What Were the Burning Times?

Factsand Fiction About the European Witch Hunts

By Patti Wigington,About.com

For the past thirty years or so, scholars – as well asmany members of the Pagan and Wiccan communities — have debated the validity ofthe astronomical numbers of victims cited during the Burning Times. The problemwith the early estimates of numbers is that, much like in war, the victorwrites the history. In other words, the only documentation we have about theEuropean witch hunts was written by the people who actually conducted thosesame witch hunts!

Jenny Gibbons’ thesis, Recent Developments in the GreatEuropean Witch Hunt, goes into great depth about some of these inflatednumbers. Essentially, Gibbons states, bigger numbers of witches looked betterfor the witch hunters, who were the ones keeping track of things in the firstplace.

As time progressed, countries like England eventually repealed their proscriptionsagainst witchcraft, and the Neopagan and Wiccan movements later moved intoplace both in Britain andthe United States.As feminist writers latched on to the Goddess-centered movement, there was atendency to portray the healer-midwife-village wise woman as an innocent victimof evil patriarchal Catholic oppressors.

In the past, Wiccan’s and Pagans were often the first topoint out that the European witch hunts targeted women – after all, these poorcountry girls were simply the victims of the misogynistic societies of theirtimes. However, what is often overlooked is that although overall about 80% ofthe accused were female, in some areas, more men than women were persecuted aswitches. Scandinavian countries in particular seemed to have equal numbers ofboth male and female accused.

Timeline

Let’s look at a brief timeline of the witch craze in Europe:

·           906 C.E. The Canon Episcopi is written bya young abbot named Regino of Treves. Regino’streatise reinforces the Church’s existing stance on witchcraft, which is thatit doesn’t exist.

·           Around 975C.E. The Church decides that the penalty for witchcraft – which apparently doesin fact exist, despite the CanonEpiscopi’s assertions to the contrary – is fairly mild. A womanconvicted of the use of “witchcraft and enchantment and … magical philters”shall be sentenced to a year-long diet of bread and water.

·           1227 C.E. Pope GregoryIX announces that it’s time to form an Inquisitorial Court to weed out heretics,who are summarily executed.

·           1252 C.E. PopeInnocent III carries on the Inquisitions. However, he discovers that a much higherrate of confession is obtained if torture is permitted.

·           1326 C.E. The Churchauthorizes the Inquisition to go beyond the investigations of heresy. Now theyare encouraged to ferret out people practicing Witchcraft. The theory ofdemonology is created, establishing a link between witches and the ChristianSatan.

·           1340’s C.E. Europe ispummeled by the Black Plague, and a significant amount of people die. Witches,Jews and lepers are accused of spreading disease intentionally.

·           1450 C.E. The CatholicChurch announces that witches eat babies and sell their souls to the Devil.Witch hunts begin in earnest throughout Europe.

·           1487 C.E. Publicationof Malleus Maleficarum (TheWitches’ Hammer). This book describes all sorts of vile activitiesallegedly practiced by Witches, and also details some creative methods ofgetting confessions out of the accused.

·           1517 C.E. MartinLuther leads the way to the Protestant Reformation, which in turn causes adecrease in the number of witchcraft convictions in England – because theProtestants won’t allow torture.

·           1550 – 1650C.E. Trials and executions reach their peak. Many of the people accused ofwitchcraft are actually being targeted in battles between Catholics andProtestants, and others are landowners whose property has been seized by theChurch.

·           1716 C.E. The lastaccused witches – Mary Hicks and her daughter Elizabeth — are executed in England. Othercountries eventually follow suit and stop executing people for witchcraft.