The last time that I wrote something in the blog was about the terms of “witch”, “wizard”, and “witchcraft” but now I’m going to talk a little bit about: witchcraft persecutions. This persecutions started around 1233 when the Pope, called Gregory IX, charged a tribunal, nowadays known as “The Inquisition” which had the purpose of suppress or eliminate non-Christian activities, for example: the practice of witchcraft, satanic rituals, etcetera; but then in 1320, Pope John XXII declared that paganism was everything considered as a hostile or aggressive threat to the society. Later, in 1484, Heinrich Kraemer and Jacob Sprenger wrote the “Malleus Malificarum” and they even published with the help of the Pope Innocent VIII. The “Malleus Malificarum” was a manual dedicated to witch hunters and it became used for about 300 years in order to destroy paganism in Europe (Occult 100, ocult100.com).
During this period, a lot of people died (women, men, and even children) but not all of them were pagans, witches or satanists. Inquisitors used torture, rape, forced sodomy, and mutilations as a way to destroy paganism. Propaganda and the fear of communities became used to realize that kind of murders and it became spread to other parts of the world, not just in Europe, for example: in the United States where the Salem witchcraft trials took place (Occult 100, ocult100.com).
Some facts that are known as a result of these persecutions were that, from 1500 to 1660, Europe had between 50,000 to 80,000 suspects that were classified as witches; all of them became executed: 80% were women. A curious fact is that Germany had the highest rate of executions with 26,000 in comparison with other European countries such as France with 10,000 executions, England with 1,000, and Ireland with 4 executions (Linder, law2.umkc.edu).
Now I would like to talk a little bit more about the Salem witchcraft trials, just to show you what happened. The Salem witchcraft trials took place in the United States from 1692 to 1693, where several men and women became accused of practicing witchcraft. Some of them became hanged on Gallows Hll, others went to jail and died there, and other ones became tortured (Linder, The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: A Commentary, law2.umkc.edu). Well that’s everything for today… Next week I’m going to talk about how the wizardry and magic had an impact at literature .
*Linder, Douglas. "A Brief History of Witchcraft Persecutions before Salem." 2005. University of Missouri: Kansas City. 24 August 2011
*—. "The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: A Commentary ." n.d. University of Missouri: Kansas City. 24 August 2011
*Occult 100. "The Burning Times & Basic History of Witch Persecution." 2010. Occult 100: Search and Archive. 24 August 2011
Hello AK, again, your topic is awesome!
ResponderEliminarI've heard about the Inquisition before, but I remembered facts such as the Malleus Malificarum by "The Da Vinci Code" xD
I think it is remarkable and that that the catholic church was deeply involved in that issues cause they're totally against their beliefs!
I really like fantasy stories, so I'll be waiting for the next post
Danyel
Hello there :D!
ResponderEliminarWell first of all I have to say this article is so interesting as well as your blog, I read the other article and they both caught my attention and of course they made me very curious about it, also this may be one of the only things I like about history, I don’t like history, just so you know.
While reading this I got kind of amazed to see the way “The Inquisition” took care of what they considered the root of the problem, it was very extremist method, and considering that they are still human beings and included women and children! This age must have been hell itself for all those people that got raped, tortured and mutilated, but I’m pretty sure this history facts helped all aspects we have nowadays about movies, books and of course horror stories.
Changing the view a little bit, I think these periods were the main source to create fantastic themes on the movies, which include magic, wizards, and witches; if these events wouldn’t have happened maybe great movies, series and sagas we have nowadays would not exist and well that is kind of depressing if you are a fan of magic stuff.
Finally I would like to congratulate you about this article, it immediately caught my attention and amazed me as well, because I finally got something about history I like, I am looking forward your next week post and I am pretty sure the impact it makes on literature is really interesting. Congratulations and keep it up!