The Real Witches of the Middle Ages

Think of a famous witch—I’ll wait.

Where does she live? A castle ruin? A leaky dungeon? A forest cottage? Burning at the stake?

Those are common conceptions of witches in the Middle Ages, but they’re not necessarily true. Consider this a medievalist’s witch PSA.

In the Middle Ages, people who practiced medical and chemical arts—usually women—were midwives, herbalists, and ale brewers.

Though they were sometimes accused of witchcraft by representatives of the Christian Church in the Middle Ages, brewers and folk healers performed essential and useful services. This was not magic the way it’s thought about today.

Fast forward a few hundred years. The 15th century was another story. This is when witchcraft became linked to devil worship and was treated as criminal heresy. A more vitriolic and wider-spread panic about witches took hold. And the figure of the witch as it’s known today began to take shape visually.

This image from 1440 is one of the first depictions of witches on brooms.

It wasn’t until the 16th century that the image of the witch crystallized into that of an ugly old woman with a variety of animal companions, who consorted with the devil and engaged in nefarious acts.

These images helped fuel the witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe and New England that led to the execution of thousands of people, mostly women, on fabricated charges of witchcraft. But that is a story for another time.