Witch-hunting in Scotland: A Gender-Based Analysis - Research Paper Example

? Witch-hunting in Scotland: A Gender-Based Analysis Introduction Undoubtedly, in Europe, a witch is traditionally believed to be a female. It is also unquestionable that most of the suspected, hunted, tortured, and executed witches in 16th- and 17th-century Scotland and England were in fact women.1 However, it requires a sufficient number of evidence to prove that practically all witches were women and to verify that those suspected of witchcraft were persecuted because they were females. It requires more than sufficient evidence to prove that witchcraft convictions were manipulated in an effort to oppress and retain power over women. This paper explores the theme of gender in the process of witch-hunting in Scotland. Basically, this paper tries to determine whether witch-hunts in Scotland were inherently gendered or they were merely a reaction to the growing presence of women in Scottish society. Gender was indeed a specific characteristic shared by suspected, prosecuted, convicted, and executed witches. Most of the witches also belonged to the lower class, and almost all were more impoverished than their alleged victims.2 Majority of these witches were old, and practically none were too young. The witchcraft in question almost always happened immediately after a disagreement between victim and witch, and the involved individuals were often neighbors. Those who were widely known as witches were also known for being unkind and vulgar.3 Christina Larner, in her study of Scottish witch persecution, substantiates the report that most of the persecuted witches were women: The Scottish witch-hunt was arguably one of the major witch-hunts of Europe. During its peaks it was matched only by those of the German principalities and Lorraine. As in Germany its effects were local and highly concentrated. There were periods in 1649 and 1661 when no mature woman in Fife or East Lothian can have felt free from the fear of accusation.4 Larner claims that the severity of the witch hunt in Scotland was not the greatest in Europe. Yet, Montague Summers believes that Scotland was the most severe.5 Larner associates the relationship between women and witchcraft with the traditional perception of women based on the Aristotelian image of a woman as defectively human and the Judaeo-Christian image of a woman as the reason for the Fall of Man and a root of sin. And so Larner argues, “Since witchcraft involved a rejection of what are regarded as the noblest human attributes, women were the first suspects”.6 Philomathes: What can be the cause that there are twentie women given to that craft, where ther is one man? Epistemon: The reason is easie, for as that sexe is frailer then man is, so is it easier to be intrapped in these grosse snares of the Devill, as was over well proved to be true, by the Serpents deceiving of Eve at the beginning, which makes him homelier with that sexe sensine.7 The above conversation clearly answers the question why most of the persecuted witches in Scotland were women— it was women’s weakness. Gender and witch persecutions were inseparably connected. The traditional image of a witch is a woman, and practically all alleged witches in Scotland were females. A recent investigation has tried to interpret this as a mixture of men’s fear of women’s sexuality with the influence of the Reformation’s pursuit of moral restraint.8 Fornication was the leading moral crime in Scotland9; that is, female witches were successfully fornicating with evil. Overview and History of Witch-Hunting in Scotland Witch-hunts in early modern Scotland can be completely appreciated with regard to the Reformation movement. When the bases for archaic beliefs are consolidated from the entire continental Europe, they show a fixation with the traditional image of the witch. It is a notion largely resembling that in early modern Europe.10 The punishment for killing a person through witchcraft was, both in ancient and early modern Europe, banishment or execution. The nonexistence of witch-hunts in the medieval period, as explained by Hutton, can be explained in relation to a particular entity-- Christianity-- which put an end to witch persecutions in all societies wherein it was embraced as the official religion.11 Christianity used a new and straightforward religious principle to stop witch-hunts—that if the universe was governed by a sole omnipotent and compassionate divinity, then supernatural forces could not work unless that divinity allowed it. One more cause of the medieval break can be explained with regard to social hierarchy, primarily the separation of the State and Church. The Church of the medieval period, protected by its massive riches and power, did not attempt to govern secular leaders or to build a united theocracy.12 It occasionally desired to encourage campaigning or to suppress dissent, but was largely contented with the current situation, wherein both the general public and secular leaders accepted its privileges and sacraments. This kind of complacency would not encourage witch-hunts; the public believed that witches exist, but they felt no threat or fear of them.13 Witchcraft allegations sometimes turned into a political tool but did not embody a continued attempt to change the attitude of the masses or raise their awareness about witchcraft. This indifference was in part due to the fact the ruling class of the late medieval period was somewhat small. It was composed of abbots, bishops, nobles, and the King.14 The portion of the ruling class who was in constant communication with the masses was small, hence there were a small number of individuals who might be confronted with the prospect of being ‘governed’ in a sense of persuading them to change their attitude.15 This started to change with the emergence of Reformation. Prior to the Reformation, the officials tasked to prosecute suspected Scottish witches were the church courts. They did not have the power to levy capital punishment and the convicted suspect was normally transferred to the secular officials for execution. Yet, the trials were conducted by the Church.16 The power of the church courts mostly weakened in 1560 due to a policy of the Reformation Parliament, resulting in a phase of judicial disorder. The Reformation was accompanied by the 1563 law, handing over witchcraft cases in Scotland to secular criminal law.17 However, in order to make sense of the process of witch-hunts it is not important to examine what drove the masses, but what drove the elite. Nevertheless, it was the elite who regulated the number of witches by means of directives. So what drove the elite to hunt witches? In order to understand such occurrence witch-hunting should not be understood out of context or separately, but as a part of a much wider course of action aimed at controlling the behaviors, beliefs, and thoughts of the whole population. Witch-hunts have to be viewed as part of this course of action, a course of action which criticized everything from religious rituals, from sexual desires to the exercise of supernatural powers to heal or harm.18 The Church’s local forces did not just prosecute witchcraft allegations but invested a large amount of effort and time trying to change sexual behavior, particularly concerning adultery and pre-marital sex.19 The Church tried to create a religious state and the secular officials were eager to accept most components of this act. Witch-hunts in Scotland were centered on Protestantism. In fact, the witchcraft law was approved in 1563, immediately after the Reformation.20 Obviously, there was nothing unique about the Protestant faith with regard to witch-hunts because numerous Catholic states hunted witches with similar enthusiasm. As argued by Macdonald, the fundamental essence of the witchcraft offence was its wickedness. This wickedness or ungodliness was quite essential that it did not necessitate a particular deal with evil.21 This idea can be verified by examining the characteristics of the targets of witch-hunting, which, apparently, were gender-specific. Witchcraft researchers have a tendency to differentiate ‘Continental’ from ‘English’ witch persecutions. Continental witch-hunting was believed to be motivated by elite feeling of terror about diabolical pacts; mass killings, widespread panic, and torture were frequent. In England, witch-hunting was often caused by village disputes; there was barely any persecutions, no hysterias, and tortures were of a particular witch during the period.22 Larner finds out several ‘English’ characteristics of witch-hunts in Scotland— particularly the significance of issues within the neighborhood, and the assigning of juries instead of judges to resolve cases; but generally she classifies Scottish witch-hunts under the ‘Continental’ type of extreme state-driven measures against suspected witches.23 Nevertheless, witchcraft researchers eventually argued that the ‘Continental’ and ‘English’ types were not different. James Sharpe, who made a comparative study of Scotland and England, has contributed greatly to the weakening of the notion of English ‘rareness’; in 1645, England provoked a witchcraft hysteria as extreme and forceful in its extent as most of Scottish cases.24 Previous academics refused to view this hysteria as ‘unusual’; however, it took place, and is unavoidably part of ‘English’ capability. A comparison between Scotland and England preserves its significance, both from a political and socioeconomic perspective. The widely known English witchcraft theory of Alan Macfarlane comprised socioeconomic transformation, as wealthy landlords or homeowners refused to help penniless vagrants from the door, and the vagrants’ curses, and then the happening of a tragedy or hardship, resulted in witchcraft charges against them.25 In Scottish incidents, Lauren Martin also discovers curses and then bad luck; however, the curses were provoked by disagreements between individuals of the same social class in a manner that does not match Macfarlane’s description.26 Sharpe observes that witch-hunts were more severe in Scottish communities that were clearly developing, and proposes that additional studies might determine a connection between these patterns. With regard to politics, Sharpe claims that Englishmen in the 17th century did not try that much to build a religious state compared to Scotland.27 Sharpe was fascinated with how profound the Scottish state was in this regard, but was completely certain that the religious state and witch-hunts were connected. Larner argues about “the conspicuous and unequivocal way in which the ruling elite controlled and manipulated the demand for and the supply of witchcraft suspects”.28 This observation is somewhat accurate; however, the process was implicit and subtle, not ‘conspicuous and unequivocal’. Larner was perhaps referring to the governmental program of 1591 which she believes is intended for witchcraft prosecutions but was invalidated in 1597.29 She described this governmental program of 1591, or, what she calls ‘general commission’, as fulfilling a major function in making witch-hunts continuous in Scotland’s neighborhoods after the intense North Berwick witchcraft hysteria of the latter part of the 16th century.30 Yet, it has lately been declared that a ‘general commission’ never existed. The so-called governmental program of 1591 was a short-term policy, concurrent with the North Berwick hysteria. During the 1950s the attitudes toward witch-hunts stayed the same, with local witchcraft prosecutions being approved by the central government.31 The Gendered Scottish Witch Lauren Martin cites the usual mentions of the evil bond in major trial documents to explain how it was envisioned. As explained by Larner, the Devil and witches were not mainly in a ‘feudal’ liaison, but instead in a relationship similar to marriage—specifically unequal marital relationship, which although legally decisive was secret and immoral.32 This further expands the connection between women’s sexuality and witchcraft. Nevertheless, Martin doubts that her Scottish proof would substantiate findings recently reported in England and other societies about the part of motherhood in the portrait of the female witch.33 She stresses that women were also engaged in other duties, not only domestic duties like childcare but also wet-nursing, healing, manufacturing, and farming. While they strengthened and protected their families in the local economy, the disagreements or disputes that develop may result in familiar forms of witchcraft allegation.34 The witches in Martin’s study were from the peasant population. In contrast, the witches in the study of Louise Yeoman were from the upper class, raising another facet of views on women: the anomalous feature of women’s birthright. Yeoman believes that heiresses were ‘problematic’ or ‘abnormal’ in a patriarchal society.35 Nevertheless, she admits that it should not be assumed that heiresses suspected of witchcraft were confrontational or aggressive; before judging these women as such, the witch-hunters should be looked at first. Those who arranged allegations of heiress witches were frustrated, grouchy, aggressive men, usually suffering from financial woes, and very willing to believe that the difficulties this caused them were inflicted by outside, evil entity.36 Witch-hunting, without a doubt, largely concerns women. The fascination with the sexual ties between the Devil and witches is somewhat new in later medieval notions of witchcraft. Numerous scholars have stressed that the ‘Malleus’ is far more anti-feminist or sexist than earlier demonologists, and an unearthed written message by Heinrich Kramer, a German churchman, to the pope reveals that Kramer had an oddly gender-based image of demonic witches.37 In this written message he brings up the insufficient steps taken against heretics during the period, which he describes as ‘male conciliarists’— churchmen who claimed that the leader of the church should be the council not the pope—and “certain other heretics, especially some women who abjure their Catholic faith in front of male demons (incubi).”38 The term ‘maleficia’ was not mentioned even once, suggesting that Kramer believes that the core of witchcraft was women’s rejection of faith, and a rejection strongly tied with sexual relationship with the Devil since the term incubi has a consistent sexual meaning.39 Female heretics are hence carnal and demonic in nature, while male heretics, or ‘conciliarists’, are doctrinal, religious, and knowledgeable, without any ties with either the sexual or demonic realm. Nevertheless, there are others, besides Kramer, who believe that sexual ties with the demon were only among women, because in Scotland no male was suspected or charged of such conduct, although men were prosecuted and killed for witchcraft; maybe the judges could not bear the thought of having male witches.40 In contrast, demonologists in France believed that both male and female witches take part in sexual pact with the demon, and were not that interested in the reason why witches were females.41 As described by Larner, Scottish witches were, similar to those in other rural neighborhoods of Europe, mostly old women belonging to the peasant population or lower class. The sources are not consistently useful in verifying a larger number of issues.42 It is not common for the age or job of the accused to be documented. The usual witch belonged to the poor population, and a widow or wife of a resident farmer, merchant, or craftsman. Those belonging to the lowest rungs of Scottish society were itinerant paid workers, entertainer, gypsies, indigents, and criminals, all largely viewed as beggars.43 Most of them seemed to have a specific permanent status in society, although often inferior and needy in nature. Scottish women who pursued or unwillingly gained the label of a witch were impoverished but they were not consistently unsociable or friendless. The women who were the traditional target of witchcraft allegation were often poor not because they are unmarried or widows without peers or self-sufficient living, but wedded to poor men. Documents about marital status are more useful than those of socioeconomic standing; roughly half of the people whose status was documented were actually married at the moment of their persecution.44 Several witches were unsociable, but unsociability per se does not seem to have been a major component in the makeup of a Scottish witch. Ugliness, as well, seemed to be insignificant at the time.45 Even though the traditional image of a hackneyed, ugly woman was definitely known in Scotland, there is not much evidence that it had concrete link to the suspected witches. Witchcraft was largely a female crime. Almost all accused witches were females. Male suspects were frequently charged of other offenses in addition to witchcraft. Accused urban males were potential source of revenue for the government. This idea reveals the fact that almost all accused males in Scotland were either brother or husband of accused women and hence heir to her riches or properties.46 Other accused men were scoundrels or introverted shrewd males like charmers. Yet, the primary target of witch-hunts was females.47 The connection between witchcraft and women is somewhat apparent; witches were females; all females were possible, capable witches. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that witch-hunts were similar to female persecution. Witches were persecuted for engaging in witchcraft.48 The wickedness witches represented was not really gender-specific. Witch-hunts were carried out because of ideological objectives against God’s adversaries, and the fact that roughly 80% of the persecuted witches were females was, although not unintentional, a shy away from female persecution per se.49 As the traditional view of women is involved, witches were viewed to be mostly females much prior to any witch-hunts. This stereotype views women as naturally more vulnerable to hatred, sensuality, and wickedness generally and poorly rational. Women also tend to utter words in instances of personal disagreements where males were more vulnerable to physical aggression.50 The culture which associated supernatural ability with spoken curses made witchcraft allegations faster. Most local allegations of witchcraft were caused by disagreements about household tasks and women’s job. Even though the causes of disagreements were not consistently documented in trial papers, the targets of supernatural violence normally were.51 Martin explains that witches were believed to target objects and animals important to the accuser’s household. The real person involved in the disagreement was not the always the person victimized by the suspected witch. Normally their children, partners, crops, or animals were harmed. Women were mostly tasked to produce ale, butter, and milk.52 It is hence not unexpected that these were believed to be especially susceptible to witchcraft. Dairy cattle appear to be the most common animals harmed by witchcraft hatred. After a disagreement with the suspected witch, milk would become blood, butter would spoil, or cattle could perish. Ale would unexplainably become unpleasant to the taste.53 The disagreements that females take part in should be viewed as spoken engagement. It was vital for economic stability and household subsistence that women negotiate over prices, at times intimidate an opponent into agreeing to a price, and possibly threaten neighbors. Disagreements about women’s job were the basis of proof exercised by prosecutors to discredit or diabolize women and their social and productive functions in early modern Scotland.54 However, without an admission, the Devil’s part may only be assumed, since the bond of a witch with the demon was theoretically clandestine. The ties of the Devil with women in witchcraft’s legal description and in local disputes suggest a deep-rooted awkwardness with women in society.55 Yet, this does not imply that witch-hunts were a suspicious disguise for female persecution. Instead, it implies that women and women’s job were areas of conflict in the diverse theoretical connections that composed witchcraft ideas and prosecutions. Witchcraft beliefs in Scotland were organized by, and consequently helped organize, how people viewed and dreaded women in power and work in their homes and in the economic and social sectors of Scotland.56 Women were believed to be the root of chaos and instability in male-dominated society. Larner enumerates a number of potential explanations for this belief. Within the mainstream witchcraft beliefs, there were several explanations for this idea. Because of women’s menstrual period and ability to conceive they were regarded possible possessors of unusual threatening powers. For instance, an involvement in a menstrual event was believed to kill bees, make steel and iron rusty, and destroy crops.57 However, menstruating women were not the only ones being dreaded. Child-bearing women were also feared. It was solely by showing absolute power over the bodies and lives of their wives that husbands could be certain that their children were theirs. They were dreaded sexually, as well.58 The belief that they were interested, not powerful, and could accept open-endedly, whether satisfyingly or not, created the belief of insatiability. Due to the belief that women via insatiable sexual desires may either harm men or detain them to mock them for their impotence, witches were suspected to bring about weaknesses and to gratify their own sexual desires at sexual acts with the Devil.59 Even though it could be claimed that all females were prospective witches, in reality a number of women were called witches by others whereas several women categorize themselves. Examining the intentions of those who accepted the label of a witch helps in understanding their obsession to or interest in witchcraft.60 This interest in witchcraft becomes understandable when the reasons witches belonged to the lower class are examined. Besides the clear fact that it was simpler to blame those who were not capable of defending themselves, witchcraft had a strong connection to the lower class. Some of them thought they were completely incapable.61 The usual mediums of expression and communication were stripped from them and they were not able to improve their situation. Witchcraft may under specific conditions be a way of enhancing a person’s situation when all else failed. It was the threat of witchcraft that gave power to those suspected witches and created an opportunity to change the attitude of those more favorably situated.62 Moreover, it was an effective method of acquiring advantages for themselves. Those who admitted to be part of a Demonic deal also disclosed the actual assurances which the demon uttered to them. The economic worth to the demon of the soul of a poor human being was not that high. Poor women in Scotland did not hope that their soul would buy them wealth and silk. Rather, they admitted that the demon guaranteed them simple freedom from too much hunger and poverty.63 Witch-hunts were the persecution of women who failed to satisfy the male belief of how females should act or behave. With regard to ideology, the notion of witch-hunts as woman-hunts is more believable. The Reformation’s doctrine required women to have complete control over their own souls. The ministers were in fact mentioning ‘men and women’ in their homilies.64 However, alongside this new obligation they spoke about women’s sacrament and moral weakness. Witchcraft as a decision was exclusive for women who were assigned with personal obligation, determination, and self-control.65 This embodied a major transformation in women’s standing in Scotland. Under new laws, witches became ‘grownup’ criminals behaving in a way for which their spouses could not be held accountable. Witch-hunts could hence be viewed as a forefront measure against the presence of women as self-sufficient adults. Those who were suspected of witchcraft were women who defied the male-centered image of the perfect woman.66 They were suspected not just by men but by other women as well because those who abided by the patriarchal stereotype of them felt endangered by any connection to those who resisted. Witchcraft was also practically the sole female crime in Scotland during this time. According to the major criminal documents, besides minor adultery, infanticide, incest, and dissent, women were not arriving at the Court of Justiciary.67 This actually indicates that witch-hunts could be associated with woman-hunts. However, although witch-hunts and woman-hunts are strongly related they cannot be fully associated with each other and considered as same occurrences. The call for ideological compliance was a broader feature of witch-hunts than one that involved women’s standing68. The point that a large number of those suspected were females was not directly related to the main goal of the need to implement the ideological and moral compliance in the newly founded religious state. Conclusions Females were suspected to be witches not because of their gender or the deal with the demon, but because they were believed to be witches by their neighbors; a person who has the power to inflict trouble and harm, and a frightening and confrontational neighbor. In the religious state which the Church was attempting to create and which elite groups quite passionately advocated, any abilities to heal or inflict pain are possessed only by God. Hence, the witches were a danger to the formation of this religious state. Such danger was regardless of any belief in demons; witches were simply a danger because they exist. Bibliography Brodie-Innes, J.W. Scottish Witchcraft Trials. New York: Kessinger Publishing, 2010. Burns, William. Witch Hunts in Europe and America: An Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003. Goodare, Julian. The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context. UK: Manchester University Press, 2002. Goodare, Julian, Lauren Martin, & Joyce Miller. Witchcraft and belief in early modern Scotland. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Kors, Alan Charles & Edward Peters. Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700: A Documentary History. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. Larner, Christina. Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland. UK: John Donald, 1981. Levack, Brian. The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Lynch, Michael. The Oxford Companion to Scottish History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Maxwell-Stuart, P.G. An abundance of witches: the great Scottish witch-hunt. UK: Tempus, 2005. McDonald, S.W. “The Devil’s Mark and the Witch-Prickers of Scotland.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 90, no. 9 (1997): 507-511. Normand, Lawrence & Gareth Roberts. Witchcraft in early modern Scotland: James VI’s demonology and the North Berwick witches. UK: University of Exeter Press, 2000. Pitcairn, Robert. Criminal Trials in Scotland: 1609-1624. Scotland: W. Trait, 1833. Rhodes, Neil, Jennifer Richards, & Joseph Marshall. King James VI and I: Selected Writings. England: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2003. Wiesner, Merry. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Willumsen, Liv. Witches of the North: Scotland and Finmark. New York: BRILL, 2013. Read More