Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation

Europe’s early modern period lasted from approximately 1450 to 1700. Centralized monarchies emerged as older feudal bonds dissolved. The Italian and Northern Renaissances took place alongside the Scientific Revolution. The Protestant Reformation gave rise to new Christian denominations and the Catholic Counter-Reformation as well as a series of religious wars in central and western Europe. European nation-states began to colonize the non-Western world as they created global empires, and a series of witch hunts took place across Europe and colonies around the globe.

New technologies, such as Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press (circa 1440), promoted the growth of these developments. Demonological tracts, for instance, could be widely disseminated, spreading the intellectual foundations for witch-hunting. Scientific and philosophical works likewise became more accessible, popular, and influential, as did writings of religious reformers. Many of these works were used to justify the oppression of women and people of color.

Heretical movements flourished in the late Middle Ages, but the Roman Catholic Church successfully persecuted many of these groups. Alternatively, the German monk Martin Luther escaped burning as a heretic when he split from the Church thanks to the support and protection of the German princes who converted to Lutheranism for both religious and political reasons.