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-1Kristina Watson

Marschke

History 210: 8:00 - 9:20

December 6 2007

Misogynistic Witch-Hunts in Pre-Modern Europe

I agree with Anne Llewellyn Barstow, that the witch-hunts in premodern Europe were

misogynistic, and that even Robin Briggs states some facts in his writing that helps support

Barstow’s view. Firstly that he agrees with Barstow, and most historians, with the fact that most

of those accused and sentenced of witchcraft during the centuries of persecution were in fact

female, secondly, that the numbers and cases found (so far) of those accused and sentenced

support this fact. Even if there were slight variations in some areas of the continent that do not

fully support this statement, as taken from the entirety of Europe it does support the argument

that the witch-hunts were misogynistic. And thirdly, the fact that not only was there a majority of

women who suffered persecution, but the reality that most often it was older, poorer women is

supported by both authors. I understand that Brigg’s agreement that the witch-hunt’s victims

were mostly women, but he seems to simply overlook this fact and its misogyny, to say that there

are other factors (political, social, legal, local) that influenced directions in the witch-hunt, but

he himself states that the entire period was misogynistic, “gender took the form of polarity, rather

than a range of overlapping possibilities (Briggs, pg. 213),” “this was such a powerful ‘mind-set’

that it overrode empirical observation (Briggs, pg. 213),” “the result was an unfortunate mixture

of fear and aggression towards women (Briggs, pg. 213).”

Barstow openly and most appropriately states her view that the witch-hunts were

misogynistic by using a couple examples of real trails from the period that show “just which
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women were targeted and under what circumstances (Barstow, pg. 199” to strengthen her

analysis of how men used the witch-hunts to keep women in check. The very second statement

made by Briggs is that “the one thing everyone ‘knows’ about witches is they were women,” then

he goes on to tell of writings like the Malleus Maleficarum, and writings by Pierre de Lancre and

Jean Bodin that also give “the idea that witch-hunting was thinly disguised women-hunting, the

diabolization of the feminine (Briggs, pg. 210).” He continues by stating that “men seem to have

been tainted by association with a suspected wife (Briggs, pg. 211),” this could explain why

“certain combinations of (religious, legal, and economic shifts) have been sufficiently powerful

to deflect a normal tendency for witchcraft to be heavily -but not exclusively- attributed to

women (Briggs, pg. 212).” In his own words, Briggs sells the idea that the men persecuted at the

time might have simply consorted with an accused or convicted woman.

Secondly, both authors refer to the numbers identified in the persecutions, and that men

were often convicted, although not as often as women, of siding with Satan. “Counting heads is a

useful way of shaking our ready assumptions (Briggs, pg. 211),” including the assumption that

because some men were also convicted, tortured, burned at the stake, it means that the hunts

altogether were not misogynistic. However, it is well-known that the witch-hunts were deeply

fear-based because of the severe treatment of those accused, and fear can lead to persecuting

even those in association with anyone suspicious, like husbands, brothers, sons. Even if men

were convicted, it was far easier for a woman to be indicted due to the laws of the time that

always favored the male sex; Barstow gives the examples of a French priest and his mistress,

Claudine and Antoine Simonette, and Jeanette Neuve, as well as the French law that stated “no

more death penalty for prepubescent witches, boys benefited more because they were seen as

minors until twenty-one, whereas girls became adults at eighteen (Barstow, pg. 203).” Also that
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women were “unable by law to give legal testimony, (and) did not traditionally know how to use

the courts, either for initial defense or for appeal (Barstow, pg. 203),” which obviously did not

help many women in France. Briggs goes from country to country to look at percentages and

often reveals that with countries like France, Germany, the Jura and the Alps, and the Spanish

Netherlands, women far outnumbered men as the victims of persecution. The “fact remains that

throughout Europe during the period of major witch hunts (1560-1760), on average 80 percent of

the accused and 85 percent of those executed were women (Barstow, pg. 203).”

Thirdly, the evidence that of those women convicted, were “in many cases the poorest of

the poor (Barstow, pg. 203)“ and most were “old, single women (Barstow, pg. 204).” “We do

find peasant oligarchs accusing poor women (Briggs, pg. 214)” and “poor peasant households

directed their suspicions against tiresome neighbors or persistent beggars (Briggs, pg. 214).” The

poor, peasant, beggar women of the town were known for cursing and complaining of their bad

marriage, and in England it was eventually considered a crime, “outspoken wives were called

shrews and suspected of witchcraft (Barstow, pg. 205).” Those that were old and single cursed

and “used what power they had to make others fear them, give them ‘space,‘ and maybe respect

them (Barstow, pg, 205.“ Some women may have been self-dependent, “past child-bearing and

too enfeebled to do productive work (Barstow, pg. 206)” which threatened the balance of power

in their area if perhaps they were left a wealthy widow, this may have caused some men to

accuse them of witchery.

It seems Briggs himself initially agrees with Barstow with the fact that the witch-hunts

did persecute far more women than men, and that the numbers and cases found so far prove this.

And finally that those that bore the brunt of the persecution were older and poorer women. He

seems to simply excuse the misogynistic views of the time instead of showing the fact that
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misogyny existed throughout everything in premodern Europe, including politics, society, and

laws.
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Barstow, Anne Llewellyn. “Why Women? Gender, Numbers, Class.” In Taking Sides, edited by

Joseph R Mitchell and Helen Buss Mitchell, 198-206 . Guilford, Connecticut:

Dushkin/McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. , 2000.

Briggs, Robin. “Men Against Women: The Gendering of Witchcraft.” In Taking Sides, edited by

Joseph R, Mitchell and Helen Buss Mitchell, 207-215. Guilford, Connecticut:

Dushkin/McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000.