The most striking aspect of
this book is why a celebrated historian and broadcaster would write such a
book. It is true that Lipscomb is a leading light and outstanding communicator
in her field, but it is a bit like William Shakespeare putting in a script for EastEnders.
Another anomaly is while the
book is beautifully illustrated by Martyn
Pick the number of illustrations is half the
book. Given the complex nature of the subject, you would have thought Ladybird
would have given more space for analysis. On the other side, the book is
an entertaining, straightforward but minimal introduction to the subject.
Even a gifted writer like
Lipscomb clearly is uncomfortable with explaining
a complex historical issue in such a short space. She does slay some of the
more apparent myths that have developed about the subject. Lipscombe is correct
that the witch trials were not carried out by “ecclesiastical authorities but
by judicial courts. This is a good point, but it does not explain the fact that
the worldview of the ruling elite carrying out what amounts to legal murder was
backward and medieval.
The book is
not without exciting information who knew that “men could be witches too.
Across Europe, 70–80 per cent of people accused of witchcraft were female –
though the proportions of female witches were higher in certain areas: the bishopric
of Basel; the county of Namur (modern Belgium); Hungary; Poland; and Essex,
England. But one in five witches were male across Europe, and in some places,
males predominated – in Moscow, male witches outnumbered women 7:3; in Normandy
3:1”.
In Lipscombe’s
defence, she does believe that “causality is not simple.”, But given her
limited space, her arguments are not fully developed. Many of the witchhunts
carried out were in times of famine, war and plague but many were not. She correctly
states that war, disease and famine did create the social and political
conditions to carry out a near genocide against large sections of the
population.
Perhaps
Lipscomb most crucial point is made on page 22 under the heading The Dawn of
Modernity she makes this point, “most people lived in small village communities
and depended on each other. They lent, borrowed, gave and forgave. It was only
the way to get along. But in tough times, people turn in on themselves. They
start to look after number one. A neighbour who would not offer help or
charity, who enriched himself by expanding his farm as others were forced to
give up theirs, or who begged for handouts when everyone was suffering could
foster resentment, bitterness and suspicion. These feelings were the product of
a transition from old to new ways. In grand socio-economic terms, what was
happening was a shift towards capitalism. The witch-trials were the blood red
finger of modernity”.
I know Marx
said that capitalism came into the world dripping with blood but blaming it for
the witch-trials is a bit much. As Lipscomb points out the trials and their
decline was the product of the transition from Feudalism to capitalism. But the
trials were more a product of Feudalism, than early Capitalism and their fall
was a product of the development of more scientific ways of thinking which
brought about the decline religious doctrine.
As the
Marxist David North explains “Until the early
seventeenth century, even educated people still generally accepted that the
ultimate answers to all the mysteries of the universe and the problems of life
were to be found in the Old Testament. But its unchallengeable authority had
been slowly eroding, especially since the publication of Copernicus's De
Revolutionibus in the year of his death in 1543, which dealt the death blow to
the Ptolemaic conception of the universe and provided the essential point of
departure for the future conquests of Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), Johann Kepler
(1571-1630) and, of course, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Intellectually, if not
yet socially, the liberation of man from the fetters of Medieval superstition
and the political structures that rested upon it, was well underway”[1].
I very
rarely do not recommend a book to be read so I will not break this tradition.
The book has severe political and historical limitations. Also who exactly is
it aimed at? On the plus side, it is gloriously illustrated. So read it don’t read
it you pay your money you take your choice.
