levo

Y312: Popular Culture and the Witchcraze of the 16th and 17th Centuries

Depth study: Hopkins and the witch hunt of 1645–1647 — context, critics and the end of the hunt

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on the collapse of the church courts, religious and economic pressures, how the witchfinders were paid, contemporary criticism and Hopkins’s reply, the judges’ questions, his end and historians’ explanations.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Evaluation

Who was the most effective contemporary critic of Hopkins?

Who and when

What difference did the collapse of the church courts make?

Who and when

How did the religious climate of the 1640s shape the hunt?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What difference did the collapse of the church courts make?

    Model answer

    With the abolition of episcopal jurisdiction the courts that had handled moral offences were gone, so anxieties about sin and disorder were pushed towards the criminal law.

  2. 2

    How did the religious climate of the 1640s shape the hunt?

    Model answer

    Godly reformers had stripped churches of images, ejected ministers they thought scandalous and pressed for a disciplined Sabbath, while the proliferation of sects convinced many that Satan was unusually active.

  3. 3

    Which economic pressures bore on East Anglia at the time?

    Model answer

    War taxation and free quarter for soldiers, the disruption of the Essex and Suffolk cloth trade, epidemic disease and the disastrous harvests of the later 1640s together left communities impoverished and frightened.

  4. 4

    How were Hopkins and Stearne paid?

    Model answer

    Towns and parishes engaged them and paid fees and expenses, a substantial sum in one Suffolk town alone, which fuelled contemporary accusations that they hunted for profit.

  5. 5

    Who was the most effective contemporary critic of Hopkins?

    Model answer

    John Gaule, vicar of Great Staughton in Huntingdonshire, who preached and published in 1646 against the methods used, arguing that anyone could be made to look guilty by them.

  6. 6

    How did Hopkins reply to his critics?

    Model answer

    He published a short defence in 1647 answering objections point by point, insisting that he did not use torture and that swimming had been abandoned, and denying that he hunted for money.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

1Closed book
2Open book
3Closed book

The 3-step method, run for you

Answer cold, learn it, then prove it stuck. Levo tracks the jump between your first attempt and your last.

Y101: Alfred and the Making of England 871–1016
Y102: Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest 1035–1107
Y103: England 1199–1272
Y104: England 1377–1455

Cram a whole paper in one sitting

Sort every topic into what you know and what you do not, then drill only the weak ones.

Franz Ferdinand was shot at in June.
SarajevoBelgradeVienna

Blank Blitz makes facts automatic

Rapid timed gap-fills on the terms and numbers you need to recall without thinking.

AA republic replaced the sultanate.
BThe caliphate was abolished in 1924.
CThe Latin alphabet was adopted.

Build It gets the exam shape right

Assemble a full-mark answer from its marking points, in the order an examiner wants them.

Simony means the buying and selling of Church office.
TrueFalse

Test It catches misconceptions

Spot the fault in a statement. The traps are the mistakes students actually make.

721941163128510

Brain Breaks between sessions

Short focus games to reset attention, so the next set lands better than the last.

Every question in Y312: Popular Culture and the Witchcraze of the 16th and 17th Centuries, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

Or £46 a year, about £3.83 a month. Cancel anytime.