In the Middle Ages millions of women were accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake

 

In the Middle Ages millions of women were accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake

What you may have been told ❗️

During the Middle Ages everybody was terrified of witches. Innocent women were hunted down and tortured, and millions of them were burned at the stake.

The debunking ❗️

We've all grown up with stories about witches and the image of the woman with her pointy hat, a hairy wart on her nose, fying through the sky on a broomstick. They're part of Western culture, and we've all been told about how the witch trials resulted in terrible suffering for many, but this wasn't really a thing during the Middle Ages.

I can understand why people might think it was - after all, medieval society was one of superstition, cruelty, violent punishments, misogyny and so on. The Middle Ages weren't a fun, lovely, peaceful time of equal rights and tolerance, but the medieval era doesn't deserve the reputation we've given it. And that's also the case when it comes to the hunting and treatment of assumed witches. For most of the Middle Ages, believing in witches was considered a silly superstition. Even the church said that witches didn't exist - not in the way we imagine them today, anyway. If you thought someone was a witch and was placing curses on you, giving your sheep pox and going into the woods at night to do naughty things with the Devil, the church would call you a fool. Sometimes literally! You would be told that you were being fooled and that the witch was innocent - but you, the person accusing her, were perhaps guilty because you allowed the Devil to make you believe in nonsense. When you think of it, this was quite a rational perspective, which in a way defended those accused of witchcraft.

It was also progress compared to how things were earlier in time. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in witches and persecuted and executed, sometimes by fire, those suspected of witchcraft. Yet somehow in the collective mind those eras are seen as advanced, cultured and better than the Middle Ages.

I'm not saying that medieval people didn't believe in witches at all - in fact, many of them did. But superstition rarely leads to mass suffering if it's not supported by the state, the church or a large group of powerful people. So, for most of the Middle Ages, the men and women accused of being witches were relatively safe. Things could get dangerous if someone's behaviour was perceived as being that of a heretic, which was a risk if you were doing something that looked a bit pagan; that could get you killed. But heresy was usually the charge, not being a witch doing magic.

It's fair to say that there were some witch trials in medieval Europe, but they were relatively rare and if you had accused someone of a crime and they turned out to be innocent, you could sometimes get punished yourself and even accused of being a heretic. This made people think twice about accusing someone.

But even if someone was found guilty of witchcraft, the punishments would generally be mild. They were very rarely burned to death at the stake. I know, you've seen it in films and on TV, you may even have read about it in your schoolbooks or were told about in a museum, but during the Middle Ages the punishment for being a witch would not be death by fire. And even after the Middle Ages, when witch hunting reached its height (ironically, the most barbaric witch hunts were in the Renaissance, the period of so-called rationality and enlightenment), in most cases witches were hanged, drowned, buried or boiled alive, and so on. And in many cases, even if a witch was burned, they were first strangled.

In the late fifteenth century, interest in witchcraft started to increase. It was everywhere. Lots of writings were published on the matter, and thanks in part to the newly invented printing press, they were easily distributed. This had an impact on those who were educated and they became fascinated with the whole subject. Leaflets and books, like the infamous Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), spread like wildfire. Witchcraft went from a common superstition to a serious matter, and this fake news started to reach those with power, both in the church and on the throne. The church started to change its mind on the subject, and heresy and witchcraft became more and more linked. Extra tension because of the Reformation didn't help. A witch-panic broke out and the hunt for witches and warlocks was on.

Originally, the ones being persecuted were mostly educated men. After all, you had to be able to read magic books and the people who could read such texts were usually men. But then the story changed and the 'experts' claimed that you didn't need to be able to read to memorise spells. So people turned on women. This was easily rationalised: women were weak, they were closer to evil because Eve had talked Adam into eating an apple, and women were sex mad and completely insatiable. They had lustful thoughts they couldn't control and the Devil could help them with that.

Just as with any mass panic, some used this as an opportunity to get rid of powerful women - not just rich important ladies but also widows who inherited their husband's business, successful brewsters and midwives who had a highly respected and important role in many small communities. But before we judge those who became scared and believed all the stories they were being told, it might be good to remember that today millions still easily fall for totally ridiculous conspiracy theories.

On a sidenote, in the Dutch city of Oudewater they decided that the best scientific way to find out if someone was a witch was by weighing them. They believed that a witch wouldn't have a soul so they'd weigh a lot less than a normal person their size.

Although it was not used very often, anyone who was weighed and considered too heavy to be a witch was given an official certificate. You can still be weighed there today and, if you're not a witch, you'll get a certificate that proves it.

So, during the Middle Ages, not everybody was afraid of witches and millions were not burned to death at the stake, but when the witch-hunt madness truly gripped Europe, many, mostly women, suffered immensely and died gruesome deaths.

But not millions. It is of course difficult to get a reliable and exact number of victims. Not all deaths were recorded and, even if they were, many records haven't survived. Although the witch hunts ruined millions of lives, current estimates are that between 30,000 and 80,000 people were murdered. Some claim the number is much higher, maybe 200,000, but as horrific as this number is, it's nowhere near the claim of millions.

Source ~ ‘Fake History 101 things that never happened’ by Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse