Witch Trials

Between 900 and 1400, christian authorities were unwilling to so much as admit that witches existed, let alone try someone for the crime of being one. This was not for lack of demand. Pope Gregory VII wrote to Harald III of Denmark in 1080 forbidding witches to be put to death upon presumption of their having caused storms or failure of crops or pestilence.

Belief in witches was still common in medieval Europe and in 1258 Pope Alexander IV had to issue a bull - "Quod super nonnullis" - to prevent prosecutions for witchcraft. "Divination or sorcery" was not to be investigated by Inquisitors of the Church, who were tasked with investigating heresy. Crimes involving magic should be left to local authorities unless they had "knowledge of manifest heresy to be involved", wherein "manifest heresy" included "praying at the altars of idols, to offer sacrifices, to consult demons, [or] to elicit responses from them". At this period in Church history, the use of magic was not seen as inherently heretical, but rather rooted in superstition or erroneous beliefs - Inquisitors had far more important things to do than deal with hedge-witches.

In 1320 the papal stance (under John XXII) was officially changed with the bull "Super illius specula" and the position reversed entirely. Until this time the instruction had been to investigate accusations of magic only if heresy was suspected. The new instruction was to consider all cases of "magic" as inherently heretical.

By the end of the fifteenth century Pope Pope Innocent VIII had issued a bull against charmers and magicians - "Summis desiderantes affectibus" - and in 1486 a Dominican inquisitor (Heinrich Kramer) asserted in a formidable volume, "Malleus Maleficarum", that the Devil and his witches were conspiring on a gigantic scale to overthrow the Catholic Church. Witchcraft and heresy were linked together and years later another author was added to the book to give it more "clout". The mid-17th Century then bore witness to the infamous “European Witch Craze“, a period of frenzied witchcraft accusations, prosecutions and executions, which are thought to have claimed the lives of up to one hundred thousand men, women and children across the continent. Precisely how many witches were murdered in Western Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is impossible to say, but the figure of 100,000 has been credibly reported for Germany, between 3,000 and 4,500 for Scotland and somewhat less than 1,000 for England between 1566 and 1685. In Ireland witch trials were almost unknown. Within continental and Roman Law witchcraft was crimen exceptum: a crime so foul that all normal legal procedures were superseded, so that torture could be used to extract an initial confession. Despite what some lurid modern accounts state, torture was seldom used in England.

Causes
Various theories have been put forward for the reasons for the "European Witch Craze". For many years the supposed explanation was either the climatic disturbance of the "Little Ice Age" or the outbreaks of various Pandemics - with "witches" being the convenient scapegoat. Indeed, historical temperature indexes and witch trial data indicate that, generally, as temperature decreased during this period, witch trials increased, however in some cases the fit is not good. A more recent proposal, which has gathered some support, is that "witch-hunting" was an activity intended to attract the loyalty of undecided christians during the reformation and counter-reformation. Put in economic terms:


 * "Europe’s witch trials reflected non-price competition between the Catholic and Protestant churches for religious market share in confessionally contested parts of Christendom. By leveraging popular belief in witchcraft, witch-prosecutors advertised their confessional brands’ commitment and power to protect citizens from worldly manifestations of "Satan’s evil". Similar to how contemporary political candidates focus campaign activity in "scapegoat" battlegrounds during elections to attract the loyalty of undecided voters."

Protestants in general also tended to be more wary of witches: Luther himself authorized the execution of four accused witches, while Calvin urged Genevan officials to wipe out "the race of witches".

Cheshire and Flintshire
In England and Wales, as elsewhere, belief in wells, for example, had a long ancestry. In primitive times it was considered that special properties pertained to them; the Roman Catholic Church consecrated many pagan practices and long after the Reformation the healing qualities of wells continued to attract sufferers, in some cases until the present day. St. Winifred's Well, of course occupies the premier place. Of the fifty-one wells identified in Flintshire, twenty-seven bear the names of saints. Eight are dedicated to St. Mary and four to St. Michael. There are a string of healing and/or magical wells associated with churches down the River Dee. Including such dubious examples as Billy Hobbies Well in Grosvenor Park.

The first Witchcraft Act in England was introduced in 1542 ( Henry VIII's Act of 1542 (33 Hen. VIII c. 8) ). It was concerned both with treasure finding by divination and harm by witchcraft, and forbade anyone to:


 * ... use devise practise or exercise, or cause to be devysed practised or exercised, any Invovacons or cojuracons of Sprites witchecraftes enchauntementes or sorceries to thentent to fynde money or treasure or to waste consume or destroy any persone in his bodie membres, or to pvoke [provoke] any persone to unlawfull love, or for any other unlawfull intente or purpose ... or for dispite of Cryste, or for lucre of money, dygge up or pull downe any Crosse or Crosses or by such Invovacons or cojuracons of Sprites witchecraftes enchauntementes or sorceries or any of them take upon them to tell or declare where goodes stollen or lost shall become ...

The Act was however repealed in 1547. The Witchcraft Act of 1563 (5 Eliz. I c. 16) introduced the death penalty for any sorcery used to cause someone's death. In 1604 the Witchcraft Act was reformed by "An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked spirits", (1 Ja. I c. 12) to include anyone to have made a Pact with Satan. It was this statute that was enforced by Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled Witch-Finder General whose career flourished during the English Civil War.

Chester
At least three "witches" were hung at Boughton (a fourth is said to have fled to Wrexham). Those hanged (15th October 1656) were:


 * Ellen Beach who "did exercise and practice the Invocation and conjuration of evil and wicked spirits, and consulted and covenanted with, entertayned, imployed, ffed and rewarded certayn evill and wicked spirits",


 * Anne Osboston having "on the 20th November exercised certayn artes and Incantations on Barbara Pott, late wife of John Pott, of Ranowe, from the effects whereof she died on the 20th of January then next following", and, lastly,


 * Anne Thornton who did "wickedly, divillishly and feloniously devise, excercise and practiuce certaiyne divellish and wicked acts".

Sources and Links

 * Witch Trials as an economic phenomenon;
 * Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Flintshire;