The History of Magic and Witchcraft Essay Example

📌Category: History
📌Words: 661
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 12 June 2021

The history and timeline of magic and witchcraft is a topic that explores a number of different methods of magic, from Frazer’s Proto-Scientific theory to Bruno’s “On Magic” who  subdivides magic into ten sections classifying each as natural, extra-natural, or unworthy. Magic was spread and interpreted differently throughout time periods, from the Early Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period. Magic and witchcraft cannot be defined under one main idea because of the scholars who influenced the way individuals in countries perceived the dangers of witchcraft such as Boguet and Kramer in Western Europe. In order to interpret the full scope of magic and witchcraft, one must understand the importance of the time period, place, and link between the church and Europe.

The time period in which witchcraft occurred cannot be summarized as a singular thought process or idea. Taking a look back at the Late Middle Ages and the 15th century, the Domican order had a huge amount of power due to members and theologians such as Heinrich Kramer and Johannes Nider who strongly opposed witchcraft and argued that witchcraft fell under the blanket of heresy. In Kramer’s “Malleus Maleficarum” he characterizes women by stating, “For as regards to intellect, or the understanding of spiritual things, they seem to be of a different nature from men”. Kramer’s criticism towards women were deemed to be treated in high regard and were seen as the baseline on how to treat witchcraft due to his endorsement by Pope Innocent VIII. Many people believed in religion and the endorsement connects the idea of the Catholic church supporting the idea of witchcraft as a crime punishable by death. If we compare Kramer’s ideas in the Mallues to the Early Modern ideas with Reginald Scot there seems to be discrepancies. When responding to the Malleus, Scot states, “What abominable and devilish inventions, and what flat and plain knavery is practiced against these old women, I will set down the whole order of the Inquisition, to the everlasting, inexcusable, and apparent shame of all witch-mongers”. The role of witchcraft must be broken down because the scholars who argued about how witchcraft was linked to a violation against the church were different.

An important topic to support the question as to why one cannot simply classify witchcraft under one umbrella was due to how individuals felt about the death of people who were deemed to be witches. The idea of burning witches and executing witches was different depending on which country in Europe. When looking at England, Matthew Hopkins was appointed the Witchfinder General and would collect fees for each individual he extracted a confession from. This incentive of money led Hopkins to convict over a hundred witches over the course of two years. When we compare this violent behavior to that of the Eastern Othrhodox Church in Russia and Ukraine there were no sporadic events of witch hunting. Different ranks in Eastern Europe, from common folk to tsars participated in witchcraft and did not believe that witchcraft was heresy or that it related to working with the devil. One must break up Eastern and Western Europe when discussing their views on witchcraft and how they responded. 

I believe that another thought that should be understood when learning about witchcraft is the conflicting views people in society felt about how fair and justified witchcraft convictions were. In the 18th century, the Enlightenment movement dominated across Europe and focused on utilizing reason as a primary source of authority and legitimacy and wanted to separate the church from Europe. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Domican Order and scholars believed witchcraft went against religious morals and believed that if you were a witch then you were working with the Devil. Dutch author Balthasar Bekker opposed the idea of witchcraft and working with the Devil to be related to the Bible. Bekker stated that “The Devil lacks knowledge or the capacity to intervene in the material world”(Disenchantment of the World). There are many different opinions from scholars who opposed the idea of witchcraft or supported the link between the Bible and witchcraft.

The idea of magic and witchcraft should be broken down into different categories in order to understand the problems that countries faced when dealing with witches. One cannot assume that all countries in Europe behaved the same when convicting witches.

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