A Briefe Historie of Wytches

By the end of the Middle Ages, the popular image of the witch had undergone a reversal. Whereas once she had been admittedly wild and unruly, she had become unremittingly ghoulish, vampiric, cannibalistic and malevolent. This change in perception, wise-woman to evil hag, played an important part in determining the fates of women in Europe. Since the image of the witch is tied so intimately to women, the denigration of this powerful archetype adversely affected the role of females in Middle Ages society. How did this evolution, the transformation, occur?