European witchcraft

associate witchcraft with maleficium---or the employment of dark and evil magic, often by jealous or vengeful women. Men, on the other hand, wore more commonly accused of performing such non-malefic practices as enchanting or conjuring, and were often considered scholars for such a practice. The idea of gender roles is deeply rooted in not only our…

Witchcrafts were very common in medieval times. Thousands of people were being killed, murdered and accused for witch trials. Meaning of witchcraft is using supernatural powers or magical powers and witches were people who possess supernatural powers. According to book witchcrafts in Middle Ages by Jeffery Burton Russell “The most useful approach to definition of witchcraft is to recognize it as phenomenon: a human perception”. The opinion concerning meaning of witchcraft had being mottled and…

period of European history, societies were left in a state of chaos. The repercussions from such a debilitating plague were numerous and the impact on society was powerful. The economy was destabilized and the Church lost most of its power as citizens looked at the plague as punishment from God. In looking to be back in God’s grace, societies looked to purge their communities of those they thought responsible; about 100,000 people, most of them women were tried for the crime of witchcraft.…

one think of what went through the people of Salem’s minds when they started the trials? According to an entry on witchcraft at Encyclopedia.com, “witchcraft” comes from the Saxon word wicca, which sometimes means “wise person” but more so from an Indo-European root, “weik”, which is the root for many words in various languages that relate to magic, religion or divination. Witchcraft is used to define a variety of happenings including magical/religious practitioners in third…

crops did really well, and then this year they did badly, they blamed it on a supernatural force, because they didn’t know of what else could have done it. They blamed it on people who might have had marks that they claimed to be form the devil. Europeans believed that Witches had meetings in the middle of the night called sabots, and danced around naked. They also believed that they killed babies and ate them, they could fly,…

“Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel”1 The belief that some individuals could have the power to heal or harm through magic rituals has always been widespread, however; it wasn't until the late fifteenth century that people of higher power began to insist that such magic could only come from a form of satanic bargaining. After…

constantly, any behaviors or motivation going against his will were all considered as sins, thus, they must be punished. One of the great way to envision the power of religion in North America is to learn about Puritanism and the infamous Salem witchcraft. Although this epidemic tragedy caused chaos in the community itself, the Salem witch trials were a tragic but not a surprising occurrence.…

when they search for people accused of witch hunt and is persecuted when found. And this all started because Salem witch trails was a series of hearings and prosecutions of people of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and may 1693. Feel surprised about this topic cause I never knew…

Over the centuries, people around the world have had various ideas about witchcraft. Europeans that witches were mainly women. People thought witches made deals with God’s evil enemy, known as “the Devil” or “Satan”. The devil supposedly gave witches money, land, or other valuable gifts. In return, the witches had to help the devil with his evil work. This often meant harming people by supernatural means. People invented ways to tell if someone was a witch. Witches had odd birthmarks or moles…

blame of the world’s evils on women. This apparent evil nature of people, especially women, led to the death of over 100,000 victims accused of being witches, and their age and the spread of disease were the blamed causes of the supposed spread of witchcraft. Two Dominican monks, Kramer and Sprenger, claimed that women were naturally corrupted and evil, and that they were sexual beings, which supposedly led to the…