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History Notes Optional 8: Witch-craft and Witch-hunting in early modern Europe Notes

Scepticism Notes

Updated Scepticism Notes

Optional 8: Witch-craft and Witch-hunting in early modern Europe Notes

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

Approximately 38 pages

These notes provide comprehensive cover of the Optional Subject 8 paper on Witch-craft and Witch-hunting in Early Modern Europe. They were the sole resource that I used for my preliminary examination revision, in which I was predicted a high 2:1 or 1st. Sadly (particularly as this was the paper I most enjoyed and expected to do well in) I was absent for 40 minutes of the prelim because of illness, but still achieved a mark of 58%. They include a wealth of examples spanning across Europe, informat...

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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...

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