2.5: Witchcraft and Women

Malleus Maleficarum

Most historians trace the deadliest witch hunts and hysteria to the 15th century and the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum, written by a German Catholic clergyman named Heinrich Kramer. The book, whose name translates to “Hammer of the Witch,” contains descriptions of how to discover if someone is a witch or if you yourself are being cursed, as well as explanations as to why women are more likely to be witches than men. In the Malleus, Kramer argues that women are more likely than men to fall under the influence of the devil because they are weak-minded, easily duped, naturally more carnal, and less connected to God and spirituality than men. Support for his argument comes from Old Testament examples such as the temptation of Eve, the first woman, and the fact that as soon as she herself sins, she tempts Adam to do the same. Women are manipulative, they constantly desire sex, and they cannot be trusted. Furthermore, because women are manipulative and untrustworthy, they will not confess to witchcraft without torture. Kramer described how to torture suspected witches in order to gain a confession and the importance of burning their bodies so that Satan couldn’t reuse it.

While the Catholic Church did not fully support Kramer’s work, it became very popular with some clergy, and its ideas were passed on to lay people through sermons, who then used its ideas to persecute their neighbors, accusing them of witchcraft, trying them, and executing them for the crime. It’s important to note, however, that the 15th and 16th centuries were difficult and chaotic times in Central Europe, where the first witch trials took place. Less than two centuries before, the Black Death had killed one third of the population, and the “discovery” of the Americas had upended deeply held European ideas about their place in the world. Even religion, which had created stability in Europe for over one thousand years, was being challenged through the Protestant Reformation, which split wealthy and poor, urban and rural, and caused further division and mistrust among people. In short, many Europeans were overwhelmed and afraid of the changes happening in their lives and were looking for a scapegoat. Women, particularly those who lived on the margins of society, fit the bill perfectly.

King James I (formerly James XI of Scotland)

Witch hysteria continued in Europe after the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum, emerging wherever people felt uncomfortable, angry, or someone in power planted the seed. The latter caused one of the largest witch hunts on the British isles in the late 16th century under the leadership of King James XI of Scotland, who would become the king of Great Britain in 1603. Adding to Kramer’s ideas about witchcraft, James wrote his own book about witches, Daemonologie, in 1597 after he led the persecution of dozens of women and some men in the North Berwick Witch Trials in 1590-1591. The hysteria was caused by a storm that prevented James’s betrothed, Anne of Denmark, from traveling to Scotland so that they could be married. While treacherous weather is common in the North Sea during the winter, James became convinced that his marriage and his life were under threat by witches. Over one hundred women were accused of witchcraft, and after enduring weeks of horrific torture, several of them confessed to spending All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween) at a Satanic gathering, during which they copulated with the devil and planned the king’s murder. Some of the women implicated others, which led to more arrests, more torture, and more confessions. Many of the women were executed by being strangled, then burned, although at least one was burned alive. Although the North Berwick Witch Trials ended with the execution of a nobleman, James continued to publish about the existence of witches and demons well into his reign as the king of Great Britain.

Salem

The infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were really a culmination of two hundred years of witch hunts that took place across Europe. Several other colonies, including Virginia, had tried and killed women for witchcraft, but nothing on the scale of what occurred in Salem. By the end of the 17th century, most people of European heritage took for granted that the devil and witches were real, and they blamed any unknown, unfamiliar, or frightening event on evil forces. Like 15th century Europe, Salem was undergoing a series of economic difficulties, including bad weather and harvests, and people were frightened. The first rumblings about witches in Salem began in Reverend Parris’s home, when his daughter and niece became ill with a strange ailment that caused the girls to scream and have fits. The doctor could not determine a medical cause, and so, like King James, the unknown and frightening was blamed on witchcraft.

Reverend Parris’s daughter and niece were soon joined by several other girls, who also experienced fits and, under intense questioning, claimed that they were being tormented by Tituba, who was a West Indian slave in the Parris household. The fact that a woman of color is the first to be accused should not be a surprise considering servants and other poor women were often the first to be accused in other witch trials, including those in Scotland. Tituba was beaten severely, which resulted in her confession of being a witch, along with several other women in Salem. Sarah Goode and Sarah Osborne, two poor women who were not well liked in town, were accused next, along with Bridget Bishop, a midwife. These and more than 150 women and men were tried for witchcraft, while several hundred others were accused and imprisoned, some for years. You can read the full transcripts of more than one hundred of those tried at the link below.

Salem Witch Trials Transcripts, 1692

After reading just one or two of the trial transcripts, it’s clear that those accused of witchcraft were already believed to be guilty, and no matter what their answers to the questions were, they were likely to be convicted anyway. Most of the accused women had little power or say within their community, although a few, including Rebecca Nurse, were highly respected. Five of those executed were men, most of whom had a relationship with an accused woman. Giles Corey, for example, refused to answer questions about his wife Martha’s involvement in witchcraft, and so he was pressed to death as a form of torture in hopes of getting him to confess. Reverend George Burroughs was accused of being the ringleader of the Salem witches and sentenced to hang. Before he was killed, he recited the Lord’s Prayer perfectly, which was something a witch was not supposed to be able to do. He was hanged anyway. The Salem Witch Trials eventually ended when wealthy people, including the governor’s wife, were accused, and the governor ordered the court abolished. By then, 20 people had been executed, and several died awaiting trial. They were the last victims of the witch trials in the British American colonies.

Why Witchcraft?

Historians have proposed a variety of reasons for the witchcraft hysteria that gripped Europe and its colonies from the 15th to the 17th centuries. Superstition and religious fanaticism are often the chief culprits, but feminists have noted that the majority, about 80%, of those accused of witchcraft during the hysteria were women. Women had little access to education, no political power, and no economic independence during this time. Essentially, women were fully at the mercy of men, and it was men, like Heinrich Kramer and King James, who were able to write their own narrative about women. They concluded that women were immoral, untrustworthy, manipulative, and easily manipulated, thus making them easy targets for the devil. Because women were not in a position to challenge these ideas, they were believed, often even by women themselves.

In addition to women’s morality, women’s potential political and economic power could make them vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft. Many of the women accused of witchcraft throughout Europe as well as during the North Berwick and Salem Witch Trials were midwives, which gave them a great deal of power over life and death as well as some economic independence, since this was one of the few occupations where women could earn money. In some communities where witch hysteria took hold, women accused of witchcraft stood to inherit property because there was no man to inherit, which put them in the precarious position of challenging men’s economic power. In Salem, for example, Elizabeth Proctor was accused of witchcraft by neighbors with whom she had an economic feud. Her husband, John, was accused when he staunchly defended his wife.

Conclusion

The witch hysteria, which lasted for over 200 years and took the lives of thousands, was caused by a number of issues, including religion and economic stress and rivalry, but the fact that 80% of those accused were women cannot be ignored. Women without power, like servants and slaves, made easy scapegoats for a community experiencing natural disasters, but women who could potentially wield power, like midwives and feme soles, were equally vulnerable to economic rivalries or religious fanaticism. Women seemed to be viewed as the real enemy of the communities who tried and executed them, and perhaps that is what “meme culture” is reminding us of.

Question to Consider

How have modern women used the stories of the witch trials for empowerment?