Re: Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs & Disease (Review)
Jenny
jennyg@compuserve.com
Sun Oct 11 05:48:20 1998
Hi Michael,*p*There are a lot of different places to get information on the Burning Times, and they can be lumped into two categories:*p*1) Literature.  Contemporaries wrote about the persecutions, and there are thousands of different books out there -- like witch-hunting manuals, sermons, plays, and popular literature (there's a whole genre of lurid pamphlets written about witch trials, sort of the early modern equivalent of our "True Crime" books and tv shows...)*p*This is the easiest information to find, and up until 1970 almost all scholarly opinions about the Burning Times were based on it.  The problem is, it's definitely our worst evidence.  It only covers about 3% of the trials -- and only the largest, most anomalous ones.  Authors frequently didn't have access to accurate information, and much of this stuff is essentially propaganda.  It's about as reliable as the National Enquirer.*p*2) Trial records.  Trials kept a variety of records, including charges, verdicts, lists of questions asked, lists of goods confiscated from witches, etc.  We know of roughly 50,000 or so of these trials, about 13,000 of which ended in executions.  *p*Trial records are notably better than literary evidence.  They still have flaws.  But at least we're sure that the authors had access to accurate information.  And the agendas are less malign.  Courts were writing to keep track of their activities;  they weren't writing propaganda, intended to sway opinions.*p*When historians started collecting and using this information in the '70's, it revolutionized the field of witchcraft studies.  Suddenly we had information on most known trials (not just 3%).  And on all of them, not just the OJ Simpson-type ones.  With computer data-bases, the sea of info contained in trial records suddenly became manageable.*p*The *best* info has indeed come from the records of the Inquisition.  Inquisitors were required to keep thorough records of their inquests and many of these still exist, in Rome and Spain.  The best part is, inquisitors were supposed to keep transcripts of the questions they asked and the responses that people gave.  So in a properly run trial, you actually get to "hear" what the witch had to say -- something that's almost impossible, using any other type of evidence.*p*The best evidence for Pagan witches comes from the Inquisition's records.  Carlo Ginzburg's study of the Benandanti (Good Walkers) was based on inquisitorial records, as was Gustav Henningsen's account of the Ladies From Outside, of Sicily.  *p*Believe it or not, the Church has indeed made this information easily availabe to scholars.  Part of the reason is, it has little to be ashamed of.  It's not proud of the fact that it killed witches, but church and inquisitorial courts were *infinitely* better than secular ones.  You were almost 100 times MORE likely to survive your trial if you were tried by the Church.*p*The great witch-hunting Inquisition is a myth, largely based on a common translation error.  In most European countries, a trial was called an "inquisition" -- whether it was run by the Church or the State.  Early historians often assumed that "an inquisition" was always run by "the Inquisition", and so books like Rossell Hope Robbins' _Encyclopedia of Witchcraft_ have the Inquisition killing witches in times and places where it didn't exist!*p*Today, we know that the vast majority of witches were killed by secular courts.  From 1300-1500, we've found 137 witches who were definitely killed by church/inquisitorial courts (and the real total is probably something like 500).  After 1500 the Inquisition focused on Protestants, not witches, and at the height of the Burning Times it only operated in two countries (Spain and Italy).  Both of these had extremely low death tolls.  In Spain, for instance, the Inquisition became the foremost opponent of witch trials.  It forbade secular witch trials and saved several hundred condemned witches!*p*As for where most Pagan web-sites get their info...  Well, I think most rely on older texts.  Academic works based on literary evidence, the type of things that got overturned once we used 100% of our data, not 3%.  Most of the sites I've seen are painfully inaccurate.*p*If you run across good ones, however, please do pass on their addresses!  *p*Jenny
Re: Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs & Disease (Review)
Infiniti
47
Sun Oct 11 03:09:37 1998