Salem Witch Trials Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Salem Witch Trials - Essay Example The fear that swept through the colony would in today's time be irrational but during this era of Puritanism it was a balanced and bona fide response. Puritans believed that the devil offered material recompense for collusion with him. Some of the evidence used in the trials was spectral evidence whereby those who had been affected claimed they had seen the apparition of the person who had afflicted them. In order for this to happen the Devil, it was said, had to be given permission by the accused to use their shape when appearing before their victims. A minister who was involved in the trials, Increase Mather and other ministers wrote a letter to the courts of Salem insisting that spectral evidence alone should not be used to convict the accused. (Mather, 1693) During one trial the accused Mary Osgood in her defense stated "the Lord would not suffer it so to be, that the devil should afflict in an innocent persons shape". She talked about how the devil had offered her rewards for her collusion and whilst she had agreed was able to prove that actually her life had become worse since her involvement with Satan and therefore had never fulfilled any commitment made to him (Reis, 1997). Consequently her life was spared. It was the women who denied conspiracy with Satan that faced execution for witch craft and testified that they would gain absolution from God upon death due to their innocence. At Sarah Goods execution she proclaimed the following to the minister "I am no more a witch than you are a wizard and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink" (Reis, 1997). During the trials the situation reached hysterical proportions and it is the sheer size of the occurrences of accusations that has warranted further investigation to create a rationale for the multitude of persecutions. Even during the trials the hysteria generated called some individuals to instigate an examination of possible alternatives to witchcraft. The initial accusations in Salem Village resulted with the testimony of Betty Parris, age 9, the daughter of Reverend Samuel Parris, the Puritan Minister of Salem during the trials, and her cousin Abigail Williams, age 11, the young girls began having fits that were said to be "beyond the power of epileptic fits or natural disease to effect" (Hale, 1697). Other women in the village also began to display similar symptoms shortly after. The women accused of affecting the girls through the powers of witchcraft were Sarah Osborne, Sarah Good and a female slave called Tituba who was indentured to the Parris family. Sarah Osborn was marri ed to one of her own servants and rarely attended church, Sarah Good was renowned for begging and asking for shelter and Tituba had a different background to that of Puritanism. The girls had accused Tituba of witchcraft and she was consequently beaten into a confession that she was indeed a witch. Due to these three individuals hardly measuring up to being what would have been deemed at the time as respectable members of the Puritan community they were obvious suspects for the rituals of witchcraft. However it wasn't long before upstanding and often influential members of their community began being accused

Art of the renaissance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Art of the renaissance - Essay Example I am trying to persuade one of my patrons to support these young men and so it was a fortunate coincidence that allowed me to come and view your works at the same time. I very much enjoyed my visit to that quaint little corner of the city behind the Cathedral of San Marco. It was most interesting to see the new works that Fra Angelico is doing for the monks there and I do believe that they will soon be finished. I don’t expect you will be permitted to view them, my dear, because the monks will hardly be prepared to open their doors to even one so beautiful as you, on the grounds that you are a women and hence forbidden to enter their hallowed rooms. I do assure you, however, that Fra Angelico’s frescoes are magnificent and truly a masterpiece worthy of this fine city of ours. I happened to meet him when I was coming out of the tavern, and he says that there has never been a more glorious time or place for art than our beloved Florence at the present time. When I told hi m that I was coming to see your paintings, he was most intrigued and informed me that he had indeed spied one or two young women carrying easel and paints and setting out their wares for sale at the marketplace alongside the boys. My how times have changed since my youth! I always have fond memories of your innocence and beauty since the days when I used to visit your father so many years ago. Your mama told me that one day you would be married to young Giovanni and live in that beautiful house by the lagoon. It is so very pleasing to see you all grown up and experimenting with art in your spare time now that you have settled down to married life. I expect that you have very little time for painting now, what with all your wifely duties, and so it is all the more fitting that you should have a chance to hang your paintings in public just for once before you have a family. I must say that I found your paintings delightful in their naive and honest depiction of womanly habits. Your ap preciation of the intricacies of female dress gave me a glimpse of the lady’s dressing room, and I am sure no man could have captured the mood of these scenes quite as well as you have managed it. Of course, there are some technical points that you have yet to learn, but I feel that I can excuse some such faults in your composition because you have not had the benefit of formal tuition in the way that my young Florentine apprentices have had. They will one day astonish us all with their brilliance, because they can match the power of the imagination with the skill acquired through long training at the feet of master artists. But you, my dear, have studied your subject well, and your pictures will no doubt be very useful as gifts to your adoring friends and family who will adorn the walls of their private spaces with your little oeuvres. I was particularly impressed with your copies of the work of Michelangelo. I expect that he will one day be revered across the whole of Europ e, because he captures the spirit of our age so perfectly. You would do well to copy his work more in the future, if you have time to continue your hobby, because he will teach you so many wonderful things about space, and proportion and texture – things that you could have learned about if you had been a man. As it