the discovery of witches book matthew hopkins

The second book of his treatise on Daemonologie, published in 1597, was very clear about the existence of witches and the dangers they presented, including the renunciation of their Christian baptism, and the presence of a bodily mark created by the devil. Hopkins also deferred to the authority of King James VI and I. When criticised for this inhumane and unlawful practice, Hopkins stated that many witches had confessed of their own accord and asked to be swum in this manner, having been advised to do so by the devil himself. Source: Claremont School of Theology, via The Internet Archive)Ī/details/compendium-maleficarum/page/14/mode/1up The image below, from Francesco Maria Guazzo’s 1608 Compendium Maleficarum shows a male witch, having denied his baptism, receiving a ‘new mock baptism’ from the devil himself. (Not ‘ducking’, which was a punishment reserved for scolds.) Tied to a chair and thrown into the water, this act was intended to determine whether a witch had renounced their Christian baptism, in which case the water itself would reject them and cause the witch to float. Some of these practises remain familiar when we think about witches today, such as that of ‘swimming’. These were explained and justified in his 1647 book, The Discovery of Witches.

Matthew Hopkins, for example, developed methods by which to determine whether a person could be suspected of witchcraft - and in particular, of entering into a pact with the devil. Books, pamphlets, court records, and even contemporary plays, can tell us a great deal about the different ways in which people both perceived and responded to witches. Extant sources from this period are increasingly being made available online in digital, facsimile, translation, or edition formats. If, in the twenty-first century, you want to find evidence of early modern witches, there are many places to look. If you wanted to find a witch during the early modern period, one of the more notable people you could ask was Matthew Hopkins, self-declared Witchfinder General from 1644-1647.

The discovery of witches book matthew hopkins