Major Project 1

Major Project I Cultural Analysis

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Sneh Cultural Analysis FINAL VERSION

Alistair Sneh

Prof. Clasby

ENG 170-40

16 April 2023

Diabolic Exchanges: A Cultural Analysis

The capacity for hate is unfortunately as strong as the capacity for love amongst humans. Instances of merciless objectification and dehumanization were common during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Reformation. Perpetrators used numerous types of abuse. Witch pricks were used throughout the witch hunts to find “Devil’s Marks” to help identify those who were ‘witches.’ The pricks would be put anywhere on the body. If there were no signs of bleeding or injury, these individuals would be considered as possessing true signs of the devil. 

The physically torturous means that ‘witch hunters’ applied in 16th and 17th century Scotland to destroy people whom they perceived as ‘threatening’ the ‘divine’ monarch, established religious practices, and other elitist institutions and members of society were vindictive. These measures can exemplify the historical theme of “othering,” which is scapegoating ‘undesired’ members of communities for the purpose of social, economic, and political control by a regime that only had coercive force rather than persuasive policies. Such regimes were oppressive and unpopular. This framework serves to remind the world’s contemporary society about the importance of factually-based communications and policies that benefit all its members. Moreso, the overabundance of research that has been done on the British Isles and colonial America in comparison to mainland Europe highlights the importance of recognizing elitist bias that similarly exists throughout the present world.

In order to address how the witch pricks exemplify the all too common historical theme of dehumanizing women and other groups of people that different societies have mistreated, I consider how numerous personal and continental factors combined to cause the Scottish witch hunts and trials. I use the work of multiple scholarly authors who have researched the Scottish witch hunts from multiple vantage points. Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen’s co-edited volume of over a dozen researchers from all throughout Europe, Early Modern European Witchcraft, provides insights on how modern societal and geographical biases make it hard to truly understand what the witch hunts really were and why they happened. Next I draw upon the work of Ankarloo and Stuart Clark, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, to provide explanations of what was really done to the suspected ‘witches.’ Julian Goodare in his book The European Witch-Hunt importantly connects characteristic themes of the witch hunt to other European historical time periods that continue through the modern day. Brian Levack, himself an American scholar, describes in his contributing article to Volume 20 of the Journal of British Studies how the perpetrators of the Scottish witch hunt were not solely emulating other rulers in Europe; they were also considerably different in their practices compared to neighboring England. Finally, Stuart Macdonald in his thesis work Threats to a Godly Society: The Witch-Hunt in Fife, Scotland 1560-1710 illustrates how it has proved difficult for scholars before him to find sufficient data to know more about the victims themselves; this reinforces the impression that there was no real effort not to dehumanize the ‘witches’ when the ‘trials’ were happening.

The purpose of this essay is to pinpoint why the Scottish witch hunts took place as well as more details of what happened during these ‘trials.’ Expanding on this realization, I determine how the witch prick itself represents the recurring themes of patriarchy, oppression, and more abuse. I also highlight the historical theme of evil spreading. This is because of the key point I found from Ankarloo and Henningsen during my research: West of central Europe, especially in American studies, the misconception can easily be formed that the famous ‘witch hunts’ began and happened mostly in the British Isles and colonial America, when this perception is fundamentally untrue. Since the British and American knowledge of witch hunts is too often based in academic scholarship rather than actual reality and authentic testaments, I feel like this wrong approach also exemplifies a western bias which makes humanity justify past global inequality, and, as importantly in the present, maintain this unfortunate pattern in the foreseeable future.

The defining moment which led King James VI of Scotland (also known as James I of England) to begin the witch hunts took place in 1589, after he had left Denmark with his new wife. Summarizing the initial circumstances that led to witchcraft finding its way into Scotland, Ankarloo explains the suspected witches during the initial witch hunt were put under torture, which led them to ‘confess’ to “having had nocturnal meetings with the devil in the church…[they also ‘confessed’] they had conspired to poison the king and members of his household…” (Ankarloo et al. 79-80), among various other claims. Given the context and broader time period to which Ankarloo connects these historical details, his explanation proves important. His vantage point helps researchers to understand the self-serving purposes of the elitists who orchestrated the witch trials. The very claims Ankarloo tells his readers were used in the witches’ forced confessions definitely established the king and the Protestant clergy had power in Scotland, which they wanted to assert. As the other studied circumstances show, Denmark was not the only central or northern European country that had already been marked by witch hunts.

The events during King James’ visit to Denmark are what directly influenced him to begin witch hunts in Scotland. It is therefore important to analyze his experience. In a thesis work co-developed by Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen, alongside with various contributing editors, the authors emphasize how most existing sources about the witch hunts had been written from the viewpoint of American and English scholars. Therefore, it appears Ankarloo and Henningsen want researchers to understand that neither King James, nor other British officials, devised the idea of witch hunts by themselves. This revelation means Scotland was clearly in sync with other prominent and contemporary European powers. In fact, King James became entrenched in catching witches when an admiral of the Danish fleet insisted the witches of a foreign power (besides Denmark) were involved; afterwards, King James “soon became convinced that his stormy voyage was due to witchcraft, but was doubtful whether the witches who had caused it were exclusively Danish” (Ankarloo and Henningsen 431). In sum, witch hunts as they are called today are not characteristic of the British Isles. Instead, this phenomenon characterized central and northern Europe. Because of research bias, students of events west of Germany might at first have the wrong belief that elitists across the British Isles and the American colonies invented witch hunts on their own; because England in specific generally acted differently than Scotland and therefore most of Europe as a whole concerning the witch hunts, as Brian Levack later mentions, the current overall understanding of how the world as a whole was operating during this time period is greatly affected (Ankarloo and Henningsen 1). Actually, witch hunts were more continental than Atlantic.

In his interpretative book The European Witch-Hunt, Julian Goodare does not simply reiterate the repeated idea that the witch hunts were a continental occurrence. He also implicitly shares how much of European history, especially more recent times, has shown instances of scapegoating and prejudice. Based on the concise examples Goodare gives, the takeaway can be reached that these recurring vices have presented themselves in various spots throughout Europe. Neither during the witch hunts nor throughout other gruesome events was discrimination limited to one particular region, even if the current Western viewpoint is that it was. Indeed, Goodare’s concluding chapter sees him connect the Scottish witch hunts to both Stalin’s 1930 purges with ‘show trials’ and German persecution of Jews under Hitler’s Nazist regime (390). Relating to the witch hunts themselves, perhaps the most meaningful point that can be drawn from Goodare’s efforts is as follows: Nobody, especially women, were at all safe from an accusation that lacked any real logic. Suspected witches were nothing short of scapegoats for just about anything. There were deliberate ambiguities that made any claim possible. Using this exact logic, Goodare gives this example: If a misfortune occurred in a suspected witch’s presence, even if it was out of their control, and the suspect was considered to be too friendly (or unfriendly), whatever that meant, this would be used to condemn them (103). Goodare also gives a specific example: In Aberdeenshire in 1597, John Burnett fell terminally ill. He blamed his illness on the ‘witchcraft’ of a midwife named Margaret Bain, because when he had seen her on the street recently, “he thought she mumbled something as he passed, instead of giving him a friendly greeting” (103). By combining these connections and insights, it can be discerned that the major European countries did not only each have an overall similar idea of hatred and viciously dangerous nationalistic, elitist pride during the witch hunts and various other time periods, but a uniform idea. 

Moreso, the involved countries were acting together with one another. The importance of this symbolism is that it reminds the present-day society that hatred anywhere causes the same thing to spread everywhere. As the evidence has shown, King James did not only begin the witch hunts because he felt it was what Scotland (rather himself and other elitists) needed. He began them precisely because other strong European powers (namely in Scandinavia) had already been doing the exact same thing. As Brian Levack says in his scholarly article, the typical practices English judges had towards suspected witches were considerably more fair and humanizing than their Scottish counterparts. The English laws in place during the late 17th century, Levack points out, actually “did not allow the use of torture in the interrogation of witches, the means by which most witchcraft confessions were obtained [both in Mainland Europe and Scotland]” (Levack 91). The substance of Levack’s realization is profound: Given how it is already clear the English and American points of view are disproportionately dominant in today’s worldwide society, this further establishes how Scottish and Scandinavian motives for the witch hunts were for the benefits of the societally privileged. As Levack also spells out, those in Scotland who continued to enable the executions of ‘witches’ were undoubtedly aware of the relatively impressive standards of ethics that most of the English judges had but chose to continue acting for their own profit (92-93). Therefore, while it would be easy to assume at first glance that Scotland was automatically in tangent with the other British realms ahead of continental Europe, this is actually the opposite. Following all of this research into the general aims and practices of these hunts, one thing that has noticeably been missing is the lack of knowledge on who the individuals were that became victims rather than ‘winners.’

A final research point which establishes how King James alongside other leading figures in Scotland and throughout Europe was acting for the benefit of himself along with the other nobles, church leaders and anyone else who would have been considered an elitist, comes from the research of Stuart Macdonald. Macdonald’s research ably demonstrates how the witch hunts were orchestrated self-servingly through the hardships he seeks to clarify. Since it has collectively been established how there was no regard for the true well being of the underprivileged Scottish individuals, this nails in the postulation that everyone who became a witch hunter (this included mostly men but also a few women), wanted to gain money and other privileges for themselves, therefore willingly monetizing the vulnerable individuals in their society, especially women who were not connected to high society. Centering around Fife in the latter half of the 17th century, speaking about the Great Hunt of 1661, Macdonald puts forth, “our sources of information about this hunt are so sparse. The session records of Newburgh and Falkland make no reference to these events…this is one instance where we have no idea which group among the elite drove the hunt and the evidence we have could be used to argue either group were the initiators” (Macdonald). Considering how there is not enough concrete information today to truly list many of the victims and their circumstances, as well as how all sources say this was so the elitists could benefit themselves, this is a final example of that point. The witches were not only dehumanized, they were also not fairly accounted for, so during these big hunts in Scotland and throughout continental Europe they largely had no due process whatsoever.

Overall, as Goodare concretely pointed out, researching world history in the present-day and recent times will continue to show numerous discernible events that compare in any variety of clear ways to the witch hunts that were prevalent in Scotland from the 16th and 17th centuries. There are three main ways in which the historical witch hunts can be seen as a manifestation of societal discrimination and elitism in the eyes of the modern world, one implicit and two direct. The first direct way is shown through how any analysis of the witch hunts from any angle will reveal that the purposes within Scotland were directly to benefit the continued power and wealth of commoner men and elitist individuals who generally did not need to worry about being accused of witchery. The second direct way is how nobody who was accused had any way to really prove themselves innocent, for the practices the hunters did were intentionally ambiguous to benefit the societally privileged and literate. Lastly, the implicit connection is the fact that it has not only been quite difficult to learn more about the innocent and vulnerable lives that most of the condemned and executed ‘witches’ lived because there was little concern or due process for them at the time; it has also become evident that the dominating viewpoint of witch hunts after the fact has stemmed from a perspective that would support British and American dominance instead of the non-English European powers.  

Even having studied European history to a considerable extent in high school, I did not hear much about the witch hunts. I heard even less about the events that did not take place within Britain and its colonies. Thus, I myself had initially inaccurately thought the witch hunts were mostly characteristic of Britain and colonial America. This is not to mention how I was quite extensively informed about the Thirty Years’ War, religious persecutions and the other continental affairs that coincided with the witch hunts. As Goodare began to mention, this historical theme of continental-based hatred has continued to manifest itself. WWII was a more recent and thus more-known example. In the present day, the Russo-Ukrainian war has become yet another example of a western bias that favors Caucasian, primarily European-language speaking individuals. Numerous double standards have been shown between how the Western media and other European leaders have talked about or handled this crisis as opposed to similar conflicts involving Middle Eastern war-torn nations where the affected fleeing migrants are not primarily Caucasian, such as Syria and Afghanistan. Continuing bloody conflicts in Africa such as those within Sudan and Ethiopia also exemplify this pattern. If leaders and those with social and capital power in the current world gave more attention to the injustices that ‘witches’ and various other historical groups considered ‘outcasts’ faced, then there can finally be worldwide peace and concern for all individuals, not only those with any form of privilege. Because the Scottish witch hunts were carried out by those with power in Scotland who targeted their own powerless subjects, it is important for modern leaders who have privilege to understand that nobody is really safe from dehumanization and other injustices, whether they come from a location or background of relative privilege or not.

 

Works Cited

Ankarloo, Bengt, and Gustav Henningsen. Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries. Clarendon Press, 1990. 

Ankarloo, Bengt, et al. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Period of the Witch Trials. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. 

Goodare, Julian. The European Witch-Hunt. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016.

Levack, Brian P. “The Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661-1662.” Journal of British Studies, vol. 20, no. 1, 1980, pp. 90–108. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/175544. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.

Macdonald, Stuart. “Threats to a Godly Society: The Witch-Hunt in Fife, Scotland, 1560-1710.” University  of Guelph, 1997.