The witchcraft sourcebook bibliography information

If you recited the LordвЂ™s Prayer, you were not a witch. Courts could not base convictions on confessions obtained through torture unless the accused reaffirmed the confession afterward, but if the accused recanted the confession, authorities usually tortured the accused further to obtain the confession again. Other evidence includedВ the вЂњtouching testвЂќ (afficted girls tortured by fits became calm after touching the accused). If the accused was female, a jury of women examined her body for вЂњwitchвЂ™s marksвЂќ which supposedly showed that aВ familiar had bitten or fed on the accused. Prior conflicts, bad acts by the accused, possession of materials used in spells, greater than average strength, and witchвЂ™s marks also counted as evidence of witchcraft. Courts allowed вЂњcausal relationshipвЂќ evidence, for example, to prove that the accused possessed or controlled an afflicted girl. According to Wendel Craker, no court ever convicted an accused of witchcraft on the basis of spectral evidence alone, but other forms of evidence were needed to corroborate the charge of witchcraft.

Courts relied on three kinds of evidence: 1) confession, 2) testimony of two eyewitnesses to acts of witchcraft, or 3) spectral evidence (when the afflicted girls were having their fits, they would interact with an unseen assailant вЂ“ the apparition of the witch tormenting them). If the colony imprisoned you, you had to pay for your stay.

The law did not then use the principle of вЂњinnocent until proven guiltyвЂќ вЂ“ if you made it to trial, the law presumed guilt. The colony created the Court of Oyer and Terminer especially forВ the witchcraft trials. Researchers from Other Colleges & Universities.

The witchcraft sourcebook bibliography information