The book “A History of Witchcraft” by Jeffrey B. Russell and Brooks Alexander provides a comprehensive analysis of the development of witchcraft and neopaganism in the modern era. It traces the evolution of sorcery, from ancient practices to medieval Christian heresy, paganism, folklore, scholastic theology, and inquisitorial trials. The book also explores the various forms of witchcraft, from the worship of the Greek goddess Hecate to medieval witch-crazes.
The book has been continuously in print for nearly thirty years and is now in collaboration with Brooks Alexander, who analyzes the dissemination of modern witchcraft through modern media. The book covers the beginnings of sorcery and witch-craft, right up to the modern day. The book explores the various forms of witchcraft, from the worship of the Greek goddess of magic, Hecate, to the witch-crazes of the medieval period.
The book also discusses the roots of European witchcraft, including witchcraft, heresy, and inquisition. It also discusses the witch-craze on the continent of Europe and the witch-hunts movement. The book also discusses the modern witch-craze, which today primarily involves women and women.
In conclusion, “A History of Witchcraft” offers a comprehensive and authoritative history of witchcraft, tracing its roots back to the ancient world and examining the various forms of witchcraft.
📹 The Burning Times | The History of Witches Part 1
Today is the first in a multipart series on the history of witches, in this one we are looking at how witchcraft was viewed in the …
Do Wiccans believe in Jesus?
Wiccans espouse the view that Christianity and Judaism constitute a world mythical system that merits equal respect with all other religions, despite the absence of a Bible in their tenets.
What is a male witch called?
The term “witch” is primarily used in colloquial English, with women being the male equivalent. Modern dictionaries distinguish four meanings of the term: a person with supernatural powers, a practitioner of neo-pagan religion, a mean or ugly old woman, or a charming or alluring girl or woman. The term “witch” was first used to refer to a bewitching young girl in the 18th century, and “witch” as a contemptuous term for an old woman is attested since the 15th century.
How many witches were killed in Russia?
In 1906, Nikolai Iakovlevich Novombergski published a collection of 17th-century protocols from the Moscow witchcraft trials, which remains the most comprehensive source of knowledge about Russian witchcraft. The true scale of Russian witch trials is unknown due to little other documentation. Some scholars speak of 99 cases between 1622 and 1700, while others of 136. The majority of cases were small trials with only one accused sorcerer, but there were bigger trials, such as three with over one hundred witnesses.
Russia, along with Scandinavian countries, is an exception, with 68 of those accused between 1622 and 1700 being men. One theory suggests that the predominance of men among the accused relates to the specific nature of the legal system in Russia, which introduced a new legal definition of magic in 1716 in the military code. After this legislation, the number of accusations of witchcraft increased significantly among soldiers and government officials.
Witch-hunts in Russia can be interpreted as a political rather than a religious phenomenon. Tsar Peter the Great kept the death penalty for sorcery in the law of 1716. In 1731, Empress Anna of Russia legally redefined sorcery as a form of fraud, but did not remove the death penalty as punishment for this type of fraud. Empress Catherine the Great later made it clear that the death penalty should no longer be used against people convicted of the fraud of sorcery and transferred the crime to be handled only by a so-called trial of conscience, sovestnye sudy, which dealt with insignificant crimes such as superstition.
What is the history of witchcraft?
Witchcraft in Europe dates back to classical antiquity, with accused witches often women who were believed to have used black magic or maleficium against their community. These accusations were often made by neighbors and social tensions, and were believed to be thwarted by protective magic or counter-magic. Suspected witches were often intimidated, banished, attacked, or killed, and were often formally prosecuted and punished. European witch-hunts and witch trials led to tens of thousands of executions.
Although magical healers and midwives were sometimes accused of witchcraft themselves, they made up a minority of those accused. European belief in witchcraft gradually dwindled during and after the Age of Enlightenment.
Indigenous belief systems also define witches as malevolent and seek healers and medicine people for protection against witchcraft. Some African and Melanesian peoples believe witches are driven by an evil spirit or substance. Modern witch-hunting takes place in parts of Africa and Asia. Today, followers of certain types of modern paganism self-identify as witches and use the term witchcraft for their beliefs and practices.
What is the history of witchcraft in Europe?
In Early Modern European tradition, witches were often women, and European pagan beliefs in witchcraft were associated with the goddess Diana. Between 1450 and 1750, there were an estimated 110, 000 witchcraft trials in Europe, with half of the accused being executed. Witch-hunts first appeared in southern France and Switzerland during the 14th and 15th centuries, with the peak years in southwest Germany from 1561 to 1670.
It was believed that individuals with power and prestige were involved in witchcraft and cannibalism, possibly due to Europe’s involvement in the slave trade. Early converts to Christianity sought Christian clergy to work magic more effectively than the old methods under Roman paganism, and Christianity provided a methodology involving saints and relics, similar to the gods and amulets of the Pagan world.
The Protestant Christian explanation for witchcraft often involves a diabolical pact or appeal to the intervention of the spirits of evil. Witches or wizards engaged in such practices were alleged to reject Jesus and the sacraments, observe “the witches’ sabbath”, pay divine honor to the Prince of Darkness, and receive preternatural powers in return. A Devil’s Mark was believed to be placed on a witch’s skin by the devil to signify this pact.
How many witches were killed in Germany?
Approximately half of all executed witches were German, with nearly 25, 000 individuals put to death in German-controlled territories, according to Friedrich Spee, a prominent German opponent of witch hunts who referred to Germany as “the mother of so many witches.”
What country in Europe had witchcraft?
Witch-hunts were prevalent in early modern Europe, with central and southern Germany being the most significant area. Germany was a late starter in witch trials, with the peak years occurring from 1561 to 1670. The first major persecution of witches occurred in Wiesensteig, southwestern Germany, in 1563. These witch-hunts spread across Europe, with learned European ideas about witchcraft and demonological ideas strongly influencing the North. Economic pressure also played a significant role in these witch-hunts, as seen in regions like Bavaria and Scotland.
In Denmark, the burning of witches increased following the reformation of 1536, with Christian IV of Denmark encouraging this practice. In Finnmark, northern Norway, severe witchcraft trials took place between 1600-1692. The Witchcraft Act 1541 in England regulated penalties for witchcraft. In Scotland, over 70 people were accused of witchcraft due to bad weather when James VI of Scotland visited Denmark in 1590.
James VI personally presided over the torture and execution of Doctor Fian, and published a witch-hunting manual, Daemonologie, which contained the famous dictum: “Experience daily proves how loath they are to confess without torture”.
The Pendle witch trials of 1612 became the most famous witch trials in English history. In England, witch-hunting reached its apex in 1644 to 1647 due to Puritan Matthew Hopkins’ efforts. Hopkins charged towns hefty fees during the English Civil War and had 300 convictions and deaths attributed to his work. His book, The Discovery of Witches, became an influential legal text, and it was used in the American colonies as early as May 1647, when Margaret Jones was executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts.
Do pagans believe in a god?
Pagans believe in deity manifesting within nature and recognizing divinity in various forms, including goddesses and gods. They view nature as sacred and the cycles of birth, growth, and death as profoundly spiritual. Human beings are seen as part of nature, with reincarnation being a significant aspect of their existence. Pagans have a positive attitude towards healthcare staff and are willing to seek medical help when sick.
Pagans worship pre-Christian gods and goddesses through seasonal festivals and ceremonies, which are observed by patients in hospitals. Individual patients may have special requirements, such as having a small white candle or a figure of a goddess on their locker.
Is witchcraft a religion?
Wicca, an alternative minority religion founded in the UK in the 1940s, is part of the contemporary pagan movement, which includes druids and heathens. Since its arrival in the US in the 1960s, Wicca has been growing, with an estimated 1. 5 million witches in the US. However, not all witches consider themselves Wiccans, with approximately 800, 000 Americans being Wiccans according to recent survey data. The increasing numbers in surveys and the growth of groups on platforms like TikTok suggest that the religion is continuing to grow.
Were there witch hunts in Italy?
Northern Italy experienced its first wave of witch trials earlier than most of Europe, peaking during the Italian Renaissance. Mass witch trials occurred in various locations, including Cuneo, Pavia, Valtellina, Canavese, Peveragno, and Carignano. The Italian witch trials reached their peak during the Italian Wars. After the 1530s, witchcraft executions decreased, and lesser punishments became common. A second wave of witchcraft executions occurred during the Counter-Reformation, reaching their peak between circa 1580 and 1660 before decreasing.
The Inquisition typically conducted witch trials on the request of local authorities and the public. Some of the biggest trials in Italy were the Val Camonica witch trials of 1518-1521 and the Sondrino witch trials of 1523. The Inquisition respected normal legal practices and the accused’s rights more than secular courts, and they were known to revoke sentences made by secular courts in witchcraft cases when the accused’s rights were violated in contemporary law.
Which type of person was most likely to be considered a witch?
Witches were often considered women who enjoyed independence, as they were considered worrying elements of the established social order. The spectrum of witches varied, including women alone, single, widows, poor, old, foreign, melancholic, and healing women. Many witches were women who acted with independence and were prepared to defend themselves. In England, women who knew how to swim were considered witches, as the water rejected them.
Witches were often women of peasant extraction and poor, working for the community and working classes. Healing women were often from comfortable social situations, and midwives were another sector that suffered persecution during the witch-hunt. Midwives were accused of witchcraft due to the belief that birth had magical qualities, and they had special powers due to their knowledge of birth mysteries.
The institutionalization of medicine in universities meant that obstetrics remained the only area related to medicine and health reserved for women. However, this was snatched from them in the nineteenth century. Women were excluded from the practice of medicine until the figure of the nurse appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, especially with Florence Nightingale. The nurse appears linked to the role of women as carers, completely subordinated to doctors.
📹 Debunking the Pervasive Myths About Medieval Witch Hunts
We all have a similar image that comes to mind when we imagine Medieval Witch hunts: millions of innocent women, real witches …
Just for your information not all witches are Pagan, not all Pagans are witches, and the term Warlock doesn’t actually mean a male witch and Neo Pagans are NOT traditional Pagans, some Pagans are Druids and some Pagans such as myself are on or create their own path and therefore I class myself as a Wizard and the term of “Wizard” means “A Wise man such as Magi and Magi refers to a Wizard and Sorcers ARE NOT Wizards of Positivity but they are of Negativity and they different “White” and “Black” are useless concepts as all Majik (Magic) is Grey i.e. it is neutral and there it is neither “White” or “Black” or “Good” or “Bad”
Witchcraft is a practice not a religion… Therefore no place for the Christian Devil and concept of Demons. Dark & Light are individual ‘self cognitive’ realisations…. One person may love classical music a friend of theirs may dislike it. It doesn’t make classical music EVIL due to being disliked by one individual. It’s simply an opinion… Every spell is about the intent behind it. The entire practice of the craft is about ‘setting the intent’ before hand.
50,000 people burned? I feel like that number is way off. Germany, where witch hunting was by far the most common, brought about 50,000 people to trial for witchcraft of which about half were convicted. Germany was responsible for about half of the total number of trials between 1500 – 1700 worldwide and had the highest conviction rates of about 50% and were one of the few if any places were burning at the stake was the norm for convicted witches. England, for example, had a conviction rate of less than half that of that, ran less than 600 trials in this time and I don’t think they burned a single person at the stake for the crime of witchcraft. There is some grey area there as some people were burned at the steak in England who had been convicted of witchcraft but technically they were burned at the stake for other crimes such as in the case of Mary Lakeland who also murdered her husband or more famously Joan of Arc who was technically burned at the stake for heresy, not witchcraft. Even in the case of the Salem witch trials the number of people executed made about 10% of the 200 people accused. In contrast our own US federal courts have over a 90% conviction rate. So we estimate the total number of worldwide trials at this time at about 100,000 and a conviction rate of about 30% or less worldwide that would mean about 30,000 witches were convicted of most which were hanged, some were pardoned and a percentage of what was left were burned at the steak. The main crime that would get to the steak was heresy which could simply mean you profess to be Christian but disagree with the catholic church on few things.
Corrupt religious leaders have ALWAYS used their respective doctrines and teachings to control and oppress certain groups of people…. Women, People of color and Homosexuals have always been on the receiving end of this evil treatment….. AND IT STILL HAPPENS TODAY… This behavior is usually perpetrated by leaders who consider themselves part of “The Right”… These people and their supporters are STILL using the Bible and the Quran to commit these crimes against humanity…
I’ve enjoyed your vids but couldn’t get my head around this one. I’d really like to know your sources. I don’t want to spend much time on this, but for years I’d thought that all of this had been debunked somewhat ( the numbers killed). I looked up the English Heritage group, they declare which sites are historically and culturally of great importance, and on their webpage, they list 8 myths about witches. Number 5 myth: The Spanish Inquisition and the Catholic Church instigated the witch trials. They go on to say; ‘All four of the major western Christian denominations (the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican churches) persecuted witches to some degree. Eastern Christian, or Orthodox, churches carried out almost no witch-hunting. In England, Scotland, Scandinavia and Geneva, witch trials were carried out by Protestant states. The Spanish Inquisition executed only two witches in total.’ (english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/eight-witchcraft-myths/). ‘In 1538, the Spanish Inquisition cautioned its members not to believe what the Malleus said, even when it presented apparently firm evidence. It was nevertheless reprinted in 14 editions by 1520 and became unduly influential in the ‘Secular Courts’. (Jolly; Raudvere; Peters, eds.. Witchcraft and magic in Europe: the Middle Ages. p. 241). He, along with modern day scholars put the total number around 40,000 deaths in all.
Have you ever wondered why a witch rides a broom? I can actually answer this using an alphanumeric code known as English Gematria. It’s a code that is as easy to understand as ABC 123. Let’s have a look at the 4 base ciphers of English Gematria. Alphabetic Order – A =1, B =2, C = 3, so on and so forth up to Z = 26 Alphabetic Order with the rule of Numerology – In numerology all multiple digit numbers are reduced to a single digit number using basic addition. A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, so on and so forth up to J the 10th letter. J = 1 now because 1 + 0 = 1. K = 2, L = 3, M = 4, so on and so forth up to the last letter Z = 8 Reverse Alphabetic Order – Z = 1, Y = 2, X = 3, so on and so forth up to A = 26 Reverse Alphabetic Order with the rule of Numerology – Z = 1, Y = 2, X = 3, so on and so forth up to A = 8 So now let’s apply what we’ve learned to answer the question above. We will spell out both “Witch” and “Broom” using these 4 base ciphers of English Gematria. Alphabetic Order – W I T C H 23 9 20 3 8 = 63 With Numerology- W I T C H 5 9 2 3 8 = 27 Reverse Order – W I T C H 4 18 7 24 19 = 72 Reverse Numerology – W I T C H 4 9 7 6 1 = 27 Alphabetic Order – B R O O M 2 18 15 15 13 = 63 With Numerology – B R O O M 2 9 6 6 4 = 27 Reverse Order – B R O O M 25 9 12 12 14 = 72 Reverse Numerology- B R O O M 7 9 3 3 5 = 27 Notice the perfect overlap across all 4 base ciphers of English Gematria. This is especially interesting considering neither of these words share any common letters. It’s almost as if the broom was chosen as the mode of transport for the witch for this very reason!
Has anyone questioned this the devil is ment to be the epitome of evil, yet the church has spilt more blood than anyone else on the planet. If God is so just why sacrifice his one and only son. Why the Christian crusade were the blood of men,women and child came up the the horses kness. The act of any I’ll just is that of a beast no matter how a book is written.
Its time to pick a side guys. You better leave all this type of worship, desiring to recieve some sort of powers from the practices and rituals they perform. You are worshiping anf honoring demons regardless what you think you are giving and receiving energy from. Better drop all that and repent and ask JESUS to be you savioir. Acknowledging HE is the SON of GOD who died for all your sins. To pay the price for all the sins humanity committed. All who would believe on HIM. and now the end is coming. And youd better get on the wining team! The team of your CREATOR who loves you but gave you free will. So you must chose, the CREATOR or the enemy of all humanity whose knows his rule is nearly over and wants to cause as much pain and suffering suffering as possible and take as many souls to hell w him as he can
Witches were blamed for the plague& other illnesses! Joan of Arc was accused of practicing witch craft because she heard the voices of the “Saints”,predicted that the douphin of France would become King,wore male clothes & participated in the 100 years war! Wasn’t Nostradamus Jewish? …..There was a horrible form of Antisemitism back during Medieval Times .
First: witchcraft is not a religion although witches can, and do follow a religion. Example a Catholic witch or a Budest witch. Second: Kramers’ motive for writhing The Malleolus Maleficarum from my essay “Heinrich Kramer (c. 1430 – 1505) also known under the Latinized name Henricus Institoris, was a German priest and inquisitor best known for his book The Malleolus Maleficarum published on December 9, 1487. In 1485 in Innsbruck Austria, Kramer led a witch trial, one of only two that we have court documents for and thus historical evidence as to how Kramer conducted himself in court. The Innsbruck trial of Helena Scheuberin looms large, as it appears to have been the impetus for Kramer to write the Malleolus Maleficarum. Mrs. Scheuberin was one of the seven women charged with witchcraft along with two men. Kramer’s examination in court of Mrs. Scheuberin intensified around the sexual behaviours of the accused much to the distaste of the court. The attorney provided to Mrs. Scheuberin accused Kramer of browbeating the women and that of court protocol, the trial ended with all of the accused found not guilty of witchcraft. This upset Kramer so much that he continued to harass the women he believed to be witches and as a result, forced to leave Innsbruck for his own safety as the governing body could not protect him should a husband of one of the women decided to defend his wife’s honor. This turn of events embarrassed Kramer, which motivates him to write the Malleolus Maleficarum with the assistance of Sprenger.
This is the sort of article you need to make. I’m sympathetic to you man, it has to be rough perusal something you put so much work into flop when others seemly excel. I literally thought you were making a satirical statement being as literally anyone who knows your target knows him to be a sincere and wholesome person, whom you found guilty by association with a geographical area. We can’t help where we’re born. We can’t help who we’re attracted to. And if you really feel that your view of reality is the best (or only that should be allowed) then coming across as a sellout, broke and alone and actively hating those who have more success, is a bad way to prove how your reality tunnel is more valid than anyone else’s. I feel for you, I grew up gay in a very rural community and struggled not to become bitter at the world. Hit me up if you need to vent.
Too bad Silvia Federicci ‘s work on witches is not mentioned here. Caliban and the witch is truly eyes-opening book and work on early transition from feudalism to capitalism (exact same time when fisrt trials happened). Silvia argues against Karl Marx’s theory of primitive accumulation. For Marx the primitive accumulation was a precursor of capitalism, for Federici the primitive accumulation is a fundamental and basic characteristic of capitalism since capitalism, in order to perpetuate itself, requires a constant infusion of expropriated capital. In her recent public presentations Federici, who could qualify as a Marxist-feminist labor sociologist, has sustained her support for the recognition of domestic work, sex work and especially the struggle for the commons. In capitalism, there is a labor organization that has two aspects: men and now also some women develop the production of goods; Women carry out the production of the labor force for the market. Discrimination comes from the fact that this work is invaluable. The male worker has a certain social power, however limited, because he receives a salary and his work is recognized. But the reality is that, if we look at capitalism through wage labor, which includes wage labor and non-wage labor, we will see how the wage relationship is much more complex than if we only take into account wage labor, since wage labor includes also exclusion mechanisms; It includes, as Marx says, mechanisms for extracting non-salaried work. Marx would have forgotten the reproductive work (the reproduction of human beings), which is so important and necessary for capitalism -at least in the industrial era.
The comments section here is about as stupid as any 4Chan /pol/ thread ive visited. As someone who enjoys history and wishes to explore every ounce of it, Kramer does take a great deal of responsibility. However. It takes more than one man to cause this kind of dumb shittery to happen. It takes a massive amount of people, which leads to men AND women being involved with this. Both sides of the sexuality of humanity is at fault here. It sucks such sexism existed within this time period with Kramer being a particular lad for this. BUT events in history are hardly if not that…never as simple as it seems. You have to suspend your contemporary lens and try your best to imagine life during this time period to really understand what was going on. And what was going on was the typical human mind magic: trying to explain what you dont understand, scapegoat people, oppress said scapegoat, and erase them from the Society they live in. This isn’t a justification mind you, as explanation doesnt always lead to justification. With that being said, I woukd like to professionally say something about those that took part, promoted, and/or executed the innocent people who were victim of these trials. To go rightly fuck themselves with a hot iron poker. P.S. Yes. Sexism was a part of this as would be cultural issues and other dumb shit people think of to justify the utter garbage these trials were. All I can hope is in the future we won’t be part of some terrifyingly stupid event such as this that our successors have to read about.
Nobody worshiped Floralia because it was/is a Roman Pagan festival and had nothing to do with witches – other than its dates being coopted for modern Beltane celebrations. The Goddess worshiped was/is Flora, Goddess of Flowers. The Floralia was also important as a festival for common prostitutes, a time during which women were permitted to wear bright colors as opposed to the standard stola (or in the case of prostitutes, toga).
Witches as with many other things “Religion” Etc… In the end, it’s up to anyone and the ability to have or get an agreement and enforce it on the one or the many. Let us not forget greed, power, money, control, and politics. Let’s face it politics is a cultish practice and like Witches becomes or is vary Evile.
I will have to respectfully disagree with you on Joan of Arc being the beginning of the Burning Time, if you look at the raw numbers virtually all witch trials took after 1550 at he peak of the Reformation and wars of religion as protestants tried to stamp out any remnant of Romano-Pagan idolatry from the faith.
Tied into Kramer’s misogyny,is the battle of the sexes.naturally women outnumber men,not to go into status, character or enterprise.so,the threat of diminishing pits one sex against the other and from time to time purges, unfortunately will occur,most times against the weaker,though numerically superior sex,based in part on superstition, theology or a vast myriad of phobias.
I’m more disturbed they’d listen to some guy high in the pecking order who’d say the heresy that women are a blight than be concerned about the unlawful murder of witches. The honor was not granted to the Church to take a witch’s life, and there’s no verse cursing women as a whole. Although I admit I am slightly biased in favor of women because they often treat me rather well, I stand by my assessment.
Originally witches were more like todays modern day pharmacist. They were mostly men who used medicinal herbs to heal people. The original root of the word witch means healer. As time went on, more unmarried women got into the profession because it was easy and cheap to grow herbs and make tonics and tinctures, so an easy way for a woman to start her own business if she didnt have a wealthy husband or father to fund her. The witch trials actually began much earlier than most people think, around 400 ad. The newly holy roman empire didnt believe herbs were medicine, and instead believed dark magic was being used. Later, the newly stood up catholic church started killing these professionals because they wanted money. If people are going to a professional to buy medicine, they arent going to the church for healing and therefore, arent paying the church for said healing. The funny thing, is the catholic church worked with demons and did necromancy. In fact, the Catholic church still does magic. Exorcists use prayer to expel demons, they use prayer candles, magic water, magic oils and even incense.
I think a lot of our ideas about witch trials come from Salem which… look. Imagine the worst religious sect you’ve ever heard of and the people who are trying to manipulate them. Yeah. That’s the whole story in broad strokes. Salem was kind of this weird, outlier event, that’s why we all talk so much about it. Even then, when you dig into it, you find familiar stories: old money spiting new money, new money trying to con their way into being old money, poor people getting mowed down in their wake… Salem had it all. My absolute favorite story from that event is the testimony of Tituba. She absolutely knew that she wasn’t getting out of it, and she was going to take down every single person who ever pissed her off, so she got up there and said “yep, I’m a witch, so’s she and so is that bit over there, the one who was stingy with the wassail at Christmas, yep, she’s a witch.” At one point they asked her to keep testifying and she said she’d going blind all of a sudden. It’s a funny spot in an otherwise horrific series of events. TL:DR, Salem was rich people fighting and not caring how many poor people suffered, we really are just like the people of yesteryear.
“Imagine being accused of witchcraft because you gave your friend a Benadryl and they saw the hat man…” is a brilliant quote. Also, as archaeologist fascinated by the period 1400-1600, thank you for pointing out that the Renaissance was far more violent and brutish than the medieval period. The Medieval gets a lot of shit for stuff it’s over-achieving younger brother did.
I also think the leap from “what is this image I don’t understand” to “must be phallic” is really easy to make for some reason, and many things we now interpret as “fertility rituals” likely had nothing to do with that. We oversimplify people of the past. They weren’t animals who only thought about survival and reproducing any more than we are.
As a hema practitioner, and a person obsessed with learning about medieval history, I always find it deeply disconcerting how much blatant misinformation and ahistorical nonsense gets repeated and spread around on social media and the internet at large. So thank you for combating misinformation, your hard work is appreciated
History of witches here in Finland is its own fascinating thing. Finland being literally nowhere by middle-ages standards so people here were doing their wholly own thing . And here being a “witch” (noita in Finnish) was a legitimate profession, a job, witches were for a long time respected members of their communities, being herbalists, medicine men and ritualists and Finland had practicing witches until the early 20th century. The witch hunts didn’t get that big here, it was mostly those pesky Lutherans who were really keen on eradicating everything pagan (the Catholics didn’t seem to care or just were really bad at the eradication).
it’s frustrating to me that people in the past couldn’t understand that folk lore like the green man isn’t inherently “pagan” or even certain practices or beliefs like superstitions or rituals aren’t either. Like you said there were people who identified as a Christian who might’ve believed or done things seen as “pagan” in modern times and would be very confused if you called them a pagan. Folk lore or practices that are seen as “paganism” in modern times didn’t become taboo or disappear or stop overnight just like they didn’t suddenly appear. they were likely slowly combined with Christian beliefs over time or practiced less and less as more people converted to and started practicing Christianity. Which is probably why the green man was in art in churches. Having folk lore in art is such a common thing even these days and the majority of the time it’s just because people think it’s interesting or pretty or part of their culture. Why would people in the past not do similar things?
What I find odd/interesting about this is that so many false ideas about medieval witchery happened by taking some of the most biased anti-witch sources as gospel, then trying to spin their wild accusations as good things, actually. Like, imagine someone five hundred years from now researching 21st Century queer life… by only reading the rantings of fundie Christians. Of course it would be confused! (Also religious syncretism is totes a thing and really needs to come up more often in these sorts of discussions.)
I love your consistent efforts to debunk Victorian revisionism and the progress narrative! There’s a lot of carry over in studying Indigenous American history. The truth is, painting modern Western Europe as so much more enlightened and developed helped justify imperialism and colonialism. “I have a right to steal your land because you’re stupid and don’t know how to use it” sort of stuff.
Oh wow! I have been studying one particular witch trial from the Middle Ages for years. Dame Alice Kyteler of Ireland 1324. To say it was weird is to be polite, a heresy trial stemming from accusations of harmful magic following the death of three of her four husband’s of which she benefited heavily. Might have been a serial killer actually. Also she was the richest woman in Ireland, financed Edward I war with Scotland, and was Flemish born from Ypres cloth merchants. Also also the trial was centered on papal authority vs local lordships. She fled but a servant was burned in her place. Absolutely wild story. Anyway another great historical article Kaz. I live for this content.
I’d love to see more on this topic! As a welshperson I’ve always been a bit iffy on how our history often gets divided between this concept of “celtic paganism” vs “invading christianity”, which erases like 95% of our actual history in favour of some nature theme park. Like you can look at the charms and spells used by Dynion and Gwragedd Hysbys to see that they’re using bible scripture and prayer alongside plants and remedies. Perhaps the local parish authorities might not like it but it wasn’t meant to be some middle finger against the heavens.
As someone who believes in Wicca to the extent that we should have faith in the nature and world around us and not some obscure higher power, thank you Kaz. You have single-handedly helped me to refer my crazy covenmates that 13 is not some blessed number and that we can have more or less than that to be successful in our faith and practice. You are also always a blessing, and love your style <3
To my knowledge, in Medieval times the church often condemned even believing in (evil) witchcraft because it would mean you’d believe Satan can grant anyone power when he’s the fallen angel of deceit and lies without any real power beyond tempting to sin. It was after the medieval period, when Christendom was much more fractured (and often proliferated more in Protestant-dominant communities in which there wasn’t much of a centralized church) that some religious authorities accepted that the Devil could grant evil power to mortals in exchange for their soul. You also probably know this but a lot of witchcraft accusations were antisemitic blood libel.
There’s an Ursula K LeGuin quote I think about a lot when it comes to people talking about the primal and esoteric nature of women’s knowledge: “But I didn’t and still don’t like making a cult of women’s knowledge, preening ourselves on knowing things men don’t know, women’s deep irrational wisdom, women’s instinctive knowledge of Nature, and so on. All that all too often merely reinforces the masculinist idea of women as primitive and inferior – women’s knowledge as elementary, primitive, always down below at the dark roots, while men get to cultivate and own the flowers and crops that come up into the light. But why should women keep talking baby talk while men get to grow up? Why should women feel blindly while men get to think?”
as many others say, thank u for calling out neo-paganism lol. being native american & having to watch a bunch of white women overfarm and endanger sage to appropriate smudging and then act oppressed damages me every day. wish wiccans would realize u can be spiritual and attempt to connect to nature without stomping on other ppl but when so many of them come from christian backgrounds i guess its not surprising that the approach is … colonial
Two interrelated myths are that it was a medieval phenomenon, and that it was driven by the Church. During the medieval period prosecutions for witchcraft were actually rare and the punishments weren’t usually severe. The phenomenon of mass witchcraft accusations really only began near the end of the medieval period, and really took off during the Early Modern (renaissance) period, with the majority occurring between 1485 and 1700. The Catholic church brutally persecuted religious minorities, but was actually generally sceptical about witchcraft. Medieval Europeans who were accused of doing magic were usually just shamed in front of their communities by having to do a public act of penance, e.g. standing outside the church holding a candle. But during the Reformation, the Church lost much of its authority and many states became Protestant, meaning that witchcraft trials were taken over by the secular courts. Standards of evidence slipped massively, and death sentences became much more common.
It’s a harsh thing to say but, if you break down the figures, executions for witchcraft form an almost inconsequential part of European history, given that in some countries there were upwards of 50 or more offences (many of them quite trivial) that carried the death penalty. Based on the estimate of around 60,000 executions over a 300 year period, that breaks down to roughly 200 executions a year across the whole of Europe and the Americas. Outside of the witch-panics in some parts of central Europe during the 30 years war, witch trials were rare and highly localised occurences and execution was not inevitable. Of the 3000 people officially charged with withcraft in England during the period 1563 to 1700, only 400 were found guilty and hanged; by contrast (although it’s an extreme example) between 50-70,000 people were executed in the reign of King Henry VIII for opposing his break with Rome – so, if you’re of English ancestry, you’re more likely to be descended from a Catholic martyr than a condemned witch!
It may be helpful if more people kept in mind who gains a benefit from a story being told a certain way. For example, variations of the “people in the past were dumb” idea benefits the egos of modern folk for being “smarter” than their predecessors. The history of Wicca myth benefits those who look to profit off of it, like Gerald Gardner. When the story being told a certain way benefits modern folk or perceptions more than those of the time when they were supposed to happen, that’s a good indication that there’s more to the story than what you initially hear.
It’s indeed more complicated than people think. For instance (and my examples are largely from Moravia/Silesia) quite a few accusations were likely motivated by inheritance or land acquisition, or simply beef an accuser had with the person. And it often wasn’t a quick accuse-trial-burn thing, many people were kept imprisoned and repeatedly tortured for quite a while, sometimes months. Because hey, that way their relatives had to pay upkeep for the prison, food and the torturer’s fee. (fine racket all in all) Dean Lautner of Šumperk was imprisoned and repeatedly tortured for 5 years before he was executed! This did depend on the kind of trial board you had, some of them did work very quickly. A surprising number of people were also released after interrogation, because the trial didn’t find “evidence” of them being witches. Around here there wasn’t much conflation of witches with paganism (whatever old religion was largely gone, both Slavic and German) – because the connection was usually a different one – to protestants and other “heretics”. Many of the places in the mountains where witches were supposedly having their sabbats were actually passes being used by other kinds of Christians to escape north to Polish Silesia. Even the kind of magic people confessed under torture was sometimes clearly based in Christianity – like using communion wafers to “bless” a cow to produce more milk. All this said, the witch hunts were undoubtedly horrific and brutal, I’ve read many actual records from my area and some of them are genuinely hard to stomach.
The website “Horses” did an excellent mini-doc on the history of “witchcraft” in Iceland that provides a look into how “pagan” practices melded with day-to-day life and what clashes there where with Christianity. It gives perfect examples on how inaccurate modern ideas of witchcraft are and how nuanced the reality was.
thank you for this! i’m a witch who’s been learning about Witchcraft, Paganism and other traditions for a few years now and i still feel like i know nothing!! a lot of the most innocent-seeming new books and sources we use currently still are full of misinformation, lack of historical context, cultural appropriation, and more. even elder Witches believe lies we’ve been told, on purpose or by accident out of genuine ignorance. there is so much behind our current ideas in Paganism and trying to learn the truth about everything is overwhelming, it feels like a neverending cycle of learning and then unlearning! but i value knowing where every idea i’m introduced to came from, and debunking the lies about it all. thank you for helping the daunting task of clearing up of confusion in the sea of mixing and adopting and appropriating that is behind western Paganism and Witchcraft.
I’ve been Wiccan most of my 48 years and what you said needed to be said. On your closing statement I also agree. My advice to anyone trying to “wake up” is to remember that it’s ok to be fooled. You’ve been fooled, you’re being fooled and you will be fooled again. This doesn’t make you a fool. Let go of the need to feel secure in your understanding and peruse the truth like the cruel and elusive mistress she is.
God I’m so grateful for this article- I have to explain all this stuff so many times. “Hey guess what midwives were complicit/the accusers a lot of the time” and “hey this is appropriating language of the Holocaust” and “hey uh this isn’t medieval” and most of all “…hey guys you know that European populations had magic traditions besides the ones left over from paganism, right? right? You know you can invent or develop new traditions and it doesn’t all have to be ancient roots? You gonna tell me that Kabbalah and using saints’ relics is all ~the paganism~?” It’s extra frustrating because these same (white, Gentile) modern witches have a nasty habit of appropriating magical and religious traditions from nonwhite cultures. Like they aren’t here studying the Sámi drum burnings or the persecution of Indigenous Americans and West Africans, all of which are pretty directly related to the witch hunts and the European wars of religion. Not in a cause and effect way, exactly, more like a whole circle of societal forces that they were coexisting under.
Thank you sm for the modern day paganism and the Wicca callouts. Too many privileged people attempting to co-opt the history and language of the truly oppressed. EDIT: Um, hi. I’m Indigenous Latin and my ethnic and cultural religion were SO unallowed we had to tack Catholicism onto it to cover up that we were all still practicing. Pointing out that non-white ethnic religions have faced far more violent persecution than other religions is not playing Oppression Olympics. Minority intersection does not stop someone from being of the majority race, sorry not sorry.
Really good article, and I especially appreciate your insistence on being careful with historical claims. In line with that, I was curious about one of your sources, Francis Young’s The Myth of Medieval Paganism, so I looked it up, and found it’s an article from First Things magazine, published in 2020. First Things is an extremely conservative Christian magazine, and I used to subscribe to it. It’s a real mixed bag. They’ve always published good articles — and presumably the Francis Young article is one of the good ones — but they’ve also published a huge amount of trash. The former editor was famous for his public defense in the pages of First Things of one of the worst sexual abuser priests in history, Marcial Maciel. First Things is also, of course, disgustingly and consistently homophobic and transphobic. At the same time, there were articles in First Things that permanently changed the way I think, even after leaving conservative Christianity. First Things has a tendency to publish work that tries to debunk what it sees as attempts by anti-Christians to smear the Church, especially the Catholic Church. So you’ll probably find more than a few articles that present different perspectives on various aspects of medieval Christianity than we’re used to, especially the Inquisition and the Crusades. I would guess some are good and some are not so good. In any case, Francis Young’s article seems to be a good example of how it’s important to seek out different perspectives in order to get to the truth.
kaz I have to tell you how much I love your articles. They’re not only aesthetically beautiful and incredibly informative but your passion for history is so palpable. it’s just a joy to watch you, to witness someone doing what they love in life. Thank you so much for these articles! I hope you have an amazing November ❤❤❤
Hey Kaz, eclectic Wiccan here. I’ve known for years that Wicca is a relatively modern religion. With my religion/spirituality, the goal for me was always to find a spiritual home, not feel more connected with some supposed witch ancestor, so I never bought into the “I’m the granddaughter of the witches you forgot to burn” mentality. As much as I’ve learned as a Wiccan, I’ve also had to do a fair amount of unlearning of misinformation spread by the likes of popular witch authors cough Silver Ravenwolf cough Love your style and your content, as always.
This reminds me of one of the Cadfael books, the Heretic’s Apprentice, where a trial was held to determine whether this guy who’d had Thoughts and was questioning some Christian doctrines was actually a heretic. In the end, the judges were actually reasonable and let him off because he still held core Christian beliefs.
this is such a wonderful article. as a pagan witch myself, i am TIRED of the whole “we are the daughters of the witches you couldnt burn” rhetoric and misinformation on the long(and unfortunately misconstrued…fucking victorians…)history of folk pagan and witch-y practices. so many white practitioners have been appropriating indigenous cultures for years and im tired of seeing it as a white practitioner myself. ive learned a lot from this article!! <3