Old posts of mine from 2019
Ive just finished reading Witchfinders A Seventeenth Century English Tragedy by Malcolm Gaskill.
The "witches" tried and hanged were not all women. Some were men.
One accused was an eight year old boy.
What most of them had in common was that they were poor. Yes poor. A lot of them were widows who needed what was known then as parish money to live. Elizabeth Clarke was an 84 year old one legged widow who was hanged. Many more were elderly. Neighbour turned against neighbour. Many resented their rates and parish money going to help these "wretches"
See any parallels? Because i do.
At the end of the book (although he does allude to it throughout) the author mentions how lack of liberty and welfare and political and economic uncertainty leads to this kind of climate.
We wouldnt get people persecuted for practising witchcraft now (although this still goes on in parts of the developing world) but we still get people persecuted for being poor/disabled etc.
Matthew Hopkins John Stearne and Sir Harbottle Grimston etc are long dead But some of their ideals are still very much alive.
There are parallels and its chilling.
Despite the repeal of the Witchcraft Act in 1736, lynchings of English witches continued well into the 20th century, with the last recorded incident in 1945. Nor, in Gaskill's opinion, are we safe from a fresh outbreak. Witch-lynchings are endemic in the developing world (particularly in sub-Saharan Africa) where "poor and fearful people still associate misfortune with ill-will, and take remedial action". And without "peace and prosperity, liberty and welfare" there is, he thinks, every chance that the next generation in the West "might swerve off in an altogether more mystical and malevolent direction