Did Climate Change Cause the Witch Hunts?
In 1583, a Spanish ship sank off the west coast of England. The disaster was put down to witchcraft. An elderly woman in Norfolk, Mother Gabley, was blamed for ‘boyling, or rather labouring of certeyne eggs in a payle full of colde water.’ This was not the first time witches had been accused of manipulating the weather to cause disaster and death, nor would it be the last, but could it be a testament to the impact that changing European climate had on spurring on witch hunts which would leave hundreds of thousands dead?
There has been no shortage of causes put forward for the witch trials which raged across Europe during the early modern period, especially the 17th century. Perhaps the cause was gender, and the witch trials a genocide of women; maybe class interests were to blame, as an increasingly capitalistic Europe saw more and more people economically cast aside; some have even argued that there really were witches (or at least a large group of people who practised a sort of religion which was labelled ‘witchcraft’). But in more recent years, a newer theory has emerged and it’s an attractive one at first glance: What if the witch hunts were caused by climate change?
During the period 1500–1850, Europe experienced a ‘Little Ice Age.’ During this period, temperatures were much colder, erratic weather was much more common, and there were several…
