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Paper Abstract: Analyzes 1692 trials in Massachusetts Bay Colony as & underlying moral, religious & political motivations. Paper Introduction: This research will examine the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 in Massachusetts Bay Colony and set forth evidence from contemporaneous sources that they were politically motivated. It is a commonplace of prerevolution American history that the Salem witch trials and executions of 1692 were an aberration of the general tendency toward shaping society in line with ideas of personal and political liberty. But that line of thought ignores the complexities of creating a new civil society in the wilderness. Further, it ignores the fact that those who built that society, namely Massachusetts Bay, were amalgams of their personal and group history in England. As matters turned out, by 1792 Massachusetts had achieved a political reputation associated with political radicalism and a progressive, liberal republican government. However, the evidence of the Salem trials and hangi Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. However, the relevant feature ofthis episode can be inferred as the fact of the unmediated reportage of thedistracted behavior of the girls as the consequence of Sarah Good'sbehavior. However, Sewall's diarybetween 1692 and 1697, when he publicly disavowed his actions, suggests agrowing awareness of having made a grave mistake. Collier & Son, 1938. .(Her answers were in a very wicked, spiteful manner, reflecting andretorting against the authority with base and abusive words . And it is the absolutist,unmediated theocratic ethos that appears to have survived to 1692 anddetermined events in Salem in that year. . That being so, the fact that the younggirls whose behavior seems to have brought about charges against variouswomen and a few men of Salem was never challenged. (Scot 123). 293-296.Scot, Reginald. If any man after legall conviction shall have or worship any other god, but the lord god, he shall be put to death [Deut. New York: P.F. Charles W. 18 8; New York: AMS Press Inc., 1965.Kramer, Henrich, and Sprenger, James. By the time the 1692 witchcraft trials began in Salem, MassachusettsBay had a relatively secure body of legal precedent treating of theinterpenetration of religious and political violations of the law. "Condemnation of Witchcraft Trials." The Annals of America, Volume 1, 1493-1754, Discovering a New World. Malleus associates witchcraft chiefly with women. Ed. For example [sic spelling, punctuation]: 1. Eliot. Indeed, equally as important as the history of a witchcraft judiciaryto the Salem case is the fact that Massachusetts Bay Colony was a theocracyin both conception and execution. . 24.15, 16]. 4 vols. . . Jurisdiction over private life for religious reasons reachespolitics in Massachusetts Bay law, if the standard for analyzing the law isthat of 2 th-century representative democracy. 12. I am innocent. Those who admitted witchcraft or to beingtargeted by witches were spared. But the third said, "All hail, Macbeth, that hereafter shalt be king of Scotland!" (Holinshed 33 ).Reference is made by Holinshed to the "common opinion" of the women's"necromantical" powers based on the fact that what they prophesied forMacbeth indeed came to pass (Holinshed 33 ). Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1968. A core belief of Puritanism was that the favored of God, theElect, were held to experience material benefit in this vale of tears;those who experienced hardship were not so favored. Eliot. In a letter to an Englishclergyman (Adler 285), one such, Mr. Thomas Brattle, refers to "themischiefs which arise from a factious and rebellious spirit" that hasinfected Salem. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. This was so in thecourtroom venue itself and in reportage of court proceedings. "The Salem Witchcraft Trials." Laws and Trials That Created History. In 1644, in the wake of a dispute over judicial jurisdiction inMassachusetts, the good Mr. Winthrop promulgated a documentary defenseagainst charges laid by deputies (legislators) that barring them from thejudicial authority of magistrates constituted "arbitrary" government bymagistrate. American Historical Documents, 1 -19 4. Thus the real criticism ofthe sham magic is the interrogation of the motives of those who targetedher: How could mother Alice escape condemnation and hanging, being arreigned upon this evidence; when a poore woman hath beene cast away, upon a cousening oracle, or rather a false lie, devised by Feats the juggler, through the malicious instigation of some of hir adversaries? 1 9-15. Malleus presents a (spurious) etymological proof for theconnection between women and witchery, which is that the Latin for woman,femina, is derived from fe, Latin for faith, and minus, Latin for small orweak: "Therefore a wicked woman is by her nature quicker to waver in herfaith, and consequently quicker to abjure the faith, which is the root ofwitchcraft" (Malleus 44). Presently [= atthat very moment] they were all tormented.)Sarah Good, do you not see now what you have done? . Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1968. But the evidence of thedocumentary record is that the politics of the prosecutions and the cost inhuman capital tend to discredit the ethos of the witch-credulous whiletending to credit the ethos of those who came to wonder whether hanging oldwomen was what the notion of the City upon a Hill had really entailed. It doesnot take much imagination to see that characterizing witches as the Devil'ssex slaves (Malleus 41ff) provided repressed and careerist Inquisitionclergymen with an excuse to engage in ecclesiastically sanctioned sexualtorture and a sadistic form of male homosexual bonding. Charles W. But by1696, Sewall has been obliged to comfort his children, who have beenterrified by Cotton Mather's sermons, which lead them to believe that Satanis in their hearts and that they are going to go to hell because "notElected" (116). Elsewhere, Scot compares the credulous people who used to believe inthe mythical fairy Robin Goodfellow or in hobgoblins and the credulous inthe current period who believed in "hags and witches . To be sure, species ofwitch hunts--the creationism/evolution business that just will not go awayin America even as of 1999 or the Red Scares of the 192 s and 195 s--persist as a practical and vexed American matter. American Historical Documents, 1 -19 4. The episode is taken at facevalue, more or less attributing Scotland's trouble to Macbeth's encounterwith the supernatural, hence lending credence to prophetic magic as afeature of royal politics. It is anchored in God,but its analytical effects and import are specifically and programmaticallypolitical. Ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1965.Sewall, Samuel. . Inother words, the reportage served the purpose of the dominant culture,dominant ethos. In other words, not everybody was completely satisfied withthe theocratic social engineering of Massachusetts Bay, and who could blamea person? 114-16.The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1639. Trans. . John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin":Have you made no contact with the devil?No. In expellingHutchinson's brother-in-law the Rev. John Wheelwright and so excluding allheretics from Massachusetts Bay, Winthrop explained that allowing them toremain in the community only to "cause divisions and make people look attheir magistrates, ministers, and brethren as enemies to christs andantichrists, etc., were it not sin . Much attention isgiven to why perfidious witchcraft "is found more in so fragile a sex thanin men." Women, it is declared, "are found to be given to superstition andwitchcraft." In particular, midwives "surpass all others in wickedness"(Malleus 41). . Winthrop stated that the government was not arbitrary butinstead "regulated," or a species of the rule of law (Winthrop, "Arbitrary"88). The political facts of Salem 1692, given the executions, weredifficult to overcome, and the attachment to the sentiments and articles ofthe Body of Liberties seems to have been strong among the most educated ofthe Puritan community. . And in the background of the Salem trials was a well-settled tradition of popular opinion about witchcraft as a dangerous andpowerful rival of Christianity, as both ethos and doctrine. . In other words, an absolute belief in thepower of witchcraft, Satan, and all the rest, as articulated in Holinshedin 1586 and in the Body of Laws of 1644, was the uninterrogated foundationupon which the trials proceeded. Shakespeare drew heavily onHolinshed for the plays covering English history from Richard II to RichardIII, which closes with the accession of Henry VII, Elizabeth's grandfather,to the throne of England. Mark Schorer, Arno Jewett, Walter Havighurst, and Allen Kirschner. Ed. Thetradition of interpenetrating political and religious issues in thetheocratic context therefore must be understood as fundamentally informingwhat happened in Salem in 1692. New York: Crown, 1974.Bradford, William. The fact thatthe laws were composed by the Rev. Nathaniel Ward is instructive supportfor the power (and unquestioned dominance) of the theocratic model and forthe assertion of cultural resonance in the matter of received wisdom aboutwitchcraft. Cotton Mather, Increase Mather's son and heir, Wonders of the Invisible World seemsto have functioned as an apologia for (and throwback to) thecivil/religious authorities of 1692 (and 1644 and 1638 and 163 and 162 )Massachusetts Bay. There is a certain sameness to the trial transcripts of those accusedof witchcraft who were hanged or who were pardoned. New York: Dover, 1971.Mather, Cotton. John Winthrop's "A Model of ChristianCharity" articulated the values that would dominate Massachusetts Bay. Collier & Son, 1938. Thepresiding judge at Salem, Samuel Sewall, was moved to repent for overseeingthe deaths of the 19 people accused of witchcraft. Matter's view seems to have been that the devil madethem do it (9) and that they "have proceeded so far as to concert andconsult the methods of rooting out the Christian religion from thiscountry, and setting up instead of it perhaps amore gross diabolism thanever the world saw before" (17). New York: P.F. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. (Hathorne desired the children all of them to look upon her, and see ifthis were the person that hurt them; and so they all did look upon her, andsaid this was one of the persons that did torment them. Mather 296). Mayflower PilgrimWilliam Bradford's diary, for example, cites the abusive attitude of aseaman who on the difficult voyage of 162 was struck dead by a disease onthe Atlantic journey, "the just hand of God on him" (Bradford 94). Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1968.---."A Model of Christian Charity." The Annals of America, Vol. No direct referenceis made to witchcraft; however, the obvious intent of the Puritans was toanchor New England society in well-understood biblical authority. More will be said about this issue, but the presentpoint is that Bradford's opinion appears to be representative of goodPuritan ethos. Thus does moral authority of the magistrateemanate from God. . Only a court reporter (one Ezekiel Cheever, Salem Village, Marchthe first, 1692) who had no capacity to interrogate behavior that tended toconfirm a belief in the power of the devil witches could select verbs ofpartial attribution (torment) instead of neutral, descriptive behavior. Itfollows that those who failed to prosper in the city upon a hill would bemore or less exposed as sinful and undeserving, according as they failed ofmaterial achievement. . If any man shall conspire and attempt any invasion, insurrection, or publique rebellion against our commonwealth . What makes this statement political is the fact that it is a critiqueof theocracy and a lesson to those who would sanction secular experience bydivine fiat. It was in the latter year that the Massachusetts Body ofLiberties, modeled in significant part on the 1639 Fundamental Orders ofConnecticut, was promulgated as the law of the Puritan land. Writing in January 1693 of the death of one Mrs.Prout, one of the judges at Salem, Samuel Sewall, cites her "sore conflictsof mind, not without suspicion of Witchcraft" (114). Such authority was grounded in a more general ethos of humanexperience. Winthrop's hand can be seen to have shaped many details of civil andpolitical life in Puritan Massachusetts, not only in the founding documentshe produced but also in his behavior as governor of the colony. Ed. New York: P.F. . In a broad sense, another hindrance to the triumph of common senseover popular belief in the power of witchcraft in English culture isHolinshed's Chronicles, first published in 1586, which functioned as thepopular (and officially approved) history of Britain as well as an apologiafor and paean to the reign of Protestant Elizabeth Tudor. and that without any right of appeal" (Malleus xliv-xlv). We have seen his 1693suspicion of the death of a woman somehow affected by witchcraft. It appears that from the point of view of KingJames, whose Demonoligie is more credulous of the reality and threat ofwitches, Scot is right to condemn the Catholics but wrong to debunk thewitch myths in general. IncreaseMather's closing statement in this regard articulates a strand of liberalthought that remains embedded into the politics of judicial integrity tothe present day: "It were better that ten suspected witches should escapethan that one innocent person should be condemned" (I. Ed. "Insufficiency of Evidence Against Witches." The Annals of America, Volume 1, 1493-1754, Discovering a New World. American Literature. Asthe document famously states: The Lord will make our name a praise and glory, so that men shall say of succeeding plantations: "The Lord make it like that of New England." For we must consider that we shall be like a City upon a Hill; the eyes of all people are on us. Theevidence of the 1692 events in Salem suggest that it would be naive tothink that the Puritans did not bring with them to the New World the set ofbeliefs widely held (though about different groups) with respect towitchcraft. 1, 1493- 1754: Discovering a New World. Winthrop had an either direct or indirect role in the whole process.Growing out of Winthrop's theocratic model over the course of the 17thcentury was an increasing tendency toward religious (= political)intolerance for deviation from the norm. But that line of thought ignores the complexities ofcreating a new civil society in the wilderness. "A Puritan's Days" [Excerpt, Sewall's Journal]. He reportsthat the judges, who are acting as prosecutors as well, more or less coachthe young girls to behave on cue, as if "apprehended" or "afflicted" incourt. American Literature. The core argument is that God is the"only lawgiver" but that human beings have power "to interpret His laws;and this belongs principally to the highest authority in a commonwealth"(Winthrop, "Arbitrary" 99). If we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us . On Witchcraft, Being The Wonders of the Invisible World. PopeInnocent VII's 1484 Bull, Summis desiderantes, served as imprimatur ofMalleus, formally sanctioning the authority of the Inquisition to "proceedto the just correction, imprisonment, and punishment of any persons,without let or hindrance, in every way as if the provinces, townships,dioceses, districts, territories, yea, even the persons and their crimes inthis kind were named and particularly designated in Our letters" (Malleusxliv). . If by item 12 very politicaldissent or reform is barred, it can hardly be surprising that prosecutionfor witchcraft in Salem, governed as it is by the religiously based law,ineluctably overlaps and converges with politics. This indeed seems to me tobe a gross taking of God's name in vain" (Brattle 289). 1862; Mount Vernon, N.Y.: Peter Pauper P, 195 .Mather, Increase. All who threatened or endeavored "to hinder or harass theInquisitors, all who oppose them, all rebels, of whatsoever rank" would besubject to excommunication "and yet more terrible penalties, censures, andpunishment . If any man or woeman be a witch, (that is hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit,) they shall be put to death [Ex. As matters turnedout, by 1792 Massachusetts had achieved a political reputation associatedwith political radicalism and a progressive, liberal republican government.However, the evidence of the Salem trials and hangings is that the Puritansociety of 1692, standing squarely in the middle of the chronologicalcontinuum from the late 14 s to the late 18 s, had as much in common withthe Britain and Europe of the late fifteenth century as with the America ofthe late nineteenth. he is, upon many accounts, more concerned than any that he knows of, Desires to take the Blame and shame of it, Asking pardon of men (Sewall 116). New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. From thisauthority, the civil or political authority was derived and in fact wasequivalent to religious authority. till we are forced out of the new land where we are going (Winthrop, "Model" 115).This document was produced in 163 , only 1 years after James I's charterof Plymouth and 32 years after James I's Demonologie. In sum, theevidence of the witchcraft trials in Salem is that the Puritans had leftEngland in 162 in order to worship freely--a concept that they did notextend to experience of the New World. Holinshed asksGod "to protect hir with the target of his power against the perniciouspractises of satans instruments" (951-2). Leaving aside the fact that thepolitically ambitious could manipulate superstition and the ambiguity ofwhether people who should have known better believed in the power ofwitchcraft, there is on the historical record manifest political andintellectual action predicated of presumed belief in that power. 85-1 5.---. The late 17th-century connection between Increase Mather'sarticulation of the ultimate liberal position about allowing the guilty togo free so as not to punish the innocent, and Sewall's magnanimousacceptance of culpability in prosecuting the innocent, is most fruitfullyexplained with reference to the moral structures informing the shape ofpolitical processes of the American constitution of 1999. For example: The witches were executed; and confessed nothing; which indeed will not be wondered by them, who consider and entertain the Judgment of a Judicious writer, that the unpardonable sin, is most usually committed by the Professors of the Christian Religion, falling into witchcraft (Mather 1 ).Such, on Mather's judgment, had befallen Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, JohnProctor, and the rest. . Something of a critique, indeed, is at work on the part ofIncrease Mather, who, while accepting the reality of the threat ofwitchcraft and the need to execute witches, wonders whether it is reallyprudent to rely on evidence of "specters" (296), including, presumably, themere "tormented" nature of accusers who claim to be affected spectrally. 6 - 65.The Massachusetts Body of Liberties, 1641. we shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God and all believers in God . Fortunes of politics, like fortunes of war, are mercurial. What makes this document relevant to the events of 1692 is thatWinthrop employs a host of biblical verses and a line of religiousreasoning to justify his positions. Troubled by the fact that the afflicteds' complaints are sufficientto bring the accused to trial (289), Brattle also complains that those whoadmit to being witches (i.e., renouncing God), "should yet b allowed andordered to swear by the name of the great God! Holinshed's focus on the witches' predictivepower is consistent with the notion that there was conceptualinterpenetration of witchcraft and politics during the Elizabethan period,even among the educated classes. . Brattle diffidently questions whether human judges might not befallible but decidedly questions the structure of proceedings. Basically, everyoneaccused of witchcraft at Salem who denied the charge completely appears tohave been hanged. An importantretrospective report of the events in Salem far overtook Brattle's privateletter or Increase Mather's work Cases of Conscience Concerning EvilSpiritis Personating Men (cited in Adler 293ff). Hugh Ross Williamson. By 1697, Sewall, who has lost several of his children(doubtless quite outside the expectation of one of the Elect), is moved torise at a public meeting: Samuel Sewall, sensible of the reiterated strokes of God upon himself and family, and being sensible, that as to the Guilt contracted upon the opening of the late Commission of Oyer and Terminer at Salem . 285-92..Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Charles W. . Some might say that Hutchinson and Wheelwright, who were banished,were lucky that as of 1638 the Body of Laws mandating death for dissent hadnot yet been promulgated. Compare as well Sarah Good's earnest and futileprotestations of innocence with the admission by a slave, named Tituba, whoat first denied consort with "evil spirit[s]" but who proceeded to denounceSarah Good and one Goody [= Goodwife or Mrs.] Osburn for hurting the poordear tormented children. Tituba was not (cited in Aymar and Sagarin 59). By 1692, Salemappears to have emerged as the venue in which the culture of religiouslybased social engineering could work its special brand of horror and markthe city upon the hill permanently. The most cogentfeature of Brattle's political analysis, at least from the perspective of1999 representative (secular) government, is embedded deep in his text: Liberty was evermore accounted the great privilege of an Englishman; but certainly, if the devil will be heard against us and his testimony taken, to the seizing and apprehending of us, our liberty vanishes, and we are fools if we boast of liberty (Brattle 291). . 59.Winthrop, John. A Protestant volume of stature equivalent to Malleus appeared inEngland in 1589, when Reginald Scot published The Discoverie of Witchcraft.In 1598, James VI of Scotland (later James I of England, who in 162 chartered Plymouth Colony and the Mayflower) published Demonologie; he hadconsidered himself a target of witches. Ed. Itmakes more sense, according to Increase Mather, to look at reliableevidence that accused witches have been witnessed conjuring the devil andhis minions, than to accept unsubstantiated accusations as fact. It is a commonplace of prerevolution American history that the Salemwitch trials and executions of 1692 were an aberration of the generaltendency toward shaping society in line with ideas of personal andpolitical liberty. Collier & Son, 1938. . 2. The reference to the "tormented" children is to what would today becalled acting-out of distracted behavior. Holinshed describesMacbeth's meeting with three women: in strange and wild apparel, resembling creatures of elder world, whom when they attentively beheld, wondering much at the sight, the first of them spoke and said: "All hail, Macbeth, thane of Glammis!" (for he had lately entered into dignity and office by the death of his father Sinell). Whether the Puritan judges had Malleus or Demonologie in handis less important than the fact that the impact of these texts (and the useto which they had been put some 1 years earlier) on the culture hadpassed into common social experience and in 1692 was far from beinginterrogated or critiqued. 13.6, 1 ]. 18.1 ]. 1, 1493- 1754: Discovering a New World. The religious and juridical resonance of Malleus Maleficarum, firstpublished 1485-149 , should not be underestimated in this regard. By 1692, policies againstreligious tolerance that Winthrop articulated in 1638 and that were writteninto positive law in 1644 appear to have assumed a life of their own, tohave merged with judicial discretion in decisive ways. "I am no witch. . This fact can be interpreted as agrievous error of political (never mind religious or moral) judgment,fostering as it did palpable violations of what today would be called basichuman rights. Malleus and the Demonologieillustrate the reach that a supporting text can have over the lives ofthose whom civil authority, with the sanction of religious authority,chooses to target with charges that they fit the witch profile. But the fact thatMather was able to find a mass audience for his tribute to the Salem eventswhile Mr. Brattle's private letter did not says much about the reality ofthe sociopolitical scene of Massachusetts Bay in 1692. Further, it ignores thefact that those who built that society, namely Massachusetts Bay, wereamalgams of their personal and group history in England. . Citing the people of New England as "a people of God"(9), Mather explained (and rationalized) the justice of the prosecutionsand executions, more or less in line with Bradford's view of 162 that thefavored of God would experience material good and that those not so favoredwould get their just deserts. Works CitedAymar, Brandt, and Edward Sagarin. The Malleus Maleficarum. 66- 84.The Mayflower Compact, 162 . Eliot. or shall treacherously and perfediouslie attempt the alteration and subversion of our frame of politie or Government fundamentallie, he shall be put to death (Body 79-8 ).These articles of law are verbatim from the Fundamental Orders ofConnecticut. Well, Goodman Mather's views did not prevail. Eliot. What was articulated in 163 as aCity upon a Hill by 1641 had become something rather different, though notunrelated. Scot's work is in part a Protestantsocial critique of Malleus, in particular of prosecutions for witchcraftundertaken under Catholic rule. JohnWinthrop was instrumental in the expulsion in 1638 of Anne Hutchinson andothers, including her clergyman kinsman, from the colony for religiousdissent and challenging the authority of the good Puritan fathers: "You doadhere unto [seditious practices] and do endeavor to set forward thisfaction and so you do dishonour us" ("Report" 165). 22.18; Deut. American Historical Documents, 1 -19 4. This research will examine the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 inMassachusetts Bay Colony and set forth evidence from contemporaneoussources that they were politically motivated. If civilauthority was predicated of religious authority under Winthrop, so hisdecisions grounded in religion had civil and political import. . The part of the Body of Liberties that most stronglyarticulates the social engineering aspects of the Puritan theocracy istitled "Capitall Laws," each of which is pretty much derived from biblicaltext. Now political and history has not been kind--and for the best ofreasons--to Mather's analysis of the Salem issue fronts. Ed. 3. "They Knew They Were Pilgrims" [Excerpt, William Bradford's journal]. to receive more of those opinions,which we already find the evil fruit of?" (Winthrop 156). It washere said that her husband had said that he was afraid that she either wasa witch or would be one very quickly.) (in Aymar and Sagarin 57-8). On the other hand,some few souls appear to have been troubled (though not moved to manifestadvocacy) by the unfolding events of 1692. If any person shall Blaspheme the name of god, he father, Sonne or Holie Ghost, with direct, expresse, presumptuous or high handed blasphemie, or shall curse god in the like manner, he shall be put to death [Lev. . Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1968. In various English cases, Scot finds"normal explanations" for such accusations, "malicious persecution,deliberate fraud, psychological disturbance, and coincidence" (21). Collier & Son, 1938. Forexample, in a notorious prosecution of a so-called "pythonist," Scot saysthat a woman (Alice) was maliciously targeted as a procuring witch by amaid with histrionic talents, including ventriloquism, who behaved like awoman possessed at Alice's behest and threw her voice to make it appearthat Alice was speaking through a snake's mouth. Holinshed also served as Shakespeare's source forMacbeth (performed 16 6) as well--reporting as fact not only thebiographical details of the ambitious Scots king but also the legend ofMacbeth's motivation for pursuing Scotland's throne. Montague Summers. Mark Schorer, Arno Jewett, Walter Havighurst, and Allen Kirschner. Why do you thustorment these poor children?I do not torment them. Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 was heir to a cultural tradition ofwidespread credulousness about witchcraft, in chief that it was effectiveat manipulating the physical environment. Sarah Good and others who claimed their innocencewere hanged. . Published in 17 by theRev. . New York: P.F. Consider therecord of the examination of Sarah Good by Salem magistrates "theWorshipful Esqrs. I know nothing of it,"said Bridget Bishop, the first woman to be hanged in Salem for witchcraft(in Aymar and Sagarin 58). A careful look at the text of Malleus from the perspective of 2 th-century scientific method yields a reading of misogynist subtext. The relevant political point is the absolutism ofthe theocracy and the absence of appeal. This analysis is completely consistentwith the sentiment of the Massachusetts Body of Liberties that dissent andidolatry were equally liable of capital punishment. . "The Exclusion of Heretics, 1637." The Annals of America, Vol. "Arbitrary Government Described and the Government of he Massachusetts Vindicated from that Aspersion, 1644." American Historical Documents, 1 -19 4. Charles W. In a curious way, indeed, the Salem episode of religiousexcess can be said to have fueled an impulse toward secular moderation thatcame to define the American system of government. 93-98.Brattle, Thomas. . and in time tocome, a witch will be as much derided and contemned, and as plainlieperceived, as the illusion and knaverie of Robin goodfellow (Scot 123).Scot includes many such explanations in Discoverie, but his common sensehad limited social utility. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.