Witchcraft In The 16th Century Essay

In 16th century England, witchcraft had a major impact on many lives. Back then they dealt with their problems, such as witchcraft very differently than what we do today, such as “tests“ barely anyone could pass or they tortured them to death. In this dark, horrible time many lives were taken. Men and women, although mostly women, were falsely accused of witchcraft or “black magic”.

Witchcraft is the use of sorcery or magic, to have communication with the devil. Some believed that the first women who were accused of witchcraft weren’t really witches at all. They believed, that they suffered from some sort of mental illness, such as epilepsy, or even a disease brought on by eating rye infected with fungus, which can elicit vomiting, choking, fits, hallucinations, and the sense of something crawling on one’s skin. But when doctors examined them, they found nothing wrong and said that they must be bewitched.

People could be convicted of witchcraft without any solid evidence. Most of the evidence used against those accused of witchcraft amounted to “witness testimony” that the accused person 's spirit or spectral shape appeared to the witness in a dream at the time the accused person 's physical body was at another location. If you were accused of witchcraft there were many “tests“ you could do to prove if you were a witch or not.

You would either we hung, in the “town square” or center of the city, or burned at the stake. Although burning a witch at the stake was a fairly rare occurrence. It took a great amount of effort to make the stakes and pyres for burnings, whereas ropes were reuseable and they could perform dozens of hangings in a single day, they were also much more cost-efficient. Once you were confirmed to be a witch, usually your offspring and, or spouse would be killed too. They were sometimes killed because they thought since one member of your family was a witch, everyone else was