Witchcraft - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition witchcraft

Definition :

Witchcraft, conjuration; sorcery.

The practices of a witch, esp. in black magic; sorcery, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1595.

By the Witchcraft Act, 1735 (so styled by the Short Titles act, 1896) (9 Geo. 2, c. 5), 'no prosecution shall be carried on against any person for witchcraft, sorcery, enactments, or conjuration, or for charging another with any such offence in Great Britain'; but it is also enacted that all persons pretending to use any kind of witchcraft, etc., shall upon conviction on indictment suffer one whole year's imprison-ment, and also be obliged to give sureties for good behaviour if the Court thinks fit [R.v. Stephenson, (1904) 68 J.P. 524] See VAGRANT. Prior to this Act witchcraft was a capital offence (see 1 & 2 Jac. 1, c. 12), and a woman and her daughter aged nine years were hanged at Huntingdon for selling their souls to Stan as recently as 1716, this being the last execution in England for witchcraft. Pope Alexander the Sixth nominated a commission against witchcraft in 1494; five hundred persons were burnt as witches in Geneva in 1515; Sir Matthew Hale condemned the Suffolk witches to be burnt in 1664 (see 6 State Trials, 647); and a woman was burnt in Scotland in 1722, nine having been burnt after their own confession in 1678. See Best on Evidence, s. 572; Lecky's Rationalism