HIST 421 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Infant Baptism, Waldensians, Anabaptism
Document Summary
Lecture 13 - origins of the witch hunts. Construction of diabolical witchcraft due to the connection between heretics as cannibals and the concern for witchcraft in the alps. Night flying was an activity added by the waldensians. Accusations of magic are accusations primarily of female witches. The concept of the witch is a female servant of satan who renounces. Christianity and becomes an active enemy of christianity. Performing sacrilege on christian objects and someone who attends diabolical sabbaths, flying by night and practices infanticide, cannibalism and harmful acts of maleficium. There were legal factors we saw in laura stokes"s book and the adoption of the inquisitorial process where authorities looked into what people were doing and would initiate trials of witchcraft. The reformations began with martin luther who published the 95 theses. This caused a lot of commotion in europe.
