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Volume 50, Issue 2. Previous Article Next Article. Article Navigation. Research Article May 01 This Site. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 50 2 : — Cite Icon Cite. German witch trials , Margareth Los case , legal proceedings , justice , personal costs of witch hunts. You do not currently have access to this content. It was one of the most famous criminal cases in early modern history and links the act of fornication to witchcraft, a common connection in many witch hunts.
Most likely at the behest of his father, she was condemned as a witch and drowned in the Danube in Katharina Henot pictured here, a statue of her at Cologne's City Hall came from a family of politicians in Cologne and would be considered a successful business woman today. Accused of witchcraft, she maintained her innocence even while she was tortured multiple times.
Sentenced to death in , she was granted a "privilege": the executioner strangled her before burning her body. Around , several witch trials took place on this island in the English Channel amidst a conflict between Protestants and Catholics. In , three Protestant women were burned alive on Guernsey. According to legend, one of them gave birth to a child in the fire, which was first rescued but then thrown back into the fire. The women were later venerated as the "Guernsey Martyrs.
In , witch hunts made their way to the New World. It all began in Salem in what is now the US state of Massachusetts. The puritanical colonialists who came from England rigorously cracked down on suspected witchcraft in their attempt to establish a theocracy in New England.
Fourteen women and five men were executed and dozens were tortured. For years in Europe, thousands were executed for being "witches. In the exhibition "From Luther to Twitter," Berlin's Deutsches Historisches Museum explores the connection between media and politics — from the printing press to social media. Junta officials have met to discuss the transfer of power. The capital Conakry is experiencing an uneasy clam, but uncertainty remains over the possibility of unrest.
According to historian Lizanne Henderson, this provides an explanation as to why these regions were far more tolerant to the idea of witches, with the Gaelic speaking areas of Scotland mainly exempt from the pandemonium occurring in the agricultural lowlands, where a fear of witchcraft was not as prevalent. On the other hand, this folkloric tradition could explain why the witch-hunts in the lowlands were far more intense, primarily because they were superstitious of the folklore of the Highland people.
It is clear that one difference between the Scottish and English witch-hunts is that of the ingrained cultural belief in witches that goes back centuries, a belief that could tolerate witches in the Scottish Highlands, but intensified witch-hunts and the use of torture in the lowlands.
On a judicial level, the witch-hunts in both England and Scotland were carried out very differently, the English witch-hunts in particular were characterised by a plethora of laws that defined witchcraft as a crime and justified the use of extra-judicial torture. It is important to recognise that there is ambiguity surrounding the definition of torture, as many of the practices such as witch pricking, sleep deprivation and invasion of private property would be classified as torture today under the Convention against Torture, a document that was ratified by the UN General Assembly in , yet not condemned in law during the seventeenth century.
In addition, the Elizabethan era was more draconian in nature and placed more of a focus on witchcraft through the policies which outlined that witchcraft was now a crime punishable by death, usually by hanging. In the Jacobean era, however, there was more of a focus on the features of English witchcraft including that of familiar spirits, declaring in the statute of administered by Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins, that keeping familiar spirits or exhuming a body was a capital offence.
This legislation in conjunction with the chaos of the English Civil War served as a justification for the witch hunts during the s and resulted in the deaths of an estimated five hundred people, therefore its significance is profuse. Essentially these laws ignited local suspicion, prosecutions and executions that were carried out at a more local level compared to Scotland, perpetuated by witch finders such as Matthew Hopkins c.
These laws effectively propagated the use of torture in order to gain confessions, despite the fact that torture was deemed illegal in both states, it seemed authorities turned a blind eye permitting that a confession was reached. On the contrary, the judicial system in Scotland relied less on numerous statutes outlining the threat of witchcraft and instead relied on one primary act that enabled the prosecution of witches. The most significant act in Scottish legislation concerning witchcraft was the Scottish Witchcraft Act ordained by Mary Queen of Scots Significantly, this law was passed during a time of great turbulence, at the height of the Protestant Reformation.
This is relevant because it was an era epitomised by tension between Catholic and Protestants, a precarious situation for Scotland because they had a Catholic Queen and a parliament of Protestants.
According to historian Julian Goodare, the significance of this act in Scotland was profound; it essentially caused the executions of an estimated two thousand people over the next century. Therefore, the power of law in the witch-hunts was a profound contributor to the blood and gore that was to follow, promoting the use of extra-judicial torture and harm. The ways in which the witch prosecutions were carried out in Scotland through law was quite different, as it gave certain positions power to prosecute witches, whereas in England it was just a statement saying that witchcraft was a felony.
However, torture did have a role in English witchcraft, perpetuated by Matthew Hopkins, who composed A Discovery of Witches as a justification for extra-judicial torture in Lancashire, Essex and Pendle. His A Discovery of Witches was published in as a manifesto concerning his beliefs in English witchcraft and its threatening nature to the devout Puritan society.
This was evident in relation to the Manning Tree case of Elizabeth Clarke, a severely disabled elderly lady with one leg, who had been accused of bewitching a villagers wife who fell ill because of her cursing, quick temper.
Interestingly, the peak of the English witch craze occurred during s when the English Civil War was in full swing, in which the Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell who feared any sort of religious plurality, and therefore people such as Matthew Hopkins was able to get away with torture because of the circumstances. Ultimately, witch-hunting in England was epitomised by the use of torture, purposed to eradicate diabolism, superstition and magic from a Puritan society.
In conclusion, it can be established that torture played a primary role in both the English and Scottish witch-hunts during the seventeenth century. Ultimately, the politicised nature of Scotland, the role of the familiar spirit in English witchcraft and judicial variances are what distinguished the two countries.
It is also clear that torture was present in many cases in both England and Scotland and therefore, it can be determined that torture was not the most decisive difference between English and Scottish witch-hunts.
Accessed May 31, Hopkins, Matthew. The Discovery of Witches. November King James I. England: Project Gutenberg, News from Scotland. Edited by Normand Lawrence and Roberts Gareth,
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