... large numbers of women were hanged after being accused of maleficium (doing of harm to people or property) by their neighbours. Thomas says that the witch-craze was a "broyle against old women"5. Contemporary evidence supports this, for example George Gifford6, a Protestant priest from Essex, who wrote two books on witchcraft, in 1587 "Discourse of the Subtle Practises of Devils by witches and Sorcerers" and in 1593, noted: "I was in a Jury not many years past, when there was an old woman arraigned for a witch..." Lotherington3 suggest that women had the power over life and death, and they were also sexually stereotyped as having little control over ravenous lust, hence they were accused of witchcraft. The Dominican monk who wrote "Malleus Maleficium"4 in 1486 derived femina from "Fe" and "Minus" because according to them women were "deceitful" and "imperfect" (made from the "bent" rib of Adam), and the Dominican monks ...

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