A history of witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 / by Wallace Notestein.

  • Wallace Notestein
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 / by Wallace Notestein. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    It is not to be supposed that the art of cunning was confined to the female sex. Throughout the reign of Elizabeth, the realm was alive with men who were pretenders to knowledge of mysteries. So closely was the occupation allied to that of the physician that no such strict line as now exists between reputable physicians and quack doctors separated the “ good witches ” from the regular practicers of medicine. It was so cus- tomary in Elizabethan times for thoroughly reputable and even eminent medical men to explain baffling cases as the results of witchcraft ” that to draw the line of de- marcation between them and the pretenders who sug- gested by means of a charm or a glass a maleficent agent would be impossible. Granted the phenomena of conjuration and witchcraft as facts—and no one had yet disputed them—it was altogether easy to believe that good witches who antagonized the works of black witches were more dependable than the family physi- cian, who could but suggest the cause of sickness. The regular practitioner must often have created business for his brother of the cunning arts. One would like to know what these practicers thought of their own arts. Certainly some of them ac- complished cures. Mental troubles that baffled the or- dinary physician would offer the ” good witch ” a rare field for successful endeavor. Such would be able not only to persuade a community of their good offices, but to deceive themselves. Not all of them, however, by any means, were self-deceived. Conscious fraud played a part in a large percentage of cases. One witch was See Witches taken at St. Oses, E; also Dr. Barrow’s opinion in the pamphlet entitled The most strange and admirable discoverie of the three Witches of Warboys, arraigned, convicted and executed at the last assises at Huntingdon . . . (London, 1593).
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