Magic & WitchcraftEngland and the Continent

15th – 18th Centuries

With thanks to Professor Ken Wrightson

Ursula Kemp

• 1582• Hanged for maleficium• Buried in a road instead of

consecrated ground

Magic

• Magic within the popular culture of early-modern England– Common practice– Large body of beliefs that stood outside

the world of formal religion.– Not an alternative religion.– The “debris of many different systems of

thought.”

• “It was a large, loose, pluralistic affair without any clear unifying principle. It encompassed superhuman beings and forces, witches and wise men and a mass of low-grade magical and superstitious practices. The whole was less than the sum of its parts.”- James Obelkevich

Popular Magic

• The means were well known by everyone.

• Specialists– Cunning Folk

• Wise Women• Clever, or, Cunning Men

• Power was considered to be inherited• Records indicate there was a wise

woman or clever man within ten miles of any village.

Why would you seek these people?

• Medical Reasons– Ursula Kemp

• Bewitching• Livestock• Recovery of property• Advice & telling of fortunes• Therapists and counselors• Cheap, available, & knowledgeable• The popular equivalent of astrologers who

served a more elite clientele• Counted among the medical practitioners

of their time

Reaction of the Church

• Did not like popular magic• Officially- all power over life comes from

God– God’s nature could not be commanded or

manipulated– Misfortune was a test of faith– Misfortune was punishment– Any validity was due to evil spirits– The case of Reverend Ralph Josselin– Exodus 22:18

Witchcraft• A specific kind of magic causing injury or death.• The malevolent and malicious use of supernatural

powers against another or their property.• Maleficium

– devil worship- much more serious than just popular magic

• Surge in the late 16th and early• 17th centuries.• “A combination of popular superstition and

ecclesiastical fantasy” (Henry Kamen)• Peculiar to Western Europe, end of 15th, Through 16th

C.– No evidence of ecclesiastical reaction in Orthodox

areas.

Witchcraft, con’t

• Continental Europe and Scotland–Witchcraft is a heresy–Religious zeal–Decline in persecutions• Spanish Inquisition 1610• French Parlement 1640

Witchcraft in Early Modern England

• A Crime, not a heresy– An antisocial crime

• The Ecclesiastical stereotype• Continental ideas known, but not adopted• 1542- a felony (unlawful purposes)

– Death on 2nd conviction

• 1563- felony to invoke evil spirits– “”

• 1604- felony to bewitch and injure– To dig up (the deceased) for the

purposes of witchcraft– To consult with or feed an evil spirit

Witchcraft in E.M. England

• Trial evidence–Very few trials involving acts with

the devil• They did not fly• No witches sabbats• No conjuring of demons and devils• Very little sex with devils (widespread

on continent)• The had familiars

Witchcraft in E.M. England

• Trials, con’t– Trials Focused on simple maleficent acts– Condemned were hanged not burned– Unlike on the continent, (most)

prosecutions were instigated from below- not above• No evidence the authorities wanted witch hunts• Exception- 1645-1647, matthew Hopkins

– Personal profiteering

– They were sporadic and occasional

Witchcraft in E.M. England

• Trials– Torture (unlike Scotland and the Continent)– Records no longer exist w/ exception to the

“Home Circuit”– Three spikes in trial activity- Why?

Witchcraft in E.M. England

• Trials, con’t– Economic downturn producing paranoia from

below?– Political expediency?

• 1561- William Cecil-> Act of 1563(2nd Pr)– Ursula Kemp- 1582

• 1604 and james I• “Good and Godly laws passed by Good and Godly

regimes”• To oppose witchcraft establishes legitimacy among the

Christian (all sects)• Loss of the protective magic provided by the Medieval

Church

Witchcraft in E.M. England

• Whom were tried?– Witches were usually women and

frequently elderly– widowed– Often accused of bewitching neighbors– Often poorer– Physical deformity– “begging with menace”

– Accusations arose from tensions between economically marginal women and their better-off neighbors

Witchcraft in E.M. England

• Whom were tried?–Misogyny?• Morally weaker and more prone to temptation

–Probably not• Accusations initiated by other women• Magistrates (male) heard and often dismissed cases• Juries were universally male and failed to believe or even hear the cases• ?

Witchcraft in E.M. England

• Conclusion– In England there were no mass witch hunts with the

exception of the 3 spikes mentioned.– In England the hunts pop up spontaneously and from

below. (unlike in Scotland and on the continent)

– The cases could only have taken place with the existence of laws that enabled them. BUT• The Scientific Revolution and Newton’s Laws• How do you PROVE the accusations?• The laws were avoided or ignored• The laws were symbolic and contingent in their origins.

– In the end (W.A. of 1735) there were no hunts because state and church authorities did not want one.

– But this all came too late for Ursula Kemp.