Women, Wombs, and Witchcraft: The Implications of Fertility on the Early Modern European Witch Hunts

Abstract

My thesis is focused on the integration of women’s gender roles in reproduction and procreation into elite beliefs of witchcraft as a contributing factor in the targeting of women as witches in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. Ancient elite beliefs of women being imperfect and passive evolved into discussions of women’s gender and sexuality in medieval and early modern Europe. In turn, these elite beliefs of the female gender become incorporated into the elite early modern beliefs of witchcraft and witches. Elites focused on women’s inferiority and weakness as being the reasons that made women more susceptible to witchcraft. These gender beliefs also influenced ideas of female carnality, specifically sexual desires, appetites, and sexual interactions with the Devil, as being the heart of accusing women as witches and influencing the stereotype of the witch.