The legitimacy of spectral evidence during the Salem witchcraft trials

<p>This paper looks at the use of spectral evidence during the Salem witch trials and examines whether its use was legitimate and in accordance with the evidential standards of the time (1692). Ultimately this paper finds that the use of spectral evidence was legitimate as it followed the slim guidelines available at the time. The court followed a strong precedent and the limited statutory guidance and instructions that were available. However there was acknowledgement at the time that spectral evidence was limiting the rights of those accused and was leading to unjust convictions. As such these trials invoked an acknowledgement of more modern standards of evidence. Therefore spectral evidence was legitimately used given the guidelines of the time despite the unjust effect that it had.</p>

The legitimacy of spectral evidence during the Salem witchcraft trials

<p>This paper looks at the use of spectral evidence during the Salem witch trials and examines whether its use was legitimate and in accordance with the evidential standards of the time (1692). Ultimately this paper finds that the use of spectral evidence was legitimate as it followed the slim guidelines available at the time. The court followed a strong precedent and the limited statutory guidance and instructions that were available. However there was acknowledgement at the time that spectral evidence was limiting the rights of those accused and was leading to unjust convictions. As such these trials invoked an acknowledgement of more modern standards of evidence. Therefore spectral evidence was legitimately used given the guidelines of the time despite the unjust effect that it had.</p>

An Evaluation of Akan and Konkomba Witchcraft Trials & Beliefs in Ghana: In Dialogue with the Biblical, Anthropological and Psychiatrists Perspectives

The study illustrates how witchcraft accusations are confirmed and how the accused are tried in the Akan and Konkomba context in Ghana. It further examines the legitimacy of witchcraft beliefs through dialogue with the biblical, anthropological and psychiatrist’s perspectives. The methodology used in the qualitative research was the interpretive paradigm which explored the views of 40 Akan and 20 Konkomba respondents through interviews. Other kinds of literature were used as secondary sources in the discourse to triangulate the findings. The study findings suggest that those who often lead the witchcraft trials among the Akan are the chiefs and traditional priests (akɔmfo) whiles the chief priest and landowner or the Utindana leads the trials in the Konkomba context at the Gnani witch camp in the Yendi municipality in Northern Ghana. Furthermore, there are similarities in the processes of witchcraft trials in the Akan and Konkomba contexts as well as divergences. The legitimacy of the beliefs in the activities of witchcraft in Ghana was tested from other perspectives and some of the beliefs were putative while others were negated. The study postulates that witchcraft beliefs in Ghana cannot be negated entirely. The research contributes to knowledge by highlighting the gaging of witchcraft trials and beliefs in Ghana.

Witchcraft against Royal Danish Ships in 1589 and the Transnational Transfer of Ideas

This article deals with transnational transfer of ideas about witchcraft at the end of the sixteenth century. The outset is alleged witchcraft performed against a royal Danish fleet that was to carry Princess Anne across the North Sea to her husband, King James VI of Scotland, autumn 1589, and following trials in Copenhagen. These include court records from witchcraft trials and diplomatic correspondence between Denmark, England and Scotland. By close-readings of these texts, a multi-layered narrative emerges. The article sheds light on the routes for transmission of witchcraft ideas, as well as the contemporary context for interpreting witchcraft notions.

Specialists in Magic

This chapter highlights three witchcraft trials in which the sources offer compelling evidence that the accused parties actually practiced some kind of magical work: healing and cursing; protecting crops by untying knots in grain; and identifying criminals through divination. These three instances of magical practitioners at work come from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, respectively: two are from the Ukrainian region, and one is from the Russian North. They were heard in a range of secular and religious courts and by representatives of local and central administrations. Across the three, similar issues surface. The authorities and the accused in their statements expressed concern about whether or not the practitioners accepted payment for the work and about how they learned or received their skills. In each case, there remains little question that the accused did practice some form of magic and did so with enough frequency and publicity to qualify as “professionals” (in a loose sense of the word), whether or not they identified themselves as witches. Whether they deserved the torture and harsh punishments they often received, at least into the mid-eighteenth century, is, of course, a very different kind of question.

Witchcraft Trials’ Processes and Extralegal Prosecution of Witchcraft

This chapter investigates witchcraft trials' processes and extralegal prosecution of witchcraft in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Hetmanate, as well as in Muscovy and imperial Russia. Accusations of witchcraft in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth came from private citizens, not from state representatives; in other words, they flowed into courts from society, rather than being part of a top-down witch hunt. Suspected witches in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth could be prosecuted and sent to the torture chamber in order to elicit a confession. While municipal courts in the autonomous Hetmanate continued to apply Magdeburg Law and other Polish-Lithuanian statutes, they also sometimes referred to Russian decrees. In the witchcraft trials, Muscovite judges asked a prescribed set of questions that dwelled on the issues of physical harm and betrayed concern for preventing the spread of magical criminality. Under Catherine II, the court system underwent a major overhaul, as did the approach to the prosecution of witchcraft.

Witchcraft and Politics in Muscovy and the Hetmanate

This chapter analyzes witchcraft and politics in Muscovy and the Hetmanate. Politics at the early modern Russian (or Muscovite) court was very much focused on personal connections of kinship, marriage, and patronage, so the choice of brides for the rulers was of utmost political importance. Witchcraft, or rumors of witchcraft, frequently arose in connection with royal marriages. Witchcraft charges also arose when competition among rival factions at court grew particularly fierce, as during the minorities of rulers, when members of the inner circle jockeyed for position, or when a ruler was selecting his royal bride. While it is true that in many instances witchcraft charges were combined with suspicions of high treason or lese majesty — that is, attacks on the ruler, his family, or his dignity — far from all Russian witchcraft trials or anxieties can be described as “political” in any conventional sense of the word. Instead of stressing the political essence of witchcraft, one could emphasize the personal, familial, or even emotional aspects of political life that emerge from the language and sites of anxiety evident in these texts. Witchcraft thus provides a lens through which to rethink the very nature of politics.

Laws and Guidelines concerning the Prosecution of Witchcraft, Late Twelfth Century to 1885

This chapter examines the legislative foundations of witchcraft trials. In early modern legal systems that were cobbled together as boundaries shifted, empires expanded and incorporated new populations, and overlapping jurisdictions bumped up against each other, it could be unclear which authority should hear a case or what legal statute should pertain. In the particular instance of witchcraft, the range of jurisdictions was particularly broad, since it was one of the rare crimes that could fall under either secular or spiritual authorities. Even when jurisdictions were sorted out and the relevant legal statutes were clear, in some venues the authorities might find ways to avoid prescribed legal norms. This disregard for the letter of the law, particularly in sentencing, appears to be a factor in the relatively small number of trials and low execution rate of accused witches in the Ukrainian regions under both Polish-Lithuanian and Russian rule. It is with the legal history of this region, the eastern Ukrainian territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, that the chapter begins, before turning to Muscovite Russia, and finally, the Russian Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.