Week 6: The Gender of Witches
A Crisis of Gender Relations? 

Image right: Hans Baldung Grien (1484/85-1545), Arrival at the Witches' Sabbath (1510). Gouache. Albertina Collection at Vienna. Image source: CGFA

I. Argument: Witch-Hunts and Patriarchy
A) Reordering Family: From Kin to Patrilineage
B) Reformation and Gender Politics
C) Gender and the Social Organization of Labor

II. Counter-Argument: Witch-Hunts and Patriarchy
A) Contrariety and the Necessity of Female Gendering
B) Moral Confusion
C) Witches and their Accusers

Graph: Sex of Accused Witches, by Region
Graph: The Male Witches of Normandy, 1564-1659
Graph: Sex of Persons Imprisoned for Witchcraft, Bavaria, 1608-1616


Frontispiece illustration from a pamphlet titled Erschreckliche Erzelung/ Vnnd Bekentnis der zeuberer vnd zeuberin/welche Kurtzlich verbrandt sein worden [A shocking tale and confession of the magicians and witches recently burned...] (Cologne, 1594).

Witches as Neighbors

Read for discussion in class: The Trial of Tempel Anneke, pp. 3-65. Image right: titlepage of Jean Bodin, De la Demonomanie des Sorciers (Paris: Jacques du Puys, 1581), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek 4 Phys.m. 20. Image source: historicum.net.

I. Discussion: The Trial of Tempel Anneke (Part 1)

II. The Witch in Court
A) From Accusation to Prosecution
B) Finding Guilt or Innocence
1) Indirect Torture
2) Humiliation
3) Proper Torture: Three Degrees

Chart: The Witch in Court
Image: Frontispiece of Johann Weyer, De praestigiis daemonum (German edition, 1575)