I am doing my project on witches in Early Modern England. So far I have learned a lot about what the people in Renaissance England actually thought of witches. The woodcut to the left is from the sixteen to seventeen hundreds, and while it is not an accurate protrayl of English witches, I thought it was interesting.
Witch hunting started much later in England than it did on continental Europe. I suspect that one reason is because England is an island and the hysteria of witches was not as easily spread over the English Channel. A person accused of being a witch also had an easier time in England than in the rest of Europe. Using torture to get a witch to confess was illegal in England, although milder tortures were often used. And because torture was illegal, it was much harder to get a supposed "witch" to confess. Although torture was not used as often, being accused of witchcraft was still not a good thing.
A couple things were done to try and prove a person was really a witch. One of the most popular tests was whether or not the person had a "witch's mark". This was some sort of skin protrusion or third nipple that the witch would feed its familiars from. A familiar was sort of a demon given to the witch by the devil to do the witches bidding. Most familiars were in the form of household pets (cats, dogs) or common animals (rats, owls, toads). Supposedly the witch would feed her familiar like a mother would feed her children.
Women were also accused of being witched much more often than men were. In England witches had more to do with household occurrences than devil worshiping or flying on brooms. The kind of things that a witch would be blamed for were children and animals falling ill or dying, the chickens not laying eggs, or the butter not churning. These things all have to do with women's roles in the family, and were more likely to be blamed on other women. In England about 90% of accused witches were witches, while in continental Europe around 80% of witches were women. Another thing about witches and women is that mid-wives were not accused of being witches. In fact, mid-wives were often employed as witch-hunters because they knew the majority of women in the community quite well. Since being a mid-wife was the highest profession a women could have, they were respected members of the community and would often search for the "witch's mark" because it was considered more appropriate for a woman to search another woman.
I will continue to post about witches as the semester wraps up.
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