Witch Hysteria During The Middle Ages (2024)

Revenge. Revenge caused them to be feared of people being witches. This is because some people might have had a conflict, and they maybe still do not like each other. Witches then were an excuse for people to blame their problems on. They think that the witches were causing these problems so in order to “get back” at them, they would blame everything on them.

Later, Fueling concerns about the harmful influence of magic and the devil urged people to take decisive action in the battle with witches and magic. It was against this emotionally charged backdrop that Henry VIII introduced the first English statutes addressing witchcraft in 1542, followed by new, stricter, legislation by Elizabeth I in 1563 and James I in 1604.

The European witch craze between 1563 and 1620 highlighted a variety of problems across society over how these individuals were treated and what the root cause of the increase of the sweeping paranoia of witchcraft and magic. Ultimately, like the beliefs of historians such as Anne Barstow and Marion Gibson, the sweeping paranoia increase was ruled by misogyny both as a direct and underlying cause. Justification for misogyny during trials came in many forms such as religious justification as female witches magic was viewed as the complete opposite to Christianity’s God and his holy power. Legislation against witchcraft didn’t really come into power in England until the 1563 Witchcraft Act created by Queen Elizabeth I and it “formally criminalised

So the people started to believe that every person that they accused of witchcraft was truly a witch just because of the act they girls were pulling. Lastly religion had to do with everything that went down during the witch hysteria. When, the woman accused of practicing witchcraft were trialed the Reverend made the townspeople conclude that the woman who were accused of witchcraft gave up their soul to the devil. Even though the accused put up a fight there was no way of winning unless you stated you’re a witch, but the woman did not want to confess to false accusations fearing that if they did their soul would truly belong to the devil.

In medieval times, there was a widespread belief among Christians and others that witches had made deals with the devil to harm people. This led to the execution of tens of thousands of suspected witches, with the majority being women. It caused a "witchcraft craze" across Europe, highlighting the influence of superstition and fear during that dark period of history (Blumberg). To add on, showing the impact of hysteria, one editor claimed that “many in the community who viewed the unfolding events as travesties remained mute”, they felt this way because they were “afraid that they would be punished for raising objections to the proceedings” (Wallenfeldt). This fear arose because if they were to be punished, they would be “accused of witchcraft themselves” and could be hanged as well (Wallenfeldt).

Child labor is the use of children in industry or business, especially when illegal or considered inhumane. Child labor has been an ongoing problem for many years all around the world. Many people have taken a stand to fight against the devastating problem of child labor. Florence Kelley was a successful fighter, as she fought for child labor laws and improved conditions for working women. To deliver a message over a strong topic such as child labor, a sense of strength, intelligence, and passion is needed, and Kelley truly had it throughout her message connecting with her audience.

It is said that the girls’ stress of living and the mass hysteria of this time caused the false accusations of witchcraft upon others. But what caused this mass hysteria?

Lori BramblettHST361Essay 3While there is little doubt that both the Catholic Church and the Protestant religions provided the foundational work for the witch hunts that took place in Europe and America, it is the societal implications that fed the flames of the witch hunts. Both the Catholic and Protestant faiths sought ways of demonstrating people’s commitment to God through identified moral behaviors. Each side felt they had the high ground and identified the other’s practices as heresy, which became linked with demons, sorcery and magic. As these ideas migrated down to the educated elite and then to local communities a shift occurred regarding heretical behavior and the fear of magic, malificia, unseen evil, and the pact with Satan/the

The 1600s were a very religious and superstitious time. People’s faith in God was strong, however it also brought them great fear of devil. It was easy to accuse anyone who did not follow social standards of conspiring with the devil and practicing witchcraft. Once somebody had been accused of being a witch mass hysteria and panic ensued.

As the witch hunts got worse is when they started to execute them. In the middle 1400s to the mid-1600s, witchcraft trials became popular, sending death rates up. From 50,000 to 80,000 people were executed throughout Europe. From the 80,000 people roughly “80% were women” (Grace Z. 2007). This shows how mostly women were the ones that were giving up their life to the devil in order for them to have power and be able to proceed rituals.

Around 1486 in Europe women were discriminated against and treated as a lesser being to men, making women look weak and insignificant thus causing them to turn to witchery for strength. “...early modern European discrimination against women was the conviction of thousands of women for witchcraft. ”(A&B). People like Heinrich Kramer were large influences on people. “Kramer also argued that women were particularly susceptible to the crime…”(A&B).

Witches were viewed negatively and as followers of the Devil. According to the documents, the three major reasons for the persecution of witches were the religion, the social prejudices, and the economic hunger of the people. At the time of the witch craze, the Protestant Reformation was going on. These leaders of the religions played an important role in the development of the witch trials because

For over three centuries the people of Europe lived in a time of mass hysteria and fear. Between the late 1400’s and 1700’s thousands of everyday folks were accused of witchcraft (Lipscomb). Accusations of witchcraft lead to the fantasised myths we know today, but the real stories behind them are far less charming. Witchcraft became a crime in the mid-1500’s thus inducing some of the most prominent legal trails of the century, and the rise of the witch hunter. The first proclamation against witchcraft was passed in 1542 and was followed by a harsher and more intense revision in 1562, which was signed into law by

In the seventeenth-century, many people believed in things such as magic, astrology, and witchcraft. Witches were believed to have made a pact with the devil to obtain supernatural powers. So when bad things, such as crops failing or if a child was born stillborn, started to occur, many people started to blame witches. Beginning in late 1691, many girls were being accused of being a witch during the Salem Witch Trials. The accusers believed that their lives were in danger and that these so-called “witches” were causing all this evil to occur.

This was more commonly found in women more so than in men, this is able to be seen in (Document N and E). While looking at the two tables in (Document E) it is divided into two subjects The Accused and The Accusers, in each table we see the majority of each table is centered around women. A majority of the people that consumed bread and showed the symptoms could be seen as a witch, the symptoms were usually a crawling of the skin sensation, hallucinations, delirium, etc. If you were seen in public seeing things that weren 't there or scratching your skin as if things were on your body you could potentially end up being seen as a witch and killed. This evidence helps explain the hysteria and the hangings because it showed that everyone was on high alert at all times everyone around them could be seen as a someone to blame or as a