The Role of Recipe Books in the Persecution of Witches, Wives, and Healers

By Tyanna Robinson

The witch hunts in early modern Europe represented a direct and violent attack against challenged notions of gender and women’s roles in society. Women were accused of witchcraft for a number of reasons like offending a neighbor for example, however, many accusations against women displayed the patriarchal ideologies that have reinforced inequalities seen between genders. Chastity, innocence, fragility, passion, and wickedness are qualities in women that some believed made them more susceptible to evil and temptation from the devil.[1]These qualities were also reinforced by women’s perceived roles in society. In this essay, I wish to examine these gendered misunderstandings of women’s nature and place in society and the harmful role they played in the witch hunts of early modern Europe. Furthermore, I examine the way recipe books were involved in the strengthening of those ideologies through women’s practice of especially medicinal and herbal recipes. Early modern recipes and recipe books reinforced patriarchal ideologies pertaining to gendered notions of domestic life and scientific thinking which strengthened accusations of witchcraft against women.

The emphasis on the women’s responsibilities in the household as well as their role in the collection of knowledge for recipe books reflects the familial conflicts that led to or arose out of witchcraft accusations in early modern Europe. The domestic sphere of the early modern European household was essential to the creation of recipe books and general knowledge that was passed down within a family. Similarly, the pressure on women to uphold their domestic responsibilities is evident throughout the many witchcraft accusations against women. Although the patriarch of the household can be given credit towards the passing down of knowledge, women played an active role in the creation of cookery, medicine, and scientific recipes.[2] These responsibilities emphasize women’s role as caretakers, wives, and mothers obedient to their husbands. Failure to live up to these responsibilities could have dire consequences shown in the depositions and confessions of accused witches.[3] Robin Briggs in his essay on the neighborly and familial tensions that played into early modern European witch hunts detailed these consequences and related them to a breakdown of family bonds:

…stepmothers were much commoner than stepfathers; the folkloric commonplace of the wicked stepmother was an exaggeration based on a well-known phenomenon. Women routinely accused one another of failing to feed or care for their stepchildren properly, while as we have seen the adult children by a previous marriage often displayed marked hostility to the replacement wife.[4]

These types of accusations derived from the failure to perform the duty as a wife and mother that was reinforced by patriarchal ideologies of early modern Europe. The pressure for women to satisfy their husbands and children, especially those who had to assume their household duties as stepmothers, created strife within the household and sometimes led to accusations of witchcraft.

Women’s failure to live up to their roles in the household were not the only reasonings for the accusations against them as full embodiment of these responsibilities still gave enough evidence to accusers in some cases. Women’s duties in the kitchen sometimes gave evidence to their supposedly ‘evil’ activities. Briggs indicates this juxtaposition through Marguitte Laurent’s accusation and confession stating, “their responsibilities for providing food and drink made it all too easy to explain how they had slipped in a poisonous diabolical powder. Marguitte Laurent said she had put powder in her husband’s soup alter he beat her with the fire-irons, giving her a painful blow on the head.”[5] The creation of recipe books was significant towards these explanations for a portion of these witchcraft allegations as they gave evidence to the practice of housewifery and domestic labor. Although it cannot be assumed that every woman who was accused created and kept recipe books in their households, these books were common practice in early modern Europe.[6] Early modern recipe books gave testimony to the abundance of knowledge women held and shared in their households. However, they also demonstrated the pressure to uphold the role of housewife and caretaker for their husbands and children.

The practice of science and medicine demonstrated through recipe books helped give cause to witchcraft accusations against women. Medicinal recipes documented in early modern recipe books revealed women’s roles as healers and nurses in the household. Similarly to the juxtaposed way that women were condemned for assuming their roles as housewives, they fell victim to accusations for their roles as healers as well. Healing methods and medicinal remedies were seen as ‘magic’ and sacrilegious in the eyes of patriarchal institutions that believed the devil worked through women healers.[7] It is important to note that many of these recipes included charms, incantations, and perhaps magical cures that furthered the resolve to condemn—what the church and male leaders saw as—evil practices.[8] Mary Ann Campbell develops this notion in her essay Labeling and Oppression: Witchcraft in Medieval Europe by stating, “many of these women were lay healers who practiced midwifery and herbal medicine, as well as healing by charms and spells…. These rituals were widespread and predated Christianity, as did the recipes for herbal "cures" which had been passed down through generations.”[9] The use of herbs described in Campbell’s essay is expressed in a medicinal recipe from the 17^th century titled “A medecyne for the Plague which King Henrye” in which the recipe describes a herbal remedy for the plague.[10] The previously mentioned generational or familial nature of recipe books is present in the fears surrounding women’s practice of science and medicine during the witch hunts. Patriarchal institutions feared knowledgeable women as it threatened the societal structures that place men in dominant positions. The methods and ingredients ingrained of these medicinal recipes as well as the successful application of them and women’s knowledge on science challenge the patriarchal ideologies that work to keep existing structures of hierarchy.

Magical recipe books and recipes presented themselves in the form of grimoires which were also used to persecute women in early modern Europe. These books served similar purposes as early modern cookery books, however, much of the focus was on diagnosing and curing supernatural ailments.[11] While the majority of women arrested and executed during the witch hunts were falsely accused with no evidence of witchcraft, there were a few cases of women, particularly those who identified as cunning-folk, who were persecuted because of their practice of herbal medicine and charms. Cunning-folk were practitioners of magical healing who typically helped those in need of removing ‘spells’ or reversing the magic of ‘evil’ witches.[12] They used grimoires as an early modern woman would use a cookery book in her household, however, these magical books “reinforced the authoritarian concern that [they] were a tool of an increasingly powerful Satan.”[13] Owen Davies presents an example of a ‘recipe’ from a grimoire in Christopher Patridge’s book, The Occult World:

Sacrifice a cock, write the character and name of the angel on the skin, of course, in which you should fold a penny. And no matter how often you give it away, it will return to you.

Sacrifice a live white dove, write the name and character of its angel on the skin of a hare; if you show it to a woman, she will quickly follow you.[14]

Although not a medicinal or herbal remedy, this recipe still demonstrates the type of practices and material that would have caused fear, especially if done by a woman. This fear was also strengthened by the idea of a literate women as it challenged the concept of women’s intellectual inferiority as is was men who could typically read. Anne Bodenham is just one example in Owen Davies’ book, Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, of a cunning-woman who “felt it necessary to broadcast their relations with well-known male practitioners and the access that had given them to literary magic.”[15] Women like Bodenham enforce their knowledge and capability to practice magic demonstrating the significance of women’s literacy and practice of grimoires in early modern Europe. While it can be argued that grimoires reinforced fears in sacrilegious beliefs, the fear of women’s involvement in magic and the practice of grimoire recipes give evidence to the ways these magical books could have condemned women to death due to challenged concepts of women’s nature and their roles in society.

The end of the 17^th century marked a new age of philosophical and scientific thought and the end of the witch hunts. This shift created new opportunities within the sphere of witchcraft through the popularization of arcane and magical knowledge. Although the belief in witchcraft was still commonplace in early modern Europe, they rarely led to accusations and witch hunts became a thing of the past.[16] Information on magic, alchemy, and astrology came in the form of grimoires that “contained instructions not only on how to invoke demons to find hidden treasure, but also to restore health, to reverse the effects of witchcraft and love spells and to safeguard and increase material wealth.”[17] This distribution of knowledge also continued the disenfranchisement of women as men were able to profit off of the very concepts that condemned women in the past. During the Enlightenment, the collection and dissemination of grimoires or spell books created a market for scholars and the wealthy who became fascinated by occult knowledge; like Joseph Reuther who made a profit acquiring and selling prints of these books: “The Reuther case indicates a market amongst the artisan and tradesman class, but there was also interest from those higher up the social scale.”[18] In contrast to the inclusivity of cunning-folk practices, there’s no mention or evidence of women being apart of this trade of grimoires in early modern Europe. Women could be accredited towards the labor that went into the creation and practice of these recipes and arguably the development of grimoires through their knowledge of healing. However, it is almost as if they were pushed out of the redefinition of witchcraft and magic during enlightened Europe despite their contributions and suffering.

Women’s use and practice of recipe books, medicine, and healing threatened the patriarchal structures of early modern European society leading to reasonings for their persecution in the witch hunts. Women’s roles in the household creating tensions not only when they failed to fulfill their duties, but even if they fully embodied their responsibilities. Women’s roles as healers and practice of medicinal recipes as well as the use of grimoires challenged notions of intellectual inferiority which reinforced fear in changing patriarchal structures of early modern Europe. Even after the witch trials, women continued to be disenfranchised through the male dominated business of grimoire trading despite women’s contributions and influence in magical recipes. Although subtle, recipe books and women’s practice of recipes reveal the patriarchal ideologies about women’s roles and nature in society that helped amplify accusations of witchcraft during the witch hunts of early modern Europe.

[1] Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum, 1487.

[2] Leong, Elaine. “Collecting Knowledge for the Family: Recipes, Gender and Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern English Household.” Centaurus 55, no. 2 (2013): 84. https://doi.org/10.1111/1600-0498.12019.

[3] Robin Briggs, Witches & Neighbors: the social and cultural context of European witchcraft. (1997): 93.

[4] Ibid, 94.

[5] Ibid, 92.

[6] Leong, 82.

[7] Ehrenreich, Barbara and English, Deirdre, Witches, Midwives, & Nurses: A History of Women Healers. (1973): 14.

[8] Ibid, 13.

[9] Campbell, Mary Ann. "Labeling and Oppression: Witchcraft in Medieval Europe." Mid-American Review of Sociology 3, no. 2 (1978): 57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23252533.

[10] “The Regiment of Healthe,” accessed December 7, 2020, https://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b19616454.

[11] Bonzol, Judith. "The Death of the Fifth Earl of Derby: Cunning Folk and Medicine in Early Modern England." Renaissance and Reformation 33, no. 4 (2010): 75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43446683.

[12] Bonzol, 74.

[13] Christopher Partridge and Owen Davies , “Grimoires ,” in The Occult World (London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), pp. 605.

[14] Ibid, 605.

[15] Owen Davies, “The War Against Magic ,” in Grimoires: a History of Magic Books (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 66.

[16] Goodare, J., Martin, L., and Miller, J., eds. Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2007. 15.

[17] Doering-Manteuffel, Sabine & Bachter, Stephan. “The Dissemination of Magical Knowledge in Enlightenment Germany.” (2018): 196. 10.7765/9781526137265.00014.

[18] Doering-Manteuffel, Sabine & Bachter, Stephan, 195.

Bibliography

Bonzol, Judith. "The Death of the Fifth Earl of Derby: Cunning Folk and Medicine in Early Modern England." Renaissance and Reformation 33, no. 4 (2010): 75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43446683.

Campbell, Mary Ann. "Labeling and Oppression: Witchcraft in Medieval Europe." Mid-American Review of Sociology 3, no. 2 (1978): 57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23252533.

Christopher Partridge and Owen Davies , “Grimoires ,” in The Occult World (London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), pp. 605.

Doering-Manteuffel, Sabine & Bachter, Stephan. “The Dissemination of Magical Knowledge in Enlightenment Germany.” (2018): 196. 10.7765/9781526137265.00014.

Ehrenreich, Barbara and English, Deirdre, Witches, Midwives, & Nurses: A History of Women Healers. (1973): 14.

Goodare, J., Martin, L., and Miller, J., eds. Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2007. 15.

Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum, 1487.

Leong, Elaine. “Collecting Knowledge for the Family: Recipes, Gender and Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern English Household.” Centaurus 55, no. 2 (2013): 84. https://doi.org/10.1111/1600-0498.12019.

Owen Davies, “The War Against Magic ,” in Grimoires: a History of Magic Books (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 66.

“The Regiment of Healthe,” accessed December 7, 2020, https://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b19616454.

Robin Briggs, Witches & Neighbors: the social and cultural context of European witchcraft. (1997): 93.