#6478 - Scepticism - Optional 8: Witch-craft and Witch-hunting in early modern Europe

REVISION NOTES:

WITCHCRAFT:

SCEPTICISM:

1. What intellectual resources were available to sceptics?

• Legal.

• Lalement (said to Rouen Parle, 1671):

• Stressed need for “evident proofs which must not be equivocal”.

• Cannot be punished if you did not give full consent – lunatics, hypochondriacs, children, those who were unaware, those who were extremely frightened or ignorant.

• Warns against ‘post hoc, ergo propter hoc’ fallacy.

• Cross-over between legal ideas and others – says cannot convict of something that is impossible.

• George Gifford:

• Daniel concludes that convicting on basis of sufficient suspicion = v bad form of judicial misconduct.

• Testimony by Devil/cunning folk = misleading.

• Hobbes:

• In ‘Leviathan’ (1651), he argued that the Church could not act as a separate legal structure to that of the state.

• Adam Tanner (1627):

• “Essentially a study of the injustices committed during witch trials. But it takes for granted the reality and heinousness of witchcraft” (Clark).

• Medical/philosophical.

• Weyer:

• “Perhaps the most famous early sceptic of diabolic WC” (G K Waite).

• Wrote ‘On the Effects of Devils, Enchantments and Poisoners’ in 1563.

• Used humanist learning and med training to argue that WC = a psychosis.

• WC is age- and gender-specific, so can be explained on basis of female senility and devil’s tricks.

• Still believed in the Devil.

• Believed that men can get power from the Devil, but women generally accused = old, feeble, insane.

• Attributed maleficium to devils directly, natural causes, or fraud.

• More natural. Neoplatonist – universe functions in orderly fashion (platonic solids idea etc).

• Thomas Brown (1605-82):

• Wrote ‘The Physician’s Religion’.

• Was “convinced that nature was rationally and providentially governed” (Cameron).

• Believed that spirits and ghosts = demons, and thus has received some criticism for being conservative: HIGHLIGHTS COMPLEXITY.

• Most influential work = ‘widely-believed falsehoods’ (pub’d 1646). Based on idea that commonly received ideas can be disproven.

• Used ideas about Devil: last deception = to convince that he did not exist.

• Rationalism (like above).

• Balthasar Bekker.

• 1634-98.

• Cartesian – follower of Descartes: world = under control of God’s initial thoughts (then left) – comes from idea about mind moving body. Without body, Devil could not manipulate.

• Gifford:

• Essex minister, Puritan activist, 1548-1600 (arrived town 1581).

• “Made the common person the central figure in the discussion, since it was the hearts and minds of the laity that he was most interested in winning” (Scot McGinnis).

• Was a parish preacher.

• Was Calvinist. McGinnis talks of his “practical divinity”.

• Believe X cunning folk – undermined God, was Devil’s work (“the Devil’s chief tool… is misdirection”).

• Religious:

• Scriptural:

• Bekker has one approach – bible = metaphorical.

• Gets around things e.g. Moses’ instruction to kill witches = just applied to magicians that no longer exist.

• Words used can be interpreted in different ways.

• Scot attempted to disprove common WC belief by using scripture and reason.

• E.g. X witches’ ability to control weather – is God’s domain.

• Lalement uses religious texts:

• E.g. Scriptures: Hailstorms, tempests etc = punishments for our sins sent by God, e.g. Illnesses of Job.

• E.g. Canon Episcopi 9 tells us that harm witches believe they inflict = imaginary.

• E.g. St Augustine apparently reminds us that sabbat etc. are false.

• Theological:

• How can Devil have so much power?

• See David Joris – idea of Devil as fallen nature of man, nothingness.

• Thomas Brown – different in that he attempted to disprove in reference to theology or classical lit (e.g. used Pliny the Elder to X idea of breaking an eggshell to guard v witchcraft).

• Demonological:

• Int pt: same framework used by sceptics as by demonologists.

• “It was… difficult for critics to distance themselves intellectually from orthodox demonology” (Clark).

• E.g. George MacKenzie quotes Delrio.

• Weyer:

• Uses women being fragile (so can’t make pacts) idea.

• Stuart Clark: “differed from normal demonological theory only in degree, not in kind”

• Gifford structured his work similarly.

• E.g. ‘A Dialogue Concerning Witches’.

• First section of work concerned witches and their operation: what did they do, who is in control etc. Second, what should the response be?

• Reginald Scot:

• ‘Discoverie of WC’ printed 1584.

• James I rumoured to have ordered the burning of every copy.

• “Drew from… the most recent continental demonologists” (McGinnis).

2. Did sceptics advance any new arguments after the initial statements of Weyer (1563) and Scot (1584)?

• Hugh Trevor-Roper: NO.

• Stressed social factors e.g. religious conflict, as well as eventually the Royal Society, in controlling witch-hunt.

• Weyer: “conventionally regarded as a landmark in the emergence of full-scale doubt” (Stuart Clark).

• Do the beliefs form coherent arguments?

• Individuals can.

• Robin Attfield argues that the new proponents of natural philosophy (e.g. Bekker) did.

• Not overall.

• Brian Easlea has highlighted how Scot was more radical than Weyer (e.g. pretty much said X witches).

• Does this undermine the study of them?

• Many systems are shared.

• E.g. Richard Hathaway could fake it – shared principles/ideas.

• Varied geographically:

• Marcel Gielis has shown that there was signif diff between Dutch intellectuals and the views put forward in the Malleus – e.g. Sabbath, sex with the Devil.

• Reformation had radicalising impact in some places:

• G K Waite talks of “a less learned sceptical tradition” that came out of the Spiritualist/Anabaptist strains.

• Anabaptists rejected infant baptism in N’lands (and therefore exorcism) and thus faced persecution 1530-1566 (esp under Charles V).

• Spiritualists stressed inner significance of rites and teachings. Promoted toleration.

• Some were considerably more explicit.

• Outright disbelief in magic:

• Trevor-Roper argued that neither Scot nor Weyer said that witches don’t exist, but Robin Attfield disproves this when it comes to Scot (see below).

• Scot:

• “Leaves no room for such a thing as a ‘real’ witch” (McGinnis).

• Says there are two types – those suspected, accused, not guilty, and those who have deceived themselves and others.

• E.g. expressed by Jacob Vallick of Gelderland – wrote ‘Sorcery, what kind of work it is’ in 1559. Believed magic = mere illusions, brought on by melancholy (which could, however, be caused by the Devil).

• E.g. Cornelis Loos, arrested in Trier, 1593 - believed that witches should not be persecuted (illusions, forced confessions).

• Belief that Devil had no body, and thus could not really interfere in God’s work.

• Bekker – dismissed from Amsterdam pastorate for saying this.

• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679):

• Said ‘there is no reall part thereof that is not also body’.

• “Dismissed with almost brutal certainty all tales of the ‘supernatural’” (Cameron).

• Different interpretations of grand battle god-evil that was going on in the world, and impact on individuals:

• David Joris (1501-1556, Delft, Holland) = glass painter and lay reformer, spiritualist.

• “A pronounced advocate of the end to spiritual persecution” (G K Waite).

• First work = ‘Of the Glorious and Divine Order of the Wonderful Working of God’ (1535).

• Great battle going on WITHIN INDIVIDUALS. Once this battle was won, the full power of God v external evils would be on your side.

• Said that on the Last Day, archangel Michael and the host of angels would defeat the devil and purify the Earth.

• In ‘Behold, the Book of Life’, Joris tells how the man of god can ‘in his own discretion [become] a devil’.

• Discussed more fully ideas about Adam & Eve, the Devil in ‘Hear, hear, hear. Great Wonder, Great Wonder’.

• When they fell, a being originally called the ‘angel of light’ became the Devil, ruling over Hell.

• Inner mortification and spiritual enlightenment can lead one to pre-fall Adamic purity.

• ‘Casting out of Satan’ through confession = key part.

• George Gifford addressed INNER battle:

• Important thing = problem with soul, not maleficium.

• Says why would Devil waste time on things like killing cows.

• Scot:

• “These witchmongers… wrest out of God’s hands his almightie power, and keepe it themselves, or leave it with a witch”.

• Hobbes:

• Only God can work miracles – X Eucharist.

• Radical/new ideas about Devil:

• David Joris:

• V strictly defined the Devil as a beautiful and desirable being. Was “a radical reversal of the mythic creature of popular imagination” (G K Waite). Adam and Eve idea.

• By 1540, it was clear that Joris aligned the fallen Adam and the Devil as the same person. Basically, “the devil was no more than the fallen nature of humanity” (G K Waite).

• Thinking of the Devil as...