Free The Enemy Within by John Demos Page A

and complex urban economy, the growth of bureaucracy, the general atmosphere of life en masse: such factors, individually and together, served as antidotes to witchcraft.
    These points lead to another important and controversial question, that of “functionalism.” The term, and the concept, belong to modern anthropological study, from which witchcraft historians have borrowed quite liberally. The question is whether witchcraft was to some extent advantageous—hence “functional”—for the communities in which it lay embedded. And the answer is decidedly mixed: yes, maybe, no, and sometimes quite the contrary.
    Witchcraft served, first of all, to line out crucial boundaries of behavior. The figure of the witch epitomized and personified evil. To trace that figure in detail was to identify the particular qualities deemed most negative by the community at large; hence, in a very basic sense, witchcraft belonged to the realm of moral philosophy. But this element extended beyond simple boundary marking, to embrace boundary maintenance as well. The fear of being labeled a witch undoubtedly influenced individual conduct, for persistent wrongdoing would invite such labeling. Even victims of witchcraft could come under suspicion; neighbors might ask, why have these particular persons been singled out for attack? Thus did moral philosophy mutate into a potent instrument of social control.
    And it went further still. The presence in a village community of a suspected witch worked both to deflect hostility from other targets and to concentrate blame, like a boil on the body that pulls in toxic fluids. To bring the suspect eventually to trial was, in effect, to lance the boil and release its toxicity. Court proceedings were in most instances a highly collaborative affair; neighbors took action as a group, and so reaffirmed their common bonds. The action was shared, the goals were shared, the feelings (fear, excitement, relief ) were shared. And when the proceedings were over—especially if the witch and her wickedness had been fully excised—the community felt a sharper, more unified sense of itself. Put differently: it was cleansed.
    This is admittedly a too-simple and schematic view; the reality of particular cases could easily become much more complex. Communities were not always of one mind about a suspect; if she had determined defenders, a trial might leave deep residues of bitterness or outright division. Furthermore, with panic witch-hunts it is hard to see any positive social function at all. Beyond the toll in lives lost, there would be massive disruption of familiar routines: work stopped, trade frozen, governance bent out of shape. In large-scale cases, witchcraft might tear a community apart and leave such devastation in its wake that full recovery would take decades or generations.
    The picture, then, is truly ambiguous: sometimes gain (for the group, obviously not for the accused and her kin), sometimes severe, even catastrophic, loss. That witchcraft was deeply, elaborately threaded into the fabric of community life can hardly be doubted. But no single “functionalist” formula will stretch to cover the entire range.

Class. To what extent, and in what ways, did class difference contribute to the development of witchcraft cases?
    Witchcraft could mean remarkably different things to different people. And class (or “rank,” as people of the time would have said) was indeed a major divider. Peasants and all those who made a living with their hands approached witchcraft in an immediate, specific, fundamentally practical way—as a potential threat to everyday security. Particular forms of maleficium were their chief point of concern. Gentlefolk—in short, all who were not obliged to work with their hands—shared this concern but added to it a strong interest in the more broadly “diabolical” aspects, Satan’s relentless machinations and the cosmic