What was the lesson of Anna's death, and what change did it bring about? The woman in the crowd [who saw her burned] would vow never to go near a magic-worker again, no matter how badly she needed her advice; she would never again trust a midwife, would neither tell nor ask her anything, no matter how urgently she needed her help. Come to think of it, she would guard her lips with her neighbors - because any woman could be a witch, she must not be associated with any of them. The women's subculture of the Middle Ages, which has been much studied, began to dissolve under the terror of witch hunting. The new cult of individualism that cultural historians write about in connection with the sixteenth century was based not only on capitalistic competition or Renaissance idealism; it was, in the case of women, based on fear. In the lands of the witch hunts, women came to fear one another, for their lives.
Witchcraze by Anne Llewellyn BarstowÂ
