Shakespeare wrote during the English Renaissance—a time in which humankind thirsted for knowledge in many areas (sciences and arts being two of the more prominent)—but it is true that the Elizabethans were a suspicious lot who often depended more on emotion than erudition. What were the attitudes towards witchcraft in Shakespeare's time? While some women, like the witches of Macbeth, attempted to use practices such as image magic to harm, many others executed for witchcraft in Shakespeare’s England did not engage in any practices associated with witchcraft or magic at all. WITCHES AND WITCH HUNTS. Witchcraft and the New Science The Reformation spread quickly through the German states and, in a somewhat separate series of events, throughout England. MacBeth - Attitude Changes: In the tragic drama Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare in 1606 during the English Renaissance, the hero, Macbeth, constantly declines in his level of morality until his death at the end of the play. During the Medieval period there were two types of witches, white witches and black witches. CONTENTS & SCHEDULE RESOURCES The Backlash Against Women. The 1562 Elizabethan Witchcraft Act was passed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. pp. During the Enlightenment women began to take advantage of new ... in the form of witch trials during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The witch of edmonton, the late lancashire witches, and renaissance attitudes toward science. His attitude towards witches seems to have been severe. Of these 37, 19 of them were hung on Gallows Hill. Demonology and witchcraft were inseparable in the Renaissance, and Stuart Clark traces the predominance of witchcraft to the popular beliefs in superstition, an attitude deplorable to both science and religión, and to the natural “inefficacy” of witches that eventually culminated in a new, rationalist, worldview that had no room for demons. Additional new renaissance thinking and books about Astrology, Alchemy and Magic increased the interest in witchcraft, witches and witch hunts even further. Women from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment ... attitude toward women started to gradually improve, particularly through the medium of literature. Martin Luther spoke on witches and witchcraft in sermons, commenting on practical matters of how witches would spoil food and slay infants. White witches were often wise old women who worked with herbs (such as mandrake, datura, cannabis, belladonna, henbane, hemlock, etc) to try to fin cures, or at the very least aid ailments that have no cure. A review of witches and witchcraft in Elizabethan England. In total, a suspected 37 witches and wizards, the term for males who practiced witch craft, died in the Salem witch trials of 1692. I chose to include the above woodcut, titled Witches by Hans Baldung Grien (1510), as one of my primary sources because it includes a few of the superstitions I talked about in my introduction. ... during the Renaissance that over 100,000 witches were executed throughout Europe during the relatively brief time period. This is one of the earlier depictions of witches during the Renaissance. EDITED EXCERPTS FROM: H. Diane Russell, Eva/Ave: Women in Renaissance and Baroque Prints (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1990), pages 147-148 Witches were considered patently evil during the Renaissance and baroque periods, or until about 1630. 217-230. gy and rational science— could coexist in one period of time. These hangings were done on four dates in 1692, which are June 10th, July 19th, August 19th, and September 22nd. 2. In Shakespeare's time, certain people were really frightened of witches and believed that they were a clear and present danger to their society. These new attitudes combined to form a new spirit of optimism, the belief that man was capable of accomplishing great things.