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The Witch Craze in Britain, Europe and North America, c1580–c1750

The influence of Cotton Mather

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 3

Overview

Recall questions on Memorable Providences, Mather's ambiguous position on spectral evidence, Tituba's confession, the other instigators, and why confessing saved lives.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Who were the other instigators?

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What was Memorable Providences?

Key term

What was Mather's position on spectral evidence?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Which Puritan minister wrote in support of the witch trials?

    Model answer

    Cotton Mather.

  2. 2

    Which enslaved woman was among the first people accused at Salem?

    Model answer

    Tituba.

  3. 3

    What was Memorable Providences?

    Model answer

    Cotton Mather's 1689 account of the bewitchment of the Goodwin children in Boston, which described symptoms that the Salem girls later reproduced.

  4. 4

    How did Mather's book contribute to Salem?

    Model answer

    It supplied a template for recognising bewitchment, and its account of fits, contortions and spectral torment was closely mirrored three years later.

  5. 5

    What was Mather's position on spectral evidence?

    Model answer

    Ambiguous and much debated: he warned against relying on it alone while publicly defending the trials in Wonders of the Invisible World.

  6. 6

    Who was Goody Glover?

    Model answer

    An Irish Catholic servant hanged in Boston in 1688 for bewitching the Goodwin children, whose case Cotton Mather studied and described in Memorable Providences.

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