What happened to most people accused of witchcraft in England? Detailed answer

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What happened to most people accused of witchcraft in England? Detailed answer

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What happened to most people accused of witchcraft in England?

They were acquitted - and if they were found guilty, they were sent to the gallows, and not to the stake.

According to Malcolm Gaskill and his detailed historical study (Witchfinders, 2005) of the 1450th-century popular "witch-hunt" craze, the general consensus (much spurred on by Dan Brown and his The Da Vinci Code) is that between 1750 and In 40, five million women were burned in Europe on charges of witchcraft - an overestimate. Like most historians who have studied this period, Gaskill believes that the figure of XNUMX is much closer to the truth and that a quarter of those executed were men.

In England, only 200 examples of executions are known that were directly related to the accusation of witchcraft. Moreover, in almost all cases, the execution was carried out by hanging. The Scots, French, Germans, Italians - they all really sent their witches to the stake, but even there it was customary to first strangle the victim tied to the post and only then burn the body.

From 1440 to 1650, the English burned an average of one "witch" every hundred years.

On October 27, 1441, Marjorie Jordemain, the famous "Witch of Ay", was burned in Smithfield, in 1500 - Isabelle Cochi, and, finally, in 1650 in York, Isabella Billington was sent to the stake (although she was hanged at first).

In England, being accused of witchcraft did not necessarily lead to a death sentence. The church - which is often blamed for the persecution of witches - did not take part in the trials at all. The plaintiff was required to prove that the witch had caused him real harm, and the English jury was surprisingly reluctant to verdict. Three-quarters of witchcraft trials ended in acquittals.

Contrary to the popular image of an angry mob harassing an unfortunate woman, the idea of a witch hunt found great support among judges and the common people alike, a practice that was considered harmful to public order and unnecessarily expensive.

Isabelle Coca's funeral pyre, for example, cost 105 shillings and 4 pence - over £1000 by today's standards.

Author: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson

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