Post by Boojum on Sept 29, 2007 0:59:17 GMT 1
As well as that, you have to put it in the social and historical context of the time.
We're talking about a time of massive social and religious upheaval, when the war between Catholics and Protestants was at its most fierce. It was a nasty brutish time. The Inquistion was an effect of that, not a cause. I'd also suggest that those interested in this subject read up on Stanley Cohen's work on 'moral panics' which I think have a lot of bearing on what was actually happening.
Also, the available evidence suggests that most people executed for witchcraft actually identified as Christian. The witch trials were at their most extreme in areas with large amounts of Catholic/Protestant infighting. And there were many cases of landowners being sent to trial after the Church had seized their lands.
And the stance that this was all the fault of the evil Catholic Church doesn't actually stand up to close scrutiny.
For years, the responsibility for the Great Hunt has been dumped on the Catholic Church's door-step. 19th century historians ascribed the persecution to religious hysteria. And when Margaret Murray proposed that witches were members of a Pagan sect, popular writers trumpeted that the Great Hunt was not a mere panic, but rather a deliberate attempt to exterminate Christianity's rival religion.
Today, we know that there is absolutely no evidence to support this theory. When the Church was at the height of its power (11th-14th centuries) very few witches died. Persecutions did not reach epidemic levels until after the Reformation, when the Catholic Church had lost its position as Europe's indisputable moral authority. Moreover most of the killing was done by secular courts. Church courts tried many witches but they usually imposed non-lethal penalties. A witch might be excommunicated, given penance, or imprisoned, but she was rarely killed. The Inquisition almost invariably pardoned any witch who confessed and repented.
Consider the case in York, England, as described by Keith Thomas (Religion and the Decline of Magic). At the height of the Great Hunt (1567-1640) one half of all witchcraft cases brought before church courts were dismissed for lack of evidence. No torture was used, and the accused could clear himself by providing four to eight "compurgators", people who were willing to swear that he wasn't a witch. Only 21% of the cases ended with convictions, and the Church did not impose any kind of corporal or capital punishment.
The vast majority of witches were condemned by secular courts. Ironically, the worst courts were local courts. Some authors, like Anne Llewellyn Barstow (Witchcraze), blame the death toll on the decline of the "community-based" medieval court, and the rise of the centralized "national" court. Nothing could be further from the truth. "Community-based" courts were often virtual slaughterhouses, killing 90% of all accused witches. National courts condemned only about 30% of the accused.
(From Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt by Jenny Gibbons. You can find the full article here- chass.colostate-pueblo.edu/natrel/pom/old/POM5a1.html)
On torture, technically speaking, it wasn't outlawed in Scotland till 1649, with England following soon after in 1652. However, it's important not to overstate that. While I think it's likely there was at least some 'unoffical' torture, torture was only formally allowed when permitted by the monarch. (And remember that we're talking about a time when the English Civil War was still fresh in people's minds, which meant that monarchs were much more careful over here then they were elsewhere). Overall, no more then 81 formal torture warrants were issued in the whole of England's history. For any offence, not just witchcraft.
I'm going to end with another quote from Jenny Gibbons that sums up my views on this nicely.
I believe our community must break through the myth of victimization. We need to stop seeing the Witch Hunt as what They did to Us. There was no Them in the Burning Times. There was only a great Us, and we did terrible things.
We're talking about a time of massive social and religious upheaval, when the war between Catholics and Protestants was at its most fierce. It was a nasty brutish time. The Inquistion was an effect of that, not a cause. I'd also suggest that those interested in this subject read up on Stanley Cohen's work on 'moral panics' which I think have a lot of bearing on what was actually happening.
Also, the available evidence suggests that most people executed for witchcraft actually identified as Christian. The witch trials were at their most extreme in areas with large amounts of Catholic/Protestant infighting. And there were many cases of landowners being sent to trial after the Church had seized their lands.
And the stance that this was all the fault of the evil Catholic Church doesn't actually stand up to close scrutiny.
For years, the responsibility for the Great Hunt has been dumped on the Catholic Church's door-step. 19th century historians ascribed the persecution to religious hysteria. And when Margaret Murray proposed that witches were members of a Pagan sect, popular writers trumpeted that the Great Hunt was not a mere panic, but rather a deliberate attempt to exterminate Christianity's rival religion.
Today, we know that there is absolutely no evidence to support this theory. When the Church was at the height of its power (11th-14th centuries) very few witches died. Persecutions did not reach epidemic levels until after the Reformation, when the Catholic Church had lost its position as Europe's indisputable moral authority. Moreover most of the killing was done by secular courts. Church courts tried many witches but they usually imposed non-lethal penalties. A witch might be excommunicated, given penance, or imprisoned, but she was rarely killed. The Inquisition almost invariably pardoned any witch who confessed and repented.
Consider the case in York, England, as described by Keith Thomas (Religion and the Decline of Magic). At the height of the Great Hunt (1567-1640) one half of all witchcraft cases brought before church courts were dismissed for lack of evidence. No torture was used, and the accused could clear himself by providing four to eight "compurgators", people who were willing to swear that he wasn't a witch. Only 21% of the cases ended with convictions, and the Church did not impose any kind of corporal or capital punishment.
The vast majority of witches were condemned by secular courts. Ironically, the worst courts were local courts. Some authors, like Anne Llewellyn Barstow (Witchcraze), blame the death toll on the decline of the "community-based" medieval court, and the rise of the centralized "national" court. Nothing could be further from the truth. "Community-based" courts were often virtual slaughterhouses, killing 90% of all accused witches. National courts condemned only about 30% of the accused.
(From Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt by Jenny Gibbons. You can find the full article here- chass.colostate-pueblo.edu/natrel/pom/old/POM5a1.html)
On torture, technically speaking, it wasn't outlawed in Scotland till 1649, with England following soon after in 1652. However, it's important not to overstate that. While I think it's likely there was at least some 'unoffical' torture, torture was only formally allowed when permitted by the monarch. (And remember that we're talking about a time when the English Civil War was still fresh in people's minds, which meant that monarchs were much more careful over here then they were elsewhere). Overall, no more then 81 formal torture warrants were issued in the whole of England's history. For any offence, not just witchcraft.
I'm going to end with another quote from Jenny Gibbons that sums up my views on this nicely.
I believe our community must break through the myth of victimization. We need to stop seeing the Witch Hunt as what They did to Us. There was no Them in the Burning Times. There was only a great Us, and we did terrible things.