Witches & Agrarian Cults
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Between 1575 and 1634, during the Inquisition, Italian inquisitors and other members of the church intervened in the region of Friuli, located in the northeast of Italy. More than 800 people were investigated in order to determine whether or not they were guilty of heretical pravity, i.e., held heretical views. We are privy to some of the actual investigation records of some of these individuals in Carlo Ginzburg’s The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. However, we see more than witchcraft investigation in Ginzburg’s book. We are also treated to the views and thoughts of the inhabitants of Friuli, from the peasant townspeople to the educated elite, on witchcraft, magic, religion, and everyday life. During this era in Friuli, agrarian pursuits were most common. There arose a group of peasants known as the benandanti, which translated means good walker “By benandante is meant one who does neither good or evil, can detect witchery and dispel it, and knows who the witches are” (Ginzburg 142). In Friuli society, especially among the peasants, it was believed that anyone who was born inside the amniotic membrane, or caul, was in possession of supernatural powers. The peasants believed in magic, witches, and supernatural phenomena. Among the educated elite, a demonology regarding witches and witchcraft has arisen due to the fact that during this era
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. These battles were waged against the evil cult known as the Malandanti. These battles were fought over the harvest yield. While the Benandanti armed themselves with long stalks of fennel, the Malandanti’s weapon of choice was sorghum stalks. The symbol on the banner of the benandanti was a golden lion while the red banner of the Malandanti revealed four black devils.
If the benandanti were victorious, then there would be abundant crops at harvest time. Should the Malandanti win and the villagers of Friuli would suffer a poor harvest and famine. When these battles ended, the benandanti and the Malandanti would roam all over the countryside in search of fresh water to drink. If the benandanti did not return to their bodies by the crow of the cock at sunrise, the peasants believed they had trouble re-entering their bodies and might be unable to enter them period. Should a benandanti be tardy, the peasants believed that the soul, barred from entrance to the body, would be forced to roam the countryside until the natural time for the body to die had arrived. It was thought that is peasants came to look at the body the spirit would not re-enter it either “If by chance while we are out someone should come with a light and loo
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1621
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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