Friday, January 25, 2008

Witchcraft is an important topic in the history of women in early modern Europe, because there was a significant number of people accused of witchcraft during that period, and most of those people were women. What does gender have to do with belief in sorcery, diabolism, and spells? This is one obvious question we will try to answer in our readings and discussions.

However, another overarching question concerns the character of witchhunts in general, as well as this one in particular. The term "witchhunt" has entered our vocabulary to denote any process in which a climate of fear is created around a perceived threat, legal proceedings are designed to reinforce that fear, and people accused of unspeakable crimes are urged to name accomplices in an ever widening circle of suspects. We can talk about examples of witchhunts in our own time; what immediately comes to my mind is a famous child abuse trial in the 80's that consumed the nation's attention for several years before ending without a single conviction.

In Brian Levack's introduction to his book-length study of witchcraft, he carefully determines what witchcraft is, and what evidence there is of its actual existence. He then tries to determine the numbers accused and executed.

• What is the basis for his determination of what witchcraft is, and whether people actually did any of the things they were accused of?
• How does he arrive at the numbers of people involved?
• What is his reason for speaking of a "witchhunt" as opposed to a "witchcraze"?
• What kinds of legal processes fostered the witchhunt?
• Looking at the "Examen" of Henry Boguet, a sixteenth-century prosecutor, what approaches to evidence foster the conviction of witches?
• What aspects of his process are still in use today? What are no longer viewed as acceptable?
• On what basis does he allow for the execution of minor children?
• What efforts does he make, if any, to ensure that the proceedings are fair?

Anne Llewellyn Barstow's chapter covers some of the same ground that Levack does, but arrives at different conclusions.

• Why does she use the term "witchcraze"?
• How does she challenge Levack's numbers?
• Where does she agree with Levack?
• What sorts of women were targeted, and why?
• After reading the selection from Malleus Maleficarum, a fifteenth-century treatise on witchcraft, do you support Barstow's claim that the witchcraze represents a systematic persecution of women?

Finally, think up all the examples you can of similar persecution of targeted groups, at other points in history and in the present, so that we can compare and contrast these examples with the early modern witchcraze/hunt.

Laurel Carrington carringt@stolaf.edu
Most recent update: January 24, 2008

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