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You are here: UK History > Women's History > Women and witchcraft
Throughout history, women have found themselves being executed for the crime of witchcraft. It is unsure how or where the initial fear of witches came from, but it was rife at various points in British history.
During the 16th century, many people believed in witchcraft and witch hunting became an obsession for some communities.
Witchcraft didn’t become a capital offence until 1563, though it was deemed to be heretical by the pope. It is believed that between 1484, when the church denounced activities it considered witchcraft and 1750, some 200,000 people were tortured, burned or hanged across Europe.
When it came to convicting those charged with witchcraft, it would appear that poor, elderly women were the most commonly accused, something that reached a...Read More
Throughout history, women have found themselves being executed for the crime of witchcraft. It is unsure how or where the initial fear of witches came from, but it was rife at various points in British history.
During the 16th century, many people believed in witchcraft and witch hunting became an obsession for some communities.
Witchcraft didn’t become a capital offence until 1563, though it was deemed to be heretical by the pope. It is believed that between 1484, when the church denounced activities it considered witchcraft and 1750, some 200,000 people were tortured, burned or hanged across Europe.
When it came to convicting those charged with witchcraft, it would appear that poor, elderly women were the most commonly accused, something that reached a peak in the late 16th century. Women who were unfortunate enough to have certain appearances were believed to have the “Evil Eye”, which was enough to accuse them of being a witch, those with cats were also punished as witches are said to have a familiar.
Many women were condemned on this evidence and hanged after being tortured. Thumb screws and heated leg irons were used to gain confessions.
East Anglia was one area of England that was known for charging people, usually poor and elderly women, of being witches. One man, Matthew Hopkins, became known as the Witchfinder General, he had 68 people killed in Bury St Edmunds and had 19 hung in Chelmsford in one day. Towns would pay him to clear their boundaries of witches.
Parliament passed the witchcraft Act in 1542 which legally defined witchcraft as a crime and anyone convicted was punishable by death. It was repealed a few years later but then restored in 1562. James I/VI introduced an updated version of the law in 1604. He was interested in demonology and witchcraft, even publishing a book about the subject. These Acts transferred the trail of witches from the church jurisdiction to the courts.
Records show that 513 people were put on trial for witchcraft between 1560 and 1700 in the South East of England, but only 112 of those were executed in that time. The final known executions of people charged with witchcraft was in Devon in 1685 and the last trials were held in Leicester in 1717.
It is believed that over 500 people in England alone were executed on the charge of witchcraft.
In 1736, Parliament passed a new act repealing the laws against witchcraft but imposing fines or prison sentences for anyone accused of using magical powers. The Act was repealed in 1951 by the Fraudulent Mediums Act which was then repealed in 2008. Another version of the Act, the Vagrancy Act was passed in 1824, which made fortune telling, astrology and spiritualism became punishable offences.
The UK’s oldest tourist attraction is in Knaresborough, Yorkshire and is the cave of Mother Shipton, a woman who is still remembered in the town. Though some consider her to be a witch, others remember her of more of a predictor of the future, she apparently predicted the arrival of cars, trains, planes and post.
The Pendle Witches were three generations of one family who were marched through the streets of Lancaster before being hung. Twelve women who lived in the area were charged with the murders of ten people by the use of witchcraft. They were tried in 1612, with ten being executed by hanging.
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