Why did some regions have witch panics?
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Witch panics grew where confessional competition made accusations politically useful, historians argue.
Summary
The strongest general account is multicausal. A new demonological conception of witchcraft connected harmful magic to heresy and the Devil; legal and religious authorities then had greater grounds to prosecute. Printing helped diffuse these ideas, while regional institutions and social conditions determined whether they became large-scale panics. The evidence therefore supports interacting causes rather than a universal trigger.
- A fifteenth-century theory of diabolical witchcraft reframed harmful magic as heresy, making prosecution more urgent and legitimate to authorities.
- Printing and the circulation of demonological handbooks helped spread both the new ideas and the practice of witch-hunting across regions.
- Confessional conflict and religious reform created incentives for Catholic and Protestant authorities to demonstrate godliness and suppress perceived disorder.
Deeper Insight
Witch trials rose where Catholic and Protestant churches fought for followers. A trial was a way to look godlier than the rival.
Bad harvests and hard winters are the usual suspects. A large study says weather and income explain less than religious rivalry: where churches competed for souls, more witches went on trial. In Scotland, trials rose in good times, when export prices were up and elites had money for prosecutions. Either way, the accused were often vulnerable women nearby. Power needed a show.
- What it could changeSeeing witch hunts as competition for followers puts the blame on institutions, not on a frightened crowd.
- How it touches todayRivals still prove their purity by finding someone to punish.
- Our futureThe next panic may start where institutions are fighting for loyalty, not where people are most afraid.
- A large comparative study argues that witch trials reflected non-price competition between Catholic and Protestant churches, with more intense confessional competition producing more trials.
- That study reports that weather, income, and state capacity performed worse than religious-market competition as explanations in its data.
- A Scottish study finds that favorable temperatures and positive price shocks in export-oriented goods predicted more trials, consistent with greater elite resources for prosecutions.
Sources · 10
Featured · Analysis · peterleeson.com
Witch Trials
WITCH TRIALS* Peter T. Leeson and Jacob W. Russ We argue that the great age of European witch trials reflected non-price competition between the Catholic and Protestant churches for religious market share in confessionally contested parts of Christendom. Analyses of new data covering more than 43,00
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Theories of Origins about Witch Hunts
Theories of Origins about Witch Hunts | | This page has been replaced by http://www.brianpavlac.org/witchhunts/wtheories.html. Ten General Historical Theories about the Origins and Causes of the Witch Hunts, by Brian A. Pavlac, Ph.D., Professor of History | Buy the Book! | Buy the Book! | | --- | --
Read sourceAnalysis · brocku.ca
ELITES, WEATHER SHOCKS, AND WITCHCRAFT TRIALS IN SCOTLAND
ELITES, WEATHER SHOCKS, AND WITCHCRAFT TRIALS IN SCOTLAND CORNELIUS CHRISTIAN† †Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1 E-mail address: [email protected]. Date: September 2017. I am grateful to Toke Aidt, Robin Briggs, James Fenske, Julian Goodare, Kevin O’Rourke, Christopher R
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