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Frontispiece from the Matthew Hopkins's The Discovery of Witches (1647), showing witches identifying their familiar spirits Ordeal of water A plaque commemorating the executions of the Bideford witch trial on the wall of Rougemont Castle in Exeter. In England, witch trials were conducted from the 15th century until the 18th century. They are ...
Religious tensions in England during the 16th and 17th centuries resulted in the introduction of serious penalties for witchcraft. Henry VIII's Witchcraft Act 1541 [1] (33 Hen. 8. c. 8) was the first to define witchcraft as a felony, a crime punishable by death and the forfeiture of goods and chattels. [2] It was forbidden to:
Elizabeth Lowys (died 30 March 1565), was an English woman executed for witchcraft. She is known as the first woman to be executed for witchcraft in England after the passing of the Witchcraft Act 1563. [1] She came from Great Waltham in Essex [1] and she was married to the farmer John Lowys of Chelmsford, and was active as a cunning woman. She ...
The Witches by Hans Baldung (woodcut), 1508. The most common meaning of "witchcraft" worldwide is the use of harmful magic. [16] Belief in malevolent magic and the concept of witchcraft has lasted throughout recorded history and has been found in cultures worldwide, regardless of development.
Witch trials and witch related accusations were at a high during the early modern period in Britain, a time that spanned from the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 18th century. Prior to the 16th century, Witchcraft-- i.e. any magical or supernatural practices made by mankind -- was often seen as a healing art, performed by people ...
In Wales, witchcraft trials heightened in the 16th and 17th centuries, after the fear of it was imported from England. [86] There was a growing alarm of women's magic as a weapon aimed against the state and church.
The Witches of Warboys were Alice Samuel and her family, who were accused of and executed for witchcraft between 1589 and 1593 in the village of Warboys, in the Fens of England. [1] It was one of many witch trials in the early modern period , but scholar Barbara Rosen claims it "attracted probably more notice than any other in the sixteenth ...
By the 3rd century AD, the Lex Cornelia had begun to be used more broadly against other kinds of magic deemed harmful. [17] The magicians were to be burnt at the stake. [16] Persecution of witches continued in the Roman Empire until the late 4th century AD and abated only after the introduction of Christianity as the Roman state religion in the ...