Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe

Through the luxury of time, we are able to look back on the concept of witchcraft and determine several things about it, the most important being the derivation of the word itself, a fact that will help us as we pursue the witch hunters with the an academic zeal similar to the religious zeal with which they pursued witches. Most linguists today concur that the word "witch" comes to us from the Middle English word "wycche" which in turn came from the Old English "wicce" (for women) or "wicca" for men. Although most dictionaries today claim that "wicca" refers to neo pagans who perform sorcery, or magic, the actual Old English root word, "wy" meant to twist or weave, and referred specifically to people who tended to create thatched huts out of grass, reeds, mud and boughs. (This ancestry gives us words such as "wicker," and "wicked" (which originally meant highly complex) (Barstow, 1994; Boyer & Nissenbaum, 1974).

Now how does this relate to witches and witchcraft? The connection goes like this. The people who built their homes from reeds, grass, and mud, i.e., the wiccans, were poor and unable to afford many of the luxuries of life. So instead of going to a doctor, for instance, they would learn to create medicines out of herbs, and instead of going to a physician to aid in birthing, would perform mid-wifery.

Until the Eleventh Century, these people, when mentioned at all, were considered harmless peasants or fools and mor

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ed a variety of persuasive techniques to obtain a confession. Suspects were pulled apart by being tied between two or four horses, flayed (the skin peeled off), painted with boiling tar, locked in cages that would crack ribs or legs, testicles were crushed, as were nipples. Women, however, were kept alive long enough to be raped, since one of the beliefs was that sperm from a God fearing Christian would destroy Satan. Men were not sodomized, although young boys were, perhaps in a drive to maintain one aspect of the priesthood. Don't forget, however, that all of the above acts of torture, and hundreds of others, were done during the questioning phase of the trial. The philosophy of the trial was that you are guilty until confirmed guilty by your confession. The torture was done according to the official procedures of the Inquisition (revised, by the way in 1965 as part of a Canonical housecleaning, which also decided that Gallileo had been right, and that the sun was the center of the Solar System.) The torture continued until the person confessed, and then the person would be taken into another room, and told to confess again. At that time, his or her soul would be officially purified, and then they would be executed by hangin

Category: History - W