Matthew Hopkins

Interesting

... plays Matthew Hopkins as, uh, the witch finder.

It's one of the most upsetting villains, I would say.

Interesting.

End of Cruise of the Wasp by Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge

The Discovery of Witches by Matthew Hopkins.

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The Discovery of Witches.

In answer to several queries lately delivered to the judges of assize for the county of Norfolk, and now published by Matthew Hopkins, witch-finder, for the benefit of the whole kingdom.

1647.

Chapter 8, Part 1.

Matthew Hopkins In the annals of English witchcraft, Matthew Hopkins occupies a place by himself.

For more than two years, he was the arch instigator in prosecutions which, at least in the numbers of those executed, mark the high tide of the delusion.

His name was one hardly known by his contemporaries, but he has since become a figure in the annals of English roguery.

He was the son of James Hopkins, minister of Wenham in Suffolk.

He was a lawyer of but little note at Ipswich, thence removing to Manningtree.

Whether he may have been the Matthew Hopkins of Southwark who complained in 1644 of inability to pay the taxes is more than doubtful, but there is reason enough to believe that he found the law no very remunerative profession.

He was ready for some new venture, and an accidental circumstance in Manningtree turned him into a wholly new field of endeavor.

Uh, so it like, you know, not often that the full moon lines up with Samhain.

So I was like, "Right, we're gonna do the tour around East Anglia," which is where I'm from, "of all the places where Matthew Hopkins, a witchfinder general, tortured and, um, executed witches." So then looked for a tour route and found that it was actually like a spider's web around where I'm from in, uh, um, Braintree.

Yeah, so Braintree's like in the center of the web where I'm from.

And then there was all...

Uh, yeah, it was weird.

I feel like I might have a connection with him, I think 'cause I think I got ducked in a past life and that's why I keep nearly drowning and having asthma and a, like a clogged up voice, uh, in this life.

So I think it's all linked to Matthew Hopkins.

And he, uh, yeah, so I went to all the places where he tortured and, and, um, executed witches, and we performed the play Sisterhood and then did a healing ceremony.

There was another one.

Uh, Matthew Hopkins: Witch Finder General.

Yeah.

Which is apparently a really good film, and I've seen it but not for decades.

Um, no, I'm trying to remember the, was it, I'm trying to remember the Witch Hunter General guy.

Was it the Matthew Hopkins? Was it him?

I think, yes, I do think that is.

That sounds right, yes.

That distinction matters because the familiar tradition in England was never originally reducible to one standardized black cat, and the surviving accusations instead present a bizarre menagerie of cats, dogs, toads, rabbits, lambs, polecats, and creatures that seem to hover somewhere between recognizable animals and complete nightmare inventions.

By the time Matthew Hopkins published The Discovery of Witches in 1647, the printed frontispiece could present alleged witches alongside a collection of named familiars whose forms and names sound almost surreal, including Holt, Jomara, Vinegar Tom, Sack and Sugar, Nues, and Grizzle Greedygut, with descriptions ranging from a white kitten and a black rabbit to a legless spaniel-like creature and something resembling a long-legged greyhound with the head of an ox.

The modern black cat therefore represents another act of cultural compression, because a much broader and stranger early modern familiar tradition was eventually reduced to the one animal that later illustration, costume culture, and Halloween found easiest to keep.

The familiar also helped transform ordinary bodies into supposed evidence because English witchcraft theory increasingly imagined that these spirits fed from a special teat or mark on the witch, while related traditions described the devil's mark left on the body as a sign of the demonic pact.

society many of the people came from spaces like East Anglia now that's interesting because East Anglia was a particularly Puritan space in the 17th century there's loads of reasons why and one of the main reasons is that it was close to the coast so we have lots of people from the continent so maybe the Netherlands traveling over and flavoring the type of Protestantism that we have there But also it's interesting because during the English Civil Wars or the Civil Wars, Wars of Three Kingdoms, whatever you refer to it as, we have a series of witch hunts that happen predominantly in East Anglia.

You might have heard of Matthew Hopkins.

Yes, the witch finder general.

Exactly, exactly.

Not the nicest character, as we know.

Matthew Hopkins was his name.

Oh.

Um, and he reigned from 1620 to 1647, even though the dates are a little bit skewwhiff.

We know that with history.

There's, you know, there's, you have to really dig deep to, to find the answers, and there's different answers as well.

But yeah, Matthew Hopkins, and the reason why I find him very interesting is because one of the areas that he, shall we say, terrorized, was Essex, which is where I'm from, and a big part of the, the, um, the witch scandal actually started from Essex, where I'm from, you know, the, the, the witch trials.

So I find that interesting, because obviously it went all the way to Salem, Massachusetts, where obviously we, we-