[HIST55] Week 8 War & Witchcraft

Witches’ Demonic Familiars at Chelmsford

1566; early English witch trial describing familiars (animal-shaped demons aiding witches); first printed English witchcraft case.

Reginald Scot: The Discoverie of Witchcraft

1584; skeptical English work arguing witchcraft was imaginary; criticized torture and superstition; influenced later rationalist thought.

The Confession of Walpurga Hausmannin

1587 (Germany); midwife accused of witchcraft; confessed under torture to infanticide and pact with the devil; reflects fear of female healers.

The Confession of Niclas Fiedler at Trier

1591 (Germany); man accused of witchcraft; confessed to attending sabbaths; shows intensity of German witch-hunts.

The Trial of Francatte Camont in Lorraine

1598 (France); peasant woman accused of maleficium (harmful magic); confession obtained by torture; shows local superstition and judicial pressure.

The Confessions of Witches in Guernsey

1617 (Channel Islands); women confessed under duress to dealings with the devil; reflects spread of witchcraft panic to island regions.

Alonso de Salazar Frías: The Unreliability of Confessions

1612 (Spain); inquisitor investigating Basque witch trials; concluded that confessions were coerced and unreliable; helped end Spanish witch persecutions.

The Trial and Confession of Elizabeth Sawyer

1621 (England); accused of bewitching neighbors and having a familiar named Tom (a black dog); executed in London.

The Confessions of Johannes Junius at Bamberg

1628 (Germany); mayor accused and executed; his prison letter condemned torture and false confessions.

The Witch-Hunt at Eichstätt

1637 (Germany); large-scale trial reflecting persistence of witch fears despite rising skepticism.

Hans Heberle: Zeytregister

1618

King Louis XIV: Decriminalization of French Witchcraft

1682; royal decree redefining witchcraft as superstition or fraud, effectively ending witch trials in France.

Witchcraft Trials in England, Scotland, and New England

16th

The Salem Witchcraft Trials

1692 (Massachusetts); mass hysteria leading to 200+ accusations and 19 executions; ended when court rejected spectral evidence.

Hans Heberle

(1597

The Great Comet

1618; seen by Heberle as a divine warning for sin and omen of war.

Ferdinand II

Holy Roman Emperor (1619

Inflation Crisis

1622; severe coinage devaluation in the Holy Roman Empire; caused famine and economic collapse.

Reichsthaler

Stable silver coin during inflation; became only reliable trade currency.

Portents of 1623

Reports of “bloody grain” and “fiery balls” seen as divine punishments.

Refugees and Exile

1635; Heberle and others fled armies, suffering hunger and displacement.

Edict of Restitution

1629; Ferdinand II’s order to return confiscated church property to Catholics; worsened religious division.

Swedish Invasion

1630; Gustavus Adolphus landed in Germany, shifting war in favor of Protestants.

Sack of Magdeburg

1631; Imperial forces massacred 20,000+ Protestants; symbol of wartime atrocity.

Death of Tilly

1632; Imperial general killed by Swedish forces at Battle of Rain.

Siege of Castle Albeck

1635; defenders resorted to drinking urine; emblem of war’s brutality.

The Terrible Year

1635; famine, plague, and war devastated Germany; mass death recorded in Ulm.

Conrad Dietrich

Ulm theologian who wrote of 15,000 plague deaths in 1635.

Peace of Prague

1635; treaty between Emperor Ferdinand II and Saxony; brief reconciliation before renewed conflict.

Cannibalism at Breisach

1638; famine during siege led to cannibalism; extreme example of war’s horror.

Wolves in Ulm Region

Post-1639; population rose amid depopulation; viewed as divine punishment.

Religious Interpretation

Heberle viewed all suffering as punishment for sin; reflected common peasant worldview.

Gerd Zillhardt

Historian who edited Zeytregister (1975).

Thomas A. Brady Jr.

Historian who translated Zeytregister into English.

Marguerite de Valois (Queen Margot)

(1553

Catherine de’ Medici

Queen Mother of France; political manipulator behind Valois kings; linked to planning the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572).

Henry of Navarre (Henry IV)

Protestant prince; married Marguerite in 1572; survived massacre; later issued Edict of Nantes (1598).

Wedding of Marguerite and Henry of Navarre

1572; meant to unite Catholics and Protestants; used to lure Huguenot leaders to Paris.

St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

August 24, 1572; mass killing of Huguenots ordered by Catherine de’ Medici and Catholic nobles; 10,000

Admiral Gaspard de Coligny

Huguenot leader; wounded in assassination attempt; murdered at start of massacre.

Duke of Guise

Catholic noble; led killing of Coligny and Parisian Huguenots.

Jacques de Thou

Historian and witness; condemned massacre in Historia sui temporis (1604

François de Montmorency

Recovered and buried Coligny’s body respectfully after massacre.

Besme the German

Servant of the Duke of Guise; personally killed Coligny.

Castle of Usson

Marguerite de Valois’s exile residence; where she wrote her Memoirs (1598

Le Divorce Satyrique

17th-century libel against Queen Marguerite; accused her of infidelity and political manipulation.

Pierre de Bourdeille, Sieur de Brantôme

Courtier and chronicler; defended Marguerite’s reputation.

Ronsard

French poet; praised Marguerite’s intellect and beauty; symbol of Renaissance court culture.

Alexandre Dumas: Marguerite de Valois

1845 novel dramatizing Marguerite’s life and political intrigue around the massacre.

Giacomo Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots

1836 opera retelling the massacre through romanticized drama.

The Edict of Nantes

1598; Henry IV’s decree granting limited religious freedom to Huguenots; ended French Wars of Religion.

Religious Wars in France

1562

The Devil’s Pact

Common theme in witch confessions; accused witches allegedly made agreements with Satan in exchange for power or protection.

Malleus Maleficarum

1486 treatise by Heinrich Kramer; major influence on European witch-hunting methods; justified torture and execution.

Torture and Confession

Standard procedure in witch trials; physical pain used to extract confessions, producing unreliable testimony.

Maleficium

Latin for “evil-doing”; legal term for harmful magic used in witchcraft accusations.

Familiars

Demonic spirits in animal form believed to assist witches; cats, toads, dogs, and birds were common.

Sabbath of the Witches

Imagined nocturnal meeting with the devil; frequent claim in confessions under torture.

Spectral Evidence

Testimony claiming to see spirits or apparitions of the accused; used heavily in Salem trials before being banned.

Matthew Hopkins

English “Witchfinder General” (1640s); responsible for hundreds of executions in East Anglia.

Poppet or Witch’s Doll

Object used in sympathetic magic; sticking pins in dolls to harm victims; cited as evidence in many trials.

Witch’s Mark

Physical blemish said to be a sign of a pact with the devil; searched for during interrogations.

Johannes Junius’s Letter

Written secretly from prison; described torture methods and maintained his innocence; key document exposing witch-trial abuses.

The Basque Witch Trials

1609

The Comet of 1618

Recorded by Hans Heberle; seen across Europe as a divine omen of war and punishment.

The Sack of Magdeburg

1631; Imperial troops slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians; described by witnesses as divine vengeance and moral corruption.

The Price of Bread in Ulm

Noted in Zeytregister; inflation during the Thirty Years’ War made food unaffordable for peasants.

The Plague of 1635

Recorded by Heberle; combined with famine to devastate Ulm and Swabia; viewed as divine wrath.

The Black Dog “Tom”

Elizabeth Sawyer’s familiar in 1621; said to suck her blood and perform harmful deeds; example of demon folklore in England.

Huguenots

French Protestants influenced by Calvinism; persecuted throughout France; central victims of the 1572 massacre.

Henry of Navarre’s Conversion

1593; converted from Protestantism to Catholicism (“Paris is worth a Mass”) to gain the French throne.

Divine Punishment Theme

Common across texts (Zeytregister, witch trials, French wars); disasters interpreted as signs of God’s anger toward human sin.