Introduction Magic And Magical Powers
The ancient belief and existence of magic and magical powers related to encounters and attempts to control the mystic and supernatural. People could use magic to make predictions or cause change through their understanding and interaction with the natural world. Some of the magic practices involved the manipulation of the natural world and drawing on help from various supernatural beings. Although the rationale for the belief of magic kept transforming from time to time, the fundamental reasons remained constant. Magic was seen as an attempt to control the supernatural and account for experiences and conditions that might not otherwise be explained. Magic appeared as a theme when people were concerned with misfortune, risk, and harm, and thus often take the practice as a form of social control and leveling. However, at the beginning of the 14th century, notably the Black Death of 1348, the belief of magic and magical powers started to transform into an expression of the devil who sought to maintain his power on earth and prepare for his advent hidden popular thinking. People started to regard such magic that was intentionally done through supernatural beings’ influence as evil or witchcraft. Although magic and witchcraft had long been practiced in European culture, it remains unclear the reasons and how ancient belief in the existence of magic and magic powers transformed into a belief of witchcraft that could be prosecuted in court and punished by death. This paper argues that human social dilemmas significantly contributed to transforming the belief of magic and magical powers into a belief in witchcraft. The paper will start by analyzing the theoretical and legal origin of witchcraft in Europe, followed by a discussion of the Black Death as a factor in the changing belief about witchcraft.
Theoretical and legal origins of witchcraft believe in Europe
The population across Europe did not initially believe in the existence of witchcraft but had a lot of paranoia over the occurrence of unknown events. However, witchcraft belief started in the middle ages when the church dismissed almost all witchcraft claims as an ordinary superstition of older women and other peasants. Anyone unfortunate enough to be recessed cheeked, and having a hairy lip was assumed to possess evil. Besides, possession of a cat was enough to prove a person was a witch since it was common among witches. As a result, many unlucky women were condemned to all sorts of prosecutions and torture. According to Alan Kors and Edward Peters, four critical elements were necessary for the persecution of witchcraft in Europe. These were the Christian cosmography, which was not present before 1100, systematic ontology in which the devil and witches had a rationally consistent place, permanent group of investigators that was not present before 1300, and a population subjected to consistent laws and extensive social strains**.
By the end of the medieval age, people had started to define a witch as a person who was in the same association with the devil. Between the period, 1000-1500the concepts of magic changed from that of benevolent healing to feared witchcraft. The transformation of the belief and ideas of magic illustrated the rhetoric of persecution that had emerged by the end of the medieval period. Some of the omission language that aimed divergent sexuality, heretics, and Jews were utilized to define witchcraft. Although witchcraft’s origin believes in Europe is not clear, various theoretical and legal aspects explain its origin. One of the witchcraft’s theoretical origins is the liberal tradition where people believed there were no witches, but only a product of overactive ecclesiastical fears. Besides, the European population believed that witchcraft was an ancient religion of fertility based on the horned god’s worship. Other theoretical origins of witchcraft regarded it as part of studying women, especially the social and sexual context.
Black Death of 1348
The 1348 Black Death plague had a tremendous effect on Europe’s major societal, economic, political, and psychological aspects. The Black Death was cruel as it killing millions of people without an alert. At the time, medicine and science were not advanced to discover that the disease spread so fast due to rats. People started to believe that the sickness and deaths were caused by a more supernatural force, which they believed was witchcraft. This followed an unprecedented frequency and intensity of witch-hunts. Although similar circumstances that triggered witch-hunts such as religious conflicts and persistent warfare had occurred before, the Black Death caused these witch-hunts to become severe. Therefore, the transformation of the belief of magic to the belief of witchcraft can be traced back to the Black Death of 1348 in two ways. First, the devastation and particularly the destructive nature of the plague shocked the European psyche in a manner that they started to believe in dark magic. This caused a change in the human conception of God and Satan, eventually resulting to a growing believe in witchcraft. Second, the massive deaths from the plague triggered a chain of events that destabilized Europe’s social and psychological aspects. The social and psychological instability that resulted from the Black Death created a situation in which magic and magical powers became unpopular and eventually believed in witchcraft.
Following the Black Death plague, there was a constant paranoia source and fear over the potential sporadic return of the plague. Since the European population could no longer believe in magic, they handled this fear; they sought to remove sinners as they believed they were the plague’s cause. The population believed that the disease was one of the apocalypse indications, and thus the society had to be eliminated to prepare for the event**. Such circumstances, combined with the unlimited political and religious disruption in the next centuries, resulted in population belief in witchcraft and subsequent witch-hunts. The Black Death plague was such a significant factor for major changes in Europe’s societal and political aspects. This indicates that the plague may also have played a significant role in Europe increasing belief in witchcraft and subsequent fear of witch-hunting. The magnitude of the Black Death and the extent to which it transformed Europe offer a clear picture of how the plague contributed to the changing belief in witchcraft. Although witchcraft’s belief still existed before the Black Death of 1348, it became common after 1375 when people started to believe in the act of communing with the devil to cause evil situations. This change reflects the influence the Black Death had on the changing belief in witchcraft. Essentially, the Black Death was one of the first events of the medieval European society to seek to remedy uncontrollable events by believing in witchcraft.
Although the origin of the belief in witchcraft can be traced back to the medieval era, it can, to some extent, be traced directly or indirectly to the emergence of the Black Death. During the plague, people became dissatisfied with the church’s response, consequently increasing the discontent with the Catholic Church. The plague’s proclamation was a punishment from God for the people’s sins did not content anyone as it struck randomly hit the population regardless of the sins. A common remedy was people started examining their own religious practices and developed a new self-confidence and the belief in the efficiency of the other social actions such as witchcraft to change the prevailing situation. This resulted in extreme religious disturbances, which, combined with numerous failures in the harvest and social changes, provided an ideal environment for the changing belief in witchcraft. Although the plague was not solely responsible for the changing belief in witchcraft in Europe, its provocation of the chain of the events that changed Europe’s religious background cannot be underestimated. The persistent anxiety over the reoccurrence of the plague was so powerful that it reflected turmoil in all aspects of life, which changed Europe’s belief in witchcraft. Witchcraft became the population’s remedy for uncertainty and the inability to control circumstances that resulted from the plague. The massive deaths and psychological trauma of the plague significantly contributed to uncertainty situations that triggered a belief in witchcraft, although subsequent reoccurrence served to stimulate witch-hunts.