Searching For Witch’s Marks That Signified The Touch Of The Devil
Public DomainWitch hunters claimed that witches would have marks on them that had been branded by the Devil in order to seal their pact with him.
A birthmark, mole, or scar was often enough to prove the accused was indeed a witch.
Oftentimes, the accused was publicly stripped before the examination or their body hair was shaved in order to ensure that nothing was concealed from the witch hunters.
Identifying “witch’s marks” was among the strangest and perhaps most damning methods used by witch hunters. The belief originated in the Malleus Maleficarum, a notorious 15th-century treatise on finding and catching witches.
The book, written by Inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, claimed that witches achieved their powers by making a pact with the Devil, which was then sealed with a special mark that could appear as a mole, freckle, birthmark, or scar on the witch’s body. Accusers could then contend that anyone who bore an unusual marking on their body was likely a witch.
Matthew Hopkins, a prolific witch hunter who dubbed himself the “Witchfinder General” of England, outlined in his 17th-century guidebook how these markings purportedly helped him to identify a group of witches that he believed were cavorting in his hometown every six weeks.
UPMCEven a simple birth mark or mole like this could be considered to be the “markings of the devil.”
Hopkins successfully captured one of these women and found that she had “the devil’s marks” in the form of “three teats” on her chest. Hopkins argued that women who practiced black magic allegedly had a third nipple from which they fed their satanic master or their evil animal familiars.
What constituted the “markings of the devil” wasn’t clearly defined in either manual, and suspicious body marks varied broadly. Hopkins noted in his book that those with loose lobes of skin were also suspected to be witches and these were often misidentified as “witch’s teats,” as in the case of the woman in his manual.
Additionally, body markings that appeared in the shape of an animal, particularly toads, were deemed especially suspicious. As a result, during the height of the European witch hunts, people who had natural birthmarks and moles or possessed old scars on their bodies tried to get rid of them to avoid being accused of witchcraft.
