The bonfires of the Holy Inquisition lit up medieval Europe. Nobody knows how many women, accused of witchcraft and heresy, died on them. Scientists say that at least thirty-two thousand people were burned alive, another three hundred thousand were stoned, drowned or killed in some other way.
Why did you get the witch's mark and why did the Inquisition deal so easily with those who got it?
History
Witchcraft in its various forms has existed for as long as a person lives. Superstitions, rituals that our ancestors performed to appease their gods and ask them for a rich harvest, a good hunt, a happy marriage, the birth of a child - all this can be considered witchcraft. Scientists believe that such practices appeared during the Paleolithic - many thousands of years remained before the appearance of modern man. In those days, matriarchy reigned in the tribes - a woman was considered the main one, and it was on her shoulders that the responsibilities for the performance of all magical rituals fell. It is this moment that can be considered the birth of witches - women with witchcraft power.
The beginning of the pursuit
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Christianity did not immediately achieve success - its path to the title of world religion was long and thorny. The pagans refused to accept new traditions, and even after the rite of baptism, they continued to worship the old and understandable gods and resort to magic.
Already in the tenth century, the church began to think about the fact that witchcraft is pure evil. Instead of coming to priests with their problems, people went to whispering grandmothers who could cure diseases and improve family happiness. Naturally, the fact that the problems could be dealt with without the intervention of the church undermined the authority of the clergy - people simply did not understand why they needed God.
The first sign that a real war is brewing with those who do not recognize the church were the crusades. In them, valiant knights cut out everyone who did not belong to the Christian faith or refused to live according to its canons. Then, however, the aggression spilled out not on Europe itself, but on its closest neighbors. And, of course, no one could have imagined that soon the same massacre would begin very close.
The Holy Inquisition
The beginning of the Inquisition was laid in the twelfth century. Then Pope Lucius III developed a tracing system aimed at finding those who committed a crime against the faith. He suggested that the priests use a kind of questionnaire, which they were to distribute among the townspeople. With this paper, residents could denounce anyone whom they considered involved in the Heresy.
A century later, Innocent III established the Inquisition in the modern sense of its word. The new organ became an ecclesiastical court, which was soon copied by a number of European states. France, Germany, Italy and, of course, Spain had their own inquisition, which is considered the apotheosis of refereeing - it was there that the famous "Hammer of Witches" was written - the manual of the inquisitors, and a huge number of torture devices were created, which were used for interrogations in other countries. Later, in the era of the Enlightenment, the hatred of the inquisitors spread to books: now not only people who carried ideas contrary to the clergy were destroyed, but also the books in which these ideas were written.
Man and his thoughts belonged exclusively to the church. And it was impossible to argue with that.
Witch
No proof was needed to go to the stake. Absolutely anyone could report: they did not share the land - denunciation, took her husband away - denunciation, too beautiful - denunciation. Sometimes they even believed the words of young children, who simply could think that this or that "aunt" was doing something bad.
The church did not lag behind: the inhabitants of cities and villages were taught that they were obliged to talk about those who were engaged in witchcraft. If it becomes known that they were hiding the witch, they will go to the chopping block after her. People lived in constant fear of what would be reported on them, and therefore they tried to strike first, until the "Hammer of the Witches" fell on them.
The magic of the image
The witch, with her black power, destroyed crops, caused natural disasters and the death of livestock, and, of course, turned people away from the church. They believed that if she touched a person, he would become possessed by the devil. Convulsions, unusual behavior, sudden changes in voice, nausea, headaches - all this was explained precisely by obsession and nothing else. And only an exorcist could get rid of a terrible disease.
The invited priest read prayers over the possessed one, trying with all his might to drive out Satan from him. Science today says that signs of possession are very similar to those experienced by hysterical seizures, panic attacks, and epilepsy. If the exorcist was able to cleanse the believer from filth, he again returned to the bosom of the church, continuing to live an ordinary life. Otherwise, the unfortunate (and by no means a priest) was awaited by a bonfire - the fire was supposed to free a person from the clutches of the devil.
For what
It would seem that God opposes murder, even in his glory, therefore, the courts of the Inquisition had to last much longer than usual - the life of respectable Christians was often at stake. But no. It is known that once the French Inquisition found women guilty of witchcraft for the fact that witnesses felt the presence of spirits next to them. Of course, it is impossible to prove such a thing, but this did not save the unfortunates from the flames. Moreover, any attempts by the defendants to justify themselves played against them - it was believed that in this way the witch forces the devil to influence the court, which is completely unacceptable.
End of an era
The Inquisition began to give way only in the eighteenth century. Gradually, the number of court hearings began to decline, and by the thirties, many European countries announced the refusal of execution for witchcraft.
But the prohibition of executions does not mean that they have stopped. Even today, in the twenty-first century, women continue to be killed for their relationship with the devil.
For example, in Saudi Arabia, Fauza Falih, arrested in 2005, was sentenced to death. In addition, she was charged with ritual killing of animals and sacrifices to the genie. For example, one of the men swore that for some time he could not have an affair with his wife because of Falikh's witchcraft. The woman was forced to sign a confession that she could not even read: she was completely illiterate and “signed” with her thumbprint. Later it became known that before she agreed to admit her guilt, she had been beaten in the isolation ward for more than a month. Under pressure from the world community (one of the main arguments was the fact that there is no article on witchcraft in the Arabian Criminal Code), the execution was changed to life imprisonment,and after six years of bullying in prison, Fauza died (in 2011), unable to prove her innocence.
K. Kavaliova
