Knight: Why makes you think she is a witch?
Peasant: Well she turned me into a newt.
Knight: A newt?
Peasant: I got better. Burn her anyway ...
Knight: There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
Man in crowd: Are there? What are they? Tell us.
Knight: Tell me, what do you do with witches?
Crowd: Burn them.
Knight: And what do you burn apart from witches?
Peasant: More witches. Monty Python and the Holy Grail 1974 starring Graham Chapman & John Cleese & Eric Idle & Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones & Michael Palin & Neil Innes & Connie Booth & Carol Cleveland & John Young & Rita Davies, directors Gilliam & Jones
Cunning women who in later centuries would be called witches and persecuted actually conducted rituals, healed the sick and delivered babies. They were wise and powerful and they dealt with the mysteries of life and death with herbal magic. Richard Rudgley, Pagans: Magic Moments, Channel 4 2004
As for heretics as they be, the clergy doth denounce them. And as they be well worthy, the temporality doth burn them. And after the fire of Smithfield, hell doth receive them, where the wretches burn forever. Sir Thomas More, The Search for the Inner Man p4
A lovely lady, garmented in light
From her own beauty. Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Witch of Atlas
For she was beautiful – her beauty made
The bright world dim, and everything beside
Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade. ibid.
During the year of 1692 in the North American colony of Massachusetts twenty men and women were executed. Their accusers were children. Their crime was witchcraft. The Salem Witch Trials stand as one of the darkest periods in early American history. What caused an entire village to go mad? Unsolved History: Salem Witch Trials, Discovery 2003
By the end of 1692 one hundred and fifty people had been accused. ibid.
Cases of convulsions and accused witches spread all over Essex Country. ibid.
Whatever judicial system was in place failed ... The Salem Trials were one of the most shocking miscarriages of justice in all of American history. No law, no evidence, no justice. ibid.
What could have sent the girls into such violent fits? ibid.
Ergot was first suggested as a culprit thirty years ago. ibid.
The guilty met a brutal and final end. ibid.
In 1692 witchcraft fever burns through puritan New England. It tears the small frontier village of Salem apart. As residents turn on friends and neighbours fearing the devil is among them. Nineteen are sentenced to death. Was it a case of mass hysteria, devil worship, or the act of just one man? Salem Witch Trial Conspiracy, National Geographic 2011
Salem Village: at its heart was the Parsonage – the home of the Reverend Samuel Parris and his family. ibid.
Forty-nine-year-old Sarah Osborne is arrested on the same day as Sarah Good. Both women conform to the classic profile of those accused of being witches: Sarah Good is poor and unpopular; Osborne is scandalously remarried to her live-in servant. Most significantly neither woman has been attending church. ibid.
Parris’s sermons now warn that the church is under attack ... Parris is warning of witches at work in Salem. Paving the way for the chaos to come. ibid.
With an early winter approaching the minister has no fuel, no income, and is in danger of losing his home. ibid.
Two girls under his roof start behaving oddly, setting the stage for the single largest witch-hunt in the English-speaking world. ibid.
Tituba fits the classic witch profile ... She is the slave of Sam Parris. ibid.
Tituba’s description of witchcraft reflects the description in English law. It’s strikingly at odds with her background as a Caribbean slave. ibid.
They discover that the majority of those accusing witches are full members of the church loyal to Samuel Parris. Insiders. But when they plot those accused of witchcraft they revealed that the majority are not church members. Outsiders. ibid.
Hysteria took hold as accusations started to fly. Panic spread through Essex County. In all 162 people were arrested on charged of witchcraft. 5 died in jail including Sarah Osborne. 19 died at the gallows ... Tituba never hanged; her confession saved her life. Throughout the trials not one person who confessed to witchcraft was executed. Parris held on to his job for 4 more years. ibid.
Salem, Massachusetts: rumours of violent acts of witchcraft against children begin to circulate. And accusations turn ugly. Some prominent citizens dare the unspeakable: they express doubt. They question the validity of the charges and of the witch-hunt itself. They too stand accused. Any who express doubt or defend their honour are suspected. Witch Hunter’s Bible, National Geographic 2011
What could have happened in this house to kick off the behaviour of these little girls? Were they afflicted with some kind of ailment? Were they sick? Was this a psychological state that they were in? Did they really believe themselves to be afflicted by witch-craft? Catherine, descendant of Salem resident cited ibid.
I’m investigating why our ancestors once lived in terror of witches. Tony Robinson's Superstitions II: Witches, Chanel 4 2011
Witches were believed to combine forces at diabolic meetings ... known as Witches’ Sabbaths. ibid.
And for this reason they cavort with demons. Malleus Maleficarum p45a
Witchcraft and nail clippings: the weird world of Cherie Blaire. Cahal Mimo, news online article 8th October 2005
A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft. Reverend William Perkins
An infamous ancient manual obsessed with a deadly mission. To prosecute, torture and kill witches. For two centuries the book helps ignite a reign of terror. Behind it tales of madness, forgery and scandal. Witch Hunter’s Bible, National Geographic 2010
For centuries [Heinrich] Kramer’s masterwork appeared to have the blessings of the Church. But looks can be deceiving. ibid.
For the investigation team the misleading Bull reveals the striking possibility that the Malleus Maleficarum’s success had nothing to do with certified papal approval, but everything to do with the master manipulator: Heinrich Kramer. A man obsessed with silencing his critics. And changing for ever the way the world saw witches: an evil that must be stopped. ibid.
For Kramer, Ravensburg is a great success. Two years later in his masterwork he depicts the trial as only he can. ibid.
Part 1: A philosophical argument proving the existence of witches.
Part 2: A guide for clergy how to recognise witchcraft in your own community.
Part 3: The most infamous of all: a legal manual, a practical handbook, for accusation, prosecution and the witch death penalty. ibid.
In time it helped send witches to their deaths by the tens of thousands. ibid.
Salem, Massachusetts: rumours of violent acts of witchcraft against children begin to circulate. And accusations turn ugly. Some prominent citizens dare the unspeakable: they express doubt. They question the validity of the charges and of the witchhunt itself. They too stand accused. Any who express doubt or defend their honour are suspected. ibid.
The Malleus helped turn misogyny, paranoia and fear into a monstrous institution. In the aftermath of Salem and trials like it in Europe the witch craze is over. By the end of the eighteenth century some estimate the final tally of witch dead at forty and sixty thousand victims. ibid.
The year is 1645. The English Civil War is gripping the land. Cromwell’s heartland, East Anglia, is swept with religious fervour. Secret History: Witchfinder General, Channel 4 2002
The strange story of Britain’s most murderous witch-hunt. ibid.
Startling allegations made by one John Rivet, a local tailor. ibid.
Hopkins and Stern are spun a complex web of accusations about the women. ibid.
Satan is among us in search of entertainment. John Stern
Four hundred years ago one man launched a crusade against the forces of darkness. That man was King James, the first ruler of both Scotland and England. He believed that Satan and a conspiracy of witches were trying to kill him. Revealed: The King’s War on Witches, Channel 5 2012
He had powerful enemies and he had been abandoned as a baby. ibid.
Witches were believed to be allies of Satan and his demons. ibid.
James’s book Demonology had recently been republished. ibid.