Various Theories on the European Witch-hunts
Like the Holocaust/Shoah/Final Solution (the attempted extermination of Jews and others by the Nazis in the mid-20th Century), the Witch Hunts demand some sort of explanation.
The "theories" for the causes of the Witch Hunts listed below are drawn from what various historians have suggested. They are called theories, because they are based on reasonable information (or were, when they were first proposed), and make some sense in explaining the phenomena. Each theory below describes the main idea briefly, and after "BUT" lists some of the problems in applying the theory to witch hunts.
None is perfect, some are better than others, and a few are now supported by only few historians. Some better explain certain hunts in specific places during limited periods. No one explanation or theory will suffice to explain all Witch Hunts in Europe from 1400 to 1800. To understand the Witch Hunts in their totality, we must keep all of the theories in mind, and even look for more still. Multiple causation is merely common sense. Any historian who tries to apply one cause to the hunts, or even perhaps to just one hunt, is being too simplistic.
1. Illness Theories: These are variously related to physical and mental conditions of people involved in the hunts. According to a Mass Hysteria Theory, peasants went a little wacky, becoming clinically neurotic and even psychotic, and in a group panic went after the witches. According to a Delusion Theory, credence given to childrens fantasies and psychosomatic illnesses are some sources for the panic. Further, a Disease Theory suggests syphilis or ergotism (caused by mold on rotten bread) as causes for mental instability. Similarly, Drug Theory suggests that the effects of consuming bad mushrooms, herbs like deadly nightshade or henbane, or bufotenine from the skin of some toads could have affected peoples minds.
BUT, it is hard to explain how so many people, even in one area, could become seriously ill or disturbed all at once. Additionally, an important characteristic of the witch hunts were their systematic organization by ruling elites and government officials, not some chaotic outbreak.
2. The Geographic Origins Theories: The Witch Hunts originated in specific locations, for example first in mountainous regions of the Alps and Pyrenees or out of economic differentiation between regions which were normally self-sufficient suddenly caught in new competition because of the commercial revolution.
BUT these explanations are contradicted by counter examples (regions where the lowlands first hunted and then spread to the hills), or the difficulty of quantifying economic differences.
3. The Greed Theory: Elites initiated the hunts in order to confiscate property of others.
BUT many persecuted people did not have much wealth. And, in many hunts property was not confiscated, even from very wealthy targets.
4. The Religious Rebellion Theories: These theories are of two kinds:
A. First, the Satanic Religious Rebellion Theory: devil worship actually existed, in particular as a subversive attack on the ruling Christian order. Early historians of witchcraft, such as Jules Michelet (1862) or Montague Summers, take the tortured confessions of witches at their word.
BUT no credible evidence supports the existence of any actual Satanic cults before the 19th century. See Myth #8.
B. Second, the Pagan Religious Rebellion Theory: Certain forms of worship from the ancient world continued through the Early Modern period and was misinterpreted by the Christian hunters as Satanic. This theory was formulated by the Folklorist Margaret Murray (The Witch-cult in Western Europe(1921), The European Witch Cult (1926), The God of the Witches (1960)), who said worship of the horned god Janus or "Dianus" was focus of pagan continuity into modern times. It could be called the Murrayite Theory,and it remains popular in Neo-pagan circles.
BUT no credible evidence reveals the survival of much paganism or any organized fertility cults, beyond common superstition and simple folk traditions. Professional scholars have largely discredited Murrays work. See Myth #8 and Myth #10.
5. The Confessional Conflict Theory: Reformation and its resultant fights between Protestants (mainly Lutherans, Calvinists and Anabaptists, as well as Anglicans) and Roman Catholics led each to use witchcraft to attack one another.
BUT adherents of one branch of Christianity only rarely used the accusation of witchcraft specifically to persecute someone of another branch. Usually the Witch Hunts were carried out by people of the same type of Christianity as the victims. See also Myth #2.
6. The Disaster Theory: As actual misfortunes struck (plague, famine, war, storm), people blamed supernatural forces and found scapegoats in witches.
BUT many persecutions were done during times of relative peace and plenty. Further, many such troubles were not new to early modern Europe, but have been endemic throughout history. Thus, why were "witches" to blame, and not other common scapegoats (Jews, Sodomites, deviants, foreigners) or other supernatural forces (such as demons without the aid of human witches)?
7. The (Mistaken) Conspiracy Theory: In the Late Middle Ages, religious elites created a new, and mistaken, intellectual framework out of Christian heresy and theology concerning demons. They linked the idea of witches to an imagined organized sect which was a danger to the Christian commonwealth. Thus authorities sincerely believed in and acted against this Satanic threat, even though it did not really exist.
BUT how could a rather minor idea, with so little supporting evidence, lead to such enormous efforts by so many people, especially those with little to gain?
8. The Social Control or State-building Theory: Early modern governments exploited the fear of witchcraft in order to centralize authority, increase bureaucratic jurisdiction, impose cultural uniformity, and dominate the Church. The hierarchy may have believed in witchcraft or not, but a dangerous conspiracy provided the premise for expanding government intervention. This theory has a certain similarity to The Church Oppression Theory, popular in the 19th century but held by few today, according to which the Church fraudulently invented witches so as to crush its opponents and grow rich.
BUT why should witchcraft be the specific target in these years? And why should the hunts be so vicious, and as a result cause such disturbances in the state? And the theory gives too much credit to the elites over the "ignorant" masses.
9. The Social Functionalist or Social Accusations Theory: Witch accusers acted on a psychological need to blame others for their own personal problems. Drawing on functionalist anthropology, psychology and post-modernist criticism, supporters of this theory argue that witch hunts were therapeutically beneficial for society, since they defined what was right and wrong and rid society of its troublesome marginalized folk, like the old and the poor. Thus the hunts functioned to reinforce and define social boundaries of moral and acceptable behavior.
BUT these theories do not take into account motives of individual accusations (such as local feuds and grudges), and contemporary explanations of those involved (the religious and political context). And why should the hunts be so vicious? And again, why should witchcraft be the specific target in these years?
10. The Misogyny Theory: The Witch Hunts embodied a social hostility toward women. Such theories are often tied with popularizing feminist writers, who might also see in witchcraft a source of empowerment for women. Indeed, the ongoing subordination of women, womens connection to folk-magic and healing, and changing views of womens social and economic place in Early Modern Europe were important factors in the hunts. The majority of accused and executed were female, yet also old, living alone (whether widowed or spinster), and poor.
BUT, such theories exaggerate the proportions of women involved and the extent to which women were the focus. See Myth #4. Men in some witch hunts were the majority of victims; and some hunts persecuted children of both sexes.
The Myths About the European Witch-hunts
#1. The Witch Hunts were an example of medieval cruelty and barbarism.
FACT: While frequently cruel, the Witch Hunts took place after the Middle Ages and were conducted by civilized people.
COMMENTARY: The key problem is the use of the word "medieval." First, historians usually consider the Middle Ages, which began after the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire around A.D. 500 to be over by A.D. 1500. At that time, changes in the economy with capitalism, in culture with the Renaissance and in religion with the Reformation, created the Early Modern Period. The Witch Hunts, however, were just then getting started, not ending until the 1700s.
Second, the Middle Ages is often used in popular parlance to denigrate something as inferior and ignorant. In my opinion, this exaggerates the worst aspects of medieval times (religious fanaticism, primitive laws which readily apply violence, non-scientific thought, poor economic levels, and strict social hierarchies) to the disadvantage of its noble characteristics (an emphasis on faith, codes of conduct like chivalry, technological innovation, mutual obligations of social classes).
And as Western Civilization in the 20th Century has carried on World Wars (with their trench warfare, strategic bombing, submarine warfare, poison gas, and propaganda), colonial imperialism (with its slave-like exploitation of labor, disparities between rich and poor, and cultural destruction), or totalitarian communism (with its collectivization, gulags, and secret police), it has no real right to criticize the Middle Ages as "barbaric."
In any case, the most highly-educated, literate, well-trained, urban elites conducted most of the hunts. All the advantages of Western Civilization created the Witch Hunts and must assume responsibility for them.
#2. The Church was to blame for the Witch Hunts.
FACT: While Christianity clearly created the framework for the Witch Hunts, no single "Church" was to blame, and many secular governments hunted witches for essentially non-religious reasons.
COMMENTARY: When the Witch Hunts first began to intensify, in the 1400s, one church hierarchy, what I call the Latin Catholic Church, dominated Western Civilization. Even within that one church, however, uniformity in all matters of faith and belief had not been fully imposed.
During the Middle Ages, the predominant Christian view of witchcraft was that it was an illusion. People might think they were witches, but they were fooling themselves, or the Devil was fooling them. Most authorities thought that witchcraft could do no serious harm, because it was not real. It took the arguments of theologians, a number of inquisitors manuals, and a series of papal bulls (written letters of judgment and command) to contradict that traditional Christian idea, and identify witchcraft with a dangerous heresy. Ultimately in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII, in his bull Summis desiderantes, let the Inquisition pursue witches.
There is some legitimate historical debate, though, about how far the bull applied throughout the church, and how many church authorities really believed that witches were a serious danger. In any case, just about at that time the "Church" broke apart because of the Reformation. While Roman Catholicism redefined itself under a papal magisterium, Lutheranism, Calvinism and Anglicanism asserted other sources for divine authority.
Surprisingly, the Protestant reformers often agreed with Rome, that witches were a clear and present danger. All four of the major western Christian "churches" (Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican) persecuted witches to some degree or another. (Eastern Christian, or OrthodoxChurches carried out almost no witch hunting).
None of these persecutions could have been carried out without the permission and cooperation of secular governments. In only a few small regions, like the Papal States and various Prince-Bishoprics in Germany, were religious and temporal government leaders one and the same. But in all the rest of Western Europe, secular princes ultimately decided whether or not witches were hunted. Still, religious leaders carry a large share of the blame for the hunts, since secular princes often hunted witches on the advice of the clergy. Princes hunted witches because Church leaders taught them that witches were disturbers of the peace, destructors of property, and killers of animals and people.
#3. The Witch Hunts specifically targeted women.
FACT: While many witch hunters explicitly went after women, very often men fell victim to the witch hunts.
COMMENTARY: Through most of recorded history, in most civilizations, until the last hundred years or so, women have been subordinated to men. Many witch hunters, particularly the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum, held that women were far more susceptible to temptation by the Devil, and thus more frequently became witches. Some witch hunts did almost exclusively target women, in percentages as high as 95% of the victims. Another interesting point is that the members of the legal system its "judges, ministers, priests, constables, jailers, judges, doctors, prickers, torturers, jurors, executioners" were nearly 100 percent male (Anne L. Barstow, Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts: Our Legacy of Violence Against Women (San Francisco: Pandora/Harper Collins, 1994), 142).
Nonetheless, men were often accused of being witches, and executed for it. (The frequent use of "warlock" to describe a male witch is largely based on Hollywood scriptwriters, especially for the 1958 movie Bell, Book, and Candle or the 1960s sitcom, Bewitched.) In some areas, like Russia, the large majority of victims were male. Further, women did participate in the system, as accusers, witnesses, and sometimes as examiners, prickers, food providers, and jail personnel.
There are reasons why we should look at some aspects of the witch hunt as a crime against women, yet we should not go too far to make it only about women. I agree with Christine Larner who states that "Witchcraft was not sex-specific, but it was sex-related."
#4. The Witch Hunts were an attempt at "femicide" or "gendercide," meaning the persecution of the female sex, equivalent to genocide.
FACT: While a few witch hunters abhorred all women, the necessity for women to be involved in procreation of our species and the lack of means to carry out the extermination of every woman prevented any realistic approach toward genocide.
COMMENTARY: See #3 above, about women as targets. Nowadays it seems the term genocide is bandied about quite a bit whenever one group feels particularly persecuted.
Accordingly, some feminists use these descriptions of the Witch Hunts as a rallying cry to complain about ongoing male oppression. But it is absurd to compare the Witch Hunts with a genuine attempted genocide, such as the Holocaust/Shoah/Final Solution done by the German Third Reich during World War II. The Nazis had the means (the death camps) and had the will (anti-Semitic ideology) to carry out a genocide.
In no conceivable way could have or would have Western Europeans killed all women between 1400 and 1800. Killing all the women could not be done by early modern methods of execution, nor were all women considered worthy of death by any governing authority. There is no evidence that even the worst witch hunters wanted all women dead.
#5. The Witch Hunts are/were all alike.
FACT: While the Witch Hunts share some essential similarities, they were enormously different depending on time and place.
COMMENTARY: Briefly, most witch hunts involved government authorities deciding that a problem with witches existed. Usually the danger was seen in an organized conspiracy led by the Devil. Or the concern was witches causing harm (maleficia) through spells: raising storms, killing people or livestock, and/or causing bad luck. The authorities then pursued an investigation that often included secret informants and torture to acquire information and confessions. Finally, convicted witches were often executed. Some hunts involved only a few condemned, others might exterminate hundreds.
Some parts of Europe suffered many intense hunts, such as provinces in France and Germany; others experienced several moderate persecutions, such as England or Hungary; others held comparatively few trials, such as Spain or the Dutch Netherlands. None of the hunts were constant over the years 1400 to 1800, but came in concentrated periods, especially intense between 1550 and 1650.
Historians are still trying to explain the reasons for this great variety in witch hunting. Important factors could have been: the power of the central government; the independence of local authorities; tensions created by war, failing economies, or famine; and uncertainties about religious conformity.