Until comparatively recently in history, it was dangerous to be born female. One of the most shameful acts ever committed involved the wholesale slaughter of thousands of innocent people - mostly women - in the name of religion. Today we view the bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia and the barbarities perpetrated by the Taliban towards women in particular as unimaginably cruel and motiveless. Yet this relatively short if bloody period in our history is as nothing when compared to the four hundred years of mindless murder and protracted torture inflicted on thousands whose only crime was to be born female.
These were the 'Burning Times'. The crime: witchcraft.
The history of Christianity is full of complications and paradoxes. Whilst it's true that Christians have been executed, persecuted and tortured for their beliefs since Roman times (especially during the reign of Emperor Nero), it's also true that Christianity is responsible for perpetrating some of the most appalling crimes against humanity - all in God's name. As Ellen White argues in her controversial book, The Great Controversy, far from God having set up the institution of the Church which Christians were obliged to respect and obey, it was, she argues, an inherently evil institution controlled by Satan against which Christians felt it was their duty to rebel.
Ask anyone to cite examples of famous burnings and they're likely
to point to specific incidents in history. Joan of Arc (famous French
martyr and accused witch); or the attempts by Queen Mary I (or 'Bloody'
Mary) to turn Protestant England back to Catholicism in the mid
-16th
century. During Mary's four year reign, over 300 heretics were burned
at the stake. Even though the accused weren't executed because of witchcraft,
this particularly bloody period of English history has disturbing parallels
with the European witch trials held around the same period. As with
the witch trials, religious intolerance was the justification for prolific
murder.
Hundreds of thousands of people were burnt as witches by the Church, their validation a passage from Exodus 22:18 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' This tragic and long-lasting cruelty reached its religious nadir in the sixteenth century, particularly in Germany and the surrounding countries. The Bishop of Wurzburg, for example, burned more than 900 witches, including lawyers, clerics, and children as young as seven years old. He even had his own nephew beheaded for alleged witchcraft. In Bamberg, the bishop burned six hundred men, women and children in ten years. In a special oven built at Neisse in Silesia during the middle of the seventeenth century, the executioner roasted more than two thousand women, girls and babies in nine years. In 22 villages in the Rhineland, 368 women were burned in six years - two of those villages being left with only a single women apiece.
England - and especially Scotland - could hardly be called civilised either. Even though torture was forbidden in England, nearly a thousand witches were hanged over a hundred year period. In Scotland, where torture was permitted, around 4,500 witches were hanged, strangled or burned. The last recorded witchcraft trial took place in Scotland in 1727, when an old woman was strangled. Her crime? Turning her daughter into a pony.
***
So, just what is a 'witch'?
The word has its origins in the ancient Anglo-Saxon word wicca, meaning
'witch' or 'wizard'. It is also related to the German word wethen:
to 'consecrate' or 'bless'. Some say the origins of the witch date back
thousands of years into human pre-history; a time when the Goddess was
worshipped, humanity revered the powers of nature and women were viewed
as the creators of new life.
Prior to the 14th century, witchcraft was popular in Europe and was more or less tolerated by the Church. There was also an important distinction to be made. Pre-1400, witchcraft did not entail demon-worship but instead a collection of beliefs and practices which included healing using spells, use of ointments and concoctions, dabbling in the supernatural (performing magic) and forecasting the future. The witch was not seen as an evil being but rather a kind of priestess.
Among the Norse and Viking peoples, witches used 'runes' (small stones with runic letters or inscriptions) to predict the future. They were also viewed as shamans - women with connections to the spirit world. In Viking times Christianity and paganism existed peaceably side by side for many years; the ancient Greeks and Romans too held pagan beliefs.
It has also been argued that the Christian adoration for the Blessed Virgin Mary was related to the pagan Goddess, something that had existed for centuries. The Goddess - who eventually became inextricably linked to the witch - could appear in three phases: virgin, mother and crone.
Historically speaking, the witchcraft so zealously persecuted by the Christians came into being around the fifteenth century. These were for the most part women, those who professed to have extraordinary powers to heal or cast spells - ignorant peasants, feared and hated by their neighbours. Theologians condemned thousands to the flames in their efforts to prove that all superstitious practices were heretical and implied a pact with the devil. Simple charms and benevolent spells were suddenly construed as demon-worship. From such misunderstandings it was one short step to accusation, prolonged torture and painful death.
In effect, the Church declared war on female healers, barring women
from the study of medicine. If a woman cured without having studied,
her fate was to forfeit her life. One respected healer, Alison Peirsoun
was requested by the archbishop of St Andrews when he was sick. She
cured him. Later he had her arrested and charged with witchcraft, after
which she was duly burned. This is typical of the attitude of the times.
Witches were convenient scapegoats for doctors who failed to cure their
patients - the popular belief being that if an illness was witch-related,
it was almost certainly incurable.
Pope Innocent declared that witches could blast crops and domestic animals, cause disease and even prevent husbands and wives from copulating. Churchmen perpetrated the myth that witches were involved in a huge, secret plot, under the devil's guidance, to overthrow God's kingdom on earth. They created and added to the illusion of the black mass and led laymen to believe that it frequently took place. Their evidence? Obtained from the blood-spattered confines of the torture chamber.
Everything that had been previously tolerated was ruthlessly reviewed and perverted to match the prosecutors' paranoia. The once benign pagan celebrations - such as Samhain and Baltane - were now viewed as evil, along with witches' 'sabbats' (a time when witches gathered to worship the devil). By the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, the persecution had begun in earnest and would eventually spread like a contagion from the Catholic Church to the Protestant faith and from Europe to the New World in America.
***
How and why could such gross miscarriages of justice occur relatively recently in human history? To answer this question, we must first examine the role of the sexes in medieval Europe. A time when misogyny was the norm and women were accused in their thousands of crimes of a depraved sexual nature. Mistrust and ignorance were the blight of civilisation and women were perceived as over-sexed creatures, untrustworthy and innately devious.
From 1519 to 1700, in places as far apart as Geneva, Luxembourg, Castile, Venice and Essex, England, an overwhelming proportion (around 75 percent) of accused witches were female. The commandment 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live' was translated as a death sentence for thousands of women. In La Saincte Bible published in 1566 in Lyon, the word 'witch' is portrayed in the feminine form. The oft-quoted commandment was now taken to mean 'Thou shall not suffer a woman to live'.
In medieval times it was widely believed that women's nymphomania was dangerous to men. Because women are capable of multiple orgasm, it was believed that men physically exhausted themselves in their attempts to satisfy their partner.
By the 1600s, witches were no longer simply ugly old women. Beautiful young women - even girls under ten - were just as likely to be accused of being witches. In their accusers' eyes, beauty was a mask donned by the witch to hide their true nature. Old women were accused of leading younger women into the 'joys' of lesbianism and incest. In1629 in Wurzburg, nineteen year-old Barbara Gobel, described as 'the fairest maid in Wurzburg', was burned at the stake. The 'fairest and the purest maiden in all Cologne' was similarly burned.
After 1550 most European witch trials focused upon witches as Satan's
concubines or sex slaves. The 17th century judges in Alsace, for instance,
asked a set of questions of the accused which included: How long have
you been a witch? Why did you become a witch? What was the name of your
master among the evil demons? And: What animals have you bewitched to
sickness or death?
A witch could be accused of even more absurd crimes, the most bizarre of which was penis-thievery. Allegedly, this resulted in impotence or even the disappearance of the penis itself! As for the women themselves, accused of witchcraft they usually had to undergo thorough genital examinations in an attempt to locate the supposed witch's mark; the nipple or other spot where a witch suckled her familiar. This meant that any wart, mole or other skin blemish could be construed as the witch mark - irrefutable proof in the accuser's eye of the devil's mark. Accusations of witchcraft often ended with the accused being charged with committing sodomy with the Devil.
***
In the Papal Bull of 1484, Pope Innocent VIII gave his blessing and encouragement to witch hunting. Innocent drew up his infamous document based on the request of two German members of what is nowadays referred to as the Papal secret police. The two Dominicans, James Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer, were appointed inquisitors and began to accuse and condemn German peoples of witchcraft with alarming zeal. After being condemned for their unjust methods, and after being refused support by the clergy, Sprenger and Kramer approached the Pope and induced him to draw up the 1484 Bull. Soon after, they prepared their iniquitous and damning witch handbook, Malleus Malleficarum (or Hammer of Witches) which was to spell the doom of thousands of innocent people for centuries to come.
Hammer of Witches quickly became a hugely popular tome, running through ten editions in a matter of a few years and even enjoying the endorsement of the University of Cologne. The book, described by one scholar as a 'casebook of sexual psychopathy', inspired later books from Inquisitors such as De lancer and Bodin.
Hammer of Witches prescribes a number of questions to be asked by witchcraft investigators, describes the 'symptoms' of the witch-like condition and the methods with which to deal with the accused. It was very specific when it came to definitions of witchcraft. 'All witchcraft comes from carnal lust,' it declares, 'Which in women is insatiable.' It also adds that the most prolific source of witchcraft is quarrelling between unmarried men and their lovers. In one of its many contradictions and assumptions, the book states that any disease which a doctor cannot cure is due to witchcraft. As such, epilepsy, viewed as a kind of possession, was often seen as being caused by sorcery.
The book's hysterical tone and misogynistic fervour undoubtedly helped accelerate the atrocities that were to follow. It indirectly increased the number of people who could be accused of witchcraft; increased the geographical area to include most of Europe; and focussed its murderous intentions on women. Additionally, certain sections of the book could be used to condemn other evil creatures in league with the devil such as the vampire or incubus.
Hammer of Witches was eventually taken up by both Protestant and Catholic witch hunters. Even the Reformation's most famous figurehead, Martin Luther, adhered to its principals. Viewed in enlightened times, its content seems the wildest fantasy. Some of the passages would appear laughable - if it weren't for the fact that so many died as a result of its 'teachings'. Such questions as whether incubi and succubi can produce children; whether witches can prevent the sexual act; and whether witches can change men into beasts were all raised as subjects for debate. Further chapters deal with prolonging torture and how to protect oneself from spells. According to the text, burning a witch is a good thing - a cleansing act.
***
The body set up to carry out the Church's grisly work was the notorious Inquisition - the most obvious example of the barbarism of the Middle Ages. It is an embarrassment to many modern Christians; part of the darker side of Christian history. The part Christians - indeed the world in general - would like to forget.
Every instance of impotence or sexual fantasy which came before the Inquisitors was bound, if taken further, to result in a burning. In its fanaticism, this powerful body of men were allowed to conduct thousands of heinous crimes based on fabricated evidence wrung from the mouths of victims with broken limbs, scorched skin and bleeding backs. All based on the Church's desire to suppress (supposedly) perverted sexual practices, harmless pagan ceremonies and beliefs that had survived into medieval times.
The absurdities and contradictions of the Inquisition's persecution ensure that this period in history is blighted with tragic irony. The senseless contrast between the supposed powers of the witch and her complete inability to defend herself against torture and murder make the 'Burning Times' almost wholly incomprehensible in a more 'enlightened' age. To overcome this 'inconsistency', prosecutors invented the comforting theory that through the goddess of God, a witch was instantly rendered harmless as soon as he/she was touched by an officer of justice.
It was a strictly 'no-win' situation. As soon as a witch was accused
and turned over to the Inquisition, the inquisitor was formally instructed
never to declare him or her innocent. The inquisitor, convinced he was
battling with Satan, saw it as his personal mission to wring a confession
from the accused - and by any means. Whereas prior to the 14th century,
endurance of torture might have been regarded as an indication of innocence,
now it was additional proof of guilt as it showed that Satan was attempting
to save his disciple.
Worse still, the accused received no lawyer. Pope Boniface VIII decreed that trials should be conducted 'simply, without the noise and form of lawyers.' Evidence was accepted from witnesses who could not legally testify in any other kind of trial, such as condemned criminals, other heretics, even children as young as two. One inquisitor, Jean Bodin 'valued child witnesses because at their tender age they could easily be persuaded or forced to inform'. Any witness that withdrew his testimony was punished for perjury - yet his testimony remained on record.
On the rare occasion that a confession could not be obtained, the sentence was declared 'not proven'. Even then the prisoner could be kept in prison in case new evidence should arise, or fresh tortures prove effective.
Appeals were to be avoided at all costs. Outside of France, the only appeal that could be made was to Rome for refusing counsel or improper torture. If conscious of injustice and aware that an appeal might be imminent, the inquisitor could avoid it by appointing someone to sit in his place. Even if an petition was made, the accused was not allowed to select counsel - instead he was appointed by the inquisitor.
The counsel was not allowed to know the name of the accused; his functions were restricted to advising his client to confess or to disable witnesses. If the counsel caused difficulties and delays with continued appeals he was subject to excommunication for heresy and was considered worse than a witch himself.
The rules of witch trial, as laid down by the Inquisition included the following examples of spectacular illogic: The procedure must be kept secret. Common reports or hearsay were to be accepted as proof of guilt. The accused was not told of the nature of the charges nor allowed legal counsel. Witnesses were to remain concealed. Torture was always used, without limit of duration or severity. If the accused confessed before torture, torture was to be applied anyway to 'validate' the confession. If the accused died under torture, the record was to state that the devil broke his neck in prison. The accused was confirm under torture the names of 'accomplices' suggested to him by the judges. No accused was to be found innocent.
Any attempt for the Church to deny its involvement and approval of these barbaric times is quashed when one considers the papal bull issued by Pope Leo X in 1521. The Senate of Venice had refused to approve the many executions ordered by the Inquisition. Therefore the aforementioned wrote to his legate: 'We declare and order you to exhort and command the aforesaid Senate of Venice … to intervene no more in this kind of trial, but promptly, without changing or inspecting the sentences made by the ecclesiastical judges, to execute the sentences … And if they neglect or refuse, you are to compel them with the Church's censure and other appropriate legal measures. From this order there is no appeal.' Even the legal system was not exempt from discrimination. In a 1599 directive, the judges were bound under pain of mortal sin to execute witches. Anyone who objected to the death sentence was suspected of complicity.
Those accused of witchcraft were expected to pay the expenses of their own imprisonment, even their own torture. In Scotland, for example, torturers charged their victims six shillings and eight pence for branding their cheek. Even in England, where accused witches were sometimes acquitted, they were kept in prison until they had paid the expenses accrued during their incarceration.
Families of the accused were left destitute and no one dared help
them for fear of being suspected as witches themselves. In Germany the
property of the condemned was confiscated and ended up lining the pocket
of the Bishop. Prisoners and their families were forced to pay high
fees to everyone connected with their execution. Furthermore, relatives
of an accused person were only allowed to visit him if they agreed to
persuade him to confess to witchcraft.
Torture was officially sanctioned by the Church in 1257 and remained a legal recourse for five and a half centuries until it was abolished by Pope Pius VII in 1816. Only devices that would cause maximum pain and suffering were used.
Even in the torture chamber, inquisitors could justify their victims' suffering. They had special terms for everything they did. For instance, victims were said to be 'laughing' when their faces were contorted with pain; or 'sleeping' when they fainted. Those who died under torture 'committed suicide'.
The most popular forms of torture included the strappado, the thumbscrews and the rack; all were applied to both men and women. Application of the former meant that the accused was suspended by the wrists and heavy weights attached to the ankles. In its most extreme form - squassation - the ropes of the strappado were jerked violently downwards, dislocating the victims' arms in the process. The infamous rack pulled the limbs in different directions, tearing tendons and cracking bones. Prisoners clapped in the 'iron boot' had wedges of wood hammered between their skin and the metal. During water torture, the victim would be strapped down and forced to swallow or breathe in water until she felt she was drowning.
The accused ranged from five to eighty-five. A common torture applied to all was to tie the right arm to the left leg and vice versa, then leave the accused for twenty-four hours resulting in severe cramps. As it was believed that witches suckled demons and that the latter must visit their host at least once in twenty-four hours, if, for example, a spider, louse or fly were found in the cell during that time it was interpreted as a disguised demon, which in turn provided evidence of guilt.
'Special' tortures were devised for women, the simplest being rape. Although not considered an acceptable method of obtaining information, it regularly occurred inside witches' prisons (or 'witch towers'). The trial of one jailer accused of tricking his victim into handing over her jewellery in return for sexual favours revealed widespread rape of imprisoned women and the existence of extortion rackets whereby guards sold names to torture victims who needed others to accuse of complicity in witchcraft.
Indeed, one of the ironies of the age is that it was considered a more heinous crime to sexually molest an imprisoned female than it was to torture, mutilate and murder her. Thus, it was not unusual for a condemned witch to have her tongue cut out on the way to her execution so that she could not communicate her violation to the watching crowds.
Torturers enjoyed attacking women's breasts and genitals with pincers, pliers and red-hot pokers. Other 'permitted' female-only tortures included repeatedly applying hot fat to the eyes and armpits, the pit of the stomach, thighs, elbow and vagina. In one recorded case in 17th century Holland, a woman's clitoris was described as being 'not unlike a boy's member'. She was tried and sentenced to burning but was reprieved by a 'merciful' judge who amputated her clitoris and sent her into exile.
One supposedly infallible sign of guilt was the witch's inability to shed tears during torture and before the judges. Still, if she did weep, it was regarded as a device of the Devil and was not counted in her favour.
Officially torture could only be applied once. However, due to a semantic niggle, it could be 'continued' for as long as necessary, even over a period of years, each pause being considered a 'suspension'. Some victims were tortured over fifty times. According to Hammer of Witches, the accused witch had to be 'often and frequently exposed to torture.' If she refused to confess she should have other 'engines of torture brought before her' and told that she would endure these if she did not confess. If she still refused to confess, 'she is not to be altogether released, but must be sent to the squalor of prison for a year, and be tortured, and be examined very often, especially on the more Holy Days.' In this case, 'squalor' meant that the victim, still reeling from the effects of torture, was dumped in a stinking dungeon, often in solitary confinement. Alternatively she would be hung in chains next to others, left to beg for bread and water.
No one was safe from persecution. During the mass persecutions in Bamberg between 1609 and 1633, one of those persons burned was city burgomaster, Johannes Junius. Under torture he confessed to witchcraft. He was asked to name accomplices but denied having any. He was tortured again and eventually named several people. Before his execution he wrote to his daughter telling her not to believe what he had confessed: 'It is all falsehood and invention …They never cease the torture until one says something.'
In another infamous case, a peasant woman in Eichstatt in 1637 was forced to admit to attending sabbats, exhuming human bodies and passing through locked doors. After initially denying all the charges as ridiculous, she was later to recant after two weeks being stretched on the ladder and strapped in the boot. At times her pain was so severe that she was reported to have sworn to God and Christ to save her. She confessed to several escapades and when she later attempted to recant those confessions, was flogged and encouraged to admit to more wrongdoings and to name names - all the while denying the charges. She is recorded as having died 'penitent'.
The speed of a witch trial was shockingly swift. A witch could be imprisoned on suspicion of sorcery in January and before the month was out, found guilty and executed.
Even dead men could be named as heretics - a disaster for their living
relatives. The corpse could be dug up, paraded through the town and
burned at the stake. The estate and wealth of his descendants were then
seized by the Church.
One of the most notorious witch hunters was Matthew Hopkins, 'Witch-finder General', the scourge of 17th century Protestant England. Hopkins, a failed lawyer, began his insidious career in 1644 when he questioned an old woman denounced as a witch. By the time Hopkins had finished with her she had denounced a further thirty-one accomplices. All were tried at Chelmsford in Essex, and duly hanged. Inspired by his efforts, Hopkins now toured the Eastern countries, his mission: to route out witches wherever they hid.
Residents of towns and villages paid him handsomely to purge their areas of witches. The self-appointed witch-finder boasted he held 'the Devil's list of all English witches'. Like his European counterparts, he utilised absurd 'tests' to ascertain guilt. Women were bound and thrown into ponds: if they sank, they were innocent; if they floated to the surface, they were guilty. Amazingly, it was believed that as a witch was opposed to baptism, the waters would reject the witch.
Hopkins was the master of the spring-loaded knife. By using this device he could fool onlookers into thinking his victims were actually witches. When stabbing the accused, the blade of the knife retracted into the handle of the weapon, leaving the victim without a mark - indisputable evidence of witchery. When a real blade was employed, it was used to prick every inch of skin - as far as the bone, and especially the private parts. This was not in itself considered torture. Hopkins even got around British laws which made torture illegal by inducing sleep deprivation, starvation, solitary confinement and tying people cross-legged for days.
Medieval France boasted of an inquisitor every bit as ruthless - if not more so - than Hopkins. As well as being the author of the French witch-hunters' manual, Discours des Sorciers, Henry Bouget, Supreme Judge of the St Claude district in Burgundy, was the author of countless merciless tortures and bloody executions. Amongst his parlour of pain, Bouget utilised the wheel and the rack to break bones and tear sinews, along with crucifixion, whipping, branding and tearing flesh with white-hot pincers. Whether accused of being a witch or a werewolf, the victim's fate had the same lethal conclusion.
Despite the widespread pain and suffering inflicted under the guise of 'spiritual redemption, the Church wished to distance itself from the unpleasantries. Officially, the Church could not be seen to shed blood, thus victims were handed over to the secular arm (civil courts) for execution. This was known as relaxing or abandoning them and was accompanied by the token plea: 'We cast you forth from this our ecclesiastical Court, and leave you to be delivered to the secular arm. But we earnestly pray that the said secular court may temper its justice with mercy, that there be no bloodshed or danger of death.'
However, this was an empty gesture designed to absolve the Church of responsibility for the shedding of innocent blood. To be given over to the secular arm was, in effect, a death sentence. 'Mercy' meant that the accused could be strangled or dispatched with a sword before being burned - though this was not often granted.
Many accounts exist of the agonies suffered by innocent victims at
their executions. Once of worst examples tells of the execution of Anna
Pappenheimer in Bavaria. Having already been tortured with the strappado,
it was decided that a public spectacle was required. Anna was stripped,
her flesh torn off with red-hot pincers. Then her breasts were cut off.
But even this butchery was not enough. Incredibly, her breasts were
forced into her mouth as well as the mouths of her two grown sons. In
addition to her physical agony, the act of rubbing the bloodied breasts
around her sons' lips was intended to cause her extreme humiliation.
One of the most famous executions concerns that of Joan d'Arc (or Joan of Arc), burned to death in 1431. Joan heard 'voices' and believed she had been called by God to drive the English out of France. Though her initial campaigns were successful, she was eventually captured by the British and tried as a heretic and a witch. Joan had always had a horror of fire and when she was sentenced to burn she broke down, crying 'Alas that I should be treated so horribly and cruelly … I would rather be beheaded seven times, than thus be burnt.'
On the day of her execution, a board labelling her 'liar, pernicious, deceiver of the people, sorceress and blasphemer of God' was placed in front of the pyre. A tall paper cap bearing the words 'Heretic, relapsed, apostate idolatress' was placed on her head. Once her crimes had been read out by Bailiff of Rouen, it was commanded that, with no further delay, she be led to the place of her execution. Upon hearing this, Joan began to cry and moan wretchedly. Witnesses nearby were reputedly moved to tears.
For her crimes, it had been decided that a stake be erected with a low stone barricade around it. This was so that the wood could not fall in on her and quicken her death. Thanks to this stone parapet, Joan indeed took a long time to die.
After one had been sentenced and condemned to burn, further punishment was not uncommon. For example, on route to the stake the right hand could be cut off or a woman's breasts torn with red-hot pincers.
In Germany a number of ovens and stakes were commandeered to execute the accused. Children as young as two were burned in ovens or at the stake. In 1589 in one town 133 witches were publicly burned in a single day.
Whilst the murder continued, the notaries, innkeepers and executioners grew rich. The latter wore gold and silver and rode a noble, blooded horse, like a court noble. His wife too was clad in rich garb. Bishops - especially those at Bamberg and Wurzburg - acquired great wealth from the hundreds of victims of executions.
***
In more tolerant times, it's hard to imagine what it must have been like to be accused of witchcraft. To have placed before you the implements that will be used to extract a false confession. To hear the agonised screams of the torture chamber and to know that the very next day, you will join in those cries. To have terrible pain inflicted on your body for hours or days; to confess to sorcery - only to be informed that you will be further tortured with the strappado or the rack until you name accomplices. To attempt to sleep knowing what is coming next; knowing the havoc such instruments wreak on the human body. To languish in a stinking cell, aware that in hours you will be taken from this place, paraded through the streets (and possibly maimed) on route to the stake. To be mutilated in public and, finally, to suffer agonising pain as you roast alive (if the fumes don't suffocate you first).
Thankfully, the ruthlessness of the age, particularly in Bamberg, attracted unfavourable press and put pressure upon the emperor to put a check on the bloodletting. Many people felt great sympathy for the unfortunate victims of the carnage. Doubts were also raised as to their guilt, not to mention the protracted manner of their deaths. Councillor Dumler, whose own pregnant wife had been horribly tortured and burned, told the emperor: 'People are protesting that it is impossible that justice has been done to all the people in Bamberg.' He further suggested that prisoners' property no longer be confiscated.
Few, however, dared speak out against the insanity of the 'Burning
Times' for fear of being labelled a witch themselves. One such brave
soul was Jesuit priest, Father Frederich Spee, principally remembered
for condemning the Inquisition's use of torture in the witch trials,
especially in Wurzburg in Germany. His wise words damned the tortures
and murders whilst simultaneously expressing true Christian compassion
for the accused.
Spee became an author of books, most of which were published after his death. One tome - which translates as Circumspection in Criminal Cases - was anonymously published in his lifetime. In this 1631 work he disclosed his strong objections to the witch trials, tortures and widespread butchery.
Spee felt compelled to attack the contradictions inherent in the legal process. Certain victims, for example, were described as having 'confessed without torture' after being exposed to only one instrument, a spiked iron press that crushed the legs. His response was: 'And they call that "Confessed without torture!" … How can outstandingly learned men judge and discriminate when they cannot understand the language, the specialists' jargon, of the inquisitors? Why do they search so diligently for sorcerers? I will show you at once where they are. Take the Capuchins, the Jesuits, all the religious orders, and torture them - they will confess.'
By claiming that his work had been published anonymously, Spee escaped banishment - or worse. As an indirect result of his efforts, the witch trials in Wurttenburg and Mainz in Germany were halted.
Others who spoke out against the atrocities, such as the 16th century Italian philosopher, Giordano Bruno were not so lucky. He - and several like him - were burned for heresy.
Sent to investigate a mass of accusations in Spain in1611, Salazar reported that among 11,300 persons not one genuine case of witchcraft existed. Women who'd claimed to have had intercourse with incubi were medically examined and found to be virgins. His sensible report commented that 'there were neither witches nor bewitched until they were talked and written about.' After making his report, the preaching of sermons on witchcraft was outlawed and the persecutions died out in Spain.
***
How could these acts against humanity have occurred for hundreds of years? And all in the name of Christianity?
We believe we live in a lenient, liberal-thinking age. Such terrible times could never again occur - could they?
Sadly history is populated with zealots, opportunists and psychopaths
who hide behind the cloak of power and religion in order to gain wealth
and inflict maximum harm on their fellow human beings.
One need only think back to the Nazi Holocaust, a mere sixty-plus years ago. Millions were viewed with outright suspicion, killed on the basis that they didn't fit in. Nazi propaganda was as effective a public machine as anything the Inquisition could preach - both periods of intolerance being fuelled by fear and poor education. The same is true of the persecution of the Jews under the tyrannical regime of Hitler-admirer and Ugandan leader, Idi Amin; or the wide-scale slaughter of millions of Cambodians and Russians under Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin. And if you think witch trials are a thing of the past, step back a mere fifty years to the Communist 'witch-hunts' in 1950s America. True, you might not have been fried for your supposed beliefs, but you sure as hell were publicly branded for your 'crimes'.
Sadism, cruelty, perversion and corruption: all flourished in the Middle Ages. To be a woman especially was to be born with a stigma already attached to one's head. Little wonder then that by the 1800's women were portrayed as passive creatures having little or no sex drives. In an aggressively male-driven society, it was nothing short of a survival tactic.
By torturing and murdering in the name of God, the inquisitors and witch-hunters insulted true Christianity, perverting the faith they claimed to believe in, thereby committing blasphemy themselves. As Julian Huxley's stated, the worst visions conjured by hell pale into insignificance when compared to Christianity's gory history.
Worryingly, the edicts that established the Inquisition have never been repealed and are officially still part of the Catholic faith. Indeed, they have been justified as a method of retribution for certain practices as recently as 1969. The Spanish Inquisition - known today as 'The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith' - still exists and retains the power to silence and excommunicate nonconformist Catholics.
Will we learn from our mistakes? Could the 'Burning Times' ever reoccur? Who can say for sure. What's certain is that as long as lack of education, superstition and the power of propaganda remain rife, absolutely any dreadful act is possible, and moreover, likely…
