Women and the Witch-Hunt in Scotland

Goodare refers to the writings of James VI that when a pact is made with the devil, he leaves a mark on the body.  This mark may be visible or invisible, but it will always be the part of the body that returns no signs of pain.  Witch-pricking is the term used for using a needle to locate the devil’s mark.  If a woman did not confess to being a witch the interrogators usually found the mark on the shoulder, thigh, or back.  The most interesting to historians is that the witches that did confess to a pact stated that they were marked on their genital areas.  The reasoning behind this was because if the devil had to have sex with the accused to seal the pact, then the mark must be there.  According to Goodare, women were the only confessing accused to identify the mark in or on their private parts.  This was one way of torture that was used by the interrogators.[14]  Goodare finds that sleep deprivation was the most common use of torture and usually resulted in a semi-conscious confession that was never overturned by the courts.[15]

According to Goodare, Witch-hunting was used to keep women at bay in a time of reformation.  Women’s sexuality became a problem after the establishment of the protestant church as the state church.  With this men’s sexuality had to change also to uphold the law and allow for the repression of women.[16] This statement answers the question of why witches were women.  Goodare did state however, that the witch-hunt was a witch-hunt first and foremost and a woman-hunt only indirectly.  He goes on to explain that even though he agrees with Larner that it was not necessarily a woman-hunt, it was an attack on women as “women.”[17]  As for the question on what effect the witch-hunts had on women in the Scottish society, he writes that it was a powerful reinforcement to the conformation of the community.[18]  As witch-hunting ended there was speculation of why.  One answer may be because another way to control women arose, but in fact, according to Goodare, it was because the emphasis on the Scottish state of godliness was disintegrating.

The author carried out his task, in my opinion very well.  In his introduction, he stated that he was asking two questions and that this article was an attempt to answer them.  In every section he continues to ask relating questions that help answer his main arguments.  He gives very detailed information and factual accounts that gives readers a scenario to a situation that he explains, so that it can be better understood.  He also does not, despite the debate, discredit Christina Larner’s early works.  He respectfully states her position and then states his with supporting evidence.  He only takes up a small portion of this article with this debate and spends the rest of the article actually giving readers the information that he believes is needed to inform them of how women were effected and attacked during the witch-hunts. All of this leading to the development of our new knowledge, as readers, of the effects it had on them directly and their society.

[1] Julian Goodare. “Women and the witch-hunt in Scotland.” Social History 23, no. 3 (1998): 288.

[2] Goodare, 288

[3] Goodare, 290

[4] Goodare, 290

[5] Goodare, 289

[6] Goodare, 289-290

[7] Goodare, 294

[8] Goodare, 294-296

[9] Goodare, -307

[10] Goodare, 297-301

[11] Goodare, 290

[12] Goodare, 303

[13] Goodare, 304

[14] Goodare, 301-302

[15] Goodare, 302

[16] Goodare, 305

[17] Goodare, 308

[18] Goodare, 303