Why Did People Care About Witches?

“There are, however, two universal constants about witch beliefs that cut across cultures: witches represent people’s deepest fears about themselves and society, and they represent a reversal of all that is considered normal behavior in a particular society” (James L. Brian). This is a common theme across history, which is what the following will explore: why did people care about witches in the pre-modern era. As a pseudo-case study, I think it is useful to analyze why people in the era most commonly associated with pre-modern witchcraft cared about witches: the period of Renaissance and Reformation in Europe. Before Europe reached the age of rebirth and religious upheaval, it went through centuries of downtrodden serfdom and religious sanctity. In fact, during the Middle Ages, religion was the one thing that everyone had and shared constantly. It provided answers to the unknown and was used to explain phenomenon that peoples’ own common sense could not. Then, the Renaissance hit Europe like a wave. It was a period where academic flourished, science boomed, and education in the form of moveable type reached the far corners of Europe. Yet, religion still served as the basis for all of these massive improvements. People who dare questioned the church in their findings were locked up by the church. For further reference, just think of Galileo and Copernicus, two thinkers whose scientific findings questioned the church and were both punished by it when in turns out their findings were correct. Why does any of this matter? People were gaining massive amounts of knowledge to better understand the world around them, yet this was the period that saw the greatest surge of witchcraft in history. Religion provides the answers.

With the advent of academia comes a questioning of religion. The Reformation coincides with the Renaissance, in which Martin Luther’s 95 Theses led to the near destruction of the Catholic Church and the formation of dozens of protestant denominations. Martin Luther realized that what was considered the only religion in Europe at the time, Catholicism, did not provide the answers to everything, and in fact used peoples’ blind acceptance of the Church to profit off of them in the form of indulgences. Once people realized what the church was doing, they began to fraction off and form their own religions. This led to war throughout Europe and the birth of the witch-craze in Europe. For centuries, people had not questioned what is normal. They were too afraid too. They didn’t know what lied beyond “normal.” With the Reformation, people finally broke away. The easy label to put on those that did not to conform to these new standards set by not just the Catholic Church, but nearly every denomination of protestant faith, was a witch. As the saying goes, the best thing to band people together is a common enemy. Witches were stuff of legend in the Middle Ages and stoked fear in the hearts of men. When wanting to ensure unity amongst those within any church, the ones who did not conform were simply labeled as witches and hunted to every corner of Europe. It was a way of creating a new “normal” where people did not live in fear. This mindset subsided after decades and decades of conflict and turmoil. Once the protestant faiths settled and new norms were set, people saw the spectrum of religion, spanning from those who were most liberal and most fundamentalist, which included the Puritans who settled what became Salem. These strict fundamentalists brought with them the mindset described by Brian of accusing those who did not conform and those who stoked fear as witches. In a sort of Reformation of their own, the events at Salem are a subject of future analysis I cannot wait to learn more about.