Friday, November 14, 2008
Blog #4 Scientific Revolution and Witchcraft
Analyze two factors that account for the rise and two factors that explain the decline of witchcraft persecution and trials in Europe in the period 1580 to 1750. Remember to respond to the question in 6-8 sentences (yes it can be longer) and to respond to two of your classmates answers in 4-6 sentences. Do not just agree or disagree without defending or justifying your argument.) Think above and beyond the common answers that you may see. Be sure to challenge your classmates with controversial tactics, actions or selections. Good Luck!!!! Go Mustangs!!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
18 comments:
Some causes that led to the rise of Witchcraft persecution Europeans popular belief in magic and the perception of weakness that Europeans had of women. "Cunning folk" had been common in European villages for centuries. European villagers went to these people to help deal with tragedies such as plagues and famine. Women had been perceived as "weaker vessels" who were prone to temptation. Midwives were very popular at the time. If the intended child died at childbirth the midwive could be blamed for the death. Most of the women who were persecuted had been unmarried and between the age of 45 and 60.
From the time of the ancient Greeks to about the 1700's, witchcraft was a large matter. 1450-1700 was known as the period of the European witch craze. The "cunning folk" were people who were said to be able to help people who were disabled or who had to cope with a disaster by using some kind of magic. This belief in magical powers became popular.The Christian Clergy was said to use high magic also, by changing the bread and wine into the body and blood of CHrist and also by casting out the demons of faithful people. Since many respected the church they went along with witchcraft and it helped many cope with certain aspects of their lives. Midwives were considered to do witchcraft and if the mother and/or child died they persecuted with the death of them. When this would happen they would be burned, which led to the decline of women that practiced witchcraft. Also the scientific revolution resulted to a major decline of witchcraft. Science was becoming more educated and they were able to give a more scientific reason for the things they had done.
In response to: beccaxlynn- I agree with on why witch hunts became prevalent throughout the 15th and 17th centuries. The idea of cunning folk and the employment of midwives stimulated the rise of witchcraft. At the same time, the failures of midwives led to the decline of witchcraft. The scientific revolution abated, for the most part, the credibility of magic. Also i feel you should have spent more time discussing the importance of the scientific revolution.
Witchcraft was thought to have been practiced by women who were old and widowed. Two factors that are responsible for the rise of witchcraft are religious differences and war. Examples of religious differences are, when the Church expanded into greater areas and came across different cultures and beliefs before Christianity. This caused the Church to say that only "true magic" could be performed in the Church and not elsewhere. It led to accusations of individuals performing witchcraft. War was declared on the women who practiced witchcraft outside of the church. Two factors that led to the decline are a new scientific view of life and how it got out of control. In the new scientific thought, mind and matter was significant, witches used curses through mouth making it distinctively different from mind and matter. The hunts got so out of control that, witches said to have seen judges and regular townspeople at their sabbats.
In response to tmarthegr8...
I agree with the detail you added in you answer, though, it did not seem to address all parts of the question. However you did mention the "cunning folk", this was a great contributor to witchcraft because they were known to use magical means to help others.
In response to beccaxlynn...
I agree that the Christian clergy was a contributing factor to the rise of witchcraft, because of their use of bread and wine transforming to the body and blood of Christ. I also agree to your reasons on the decline of witchcraft trials. Science caused a new way of thinking and witchcraft seemed insignificant when compared to all of the new thought.
Well, the rise was obviously because of the superiority complex men had on women and the inferiority complex women hanged upon themselves. Women who wanted to surpass the status the common beliefs that men were held on them and wanted to receive eduucation and knowledge also pursued to learn math and sciences. This led to the spread of female scientists in the Scientific Revolution. Of course at that time any educated female was considered a witch. also the fact that most old, moley, and widowed woman(cunning folk) who had nothing to do were found casting spells which explicitly went against the rules of the church. Women like these were tried and usually irrevantly killed due to suspicions of being a witch. These trials were extremely absurd with one crazy experiment of finding who is a witch. If a woman is pushed off a cliff to die, and she does then she was indeed not a witch and therefore her trial is discontinued and she would be set free anulling the fact that the women is unfairly killed while a witch would fly away on her cleaning broom and somehow the town folk would catch her. Soon, people began to realize the absurdness of the witch hunts when witches were found among the jury and townspeople were being killed left and right for nothing. People were also seeing withes going free and not being punished and found it to be means of God to find relevant punishment for witchcraft.
In response to tmarthegr8:
Your rather short and succinct comment did illustrate a couple of the factors that contributed to the rise of witchcraft such as 'cunning folk' which I assumed as a valid factor. However, you failed to address the factors that contributed to the fall of witchcraft and trials which I found rather as a dissapointment for someone of your degree of intellect.
In response to beccaxlynn:
I believe your statement was indeed satisfactory due to your addressments to most of the contributors. However you mentioned the scientific revolution that a majority of women were left out of? How does this justify the accusations of witchcraft that were burdened on them in the past when any properly educated woman was considered a witch?
The popularity of witchcraft persecutions rose due to the strong beliefs of many Europeans. Common things such as being a woman being a widow , unmarried, or even in the case of a child dying at birth got the woman accused of witchcraft and because this was strange and many disagreed with the things happening near “witches” they were persecuted. Another cause of the witchcraft persecutions was the fact that many witches were skilled with medicine and they charged far less then the physicians therefore getting more business and many did not like this, so they wanted the persecution of the witches. The decline of witchcraft persecutions may be due to the fact that more and more people were coming to be known as witches, especially unmarried woman who were older in years. The scientific revolution also decreased the popularity of witchcraft persecution because people started to understand things in a logical way which resulted in people understanding the natural phenomena that occur.
IN RESPONSE TO...
beccaxlynn
you answered the question different than i did. i talked about how witchcraft persecution rose and declined and you talked about how the use of witchcraft rose and declined. Anyways you made some good points to the rise and how the church played a part in it. i also agree with you statment that the scientific revolution played a part in the decline of witchcraft.
AlkilahRA
You said war was a part of the rise of the use of witchcraft when it was declared on the witches... How so? Whouldnt that decline the use of witchcraft because the witches were being killed. However i completely agree with both of your arguments on the decline of the use of witchcraft. You also answered the question similar to baccaxlynn... am i doing this wrong? :(
Two reasons for the rise of Witchcraft persecution was the belief the Europeans had in the witches. The witches were said to have certain remedies or "spells" that they would use to help cure the villagers of illnesses. Of course the witched did not charge for their medical services and in doing this attracted more of the peasants, which created popularity.
Another reason for the rise of witchcraft was the majority of women who were thought to be witches. The standard age of witches was said to be between 45 and 60 and were said to be widowers. A lot of the time back in this century there were many of these types of women because their husbands would get sick and eventually die because there was no medicine yet to help them.
Two reasons for the decline of witchcraft was that educated people did not believe in witches and because during this time there were many people who questioning everything and would sent out to find an anwser on why something would do what it does. With all the laws that were being formulated on how things worked, there became a for sure reason that witches could not exist.
in response to:
tmarthegr8
I agree with you saying about the people believing in the witches' remedies however you were a little vague on why the witchcraft declined and I was very disappointed in you because someone with your kind of intellect should elaborate more on these types of topics
AkilahRA
I liked your stance to the topic however I do have a couple questions like what exactly would be considered as "true magic"? and wouldn't war be a reason for the decline in witchcraft.
In response to Cherries: I found your comments on witchcraft & the scientific revolution to be very lop-sided with an excess of emphasis on witchcraft. Your blog appears to be very lengthy but after reading it I began to see why. It is loaded with repitition! You should re-due your entire entry and read the prompt thoroughly before you answer. Also, you should not be disappointed in my blog entry because although it is short, it is very straight forward.
may people engaged in magical practices in europe during the 1450-1700. The church began to get challenged by groups/movements, creating less confidence in the church. Because of the printing press and a larger portion of the population becoming increasing literate, the publications increased the fear and skepticism for witchcraft. Superstitions became widespread. MAny people were begining to think that magic could be used to commit evil, as well. This speculation led to many witch trials and executions.
THe trials and executions declined when opposition to the torture used agained the accused increased. the accusations were also going to the extreme. Soon, powerful figures (or the wives) were being accused of witchcraft.
Two major facors tht led to the rise of witchcraft were disruptions created by religious division and warfare. In village societies, "cunning folk" were feared and respected and helped people cope with things by magical means. They were something to keep things moving forward. Those who were in need of security often made claims o such authority. But then when the church started expanding, Christianity would clash with these "cunning folk" and thus made people divided. The folk's power were equivalen to those of the priests so of course the church needed a way to rid of them. The church then declared that their magic of turning bread into wine was the only "true magic". Any other magic was either from God or the devil. To identify, try, and execute witches was a demonstration of absolute and political authority over a people.
Now, that is what the book explains, but aving had witches as the topic of my seminar, research led me to believe tere is a third cause to the rise of witchcraft. Men feared powerful women, and at this time women were breaking ot from under male control. They were becoming educated and taking part in more things. It was scaring the men. They knew that there were exceptional women (e.g. Maria Winkelmann)and they were afraid that that they would lose their influence over society. So, to calm their fears, they used this as an excuse, made women a scapegoat, and had them executed. (e.g. Most herbalists women didn't charge to treat people and their treatments usually worked so doctors were losing business. the doctors then started accusing those women herbalists of witchcraft.) Witch-hunts targeted specific women.
Seveal factors helped end witch-hunts. For example, with the emergence of a more scientific point of view made it harder to believe that thoughts or words could alter physical hings. With advancement in medicine, people gained a better sense of security. Finally, thw women being accused got smarter and started accusing the judges themselves of worshiping satan. The trials became dysfunctional.
TMARTHEGR8:
I agree that women were continuously accused of children's death at birth or that of the mothers. This is important because it reveals that women were accused of being involved with negative things, in this case, death. Soon enough they were being accused of causing harm to others, or other absurd accusations. I think you also forgot to mention the decline of witchcraft. I also think you should have included the role of the church in these cases.
Akilah:
The two factors you presented are great examples. But i think u should have explained and supported why u thought those were the main factors that led to the rise/decline of witchcraft. (there are no bad/wrong answers, just poorly supported ones!) But i do agree that the church played a significant role in the rise of witchcraft. I personally think that the church supported these hunts because it attracted people back into church, thus restoring power to the church. i also agree that the new mentality created by the scientific revolution also played a significant role in that it brought about the idea that magic could also be used for evil, thus inciting the hunts to end evil magic.
in response to amelia para:
"true magic", according to the church, was the magic God gave the priests to turn bread and wine into th body and blood of christ. it is on page 474 under influence of the clergy. and did you mean the herbalists women in the first part of your response? because you said spells and remedies then wen on to charging people when once accused a witch, people did not go to those women for remedies. the herbalists were the ones who didn't charge for their treatments. i am comfused with your what started out witchcraft but i agree with what you said ended it. People did start to question things.
response to tmartegr8:
i did not catch what you thought was the cause for decline in witchcraft, but i agree that the popular beief in magic which was also caused by the church claiming they could rid of demons and turn bread and wine into the body and blood of christ.
In response to tmarthegr8:
Even though my blog did have certain tendencies of repeating itself, it also did actually mention the decline which indeed addresses the whole question. I find your comeback to be a bit hypocritical considering you only mentioned half the question which in grading terms would be an F. So before you use your pompous and supercilious grammer to criticize my entry, try to consider a better writing tactic next time you execute your essays, otherwise your comebacks would sound rather foolish.(laughing)
Two factors that led to the rise of which craft are reasoning from the church and the rise of power in women. The church’s people started accusing many women of witch craft. There were three types of witches the widows who usually lived alone, the midwives who could have been accused of killing their children and the herbalists who were known to make medicines that were meant to hurt the town people. Doctors did not approve of the herbalists because they would take there business so the doctors tried to put the women on trial. Also many men would accuse women of being witches if they felt over powered by the women. Like when women started getting educations and being able to teach others men didn’t like that. Many times women went on long trials where juries would investigate the person and decide if she was guilty of witch craft or not.
ASHLEY
I really liked how you used many details in your blog. You talked about the religious and the social reasons of why women were getting accused of which craft. Also you used the information from your seminar project which brought in many details. I also liked how you mentioned different women and what they did.
CHERRIES
I liked how you stated that men didn’t like the idea of women becoming more educated. Also you put in many examples of how a witch could be accused. You explained how a trial would go and why they would happen. You also used religious and social views on which craft.
one personal opinion of why witchcraft was getting so big was because when were getting smarter and the men began to be threated by the actions. so they started to say that they had specail talents such as magic. a factual reason was that the church was threated because they said that only true magic was performed in the church and when they heard that women were saying they could also perform magic they church didn't agree. so this led to some wars. the decline was that they began to have common sense. because the people have then began to realize their wrong-doing were not correct in justice. then also came to the scientic revolutions would prove that it would be physically impossible to cast "curses". the scientist have done experiments showing that curses couldn't be done, not even in the church.
There were two main causes which led to the rise of witchcraft. First, cunning folk may have helped people, but christianity looked upon them as a threat. Also, these witch hunts started to steadily increase around the time that women started to break out from under male control, 80% of witch hunts were against women. so, many witch hunts were driven out of pure male hatred towards women and out of sexual fear of strong women. There were two main causes which led to the downfall of witchcraft as well. the first came from the emergence of a more scientific point of view. People began to realize that curses and spells were just merely words being said by other people. The second reason for the downfall, is because of midwives. Even though they were just trying to help,some deaths at birth are unstoppable and not their fault, but they would be blame for witchcraft. There were less midwives which lowered the cases of witchcraft.
in response to amelia parra
I think you needed to further explain your second reason for why there was a rise in witchcraft. You did not describe your point besides talking about their age.
in response to kimarmendariz
i agree with your point about the scientific revolution leading to the downfall of witchcraft.
Post a Comment