How did people in the 1600-1700's tell if someone was a witch or a vampire?

Question

I mean like the way they looked. i heard that fair skin and dark hair were signs od a witch and fair skin light eyes and red hair were sighns of a vampire. im doing this for a school thing and i cant find anything useful. What have you heard?

Answer 1

Sometimes accusations of witchcraft might be brought for political reasons, they arose from issues of power or money at the highest levels of society.  As time passed, the trials spread out socially and politically to lower social strata, until they involved overwhelmingly the commonest of commoners - the peasants.  To further complicate this picture, the witch hunts often moved across space as they traversed time and society, for example the first clearly identifiable witch trial was in southern Irleand, in the 14th century, but no further cases are known in that region until 1578, when one person was tried.

Witch trials often occured in times of social tension, wars, epedemics and bad harvests were all triggers for witch trials.  Oftne there would be a slow build-up of suspicion before a person might be accused of being a witch.  It was a very difficult charge to prove, overall about 50% of defendents in witch trials were acquitted.

Answer 2

I like Joe's answer.  People were incredulous enough to believe it, once gossip was started that someone was a witch or vampire.

The only way they could actually prove someone was a witch/vampire was through the trial by ordeal. - A way to determine what God's will was on the matter. This would subject someone to a near-fatal contest.  For example, they might throw a witch into a lake.

If the lake accepted her (she drowned), she was innocent.  If the lake rejected her - she floated - she was a witch.  This is NOT a joke!  Tests that were designed to have people fail were frequent.

Answer 3

They didn't tell, they lied.  They told on their neighbors and whoever else bugged them, or disliked.

Answer 4

I don`t know about vampires, here is the wikipedia-link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire#Med...

But how did people in the 1600-1700*s tell if someine was a witch?

I am sorry to say that, but there is no "tpyical" look like of a witch. But it`s true that people who looked abnormal like deforemd limbs, very small people, ugly, wats, etc were often labeld as witches. But that doesn`t mean only people with abornamlism were labeld as wichtes. In fact everyone could be labeld as witches in nearly every age. Many people (often women, but also men) had special knowledge in naturorphaty. Nobody was killed just to be labeld as a witch, but that was the beginning and propably the worst a human beeing could happen in the society. The chances to be killed were much much higher then not, but if somebody was spoken free, that didn`t mean the society would accept him/her of course. Crimes were like "going hand in hand" with the devil, acting against christianity, insulting jesus christus, having s*x with the devil, meeting with the devil and other witches during the Akelarre or use magic to damge or mudering children and eating them or use them for magic mixeries. There were different mehtods to find if a defendat was a witch or not. I only name the water method, the weighting mehtod and the needle method. Water method: you are tided up, so you can`t move your arms or legs and you getting throwed into a lake. if you don`t get up, you die but it`s proven you aren`t a witch. If you don`t dive, stay over the surface of the water, you are a witch, because only a witch can stay over the water with tied up limbs. The weighting method: The defendant was put on a scale with a certain number of weights on the other side. Was the person lighter then the weights, she /he was witch, because the people tought a witch spent her soul to the devil. But if she was heaviert then the weights (as other normal persons), the people thought the defentant used his/her magic power, she/he was a witch also. The Needle method: Often the executor, pricked with a neddle into a mole of the defendant. Fleew blood and did the person feel pain, she wasn`t a witch. Didn`t she feel pain and no blood, she was a witch. But some needles got manipulated, so that they didn`t cause blood or pain. Often before rumors went around yearslong about the person. A child could had said, i saw the person with the red hair, flying on a brush, wearing a black jacket. Or other defendants said   they saw the person with them on the Akelare, praying to the devil and having s*x with him. The persecutors were mostly religious fanatics, fighting against the devil and all his followers. They had their specifications of witches. And everything what they need to sentence someone to death was the guilty plea. That was neccessary. No execution without the guitly plea. But nobody asked how the guitly plea happened. The persecutos got it by whatever means neccessary - which means torture. The persecutors thought the witch would deny everything, would lie of course, but not under torture. So they first showed the defendants the instruments. If this didn`t convince them to tell the "truth", then using of torture. As long as the defendants did not admit their delicts. If the defendant survived the torture and told everything what the persecutor wanted to hear she/he was sentence to death and executed. http://www.hexen-forum.de/images/hexenve... Anne Heinrichs, Amsterdam/Netherland 1571

Sometimes the condemded witch was strongeld before burning.

A famous prison for witches in Bamberg/Germany, where some witches were hold and tortured.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

Today the house doesn`t exists anymore.

Sometimes the witches got imprisiond in a tower - the "witches tower"

For example the witch tower of the german city of idstein

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

Ohter german cities with a witches tower: Bamberg, Frankenberg (Eder), Fulda, Heidelberg, Hofheim am Taunus, Lahnstein, Rheinbach, Marburg, Landsberg am Lech, Aschersleben, Memmingen

Of course the whole trials were unfair, but the thing with witches itself was upper nonsense. Sadly thousands of people were tortured terryfing and executed horribly. If you have no clue then search in google for "medieval torture"

Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wi...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt

USA - Salem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch...

The last act with a witch in europe happend in 1836 in poland. polnish fishermen tied up the supposed witch and threw her into water, because she didn`t dive, the polnish fishermen pushed her under water as long she was dead.

You could use videos for you school thing. At the early beginning of the Movie "Monty Python and the holy grail" is a secne with the weighting method.

If you want to use a serious movie and no comedy ;-), take "The Name of the Rose". The part before the end of the movie were the inquistor "Bernardo Gui" appears.

*EDIT*

Monty Phyton

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m...

The Name of the Rose

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLz9qzvjA...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc-_hkLBV...