Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's time

Hi Everyone. Having recently re-watched an excellent programme about the Pendle Witch trials in 1612, I got to wondering what was the attitude to witchcraft in the 15th Century? I know persecution of 'witches' reached its peak in the 17th century due to the paranoia of King James I but were they regarded more favourably before then?

BTW, I did a humerous quiz on whether I would have been regarded as a witch and it wouldn't look good for me, I'm single, female, live alone and have a cat (a black one at that!). I would have been screwed, LOL!

I actually took a course years ago in historical witchcraft at Richmond College, London, so lessee what I can remember.

Um... not much that's on topic for this list, actually. The subject is vast and has little to do with Richard's life once you've covered More's withered arm, the grumblings about E. Woodville or her mum surely using WC to capture E4, and E4's accusing a couple of people of WC to teach George a lesson that didn't take in the Ankarette Twynho/John Thursby mess. To get the information you seek, you might be better off Googling for "15th-century magic witchcraft" and add England to the search phrase if you only care about witchcraft in England.

Historical witchcraft is a discipline all its own, and most scholars tend to shove England/Scotland/the Isles in with Europe, but that's not a valid way of studying it.) By way of a very general introduction, however, 15th-century attitudes included:

1. English witches were hanged, not burned, unless they committed treason against the king/queen. In general, England never did panic over witches/witchcraft the way Europe did. Killing someone's cow or making someone's husband impotent merited a meh sort of a death. But if you stirred up a tempest to sink the king's merchant ships off the coast of Scotland...watch out, pow! you were going to burn.

2. It was fine if you wanted to play with astrology (everybody did, it was the in thing to do). Just don't t try to ascertain or foretell the king's death-date, or you'd be executed if you're caught.

3. There was a lot of Church "set-up" in the 15th century for the nastiness that was to come. Including....

4. The Papal Bull of 1484 (i.e., Innocent VIII: BULL Summis desiderantes, Dec. 5th, 1484). The pope provided his blessing to and encouraged witchhunting.

5. The Malleus Maleficarum ("Hammer of Witches" was written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer, a German catholic clergyman (Jacob Sprenger used to be attributed as co-author, but some scholars now think Kramer added his name basically as a marketing and authority ploy). It was first published in Speyer, Germany in 1487 and was a best seller for hundreds of years thereafter, teaching men of God in great detail exactly how to discover and torture their victims. The Malleus is so chilling, it deserves a discussion list all its own. So I leave it to you to research why it's such an important document and the effect it had on witchhunting/persecution.

6. On a lighter note, theres Ursula Southeil (c. 1488â€"1561). She's better known as Mother Shipton, is said to have been an English soothsayer and prophetess. But since none of her stuff was printed until the 17th century and some say she was invented by a newsman...she's not really a 15th-century witch.

Maybe that's enough to get you started, or to spark a discussion here with someone who probably knows much more than I do.

~Weds


--- In , "Ms Jones" <mhairigibbons2006@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Everyone. Having recently re-watched an excellent programme about the Pendle Witch trials in 1612, I got to wondering what was the attitude to witchcraft in the 15th Century? I know persecution of 'witches' reached its peak in the 17th century due to the paranoia of King James I but were they regarded more favourably before then?
>
> BTW, I did a humerous quiz on whether I would have been regarded as a witch and it wouldn't look good for me, I'm single, female, live alone and have a cat (a black one at that!). I would have been screwed, LOL!
>

From: wednesday_mc
To:
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 2:54 AM
Subject: Re: Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's
time



> 1. English witches were hanged, not burned,

Here in Scotland iirc even at the height of the witch mania they were
humanely garrotted, then burned after death. There's a very nice art
nouveau memorial to the persecuted witches of Scotland on the esplanade of
Edinburgh castle - and iirc it does rather assume that at least some of them
really *were* witches, it's not just talking about people wrongly accused of
being witches, but about people who were witches, being persecuted.

Yeah... I seem to remember it was the Scottish witch(es) who were trying to sink ships, but I don't think they were 15th-century witches?

--- In , "Claire M Jordan" <whitehound@...> wrote:
>
> From: wednesday_mc
> To:
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 2:54 AM
> Subject: Re: Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's
> time
>
>
>
> > 1. English witches were hanged, not burned,
>
> Here in Scotland iirc even at the height of the witch mania they were
> humanely garrotted, then burned after death. There's a very nice art
> nouveau memorial to the persecuted witches of Scotland on the esplanade of
> Edinburgh castle - and iirc it does rather assume that at least some of them
> really *were* witches, it's not just talking about people wrongly accused of
> being witches, but about people who were witches, being persecuted.
>

From: wednesday_mc
To:
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 3:13 AM
Subject: Re: Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's
time


> Yeah... I seem to remember it was the Scottish witch(es) who were trying
> to sink ships, but I don't think they were 15th-century witches?

16th.

"Ms Jones" wrote:
>
> Hi Everyone. Having recently re-watched an excellent programme about the Pendle Witch trials in 1612, I got to wondering what was the attitude to witchcraft in the 15th Century? I know persecution of 'witches' reached its peak in the 17th century due to the paranoia of King James I but were they regarded more favourably before then?
>
> BTW, I did a humerous quiz on whether I would have been regarded as a witch and it wouldn't look good for me, I'm single, female, live alone and have a cat (a black one at that!). I would have been screwed, LOL!
>
Carol responds:

I suggest checking into the trial and conviction of Eleanor Cobham, wife of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester (Henry VI's uncle) around the time that Edward IV was born--definitely fifteenth century but Lancastrian era. And, of course, Humphrey's brother John of Bedford (married at the time to the woman who would later become Jaquetta Woodville, Elizabeth Woodville's mother) was involved in the trial and execution of Joan of Arc. The Lancastrians were more worried about witchcraft than the Yorkists were. They also burned heretics.

If you want humor (though the witches involved aren't fifteenth century, try this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GGXPSLHYRg

Not that I find the witch trials funny. My ancestor, Martha Carrier, was hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692.

Carol

Yes James I/VI thought they were trying to sink the ship that he and Anne of Denmark were travelling in. It was he who set off the great witch hunts in the seventeenth century. Burning women for any crime seemed to vary with the county - they were still burning women for murder in eighteenth century Northamptonshire.



________________________________
From: wednesday_mc <wednesday.mac@...>
To:
Sent: Monday, 25 March 2013, 3:13
Subject: Re: Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's time

 

Yeah... I seem to remember it was the Scottish witch(es) who were trying to sink ships, but I don't think they were 15th-century witches?

--- In , "Claire M Jordan" <whitehound@...> wrote:
>
> From: wednesday_mc
> To:
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 2:54 AM
> Subject: Re: Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's
> time
>
>
>
> > 1. English witches were hanged, not burned,
>
> Here in Scotland iirc even at the height of the witch mania they were
> humanely garrotted, then burned after death. There's a very nice art
> nouveau memorial to the persecuted witches of Scotland on the esplanade of
> Edinburgh castle - and iirc it does rather assume that at least some of them
> really *were* witches, it's not just talking about people wrongly accused of
> being witches, but about people who were witches, being persecuted.
>

That is because murdering a husband or employer counted as high treason.
----- Original Message -----
From: Hilary Jones
To:
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 9:56 AM
Subject: Re: Re: Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's time



Yes James I/VI thought they were trying to sink the ship that he and Anne of Denmark were travelling in. It was he who set off the great witch hunts in the seventeenth century. Burning women for any crime seemed to vary with the county - they were still burning women for murder in eighteenth century Northamptonshire.

________________________________
From: wednesday_mc <wednesday.mac@...>
To:
Sent: Monday, 25 March 2013, 3:13
Subject: Re: Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's time



Yeah... I seem to remember it was the Scottish witch(es) who were trying to sink ships, but I don't think they were 15th-century witches?

--- In , "Claire M Jordan" <whitehound@...> wrote:
>
> From: wednesday_mc
> To:
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 2:54 AM
> Subject: Re: Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's
> time
>
>
>
> > 1. English witches were hanged, not burned,
>
> Here in Scotland iirc even at the height of the witch mania they were
> humanely garrotted, then burned after death. There's a very nice art
> nouveau memorial to the persecuted witches of Scotland on the esplanade of
> Edinburgh castle - and iirc it does rather assume that at least some of them
> really *were* witches, it's not just talking about people wrongly accused of
> being witches, but about people who were witches, being persecuted.
>

So there were some very contented wives in Warwickshire?



________________________________
From: Stephen Lark <stephenmlark@...>
To:
Sent: Monday, 25 March 2013, 12:33
Subject: Re: Re: Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's time

 

That is because murdering a husband or employer counted as high treason.
----- Original Message -----
From: Hilary Jones
To:
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 9:56 AM
Subject: Re: Re: Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's time

Yes James I/VI thought they were trying to sink the ship that he and Anne of Denmark were travelling in. It was he who set off the great witch hunts in the seventeenth century. Burning women for any crime seemed to vary with the county - they were still burning women for murder in eighteenth century Northamptonshire.

________________________________
From: wednesday_mc <wednesday.mac@...>
To:
Sent: Monday, 25 March 2013, 3:13
Subject: Re: Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's time

Yeah... I seem to remember it was the Scottish witch(es) who were trying to sink ships, but I don't think they were 15th-century witches?

--- In , "Claire M Jordan" <whitehound@...> wrote:
>
> From: wednesday_mc
> To:
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 2:54 AM
> Subject: Re: Attitudes Witchcraft in Richard's
> time
>
>
>
> > 1. English witches were hanged, not burned,
>
> Here in Scotland iirc even at the height of the witch mania they were
> humanely garrotted, then burned after death. There's a very nice art
> nouveau memorial to the persecuted witches of Scotland on the esplanade of
> Edinburgh castle - and iirc it does rather assume that at least some of them
> really *were* witches, it's not just talking about people wrongly accused of
> being witches, but about people who were witches, being persecuted.
>