Society for History Education

Abracadabra -- Sorcery and Witchcraft in European History

Author(s): W. R. Jones
Source: The History Teacher, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Nov., 1971), pp. 26-36
Published by: Society for History Education
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/491897
Accessed: 16-09-2017 11:05 UTC

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 Witches and witchcraft are enjoying a new vogue
in the profession. The author organized a collo-
quium on the subject for his history majors, from
which the following article resulted.

Abracadabra -
Sorcery And Witchcraft
In European History
BY W. R. JONES

he current enthusiasm for the who viewed witchcraft as a delu-

history of sorcery and
sion imposed by a bigoted church
on an ignorant and superstitious
witchcraft probably dates
peasantry, Trevor - Roper was
from the publication of Professor
Hugh Trevor-Roper's Encountermainly interested in the history of
persecution-the rise and fall of
articles, which eventually became
the long essay, "The European
public awareness of witchcraft, the
Witch-craze of the Sixteenth and scepticism or credulity 6f official-
Seventeenth Centuries."' Althoughdom and intellectuals, and the
Trevor-Roper helped reestablishrelationship of persecution to the
the scholarly fashionability of theinstitutional and cultural environ-
subject, his approach to it and hisment.2
conclusions had little new to offer
Recently, something of a metho-
and do not suggest the new direc- dological revolution in the study of
tions taken by the latest scholar- witchcraft has suggested several
ship. Like the nineteenth-century new questions to be asked of the
rationalist historians and their dis-
evidence and has challenged the
ciples, Soldan, Hansen, and Lea, conventional answers of older his-
torians. A new breed of historians
The author is Professor of History and
Chairman of the Department at the Uni-of the occult, armed with the as-
versity of New Hampshire. He receivedsumptions of the functionalist
his doctorate from Harvard in 1958 and
school of modern social anthropo-
is particularly interested in medieval so-
cial history. logy, are examining the European

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 SORCERY AND WITCHCRAFT IN EUROPEAN HISTORY 27

witch-craze as an aspect of inter-

under the term, "maleficus." Dur-
community relations and as a guar-ing the Middle Ages various kinds
antee for the maintenance of tra- of village magicians-the diviner,
ditional social values. They point the image-magician, the maker and
out that earlier historians had been
seller of love-potions and charms-
more concerned with formal opin-actually existed. They practiced
ions about witchcraft than with their crafts for benevolent and ma-
the thing itself and had allowed
levolent ends-the difference be-
their scepticism to blind them to
tween "white magic" and "black."
the social and psychological im-
Their powers were credited by
plications of popular belief in
their neighbors, who purchased
witches. The latest scholars, who
them in the belief that they com-
acknowledge their indebtedness to
manded demonic assistance.4 Since
the anthropological theories de-the medieval sorcerer frequently
veloped by field-investigators in
armed himself with various kinds
Africa since E. E. Evans-Prit-
of organic poison, his victims may
chard's pioneering study ofhavethe
experienced physical as well
Azande, argue the need to asstudy
psychological effects from his
witchcraft as it actually existed
ministrations. Both the sorcerer
rather than in terms of the andspecu-
the later witch were accused
lations and suppositions of the de-
of specific malicious or destructive
fenders and critics of persecution.3
acts-harming people or their pro-
The renewal of scholarly interest
perty, rendering men and beasts
in the history of witchcraft has al-
unfertile, and causing a variety
ready produced sufficient new in-
of atmospheric disturbances.
terpretation to warrant an effort
The image of the witch flourish-
to evaluate its findings and to re-
ing during the sixteenth and seven-
consider the relevancy of the sub-
teenth centuries was a pastiche
ject to the general history of Wes-
tern civilization.
created by the grouping of ele-
ments of later medieval folklore
1. The History of an Illusion and the fantasies of theologians
The historical prototype of the and inquisitors around this figure
"witch" of early modern Europe of the sorcerer. Professor Trevor-
was the ancient and medieval "sor- Roper, following the suggestions of
cerer." The rather arbitrary distinc- Hansen and Lea, has shown how
tion enforced by the English terms, the self-fulfilling speculations of
"sorcerer" and "witch," and the canonists and scholastics, rein-
German, "Zauber" and "Hexe," forced by torture or the threat of
does not exist for French scholars,it, combined with pre-Christian or
for whom the single word, "sor- non-Christian folk-mythology to
cier," suffices or for the medievalproduce the full-fledged demono-
Latinist, who encompassed bothlogy of the later Middle Ages.

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 Graccius, C
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Sczran disrobt~s fke rrritcbes T)e ObsEeae 11Y~ss Danci#g

THE WITCHES' SABBATH

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 SORCERY AND WITCHCRAFT IN EUROPEAN HISTORY 29

Heightened public awarenessers.

of Much of the literature of
the existence of witches was the witchcraft is absolutely useless to
the modern researcher; and, re-
result of the expansion of the de-
finition of heresy to encompass
grettably, even university libraries
seem to have an overabundance of
'"heretical sorcery" and the inven-
tion of agencies of investigation
this type of secondary material. For
and repression. This is the "police-
instance, the unwary student can
blotter" explanation of the Euro- easily be overwhelmed by the se-
pean witch-craze, which argues
ductive but erroneous theories of
that the "contagion" or "epidemic"
Montague Summers, a pretended
affected victims and judges rather
Roman Catholic priest and a de-
than the accused. voted student of witch-lore, who
The romanticization of the sor- never allowed his considerable ac-
quaintance with the sources to
cerer (or, more often, the sorcer-
shake his faith in the existence of
ess) into the witch of the early
modern era had been fairly wella witchcult.5 Summers, who be-
lieved that witches in all ages and
completed by the fifteenth century,
which produced two classic de-
places were actually practicing Sa-
scriptions of this new kind of reli-tanists, occupies a position in the
gious deviancy in Pope Innocent scholarship of witchcraft stretch-
VIII's bull, warning Christendoming back to the nineteenth-century
French magus, Eliphas Levi, and
of the existence of a witch-cult, and
the notorious manual, the Malleus his English translator, Arthur Ed-
Maleficarum, of those industrious ward Waite, and forward to such
cult-scholars as Gerald Gardner
Dominicans, Kramer and Spren-
ger. By the sixteenth and seven-and the sinister Aleister Crowley."
teenth centuries the image of the Equally insidious for the begin-
witch, at least as it flourished on
ning student is the astonishing and
the continent, had absorbed the
indefensible theory of Miss Mar-
mythical elements of the Satanic
garet Murray, the London Univer-
pact, night-flying, the Sabbat, the
sity anthropologist, who advocated
Black Mass, and the penchant for
in three widely read and easily dis-
spectacular orgies typical of the
missed books the notion that
familiar witch. Noticeable regional
witchcraft derived from a paleoli-
differences continued to exist, how-
thic fertility religion.' According
ever, as witnessed by the relative
to Miss Murray, this ancient faith
artlessness and pragmatism of thehad survived the Christianization
English witches. of the West. Its true character was
2. The Historiography of Witch-misunderstood by the medieval
craft church, which persecuted its ad-
The history of occultism has of- herents as devil-worshipers. Al-
ten been victimized by its admir- though she portrayed witchcraft as

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30 THE HISTORY TEACHER

Parrinder's excellent
an archaic subterranean religion, little book,
to which the common people of and
Witchcraft: European theAfrican,
Middle Ages gave their allegiance,
illustrate the value of applying the
methods
she also argued (not veryand assumptions
consist- of social
anthropologyking
ently) that every English to the European
un-
til the seventeenth data.9 century was put
to death as a ritual sacrifice to the In 1970 the British Association of
ancient deities. It would probably Social Anthropologists memori-
be unkind to torment this dead alized the contribution of E. E.
horse further, except that it con-
Evans-Pritchard to the study of
tinues to show signs of life. Miss
witchcraft by publishing a series
Murray's views gained a respecta-
of papers delivered to their annual
bility they hardly deserved by their
meeting and edited by Mary
inclusion in the Encylopaedia Bri-
Douglas as Witchcraft Confessions
tannica's discussion of witchcraft;
and Accusations. For the historian,
and more recently they have beenthe essays by Peter Brown on accu-
resuscitated by several semi-popu-
sations of certain groups in later
lar and even scholarly books.8 The
Roman society and of Keith Thom-
fundamental problem with the ap-as and Alan Macfarlane on witch-
craft in sixteenth and seventeenth-
proaches to the study of witchcraft
represented by the works of Sum-
century England are illuminating
mers and Murray is that they tele-
from the methodological point of
scope the history of the subject,
view.1' Earlier efforts by scholars
blurring the stages of the historical
like Kittredge, Davies, Ewen, and
evolution of occult traditions and Notestein to study witchcraft as it
ignoring the conditioning effects ofactually existed or as it was re-
time and geography on the mytho- flected in the surviving records of
logy of witchcraft. the civil and ecclesiastical courts
The virtue of the new interdis- were too ambitious or broad and
ciplinary approach to the history of seldom probed beyond the facile
witchcraft derives from its abilitygeneralizations concerning the mo-
to view the phenomenon withintives of persecutors, the reasons for
the total social, institutional, and belief, and the effects of social, in-
moral context of European life andtellectual, and economic condition-
to discern the conscious and, pos- ing set forth by authorities like
sibly, the unconscious motives of Hansen and Lea, who relied al-
victims, judges, and accused. Sev- most wholly on the theoretical
literature."
eral new works such as Lucy
Maier's Witchcraft, Max Marwick's The most important contribution
edition of readings on Witchcraft to the new scholarship is undoubt-
and Sorcery for the Penguin Mod- edly Alan Macfarlane's revised
ern Sociology Series, and Geoffrey doctoral dissertation, Witchcraft in

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 SORCERY AND WITCHCRAFT IN EUROPEAN HISTORY 31

against black magic, "as a means

Tudor and Stuart England, which
of effecting a deep social change;
limited its attention to the single
from a 'neighbourly,' highly inte-
county of Essex during the period
1560 to 1680, and which applied
grateda and mutually interdepend-
microscope to a large number entofvillage society, to a more in-
dividualistic one." The effect of
recorded accusations and prosecu-
tions. Macfarlane's findings witchcraft
have accusations were, as an-
demolished or seriously under-thropologists observed, to "main-
tain and reinforce social relation-
mined many of the old generaliza-
ships," but also, as historians
tions concerning the European
witch-craze, at least as it mani-
pointed out, to destroy the old so-
cial values by attacking those de-
fested itself in one English county.
For instance, he discovered thatmanding their enforcement. Mac-
there was little correlation be- farlane saw the witch trials of
tween periods of intense persecu- Tudor and Stuart England as the
tion and the existence of religious
product of communal tensions and
private feelings of guilt venting
controversy, the activities of fana-
tic "witch-finders" like Matthew themselves in a multiplication of
Hopkins, or changing social and
accusations and confessions of a
economic conditions. Macfarlane familiar and believable offense.
viewed witchcraft accusations and
One thing is very clear-the
confessions as vehicles for the ex-
broad generalizations of the older
pression of personal and communal generation of historians ignored
aggression, generated by feelings the important regional differences
of shame and hurt, themselves a-
of witchcraft and, based as they
rising from the victims' belief that
were almost wholly on legal and
they had been the target of witch-
craft in retaliation for their own
theological discussions, obscured
antisocial conduct. Macfarlane
the practical and commonplace
noted:
role of superstition, which was
both "actively" practiced and "pas-
Witchcraft prosecutions were usually be-
sively" accepted within European
tween people who knew each other in-
village
timately-that is, between village neigh- communities. The French
historian, Robert Mandrou, has
bors. They almost always arose from
quarrels over gifts and loans in which
shown how an analysis of the
the victim refused the witch some small
gift, heard her muttering under her specific legal procedures applied
breath or threatening him, and subse-on various levels of the French
quently suffered some misfortune. It was
usually the person who had done the judiciary at the end of the seven-
first wrong under the old ideals of char- teenth century and the "collective
ity who felt himself bewitched.12 mentality" which these procedures
Macfarlane interpreted such mirrored explains the growing
prosecutions, which were themsel- scepticism of the major tribunals,
ves a stage in the counter-defense as contrasted with the lesser

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 ew Hapkins WCibcb Fmndei Geencrall

'EL

W-re ar

~:3 :;:r i~g~ ~~ lmgl~trs NA

evvac-l
rinara

,Sao-
Pe6iil3~ie

~cirrl Y~LVi I W. ?6

In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the witch mania in England
and Scotland reached its height. The precise number of victims will never be
known but undoubtedly ran into the thousands. For most of the executions "witch-
finders" were directly responsible. Many of these were amateurs who had convinced
themselves ana their neighbors that they were able to recognize witches. More
sinister were the professionals who travelled from village to village "discovering"
witches through prickings, "swimmings," and other infallible means. Among the
more notorious of these witch-finders was Matthew Hopkins, who made a good
deal of money practising his profession and in 1647 published his classic Discovery
of Witches. In the frontispiece to this work (above), Hopkins is shown having trium-
phantly forced two witches to reveal their "imps" or "familiars," minor demons
who performed the witches' work at their bidding.
(Opposite) A contemporary drawing shows a witch-finder receiving his re-
ward. He bears a striking resemblance to Matthew Hopkins.

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 SORCERY AND WITCHCRAFT IN EUROPEAN HISTORY 33

courts, concerning a type of crimewitchcraft and also the most useful

which long continued to flourish single-volume history of witchcraft
within rural France.13 He distin- from antiquity to the modern era.14
guished between the ordinary folk- Like Mandrou, Caro Baroja was
magic of village communities andaware of the difference between
the few great scandals evoked bybookish descriptions of witchcraft
the alleged diabolical possession ofand the popular superstitions of re-
high-born ladies in urban convents mote village communities. He re-
and also between the literary and legated the idea of a "witch-craze"
actual manifestations of witch- or "contagion" to the imaginations
craft. Mandrou has succeeded to a of judges and witnesses; and, more
greater extent than other historians than any other modern historian,
in explaining the specific way in he has explored the possible use of
which the new learning of the hallucinatory drugs like belladon-
European Enlightenment infil- na and aconite by presumed
trated the courts and dampenedwitches. A glance at some of the
persecution. specialized local studies cited or
Another valuable regional study quoted in E. W. Monter's useful
of witchcraft is that by Julio Caro collection of readings on European
Baroja, whose World of the Witchcraft or Erik Midelfort's ex-
Witches provides an anthropologi- haustive listing of works on witch-
cally-oriented analysis of Basque craft published in the Papers of

4 Br

LI 'i ?

*'I 1I

P ;~ilr

A 17TH CENTURY WITCH EXECUTION

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34 THE HISTORY TEACHER

the Bibliographical Society

novelists. of
It shows, for instance,
America for 1968 indicates the im- the value of an interdisciplinary
mense complexity and variety ofapproach to the study of history
this occult tradition. 15 which is frequently advocated but
Although the trial and punish- seldom practiced. Fascinating re-
ment of alleged witches ceased to- sults have recently been obtained
ward the end of the seventeenth from the application to the evi-
century throughout most of the dence of the Salem Village episode
civilized Western world, the occultof clinical studies of hysteria
retained its fascination for Euro- (Chadwick Hansen) and of early
pean man and continued to titillatechild-rearing customs (John De-
and inspire him, especially in its mos).'l Alan Macfarlane has ex-
plained the relevancy of functiona-
literary forms. This literary occul-
tism of Renaissance Neoplatonism, list sociology to the interpretation
of Shakespearean drama, or of the of English witchcraft, wherein he
Faust legend in its various redac- discerned the interplay of com-
tions was a very different thing munal tensions and human aggres-
from the folk-religion of medieval sion. The analysis of pre-modern
villages, although it perpetuated folk superstitions-both white and
an interest in eccentric forms of black magic - as suggested by
supernaturalism through the age Keith Thomas' and Alan Macfar-
of the Enlightenment into the nine-
lane's descriptions of counter-mag-
teenth and twentieth centuries."6ical practices provides a more
Demonology and Satanism were
sophisticated view of early systems
important sources for themes,
of spirituality and their intercon-
plots, and symbols of modern
nection with social relationships
European and American literature
than could be obtained from the
study of formal institutions of
-ranging from J. K. Huysmans' Ld-
bas, with its classic description of
church law, government, or doc-
the Black Mass, to Rosemary's
trine.19 An understanding of
Baby and the films of Romanchanging official opinions (espec-
Polanski. Much more research ially within the judiciaries) during
needs to be done to relate this rich
periods of declining persecution
tradition of literary occultismgivesto the intellectual historian a
the social, intellectual, and artistic
unique opportunity to see the ac-
history of modern Europe and
tual interrelationship of ideas and
America."7
events. In short, the history of
The study and teaching of the witchcraft offers an interesting and
history of sorcery and witchcraft hitherto neglected avenue to the
represents more, however, than the study and teaching of several im-
idle curiosity of romantic adoles- portant historical and social pheno-
cents or the fantasizing of poets and mena-the interaction of myth and

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 SORCERY AND WITCHCRAFT IN EUROPEAN HISTORY 35

misfortune, and the immense com-

reality, the social and psychologi-
cal implications of superstition, plexity
the and variety of preindustrial
rationalization of aggressionfolk orsociety.

NOTES

'Published in The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (New York and E

1968), pp. 90-192, and separately by Harper & Row as a Torchbook.
2W. G. Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse (Stuttgart, 1843) was
by H. Heppe (Stuttgart, 1880) and M. Bauer (Munich, 1912); J. Hansen,
Zauberwahn, Inquisition und Hexenprozess im Mittelalter (Munich, 1900). Lea dis-
cussed sorcery and witchcraft in A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages
(3 vols.; London and New York, 1888) and History of the Inquisition of Spain (4
vols.; New York, 1906-07). See his especially valuable reference work, Materials
toward a History of Witchcraft (3 vols.; Philadelphia, 1939).
3E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande
(Oxford 1950). Examples of the anthropological literature are excerpted in Witch-
craft and Sorcery, ed. M. Marwick, Penguin Modern Sociology Readings (Harmonds-
worth, 1970).
40n the "reality" of sorcery, see W. R. Jones, "The Commerce of Sorcery in
Later Medieval Europe," International Review of History and Political Science, VII
(1970), 78-92.
5Several of Summers' most popular books are The History of Witchcraft and
Demonology (New York, 1926); The Geography of Witchcraft (London, 1927);
The Vampire, his Kith and Kin (London, 1928); The Vampire in Europe (London,
1929); The Werewolf (London, 1933).
G"Eliphas Livi" was the pseudonym of Alphonse Louis Constant, whose best
known book, The History of Magic (4th ed.; London, 1948), was translated into
English by Arthur Edward Waite. For the modern wizard, Crowley, see his Con-
fessions . . . An Autohagiography (New York, 1970).
7Margaret A. Murray, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (Oxford, 1921);
The God of the Witches (London, 1934); The Divine King in England (London,
1954).
8Miss Murray's theories are reflected in Pennethorne Hughes, Witchcraft (Bal-
timore, 1965); C. Williams, Witchcraft (Cleveland and New York, 1959); T. C.
Lethbridge, Witches (New York, 1968); Chadwick Hansen, Witchcraft at Salem
(New York, 1969). Although Elliot Rose, A Razor for a Goat (Toronto, 1962),
criticized the Murrayite theory, he concluded with an explanation of the develop-
ment of witchcraft which was very close to it.
9Several of the latest publications are reviewed in The Times Literary Supple-
ment, October 30, 1970, pp. 1237-39. See L. Mair, Witchcraft (London, 1969); G.
Parrinder, Witchcraft: European and African (London, 1963); A. D. J. Macfarlane,
Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (New York and Evanston, 1970).
10Peter Brown, "Sorcery, Demons, and the Rise of Christianity from Late An-
tiquity into the Middle Ages"; Keith Thomas, "The Relevance of Social Anthropo-
logy to the Historical Study of English Witchcraft," Witchcraft Confessions and
Accusations, ed. M. Douglas (London, 1970), pp. 17-46; 47-79.
11G. L. Kittredge, Witchcraft in Old and New England (Cambridge, Mass.,
1929); C. L. Ewen, Witch Hunting and Witch Trials (London, 1929) and Witch-
craft and Demonianism (London, 1933); R. Trevor Davies, Four Centuries of Witch
Beliefs (London, 1947); Wallace Notestein, A History of Witchcraft in England
(Washington, 1911); G. L. Burr, Narratives of Witchcraft Cases (New York, 1966).
Barbara Rosen has reprinted some contemporary pamphlets in Witchcraft (London,
1969).

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36 THE HISTORY TEACHER

12Macfarlane, pp. 196-97.

13R. Mandrou, Magistrats et sorciers en Fra
The semi-popular work of Aldous Huxley, The D
is interesting but not helpful.
14J. Caro Baroja, The World of the Witche
(Chicago, 1964).
15European Witchcraft, ed. E. W. Monter (N
H. C. Erik Midelfort, "Recent Witch-Hunting R
graphical Society of America, LXII (1968), 373
leads (but not much else) is R. H. Robbins, E
Demonology (London, 1959).
16See L. Thorndyke, A History of Magic an
New York, 1923-58) for the various occult t
Hecate's Team: An Examination of the Beliefs
temporaries and His Immediate Successors (Lond
of0 the Magus (Cambridge and New York, 194
1949).
17For references to some of the sources of ni
W. R. Jones, "Palladism and the Papacy: an Ep
the Nineteenth Century," A Journal of Church
181n addition to Hansen's Witchcraft at Sa
Themes in the Witchcraft of Seventeenth-Cent
torical Review, LXXV, 1311-26. An illustration o
subject is G. Jahoda, The Psychology of Super
19Mr. Keith Thomas of St. John's College, Oxf
study of primitive beliefs in preindustrial Eng
gion and the Decline of Magic (New York, 197

P , "xf

..

_ . . _

SWIMMING A WITCH

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