What were the causes of the European Witchcraze?
The European Witchcraze
- Created by: Gracefield Jones
- Created on: 27-03-14 11:39
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- What were the causes of the European Witchcraze?
- Religion
- Calvinist movement and other extreme reformation movements emphasised the purge of demonic influences
- Reformation - Protestantism
- Counter Reformation - Catholicism
- Protestant vs Catholic rivalries in territories or on borders
- Warfare
- The Thirty Years War in Germany (HRE) -The Holy Roman Empire
- The French Wars of Religion -conflict between Catholics and Protestants
- The English Civil War
- Intellectual
- Witches were part of the Black Sabbat/ Sabbat
- Witches could fly
- Witches recieved a mark as a servent to the Devil
- Being a witch meant denying God
- Witches could change form/had the power of metamorphisis
- Magis was Demonic rather than Traditional
- Eliteists began to believe in bad magic
- Social and Economic
- Famine
- Capitalism
- Inflation (in money)
- Poor Harvests
- More poverty
- Legal
- Change in legal systems from accusatorial to inquisitorial meant that state intervened rather than the long trial of ordeal
- Some countries allowed the use of torture to gain confessions since Witchcraft was a hard crime to prove
- Witchcraft became a secular crime in many countries so was upholded by the state
- Lack of centralised control in many areas
- Misogyny
- Women were more likely to succumb to the Devil
- Adam and Eve - Eve succumbed to the Devil so will women
- Old and frail women ( and widows) were seen as burdens upon their community
- Unmarried women were deemed as untamed therefore dangerous and more likely to worship the Devil
- Religion
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