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Today’s post I’m going to post some little known facts about the various witch hunts. All information is from Pavlac, Brian A. "Ten Common Errors and Myths about the Witch Hunts, Corrected and Commented," Prof. Pavlac's Women's History Resource Site. (June 6, 2006). http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/witch/werror.html#cruelty

#1. The Witch Hunts were an example of medieval cruelty and barbarism.
FACT: While frequently cruel, the Witch Hunts took place after the Middle Ages and were conducted by civilized people.

COMMENTARY: The key problem is the use of the word "medieval." First, historians usually consider the Middle Ages, which began after the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire around A.D. 500 to be over by A.D. 1500. At that time, changes in the economy with capitalism, in culture with the Renaissance and in religion with the Reformation, created the Early Modern Period. The Witch Hunts, however, were just then getting started, not ending until the 1700s.

Second, the Middle Ages is often used in popular parlance to denigrate something as inferior and ignorant. In my opinion, this exaggerates the worst aspects of medieval times (religious fanaticism, primitive laws which readily apply violence, non-scientific thought, poor economic levels, and strict social hierarchies) to the disadvantage of its noble characteristics (an emphasis on faith, codes of conduct like chivalry, technological innovation, mutual obligations of social classes).

And as Western Civilization in the 20th Century has carried on World Wars (with their trench warfare, strategic bombing, submarine warfare, poison gas, and propaganda), colonial imperialism (with its slave-like exploitation of labor, disparities between rich and poor, and cultural destruction), or totalitarian communism (with its collectivization, gulags, and secret police), it has no real right to criticize the Middle Ages as "barbaric."

In any case, the most highly-educated, literate, well-trained, urban elites conducted most of the hunts. All the advantages of Western Civilization created the Witch Hunts and must assume responsibility for them.

#2. The Church was to blame for the Witch Hunts.
FACT: While Christianity clearly created the framework for the Witch Hunts, no single "Church" was to blame, and many secular governments hunted witches for essentially non-religious reasons.

COMMENTARY: When the Witch Hunts first began to intensify, in the 1400s, one church hierarchy, what I call the Latin Catholic Church, dominated Western Civilization. Even within that one church, however, uniformity in all matters of faith and belief had not been fully imposed.

During the Middle Ages, the predominant Christian view of witchcraft was that it was an illusion. People might think they were witches, but they were fooling themselves, or the Devil was fooling them. Most authorities thought that witchcraft could do no serious harm, because it was not real. It took the arguments of theologians, a number of inquisitor’s manuals, and a series of papal bulls (written letters of judgment and command) to contradict that traditional Christian idea, and identify witchcraft with a dangerous heresy. Ultimately in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII, in his bull Summis desiderantes, let the Inquisition pursue witches.

There is some legitimate historical debate, though, about how far the bull applied throughout the church, and how many church authorities really believed that witches were a serious danger. In any case, just about at that time the "Church" broke apart because of the Reformation. While Roman Catholicism redefined itself under a papal magisterium, Lutheranism, Calvinism and Anglicanism asserted other sources for divine authority.

Surprisingly, the Protestant reformers often agreed with Rome, that witches were a clear and present danger. All four of the major western Christian "churches" (Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican) persecuted witches to some degree or another. (Eastern Christian, or Orthodox Churches carried out almost no witch hunting).
None of these persecutions could have been carried out without the permission and cooperation of secular governments. In only a few small regions, like the Papal States and various Prince-Bishoprics in Germany, were religious and temporal government leaders one and the same. But in all the rest of Western Europe, secular princes ultimately decided whether or not witches were hunted. Still, religious leaders carry a large share of the blame for the hunts, since secular princes often hunted witches on the advice of the clergy. Princes hunted witches because Church leaders taught them that witches were disturbers of the peace, destructors of property, and killers of animals and people.
Interesting huh?

Still waiting for release date for Storm and there has yet been no word Samhain regarding Callye’s Justice. I’m getting ever more impatient for both to hurry and happen!

See you all later!
Huggles,
Donica