ABSTRACT
It has frequently been suggested that witchcraft prosecutions merely reflected the high incidence of illness and the lack of medical knowledge in sixteenthand seventeenth-century England.1 This explanation cannot, by itself, account for the growth of accusations in Essex after 1560 or their decline after 1650. To do so it would have to show either that illness became worse in some way after 1560 and declined rapidly in the early seventeenth century, or that medical ignorance grew in the early sixteenth century, while knowledge of the cause of various diseases grew rapidly 100 years later. Finally, it might be argued that a combination of these two factors made the period between 1560 and 1650 peculiar. All that can be said is that such changes in illness or in remedies have not been demonstrated at the village level.2 Until they are, such an explanation seems unhelpful. Without denying that frequent and incurable illness may have been an essential background to witchcraft beliefs, it does not seem that changes in beliefs can be explained merely by reference to the medical conditions and changes of the period. An examination of the actual types of illness which were blamed on witches in Essex provides further evidence on this problem.
