sprenger’s Malleus Maleficarum

Phase 2:

1517-1560:  lull in the witch-trials as authorities are preoccupied with Reformation and peasant uprisings

1517 — beginning of Reformation

1532 — Carolina = unified criminal code for all of Holy Roman Empire instituted by Charles V

1560 — beginning of Counter-Reformation

Phase 3:

1560-1750: great witch-craze spreads throughout continental Europe

1590s, 1630s, 1660s = high intensity-level of trials and mass executions

1560-1620:  height of the witch craze in Germany

1575-1630: transformation of Benandanti from folk rites to confessed witches

1567-1625:  height of witch persecutions in England & Scotland (James VI reigned Scotland from 1567-1625 and England as James I from 1603-1625.

Geographic Distribution of the Witch-Trials in Europe 1435-1750: 

Final Film Clip: Monty Python & the Holy Grail (witch scene) [4-5 min]