Melancholie and Malevolence: Scot's Crusade Against Exploitation and Extortion of Women in the Sixteenth Century (2016)

Undergraduate: William Yoder

Faculty Advisor: Reid Barbour
Department: English & Comparative Literature

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Many scholars consider Reginald Scot's The Discoverie of Witchcraft to be one of the most important works on witchcraft of the sixteenth century. Some of the main arguments for this view state that Scot's motivation to write The Discoverie was a combination of his Protestant Theology and Anti-Catholic sentiment. The 1665 edition of the work, however, contains letters by Scot to the Archdeacon of Canterbury and the Dean of Rochester with language that suggests that Scot's plea against witchcraft was made out of compassion for the prosecuted and concern for the implications of rising power among the so-called "witchmongers." When one considers the text in light of the letters, it becomes apparent that Scot's text serves to explicate the process by which "witchmongers" gain power by exploiting the accused, who were mainly poor, uneducated, elderly women, and how their reasons for doing so are neither rooted in nor supported by the scripture. The letters and the main text also highlight the injustices, cruelties and misfortunes that befell the most disadvantaged members of society during one of the most turbulent times in Christendom and the manner in which these cruel treatments were conceived and approved.