Constructing Witchcraft: Deviance and Fear in Early Modern Europe

Today, we usually attribute misfortune and tragedy to chance or coincidence, not tending to read into such events for any underlying cause or significance, however the same cannot be said for those living in early modern Europe, who often turned to the supernatural for an explanation, which cultivated a paranoid and God-fearing society. Looking at fears surrounding the patriarchy, immorality and difference may therefore help us to understand why it was witchcraft that European societies turned to when explaining any misfortune. 

The idea of a ‘sin economy’ describes the early modern belief that societal misfortune, like storms, deaths or crop failure, was God’s punishment of humanity’s sins to encourage societies to dispel any immorality. It was within this environment of fear and suspicion of deviance that the threat of witchcraft grew. Although no single common crime constituted an accusation of witchcraft in Europe, patterns are found in those who were identified as witches, and in the nature of the harmful and malicious acts known as maleficium which witches supposedly caused. These can ultimately be attributed to fears of societal instability.  

Possibly the most fear-inducing aspect of witchcraft was its secrecy. The idea that “witchcraft could be learned or inherited” was particularly threatening, since it implied witches could not be easily traced or identified while implicating entire families, generating wide-scale panic. Witchcraft became an explanation of misfortune, often through scapegoating, however, misfortunes had to be repeatedly “seen as significant” to give someone the reputation of witchcraft and arouse suspicion. 

Of those accused of witchcraft in Europe, women made up 80 per cent, indicating a significant gender-related, but not necessarily gender-specific distribution. Historians argue that this prevalence reflected a misogynistic patriarchal society, with some focusing specifically on fears of female sexuality. For example, sexual promiscuity often attracted both outrage and intrigue, while lesbian relationships in which women took what was considered to be the masculine penetrative role subverted a heteronormative ‘natural order’, thereby undermining the patriarchy and threatening social stability. Similarly feared was lower-class female knowledge and autonomy, which posed a threat to established gender relations, as with Kirsten Sørensdatter, whose workplace education was construed as evidence of her learning witchcraft in the 1621 Norwegian Finnmark witch trials. 

Women’s societal roles – including midwifery, healing and cooking – also presented “more opportunities to practise harmful magic”. Suspicion fell on these roles as they involved making potions and folk remedies, activities associated with maleficium. For healers, if such methods failed to cure illnesses, these women could be accused of malicious intent. This was particularly damning in midwifery as infant mortality stood high at 25 per cent, and grief could be directed towards midwives as blame for the death. The witch’s potential capability to cause harm threatened societal safety and encouraged a panicked response, known as a ‘witch-craze’, wherein communities responded with an “organised attack”, taking the form of trials. 

Societal misogyny does not explain the persecution of men however, therefore suggesting broader fears existed regarding the stability of the patriarchy. Men’s relationship with the Devil was characterised differently to women’s, in that, while remaining a product of weak will – as with Thomas Leys’ trial in Aberdeen, 1597 wherein he admitted to intentionally attending a witch’s Sabbath with his mother – male witches often took on a role of the Devil’s patronage, involving being granted authoritative powers, and given wands. Ultimately, societal stereotypes of witches expected women’s compliance, and as such, men’s involvement in witchcraft feminised them in their failure to meet masculine expectations, thereby also undermining the patriarchy, which was cause for concern in a society praising men for moral strength. 

Early modern ruling institutions held judicial authority in the construction of witchcraft, therefore rising administrative interests in witchcraft often directly correlated to a rise in trials. During the English Civil War (1642-1651), Puritans largely supervised the state and Church of England, resulting in the periodical assize courts becoming increasingly concerned with sustaining a godly society by eradicating immoral individuals who threatened social security and angered God through sin. It was in this environment of heightened moral concern that Elizabeth Clarke was tried for witchcraft in Chelmsford. Elizabeth was disabled, which was considered to be “God’s punishment for sin”, and relied on external financial support to provide for her illegitimate child, both of which were considered visible marks of her immorality. Increased Puritan condemnation of these deviances cast significant suspicion and fears towards Elizabeth, and she was executed 18 July 1645 for witchcraft. 

The construction of fears surrounding witchcraft lay in their potential for harm through the creation of weather events. The Little Ice Age saw global temperatures drop by as much as two degrees Celsius between the fourteenth and nineteenth century, causing longer, colder winters and more extreme weather events like storms. These conditions often led to floods, crop failure, and subsequent inflation which increased paranoia, evident in the rise of pamphlets crying witchcraft in Germany during a period of several cold summers. Such Neue Zeitgungen (new reports) detailed the threats witches posed – for example the flood event illustrated in Figure 1 – eventually working to attribute dangerous weather to witches reflecting societal sins. 

Norwegian indigenous societies like the Sámi similarly became associated with witchcraft when Sámi drums became considered ritualistic instruments used to summon devastating weather events by colonial settlers. Danish imperial settlers and Christian missionaries used this demonisation of Sámi groups to justify colonial expansion for ‘civilisation’, after the 1621 Vardø witch-trials generated fears of supposed Sámi supernatural abilities. This event was memorialised by the Steilnsest memorial in Vardø, Norway, as can be seen in Figure 2. 

Ultimately, the construction of witchcraft as a threat to socio-political order throughout Europe reflected and perpetuated societal fears of deviance and non-conformity. Francis Young highlights the popular desire for the “punishment of infringements” to regain a sense of order and control during these periods of heightened anxiety. We arguably see this tendency continued today, with the ‘witch-hunts’ of American university professors by presidential leadership who seek to control the political narrative following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, 10 September, 2025. 

Bibliography 

Gaskill, Malcolm, ‘Fear Made Flesh: The English Witch Panic of 1645–7’, in Moral Panics, the Media and the Law in Early Modern England, ed. by David Lemmings and Claire Walker (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 78–97. 

Gaskill, Malcolm, ‘Masculinity and Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century England’, in Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Alison Rowlands (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 171–190. 

Gibson, Marion, Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials (London: Simon & Schuster, 2023). 

Goodare, Julian, The European Witch-Hunt (London: Routledge, 2016). 

Goodare, Julian, ‘Men and the Witch-Hunt in Scotland’, in Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Alison Rowlands (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 149–170. 

Levack, Brian P., The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 4th edn (London: Routledge, 2015). 

Roberts, Penny, ‘Marginals and Deviants’, in The European World 1500–1800: An Introduction to Early Modern History, 4th edn, ed. by Beat A. Kümin (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2022), pp. 73–81.

Warfield, Abaigéal, ‘The Witch and the Weather’, The Sixteenth Century Journal, 50.4 (2019), 1101–1128. 

Young, Francis, Magic as a Political Crime in Medieval and Early Modern England (London: I. B. Tauris, 2017).