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Throughout the medieval era, mainstream Christian doctrine had denied the belief in the existence of witches and witchcraft, condemning it as a pagan superstition. [14] Some have argued that the work of the Dominican Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century helped lay the groundwork for a shift in Christian doctrine, by which certain Christian theologians eventually began to accept the possibility ...
Francis Hutchinson (2 January 1660 – 1739) was a British minister in Bury St Edmunds when he wrote a famous book debunking witchcraft prosecutions and subsequently was made Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland.
Malcolm John Gaskill FRHistS (born 22 April 1967) is an English academic historian and writer on crime, magic, witchcraft, spiritualism, and the supernatural.Gaskill was a professor in the history department of the University of East Anglia from 2011 until 2020, when he retired from teaching to give more time to writing.
Reprint of the title page of George Sinclair's Satans Invisible World (1685), one of the many tracts published in Scotland arguing against sceptical views of witchcraft. Prosecutions began to decline as trials were more tightly controlled by the judiciary and government, torture was more sparingly used and standards of evidence were raised. [37]
During the 16th century, witchcraft prosecutions stabilized and even declined in some areas. [2] Witch-hunts increased again in the 17th century. The witch trials in Early Modern Europe included the Basque witch trials in Spain, the Fulda witch trials in Germany, the North Berwick witch trials in Scotland, and the Torsåker witch trials in Sweden.
There were many editions of his books (written in Latin), especially Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, and several adaptations in English, including Reginald Scot's "Discoverie of Witchcraft" (1584). Weyer's appeal for clemency for those accused of the crime of witchcraft was opposed later in the sixteenth century by the Swiss physician Thomas Erastus ...
The 1647 book, The Discovery of Witches, soon became an influential legal text. The book was used in the American colonies as early as May 1647, when Margaret Jones was executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts, [66] the first of 17 people executed for witchcraft in the Colonies from 1647 to 1663. [67] lithograph depicting Salem witch trials, 1892
The Witchcraft Act 1563 introduced the death penalty for any sorcery used to cause someone's death. The Witchcraft Act 1603 reformed the law to include anyone to have made a Pact with Satan. Jurist Sir John Holt by Richard van Bleeck, c. 1700. Holt greatly helped eliminate prosecutions for witchcraft in England after the Bideford witch trial.