In historian Amanda Scott’s HIST 492 class, students learn that witches weren’t “warty old women stirring cauldrons.” Belief in witches varied widely across continental Europe, to the British Isles and to Salem, Mass., Scott says; a mindset of fear connected all of them. Even the McCarthy-era Red Scares and the Satanic panics of the 1980s were manifestations of real emotions. “I get students to think about the fears of people in 16th and 17th century Europe— warfare, displacement, crop failures—and understand witchcraft as an expression of those fears,” she says. “The juxtaposing of modern cases helps understand a climate of fear.”
That said, Scott, associate professor of history and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, doesn’t skim over the fact that throughout history, more women than men were accused as witches. In 16th and 17th century Europe, many of these women were unmarried or childless widows—perceived, she says, as “vengeful, angry to be past their prime, and wanting to harm people with children. In a broad sense, then, witchcraft was an attack on fertility.”
HIST 492 begins in the ancient world with the study of Biblical references to witchcraft, then moves onto superstition and magic in the Greek, Roman, and medieval periods. Students learn how the 16th and 17th century fears of heretics, religious minorities—Jews and Muslims—and other persecuted people factored into perceived witchcraft. They learn about male witches and child witches. They read transcripts of witch trials, accusations, witness testimonies, and confessions by accused witches. “They would confess to wild things,” Scott says, “like flying to witches sabbaths, dancing with the devil, having animals do their bidding.”
Her students study 16th and 17th century European law codes and read treatises on the procedures for investigating witchcraft written by jurists of that time period. Much of European law was based on Roman law, Scott says, and theoretically, guilty verdicts required either two eyewitnesses or a confession. Things changed gradually as it became more apparent over time that in the absence of witnesses, getting someone to confess to being a witch meant that they would do so under duress and torture. By the late 17th century, witch hunts had tapered off and the last trials were held in the early 18th century—even though in many parts of Europe, it wasn’t until the 20th century that legislation pertaining to witchcraft was repealed.
For their final research papers, HIST 492 students are free to explore any area related to witchcraft that interests them. “Many students were interested in the judicial use of torture,” Scott says. “I have seen papers on male witches and some very good ones on climate change and witchcraft.”
