Witch Hunting Was Women

Throughout history periods of extreme economic, social and religious upheaval pave the way for atrocities to be committed. One only has to look back as far as the 1990s to observe the war crimes committed by the Serbian army against the Bosnians during the Bosnian War. These general characteristics were prevalent in the witch hunts of early modern Europe where, for almost three centuries the hunts resulted in the execution of tens of thousands of victims, about three quarters of whom were women. It is hard to acknowledge that fact and still dispute that the hunts were not inherently bias towards women. There is however evidence that suggests that the gender imbalance in these figures was not down to the ingrained patriarchal systems of early modern Europe, but was instead due to biological factors and bias of historical records. In this essay I shall discuss both sides of the argument as well as focusing on how these events were allowed to take place in a supposedly peaceful Christian society. I will then come to a conclusion as to whether I feel that witch hunting was inherently 'women hunting' or that it was just stereotypes that meant that women were more likely to get accused than men.

During the 14th century the attitude towards magic and witchcraft shifted dramatically. This was a period of fear and panic as rumours began to surface that affected every social strata of late middle age society. Many feared that dark powers threatened to destroy the Christian kingdoms of Europe. These rumours were exacerbated by the aftermath of the bubonic plague that had devastated much of the known world for two years in the mid 14th century. Instead of looking outwards to foreign aggressors, kings and kingdoms were fearful of the mistrustful outcasts in their own societies, namely Jews, Muslims and practitioners of witchcraft and magic. The introduction of the papal sanctioned 'Malleus Maleficarum' in 1486 allowed the ideas of witch persecution to be spread throughout Europe, due to the creation and utilisation of printing presses. Although the book was eventually banned in 1490, it was still used in many secular courts through the rest of the period. The arguments expressed in the 'Malleus Maleficarum' can be seen to directly support the view that the witch hunts and the ideas behind them were anti-woman. As Hans Peter Broedel states 'That "a greater multitude of witches is found among the weaker sex of women than among men" was so obviously a fact to the authors of the Malleus that, despite scholastic custom, it was completely unnecessary to deduce arguments to the contrary' . This shows that women were inherently linked to witch craft without any viable justification from the authorities.

One can also see that as witch hunting began to catch on, women were being increasingly targeted by the authorities. Steven Katz details the rise of the witchcraft 'phenomenon' in which he says 'after 1500 its main targets, its main victims, were female witches. Indeed, one strongly suspects that the development of witch-hunting into a mass hysteria only became possible when directed primarily at women." . This kind of focus on a 'second gender' that, according to the only recently banned Malleus Maleficarum were "by nature instruments of Satan -- they are by nature carnal, a structural defect rooted in the original creation." With the Malleus being the most widely read publication on witchcraft, it is clear to see why the witch hunts were able to carry on for another 150 years.

One interesting interpretation is that because women, particularly older women lived far outside the patriarchal norms for the time, they were most vulnerable to accusation. Although there is not a huge amount of information on the average age of the witches prosecuted, the data that is widely acknowledged to be accurate states that the average age was about 50 years old. This was the middle age equivalent of old age and was considered much more advanced than today. Steven Katz links these ideas together by saying that "these women, particularly older women who had never given birth and now were beyond giving birth, comprised the female group most difficult to assimilate, to comprehend, within the regulative late medieval social matrix, organized, as it was, around the family unit." Middle age societies had no use for these women, who were seen as burdens by the community due to not having any active role in society. This statistic however could be seen as providing and incorrect image of the amount of women accused. Women were known to live longer than men during this period and therefore one cannot use this figure as a definite indicator of gender