The Burning Times

There was the self proclaimed Witchfinder General

But the most widespread witch hunting in that era was ( I think) Germany. Oh, and we didn't burn them either.

IdiotsRUs said:

There was the self proclaimed Witchfinder General

But the most widespread witch hunting in that era was ( I think) Germany. Oh, and we didn't burn them either.

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Mostly were hanged or stoned

'Witchfinder' was one of the terms, but you're looking more at the 1600s than 1700s. The Witchcraft Act which stopped witchcraft being a capital crime was, I believe, passed in the 1720s and by then prosecutions had pretty much died down anyway. That changed the emphasis on the crime so that the prosecutions were more along the lines of defrauding people by pretending to have psychic powers.

I did a presentation on this for European Legal History - basically how by the late 1600s cartesian and scientific thought was squeezing out the belief in witchcraft and demons. If you're specifically interested in English witchcraft history I can hunt out some of the articles and sources I had for that. PM me if that'd be of a help.

maxmordon said:

Mostly were hanged or stoned

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Or drowned.

Witch pricker

The name was because one of the alleged ways to determine if someone was a witch was to prick (or stick) their skin. If they bled, they were not a witch but if they didn't, it was a sign of guilt.

Witch prickers used special instruments that did not actually pierce the skin although they appeared to do so.

johnnysannie said:

Witch pricker

The name was because one of the alleged ways to determine if someone was a witch was to prick (or stick) their skin. If they bled, they were not a witch but if they didn't, it was a sign of guilt.

Witch prickers used special instruments that did not actually pierce the skin although they appeared to do so.

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Actually, the way to do it was to prick their skin on the Devil's Mark.
The Devil's Mark was supposedly the scar left by Satan as a mark of the witch's pact with him - and that scar wouldn't bleed.
A witch finder would point to any old birthmark or port wine stain and use the trick knife.
This gains a little extra evil when you realize that a lot of the "witches" who were burned were social outcasts because of their looks and behaviors...oftentimes the very blemishes that made them pariahs would then serve to condemn them as witches....

Smiling Ted said:

Actually, the way to do it was to prick their skin on the Devil's Mark.
The Devil's Mark was supposedly the scar left by Satan as a mark of the witch's pact with him - and that scar wouldn't bleed.
A witch finder would point to any old birthmark or port wine stain and use the trick knife.
This gains a little extra evil when you realize that a lot of the "witches" who were burned were social outcasts because of their looks and behaviors...oftentimes the very blemishes that made them pariahs would then serve to condemn them as witches....

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Some pricked the so-called Devil's mark; some just pricked skin.

I've seen the term "Inquisitor" used but don't remember if it was in England at that time period.

GeorgeK said:

I've seen the term "Inquisitor" used but don't remember if it was in England at that time period.

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The Inquisition was an official arm of the Roman Catholic Church, and thus wouldn't have been active in England in the 1700s.

Did you know ( ok, trivia output) the last person in England to be convicted of witchcraft was in 1944. A medium who saw a ship go down, and exposed the cover up about it....

IdiotsRUs said:

Did you know ( ok, trivia output) the last person in England to be convicted of witchcraft was in 1944. A medium who saw a ship go down, and exposed the cover up about it....

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Also trivia output... Helen Duncan is often cited as the last person to be convicted under the 18th century witchcraft act but there was actually another medium convicted just after her in the same year, in 1944, Jane Yorke. Interestingly the Witchcraft Act wasn't repealed in the UK until 1951 (when it was replaced by the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951). Helen Duncan's relatives though are still trying to clear her name. I remember our network had a story on that as recently as a few months ago.

IdiotsRUs said:

Oh, and we didn't burn them either.

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True-ish.

Burning witches at the stake wasn't at all popular (despite what you may read in so-called 'books').

I don't have the stats in front of me, but I think it was around half a dozen people burned for being witches Total in the UK. And most of those were hanged to death first.

I don't think witches were stoned, that is, people throwing stones at them until they died.

Instead, they were pressed to death with stones, meaning being tied down, and having stones piled on them until they died. A subtle difference.

I live in the town that was the last place to stop pressing to death as a punishment in the UK.

Yay, a claim to fame!

In the 17th century people who refused to plead either 'guilty' or 'not guilty' at a trial were 'pressed'. That means a wooden board was placed on them and weights were put on top, one by one. Sometimes the person could not stand the increasing weight and agreed to plead. However sometimes he was pressed to death. This barbaric practice died out in the early 18th century. The last man to be pressed to death died at Horsham in 1735.

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I'm not sure if it was used for witches ( apart from that one person at Salem)

IdiotsRUs said:

I live in the town that was the last place to stop pressing to death as a punishment in the UK.

Yay, a claim to fame!



I'm not sure if it was used for witches ( apart from that one person at Salem)

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Don't know if this makes me weird but I think that's a cool claim to fame (more than my home village has!)

Pressing was used against witches in England IIRC, though I'd have to check on that, but certainly it was used in Scotland. Actually although it's not my home village, the town I was born in has the claim of having some of the worst witch hunts in Scotland, some of the bloodiest.

Sarpedon said:

that is, people throwing stones at them until they died.

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"He said Jehovah! Stone him!"

Don't know if this makes me weird but I think that's a cool claim to fame (more than my home village has!)

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I got married in the same Town Hall they used to try the Acid Bath Murderer

My town has a lovely gruesome past. Like that nice song about the thugs the tories used to send round to make sure you voted the right way. Or the last man to be put to death for homosexuality in England was in Horsham in 1834. And we had a dragon too!

Oh and I went to school with the guy who wrote Tank Girl, and I've got an original piccy of his somewhere around -- now THAT is cool.

Sorry, sorry, I can't help it, all these lovely little bits of info that lurk in my brain...back to witches...

In 1401 the first Witchcraft Act of Parliment was passed, to wit, sorcery was heresy against god, but not technically against the actual law, and 'witches' were tried by the church. A sthe church didn't like to shed blood, any convicted were burnt. This is your prime burning / witchunting time.

Queen Elizabeth I passed a new and harsher witchcraft Law in 1562 but it did not define sorcery as heresy. Witches convicted of murder by witchcraft were to be executed but the punishment for witches in England was hanging, not burning at the stake which was the terrible death that was inflicted on French and Spanish witches. Lesser crimes relating to witchcraft resulted in the convicted witch being pilloried. Torture was not allowed as part of the investigatory or punishment procedure for witches. As the Witchcraft Law did not define sorcery as heresy the matter of religion was not involved in the prosecution of witches. As they were now tried under common law ( which was more than happy for a bit of blood to be spilled) no more burnings. However, the persecution of witches in England was never on the scale of that which took place on the continent under the Inquisition. This is possibly due to several factors, not least the secession of the Church of England from the Church of Rome and the fact that the use of torture to induce confessions was illegal in England.
Now to the time in question:This statute was replaced under George II by the Witchcraft Act 1735 that marked a complete reversal in attitudes. This was all about prosecuting people for pretending to have witchy powers, and they were convicted as con artists, subject to fines and imprisonment,rather than for the actual crime of witchcraft itself which was no longer officially recognised as being possible. So, people prosecuted under this act were often self-proclaimed mediums and clairvoyants. To re-iterate, people convicted under the act were not convicted of witchcraft - this was no longer possible in law as of 1735. by the 1780s witches and devils were generally a joke, not a threat.

Branwyn said:

A dragon? How awesome! I don't think the town I was born in has much to boast about, but I could be wrong. Probably some poor indigenous souls were slaughtered there.

Okay--so--in my WIP, a fictional story, those who would be accusing women of witchcraft (goes along with story line as opposed to con artist) were law enforcement. And they were known as witch hunters or simply??what? I can't readily find the term. I hope I'm not sounding too dense.

Many thanks, IdiotsRUs.

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In most cases those who accused the women would be locals, taking the matter to the local court. The witchfinders (that term was around so you'd be safe enough using that) were quite often members of the clergy or self-appointed experts like Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne who were basically called in to investigate whether the person was a witch or not. They'd go around the towns and villages, quite often chasing up stories they'd heard about accusations being made. Of course, when one village hears that a witch has been hanged, it gives them the idea of how to use their own witch as a scapegoat...

Often they'd employ a woman to go with them, who would physically examine the accused woman, and another test was to gather up a group of the locals and sit all night watching the accused to see if any 'imps' (familiar spirits) came to her.

On a law-enforcement level, those accusing the woman would likely go to the most readily available source of authority, perhaps the local constable, the lord of the manor, a magistrate or local sheriff, depending on location and the time you want to set this story.