Witchcraft in Europe, 1450 †1750

Witchcraft is the alleged use of magical powers through the gift of supernatural beings other than God. A practitioner of witchcraft is a witch. Witchcraft was defined as superstition by magistrates in Europe. These magistrates did not believe in witchcraft and hence they reacted in horror at the superstition of the common villagers. From this point of view, witchcraft accusations were connected to the church men and magistrates. They enforced severe reforms of churches and even devotional life.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Witchcraft in Europe, 1450 – 1750 specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Witchcraft was also viewed as genderized mass murder. This means that gender was the central issue to the European witch-hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Women or females were mostly suspected and accused of involvement in witchcraft. This is because 80% of all accused witch were women. Traditio nal theology assumed that women were a weaker species compared to men. This justified the fact that they were more likely to seek assistance and succumb to the devil. There is also another reason that makes it plain that the growth of witch hunt had something to do with female. The reason is that the panic and the rumors that were going around in Europe were in separable from women stigmatization. Witch-hunts started in central Europe. This is because this was the places where trial, torture and execution were practiced which are believed to be the causes of witchcraft. Three- quarters of those tortured, tried and executed were women. The Back Ground of Witchcraft in Europe. Witchcraft in Europe was formulated in the middle age. This culminated from a rapid decline in social, economic and religious transformation. Panics like natural disaster and epidemics also led to the increase of witchcraft. The people were tried to hide their panic in witchcraft. The belief in the existence of witchcraft goes back to the time of Old Testament of the Bible. The Bible forbids witchcraft. This makes the history of witchcraft to be associated with Christianity. The church condemned all rites involving the invocation of the spirit. The traditional attitude towards witchcraft in the 19th century underwent a tremendous transformation. This was the time central Europe was faced by several rumors and panics. There was malign conspiracy which was meant to bring down the effort of Christians and churches. They were to use magic and poison to destroy the Christian kingdoms. The intensity of witchcraft was escalated Black Death which was also known as the bubonic plague.Advertising Looking for term paper on history? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Witch Trials in Europe. Witch trial is also witch hunt which is the search of witches in Europe. It also involved the search of evidence of witchcraft. The period of witch hunt falls i n the year 1480 to 1750. By no means all the people who were tried by witchcraft were convicted. Some were even acquitted. Not everyone convicted by witchcraft was executed. This is because some of the witches used their witchcraft for good purposes like making crops grow better. Others used it to make humans or animals more fertile. The super natural power was also being used by others to heal the sick. The witches also used their powers to witch hunt. There were some other lesser punishments given to the tried witches. The lesser punishments involved banishment or imprisonment. In 1735, the Witchcraft Act was introduced by the government. The main aim of the act was to report people who were claiming to follow the religion of witchcraft. The frequency of witch trials varied over time. The number of witches in a place also determined the frequency of trials. Witch trials were most common in Germany, France and Switzerland. The first major witch hunts occurred in Switzerland in 1427 and 1428. There was a mass burning of around 100 witches. Witch trials were likely to occur in areas with political instability and religious conflict. This is because the areas are likely to have many witches who think they can offer solutions to the problems in the area. Persecution of witches and their trial held to punish them had almost been abolished in 1680. The last legal execution occurred in 1782 in Glarus Switzerland. This is not far from where the execution of witches had started in 1427. The prosecuting officers were secular officials. They were imbued with the best of thinking prominent personnel. The personnel included theologians, philosophers and even scientists. According to Russell (12), several theories have been put forward to explain the origin of witch trials. The geographical origin theory is one of the theories which explain that witch hunt originated from specific location like mountainous regions. According to geographical theory economic differences betw een regions can lead to witch hunts. This can only happen if the regions are caught in a new competition because of a commercial revolution. The other theory is greed theory. This theory is against the elites. It says that the elites initiated the witch hunt so that they can confiscate other people properties. The elites defend themselves by saying that many persecuted people did not have much property. They also say that property was not confiscated even from wealth targets during the hunt. The final theory is the confessional conflict theory. This theory involves the conflict between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics. The conflict led each group to attack the other using witchcraft. Hence each group used the accusation of witchcraft so as to persecute the other group leading to witch hunt.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Witchcraft in Europe, 1450 – 1750 specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In th e period between 1542 and 1753 witchcraft was taken as a crime in law in the history of English. These years also marked a significant increase in the number of witch hunt and prosecution. How Education Elites Ideas Were Imposed On Witchcraft In Europe. The Elite classes had the highestlevel of witchcraft.This people constructed the idea of a black mass. This was argued that there was no foundation in the claim that witches worshipped Satan. This notion was formulated in the minds of the persecutors and the accused. However, there was a genuine fear as the witches are known to meet for rituals. Only fewer educated Europeans believed in witchcraft. This means that they did not believe spell casting or witches flying through the sky. They did not believe even in the accusation of great hunt. They argued that witch trial was as a result of religious bigotry which was either catholic or protestant. This bigotry supported by superstitious monarchs according to educated Europeans is what the other ordinally people call witchcraft. During the time of great hunt in the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. Some lawyers and physicians were doing their own research. They were testing the flying ointments seized from accused witches. They were attempting to learn the composition and the effects of the flying ointments. This led to an argument between them and witch hunters. The witch hunters believed that the witches were people who worshipped the devil. On the other hand the physicians tried to convince the witch hunters that the witches were wrenched people deluded by drugs. They said that the witches firmly believe that they should do in awaking state everything that they dream while sleeping. Theologians also did not agree with the witch hunters that witches were devil worshipers. The theologians made reference with witches smearing their body with oil and sentiments. A witch had been aroused from a deep sleep. Immediately he woke up he ran for the bottle of oil an d started smearing it on his body as he had dreamt. During the early middle age the church writers insisted that witchcraft was a delusion. Priests were asked to discouraged members of their church from believing that anyone could cast a spell. They were asked not to believe in the powers of witches. Those powers include the ability to blight by an evil eye, power over animas, and power of witches to transform themselves into animal shapes. Advertising Looking for term paper on history? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Witches were also believed to possess the power that can make them invisible. They also have the power of harming other through hurting a waxen image representing them. However, by the end of fourteenth century the cannon lawyers, prominent inquisitors, learned academics and several popes came together. They agreed that by means with a contract with the devil whether implicit or explicit, a magician might work genuine in the world. The theorists also worked out a composite view of all the different sorts of crimes and activities that the witch are involved in. By the end of the fifteen century many ecclesiastical had come up with a conclusion about witchcraft. They concluded that witchcraft was a fairly new heresy with its origin in the 1380s. The accounts of the persecutors in the witch trials in early modern Europe have been used to overthrow the idea that witchcraft was a satanic plot to overthrow Christianity. One of the accounts of these persecutors is the witch-cult. Witch-cu lt is the hypothetical pre-Christian pagan religion of Europe. This is the group that survived the early modern period. Ginzburg discovered benandanti, a group of people with peasant stock. They were poor and very illiterate. They could not speak pure English and at times had trouble communicating with their judges. The benandanti are believed to have also survived in the early modern period. They used to ride cocks or goats into the woods away from the village, an even which was happening mostly at nights. According to their testimony the benandanti could threaten the witches to alter their spells. Conclusion Witchcraft in Europe waxed and wined for almost three centuries. Though there were great variations in time and space. The rate of witch hunting also varied with place throughout Europe. The most affected place was Germany with 26,000 deaths and the least affected was Ireland with only 4 deaths. This shows that witchcraft was most common in central Europe, which involves Germa ny and France. It has remained difficult to judge the extent of actual witchcraft practice. But it is possible to understand part of the process that helped develop the notion that supernatural powers were indeed a reality. This explains why people in early modern England believed in witchcraft. Works Cited Russell, Jeffrey B. Witchcraft in the middle Ages. Ithaca, N.Y: Pantheon Books, 1948. This term paper on Witchcraft in Europe, 1450 – 1750 was written and submitted by user Dylan W. to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Essay Sample Examples - A Work Environment Requiring Employees to Work Overtime

Essay Sample Examples - A Work Environment Requiring Employees to Work OvertimeAn essay containing the two paragraphs of an introduction, explanation and conclusion all work together to create a work environment requiring employees to work overtime. The conclusion paragraph is the statement of an issue; the starting paragraph is where they explain what they did. There must be enough information and the employer needs to be able to prove that the employee was not given adequate rest. The reference to the body paragraph can indicate how long employees have been with the company.Beginning the essay with the explanation and conclusion are going to get the attention of the reader. The explanation begins to lay out the reason the employee worked overtime. The conclusion paragraph explains what happened at the end of the work day. The conclusion paragraph is the statement of the problem. The explanation and conclusion form the basis for the conclusion and it must also provide enough informa tion for the employer to be able to prove that the employee was not given enough rest.Workers that are required to work overtime should give them their salary during the evening hours. The explanation for working overtime needs to include an explanation of why they were given the salary increase and if they would like to be paid overtime hours. Using the end of the day as an example the employee should work more than 20 hours on their work day because of the increase in salary.In the end of the day the employees should be compensated for the exact amount of hours that they worked. The examples of causes for overtime should show that the employees are entitled to overtime compensation.Work essay samples are not always difficult to write. An employer need only supply an example from a work place to support the claim made by the employee. They should supply facts that support the claim made in the beginning paragraph of the essay.A combination of college level classes and the use of ho mework should be used in the essay samples. The essay sample is usually one page long. Each section of the essay sample has a similar structure and contains a starting and ending paragraph that contains information on the same subject.The first part of the essay will focus on the explanation and the college-level classes on writing should be used in the second paragraph. In the second paragraph of the essay should begin to give facts about the subject. The essay examples will then begin to change and expand in order to show that the essay is based on facts. The writing should then be adapted to fit the type of essay sample provided.Essay samples will vary according to each applicant's writing abilities. Employers can select a variety of essay samples to use depending on the type of writing skills that are needed. They can then provide the employee with help with the essay in order to develop their own essay samples.