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

Responses of the authorities to witchcraft: Legal developments

  • 2 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on legal developments including the Inquisitorial system of criminal procedure and campaigns against medieval superstition.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Process

Why did inquisitorial procedure make torture almost inevitable in witchcraft cases?

Key term

Name three instruments or methods of judicial torture used in witchcraft cases.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Distinguish accusatorial from inquisitorial procedure.

    Model answer

    Under accusatorial procedure a private accuser brought the case and risked penalties if it failed, whereas under inquisitorial procedure the court itself investigated and prosecuted on rumour or denunciation.

  2. 2

    Why did inquisitorial procedure make torture almost inevitable in witchcraft cases?

    Model answer

    Conviction for a capital crime required either two eyewitnesses or a confession, and since nobody could witness a pact with the Devil, courts turned to torture to obtain the confession.

  3. 3

    What was the Carolina of 1532?

    Model answer

    It was the imperial criminal code that regulated procedure in the German lands, requiring grounds of suspicion before torture and treating harmful witchcraft as a capital offence.

  4. 4

    Name three instruments or methods of judicial torture used in witchcraft cases.

    Model answer

    The strappado, which hoisted the prisoner by bound arms, thumbscrews, and leg screws or boots that crushed the shins.

  5. 5

    How did courts get round rules limiting torture to a single session?

    Model answer

    They declared later sessions a continuation of the first rather than a repetition, so the same prisoner could be tortured repeatedly within the letter of the law.

  6. 6

    Why were denunciations so dangerous?

    Model answer

    Prisoners under torture were routinely required to name accomplices at the sabbat, and each name generated a new arrest, which is how a single case became a chain reaction consuming dozens of people.

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