As the Crone Flies: The Imagery of Women as Flying Witches in Early Modern Europe

Abstract

Early modern European images of women as flying witches present fantastical scenes that were initially associated with the Waldensian heresy. Originally these subjects featured both men and women, but they came increasingly to depict only women, who were represented in grotesque and horrific scenes associated with the Devil and his demons. Women frequently became the main subject matter of these witch images because they were consistent with ideas about women’s wicked and weak nature as taught by classical philosophers such as Aristotle and Church Fathers such as Jerome.

Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, women were identified by the Church as being particularly susceptible to the sin of lust and were often found guilty of drawing others into their lives of sin. Only within the confines of a convent or the patriarchal home were women considered safe from these impulses. Without these Christian boundaries, women were thought to be dangerous, which made them perfectly suited to falling under the spell of the Devil and becoming the witches that terrorized their neighbors. These women were increasingly depicted in prints and paintings beginning in the fifteenth century.

One of the most well-known images of flying witches from the early modern period is a small chiaroscuro woodcut entitled Witches Preparing for the Sabbath Flight by Hans Baldung Grien from 1510 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). This print is often found in introductory art history books, where it has always seemed strikingly out of place among the other works of the era that include restrained portraits, idealized altarpieces, and beautiful landscapes. It is this image that sparked my interest in the study of the imagery of women as flying witches in early modern Europe.