Witchcraft
The belief in witchcraft has existed for centuries. Many have disregarded the idea of witches existing on Earth, but many have believed in witches for it to take a toll on civilizations throughout the history of the world. Throughout the history of the world the belief has even affected the way of life in numerous civilizations. It also affected culture in history, as many authors used witches as inspiration for great pieces of works. The belief of witches in England during the 16th century influenced Shakespeare and the lives of many people in England.
Although many have believed in witches, the early belief in witchcraft took place in unscientifically advanced societies. When the belief in witchcraft finally ended, it was already
…show more content…
It eventually became a crime in European countries to practice witchcraft. Under Queen Elizabeth conviction of being a witch resulted in legal punishment. “During Elizabeth’s reign witchcraft, which had previously been a religious offense, was transformed into a criminal rather than a canon-law offensive”. It also became legal for men and women to be executed if they were convicted of being a witch. However, it should be noted that witch conviction was rare, and very uncommon. “Only about a dozen witches were executed out of 5,000 tries.” It’s been recorded that thousands of people have died do to witch conviction in Europe. Although it was uncommon to be convicted of a witch it still occurred. Although many saw this law as unnecessary and pointless, it gave inspiration to many authors, and to some of the greatest writing ever …show more content…
In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, Shakespeare depicts the witches as evil spirits. “The psychology of evil. The witches are an enactment of the irrational. The supernatural world is terrifying because it is beyond the human control, and in the play it is therefore symbolic of the unpredictable force of human motion. At their first appearance, the Witches state an ambiguity that rules the play until it closes: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”’. Without the belief in witchcraft who knows if Macbeth would ever of been as great as it was. “However, the witches do not control behavior in the play. They are symbolic of evil and prescient of crimes which are to come, but they neither encourage nor facilitate Macbeth’s actions. They are merely a poignant external symbol of the ambition that is already within Macbeth”. Witches played a big role in Macbeth. It helped out the plot and the overall greatness of the play.
In England during the 15th and 16th century, the belief in witches affected the lives of countless people and influenced playwrights such as William Shakespeare. Even though in the early parts of civilization witches were considered to be real people, witches are now used as symbols of evil. Throughout history many people have argued witchcraft is impossible, and witchcraft is just a foolish idea. However for all of these people arguing against witchcraft, there were just as many believers in witchcraft
Click here to unlock this and over one million essays
Show MoreHistoriographical Review: Witchcraft When studying witch craft over the past 500 years or so, authors have covered a lot of material. , the In Carlo Ginzburg’s work, The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century, he attempts to locate the origin of the ‘Benandanti’ belief and how it came to be in the Friuli region of Italy. The Benandanti were a group of people who believed that during the Ember Days of the year, after they fell asleep, that their souls left their bodies and went off to fight witches in the night. Ginzburg goes into great detail on the many trials associated with the benandanti during this time. In Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum’s work, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft,
In our civilization, people are not put on trial for similar conditions, but Puritans considered that witchcraft was an immorality opposing God and condemned by death. The theocratic union of the territory controlled precisely in all trials relevant to imagined
The first set of witchcraft persecutions occurred during Elizabeth 1st reign, this was Around 1563. Commonly people associated witches with a woman and the beliefs were the following of that they have made a pact with the evil spirit Satan. The rush of the witch persecutions mainly happened after 1563 and by the time period of 1750 roughly 200,000 witches were tortured, burnt, or hung across the whole of Western Europe. Therefore, in this essay, I will be mainly focusing and arguing which of the hysteria surrounding witchcraft and witchcraft trials had a greater impact in Britain or the American colonies in the time period of the 17th century. And I will be arguing it following different factors which could contribute to this such as the social factors geographical factors, religious factors and also control law and order.
There are several incidences in history when someone was accused of witchcraft. Maybe they didn’t have anything to do with witchcraft but if someone said it, everyone believed them. Some many people’s lives were taken because of something they didn’t do not had a part in. From June – September 1692, 19 men and women have been convicted of witchcraft. They were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village for hanging.
At some point during the 15th century, Witchcraft was a normal part of everyday life. Witches accompanied religious ministers to help the ill or to deliver a baby. They were regarded as having spiritual power in their communities. When something went wrong, no one questioned the ministers or the power of the witchcraft. Instead, they questioned whether the witch intended to inflict harm or not.
Witches in the New World “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” (Exodus, 20:18). In February of 1692 and lasting just over a year, more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft and 19 were executed, 14 of them women, in a small fishing village called Salem. Once branded with the deadly label of witch, one either confessed or named other witches in desperation to be ridden of the title.
The witch craft phase germinated in Europe during the high middle ages due to the Church focusing on the persecution of heresy in order to maintain unity of doctrine, leaving practitioners of paganism to be persecuted by authorities, thus creating the mentality of magic being heresy against Christianity among the Christians from 1480-1700, as witches were persecuted in most of Europe with recorded numbers exceeding 100,000, most of which were tortured until they gave in and admitted to the perpetuated lie, but this wasn’t the case in England, as they didn’t utilize torture. Individuals were accused to be witches because of peoples’ attempt at rationalizing what they didn’t understand or feared as witchcraft, believing that the ‘practitioners
In late 17th century Massachusetts, there were The Salem Witch Trials. It was a series of prosecutions and hearings of people that were accused of witchcraft, and those who did witchcraft were to be praising the devil. All of this ended up taking place in the year 1692 and 93, it resulted in 20 people being executed during that period. It was mostly women who were too accused of all of it. The big question that's been around for a long period was whether the trials were really about witches or something else, which has been debated by scholars and historians for years.
The Witch Craze is best described as a product of the political and social tension taking place between about 1480 to 1700. This tension was mostly due to the clashing Protestant and Catholic Reformations. What the people once thought of as true, was now being contested, and therefore, the Witch Craze ensued, causing the deaths of about 100,000 innocent people. Due to the uneasiness and confusion the current events at the time caused, people were not sure what to believe, and therefore, these events took place. However, those thousands weren 't slaughtered haphazardly.
As I said, what they possibly though were witchcraft back then could be something treatable by now. Unlike in 1690’s, they didn’t have proof to back their hypothesis that it was bewitching. But now that the reason behind the said incidents were already established and proved wrong by people who studied what might have happened back then. People might still believe witchcraft does exist in present time solely because they have no idea that it might just be an illness that they had no idea about. That the reaction of people around toward something can affect greatly on how things can be
The years of 1692 and 1693 were a terrible time in Salem Massachusetts. The presence of the devil was in Salem. People living there were practicing witchcraft. Young women were barking like dogs and acting strangely. All this behavior would lead to what became known as the Salem witch trials.
A group of young girls began to behave strangely, complaining of physical maladies, visions, and trembling, and babbling uncontrollably. They blamed their behavior on three village women who, the girls believed, practiced witchcraft upon them. (“Salem Witch Trials” Gale). Women who were accused of witch crafted were imprisoned, then hanged, drowned and stoned (Karlsen). Throughout 1692, 156 women were accused of witchcraft, and 20 of them were sentenced to death (Karlsen).
Illnesses were affected, daily life was shaped, and modern beliefs in the form of folk tales were results of superstitions. Mental and physical illnesses were affected by superstitions, for example astrology was used to diagnose patients. The life of common citizens were also affected, because people relied on magic for protection and believed in the supernatural. Folk magic and modern beliefs were also affected because beliefs of witches and evil spirits made people believe in superstitions more than the church. Overall, superstitions heavily impacted the Elizabethan era, and expanded all over the world.
Meaning witches used science and medicine to heal people (Cheung 539). Lastly, a witch has appeared in cases of the Bible. In 1 Samuel 28, King Saul dreaded the battle outcomes and decided to summon Witch of Endor to raise ghost of prophet Samuel to help him (Cheung 540). Generally speaking, witches are extremely popular and are no surprise that they are involved in today’s
Essay III The Witches and Their Powers Magical powers are the canter of many novels and plays because of their mysterious nature. Every author finds different powers and limitations that influence the characters in unique ways. There is no one standard to writing about magic in literature because it is part of the human imagination and creative process. The way magic is used in a story can influence the plot, the theme and mood of the novel or play. In Shakespeare 's Macbeth, he uses three witches with many different powers to predict the future and influence the other characters.