Matthew Hopkins, born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, was one of six children born to James Hopkins, a Puritan clergyman, vicar of Wenham, in Suffolk.
Because of the way he presented evidence in trials, Hopkins is commonly thought to have been trained as a lawyer but there is scant evidence to suggest this was the case.
According to his book The Discovery of Witches, he began his career as a witch-finder when he claimed to have overheard various women discussing their meetings with the Devil in March 1644 in Manningtree, a town near Colchester, where he was living at the time.
In fact the first accusations were made by John Stearne and Hopkins was appointed as his assistant. As a result of the accusations, nineteen convicted witches were hanged and four of the accused died in prison.
Hopkins and Stearne, accompanied by the women who performed the pricking, were soon travelling over eastern England, claiming to be officially commissioned by Parliament to uncover and prosecute witches.
Parliament was well aware of his and his team's activities, as shown by the concerned reports of the Bury St Edmunds witch trials of 1645.
His witch-finding career spanned from 1645 to 1647. While torture was technically unlawful in England, he used various methods of browbeating to extract confessions from some of his victims.
He used sleep deprivation as a sort of bloodless torture. Another one of his methods was to first search for the Devil's mark on a woman; this would be a boil. If she had a familiar (cat or dog) he would suspect that the familiar was sucking the woman's blood.
This boil would be known as the third nipple. Then he would cut her arm with a blunt knife and if she did not bleed she was a witch. He also used a "swimming" test to see if the accused would float or sink in holy water, the theory being that witches had renounced their baptism, so that all holy water would reject them.
He also employed "witch prickers" who pricked the accused with knives and special needles, looking for the Devil's mark (a mole or birthmark) that was supposed to be dead to all feeling and would not bleed. It was believed that the witch's familiar would drink their blood from the mark as milk from a teat.
Hopkins and his colleague John Stearne, together with their female assistants, were well paid for their work.
Samuel Butler's satire Hudibras commented on Hopkins's activity, saying:
The last line refers to a tradition that disgruntled villagers caught Hopkins and subjected him to his own "swimming" test: he floated, and it was therefore suspected that he was hanged for witchcraft himself but, no evidence of this ever happening exists.
- Has not this present Parliament
- A Lieger to the Devil sent,
- Fully impowr'd to treat about
- Finding revolted witches out
- And has not he, within a year,
- Hang'd threescore of 'em in one shire?
- Some only for not being drowned,
- And some for sitting above ground,
- Whole days and nights, upon their breeches,
- And feeling pain, were hang'd for witches.
- And some for putting knavish tricks
- Upon green geese and turky-chicks?
- And pigs, that suddenly deceast
- Of griefs unnat'ral, as he guest;
- Who after prov'd himself a witch
- And made a rod for his own breech.
Most historians believe that Hopkins died of illness, possibly tuberculosis, in his home. The parish records of Manningtree in Essex record his burial on 12 August 1647.
h/t wiki.
"What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil of nature, painted in fair colors..¨
The word woman is used to mean the lust of the flesh, as it is said¨ I have found a woman more bitter than death, and a good woman more subject to carnal lust...Women are naturally more impressionable...Women are intellectually like children...She is more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal abominations...Therefore a wicked woman is by her nature quicker to waver in her faith, and consequently quicker to abjure the faith, which is the root of witchcraft..."
- Malleus Maleficarum
The "Malleus Maleficarum" was written by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger in 1486. Sprenger and Kramer were both members of the Dominican Order and were Inquisitors for the Catholic Church’s inquisition against heretics. Heresy in this sense was an error in understanding and of faith in the Catholic religion, ultimately discernible by God alone.
On December 5, 1484 Pope Innocent VIII had issued the famous "witch-bull" to Kramer and Sprenger in response to their asking for explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft. This papal bull would be used as the preface for the "Malleus Maleficarum." The Summis desiderantes affectibus recognized the existence of witches and gave full papal approval for the Inquisition against witches and gave permission to do whatever necessary to get rid of them, thus opening the door for the bloody witch hunts that ensued for centuries.
During the ensuing "burning times," approximately 40,000 executions occured over 250 years in Europe, the largest quantity of which occurred in Germany. One small town in Germany lost their entire female population to the flames.
In Wurzburg, a series of burnings claimed a horrific list of victims, none of whose names survive:
"Three play-actors".
"Four innkeepers".
"Three common councilmen of Wurszburg".
"Fourteen vicars of the Cathedral".
"The burgomasters lady" (The wife of the mayor).
"The apothecarys wife and daughter".
"Two choristers of the cathedral".
Gobel Babelin, "The prettiest girl in town".
"The wife, the two little sons and the daughter of councillor Stolzenberg."
Baunach, "The fattest burgher (merchant) in Wurzburg".
Steinacher, "The richest burgher in Wurzburg".
The Seventh burning
"A wandering boy, twelve years of age".
"Four strange men and women, found sleeping in the market-place".
The thirteenth/fourteenth burning
" A little maiden nine years of age".
" A maiden still less (than nine)".
" Her (The little girl's) sister, their mother and their aunt".
" A pretty young woman of twenty-four".
The eighteenth burning
"Two boys of twelve".
"A girl of fifteen".
The nineteenth burning
" The young heir of the house of Rotenhahn", aged nine.
A boy of ten.
A boy, twelve years old.
Although most heretics were women, a great many men were also taken, tortured, and put to death. This is a letter from one such victim at the notorious Bamberg in Germany; a poignant epitaph to one of Europe's most hideous crimes:
"Many hundred thousand good-nights, dearly beloved daughter Veronica. Innocent have I come into prison, innocent have I been tortured, innocent must I die. For whoever comes into the witch prison must become a witch or be tortured until he invents something out of his head - and God pity him - bethinks him of something."
"And then came also - God in highest heaven have mercy - the executioner, and put the thumbscrews on me, both hands bound together, so that the blood spurted from the nails and everywhere, so that for four weeks I could not use my hands, as you can see from my writing.
Thereafter they stripped me, bound my hands behind me, and drew me up on the ladder. Then I thought heaven and earth were at an end. Eight times did they draw me up and let me fall again, so that I suffered terrible agony."
The author of this letter, Johannes Junius, did indeed confess to being a witch, and in August of 1628, was burned at the stake. He managed to send his final letter to his daughter, which ended by saying:
"Dear child, keep this letter secret, so that people do not find it, else I shall be tortured most piteously and the jailers will be beheaded. So strictly is it forbidden...Dear child, pay this man a thaler...I have taken several days to write this - my hands are both crippled. I am in a sad plight. Good night, for your father Johannes Junius will never see you more."
Pope Innocent V111...what an utter merciless bastard.Don`t you just love Christianity.
I think i can guess where his soul resides now.
May he rot!
Finally be ye all of one mind,having compassion one of another,love as brethren,be pitiful,be courteous.
Peter 3:8
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