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Spectral Evidence
Spectral evidence is a form of legal evidence based upon the testimony of those who claim to have experienced visions. Such testimony was frequently given during the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries. The alleged victims of witchcraft would claim to have been tormented by the spectral images of certain named members of the community; this was taken as evidence that those named were witches, and had given the Devil permission to assume their appearance. If accepted by a court, this testimony was virtually impossible to refute. However, spectral evidence was rarely used to secure a conviction, as theologians were unable to agree that the Devil could not take on the shape of an innocent person. The debate about the validity of spectral evidence rose to a climax with the Bury St Edmunds witch trial of 1662, and the Salem witch trials of 1692–93. Bury St Edmunds witch trial At the Bury St Edmunds witch trial of 1662, charges of witchcraft were brought against Amy Denny and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vision (spirituality)
A vision is something seen in a dream, trance, or religious ecstasy, especially a supernatural appearance that usually conveys a revelation. Visions generally have more clarity than dreams, but traditionally fewer psychological connotations. Visions are known to emerge from spiritual traditions and could provide a lens into human nature and reality. Prophecy is often associated with visions. Categories Evelyn Underhill distinguishes and categorizes three types of visions: # Intellectual Visions – The Catholic dictionary defines these as supernatural knowledge in which the mind receives an extraordinary grasp of some revealed truth without the aid of sensible impressions and mystics describe them as intuitions that leave a deep impression. # Imaginary – In Teresa of Avila's ''The Interior Castle'', an imaginary vision is defined as one where nothing is seen or heard by the senses of seeing or hearing, but where the same impression is received that would be produced upon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Cloyce
Sarah Cloyce (alt. Cloyes; Towne; c. 1641 – 1703) was among the many accused during Salem Witch Trials including two of her older sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Mary Eastey, who were both executed. Cloyce was about 50-years-old at the time and was held without bail in cramped prisons for many months before her release. Background She was the daughter of William and Joanna Towne, who had emigrated to Salem from Great Yarmouth in England about 1630. Sarah, who was probably the youngest of their eight children, married firstly to Edmund Bridges, by whom she had six children, and secondly to Peter Cloyce (later Cloyes), a widower, by whom she had three more children. Salem Witch Trials On Sacrament Day in the spring of 1692, covenanted church member Sarah CloyceSister #11 walked out of the Salem Village meetinghouse soon after the pastor Samuel ParrisBrother #1 announced that the Biblical text would be John Chapter 6 verse 70, "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one is a devil." Sarah r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giles Corey
Giles Corey ( August 1611 – September 19, 1692) was an English-born American farmer who was accused of witchcraft along with his wife Martha Corey during the Salem witch trials. After being arrested, Corey refused to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. He was subjected to pressing in an effort to force him to plead—the only example of such a sanction in American history—and died after three days of this torture. Because Corey refused to enter a plea, his estate passed on to his sons instead of being seized by the local government. Corey is believed to have died in the field adjacent to the prison that had held him, in what later became the Howard Street Cemetery in Salem, which opened in 1801. His exact grave location in the cemetery is unmarked and unknown. There is a memorial plaque to him in the nearby Charter Street Cemetery. Pre-trial history Giles Corey was born in Northampton, England. He was baptized in the church of the Holy Sepulchre on August 16, 1611. Gi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathaniel Saltonstall
Col. Nathaniel Saltonstall (also spelled Nathanial Saltonstall; – May 21, 1707) was a judge for the Court of Oyer and Terminer, a special court established in 1692 for the trial and sentence of people, mostly women, for the crime of witchcraft in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during the Salem Witch Trials. He is most famous for his resignation from the court, and though he left no indication of his feelings toward witchcraft, he is considered to be one of the more principled men of his time.Moody, Robert. ''The Saltonstall Papers, Vol. I: 1607-1789'', pp. 48-50. Early life Saltonstall was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, in about 1639, to Richard Saltonstall (1610–1694) and Murial (née Gurdon) Saltonstall (1613–1688), a daughter of Brampton Gurdon. He was the grandson of Sir Richard Saltonstall who led a group of English settlers up the Charles River to settle in what is now Watertown, Massachusetts in 1630. His grandfather was a nephew of Richard Saltonstall, the L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Stoughton (judge)
William Stoughton (1631 – July 7, 1701) was a New England Puritan magistrate and administrator in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He was in charge of what have come to be known as the Salem Witch Trials, first as the Chief Justice of the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692, and then as the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693. In these trials he controversially accepted spectral evidence (based on supposed demonic visions). Unlike some of the other magistrates, he never admitted to the possibility that his acceptance of such evidence was in error. After graduating from Harvard College in 1650, he continued religious studies in England, where he also preached. Returning to Massachusetts in 1662, he chose to enter politics instead of the ministry. An adept politician, he served in virtually every government through the period of turmoil in Massachusetts that encompassed the revocation of its first charter in 1684 and the introduction of its second ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Calef
Robert Calef (baptized 2 November 1648 – 13 April 1719) was a cloth merchant in colonial Boston. He was the author o''More Wonders of the Invisible World'' a book composed throughout the mid-1690s denouncing the recent Salem witch trials of 1692–1693 and particularly examining the influential role played by Cotton Mather. Life and education Robert Calef, son of Joseph Calef, was baptized in Stanstead, Suffolk, England on 2 November 1648. The Calef family of Stanstead was "one of substantial yeoman and clothiers." The majority of what is known about the character of Robert Calef is what can be gleaned from his single book, and it contains almost no details about his own life. His writing displays broad education and it is possible that following grammar school he attended one of England's clandestine dissenting academies as evidenced by Cotton Mather's use of the title "Mr." ("Mr. R.C") and Calef's pride in having no proficiency in Latin. (In contrast to Oxford and Cambridge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Increase Mather
Increase Mather (; June 21, 1639 Old Style – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administration of the colony during a time that coincided with the notorious Salem witch trials. Biography Early life Mather was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay Colony, on June 21, 1639, to the Rev. Richard Mather and Kathrine Holt Mather, following their participation in the Great Migration from England due to their nonconformity to the Church of England. The stated reason for his first name was "...the never-to-be-forgotten increase, of every sort, wherewith God favoured the country about the time of his nativity." The name " Increase" is a literal translation of the Hebrew "Yosëf" (Joseph). He was the youngest of six — The relevant excerpt can be seehere/ref> brothers, the others being Samuel, Nathaniel, Eleazar, Joseph, and Timothy. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most populous city in the country. The city boundaries encompass an area of about and a population of 675,647 as of 2020. It is the seat of Suffolk County (although the county government was disbanded on July 1, 1999). The city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 4.8 million people in 2016 and ranking as the tenth-largest MSA in the country. A broader combined statistical area (CSA), generally corresponding to the commuting area and including Providence, Rhode Island, is home to approximately 8.2 million people, making it the sixth most populous in the United States. Boston is one of the oldest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bridget Bishop
Bridget Bishop ( 1632 – 10 June 1692) was the first person executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in 1692. Nineteen were hanged, and one, Giles Corey, was pressed to death. Altogether, about 200 people were tried. Family life Bridget's maiden name was Magnus. She, her sister Mercy, her father John, and her mother Rebecca adopted the last name Playfer, Bridget's paternal grandmother's maiden name. She was married three or possibly four times. She married her first husband, Captain Samuel Wesselby on 13 April 1660, at St. Mary-in-the-Marsh, Norwich, Norfolk, England. She had two sons and one daughter from her first marriage: John, Benjamin and Mary. Her first husband died in 1666. Her second marriage, on 26 July 1666, was to Thomas Oliver, a widower and prominent businessman. She had another daughter from her marriage to Thomas Oliver, Chrestian Oliver (sometimes spelled Christian), born 8 May 1667. She was earlier accused of bewitching Thomas Oliver to death ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Richards (Salem Witch Trials)
John Richards (died April 2, 1694) was a colonial military officer, businessman, politician, and magistrate, best known for his participation in the Salem witch trials in 1692. Life John Richards was born in England, and traveled with his parents in 1630 to North America as part of the first major wave of migration to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1644 Ricards was enrolled in the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, which he would remain involved with for the rest of his life. A resident of Dorchester for most of his life, he operated a mill, and frequently served as on the colony's general court (as its assembly was known). The colony did not have a residency requirement, and he usually represented communities (such as Hadley that were distant from Boston, where the assembly met. In 1679 and 1680, however, he was chosen to represent Boston, and was elected speaker in 1680. From 1680-84 he served as one of the colony's assistants, whose council served as the upper body o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather (; February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728) was a New England Puritan clergyman and a prolific writer. Educated at Harvard College, in 1685 he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting House of Boston, where he continued to preach for the rest of his life. A major intellectual and public figure in English-speaking colonial America, Cotton Mather helped lead the successful revolt of 1689 against Sir Edmund Andros, the governor imposed on New England by King James II. Mather's subsequent involvement in the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693, which he defended in the book ''Wonders of the Invisible World'' (1693), attracted intense controversy in his own day and has negatively affected his historical reputation. As a historian of colonial New England, Mather is noted for his '' Magnalia Christi Americana'' (1702). Personally and intellectually committed to the waning social and religious orders in New England, Cotton Math ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witches' Mark
A witch's mark or devil's mark was a bodily mark that witch-hunters believed indicated that an individual was a witch, during the height of the witch trials. The beliefs about the mark differ depending on the trial location and the accusation made against the witch. Evidence of the witch's mark is found earliest in the 16th century, and reached its peak in 1645, then essentially disappeared by 1700. The Witch or Devil's mark was believed to be the permanent marking of the Devil on his initiates to seal their obedience and service to him. He created the mark by raking his claw across their flesh, or by making a blue or red brand using a hot iron. Sometimes, the mark was believed to have been left by the Devil licking the individual leaving a death skull pattern in the skin. The Devil was thought to mark the individual at the end of nocturnal initiation rites. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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