Summary Of Witchfinders By Malcolm Gaskill

Witchfinders
Witchfinders is a book by Malcolm Gaskill that looks upon strategies that were employed by two Christian crusaders in their quest to mitigate witches in England. The book explores England’s important story and the biggest witch hunt. In the book, Gaskill brings out issues relating to religious and social lives in a very fascinating way. The whole book brings to right ways that witch-finders used to support their brutality and bloodshed in the ancient England notably through biblical justifications. In the book either, the author brings out the demonic ways of the 1640s in East Anglia and through keen analyzes of the factors that are being stipulated in the book one can factor out the rotten society in the time and to some degree relate this to the current society and religious behaviors. The current paper looks upon the short and long term factors

that resulted to East Anglian witch hunt in the book.
There are a number of short term factors that led to East Anglian witch hunt.

One of such factor was to restore moral balance and insecurities in the society. The two notorious witch hunters in the book John Stearne and Matthew Hopkins are presented hunting witches in East Anglian mainly through interrogating the suspects. The main method that is used in the interrogation is torture and some suspects mainly the elderly women confess of being witches. Some of them are killed as an act of removing these evil acts from the society. Generally, witches are associated with evil acts in the society and therefore them being wiped from the society was a sign of ensuring morals are maintained in the in the society and eliminating insecurity issues related to witches. Another short term factor that led to witch hunt was to ensure that the society lived and uphold Christians’ values. The witch hunters used the teachings of the Bible in hunting the witches with the objective of hunting them out from the society. This was aimed at wiping out evil acts from the society and ensuring the people lived the Christian

ways.
There are also a number of long term factors that led to witch hunt in Gaskill’s book. Oneof such factors was to ensure that women will forever remain less powerful in the society. A keen analysis of the book depicts the fact that many of those who suffered in the society were women. In the book we are told that in very few weeks 150 women were marked as witches and them of them killed by being hanged. Generally, witchcraft is depicted as a form of power and so men were intimidated by the continued growth of women with such powers. Witch finding was therefore a long term strategy to mitigate women’s power. Another long term factor that led to witch finding was to support the injustices that were being experienced. The book by Gaskill was generally a motive to show us the injustices that were being experienced in 1640s. People like Stearne and Hopkins used the Bible to perform their ill acts including bloodshed and torture. People were being marked as witches by their neighbors and some of them innocently killed. Although in a barbaric way, another long term factor that led to witch hunt was to ensure that Christianity as religion continued to dominate in the society. To achieve this, some of the acts in the society that depicted questionable Christian values had to be uprooted from the society hence the witch hunt.
In conclusion, the book by Gaskill was to bring out the injustices and the political competition that were experienced in the 1640s and in a way correlate the happenings in these mediocre times with the current society. Although the key factor was to eliminate witches from the society, some of the short term and long term motives were afflicting including torture and killing of innocent people.