Burning bonfires all over Europe - this is one of the usual pictures that comes to mind when thinking about the Middle Ages. In addition to heretics, those who were accused of witchcraft and connections with the devil burned on these bonfires.
When Christianity came to Europe, it did not abolish in one moment everything that was before. Scraps of pagan beliefs, folk signs and customs, belief in supernatural forces that are not written about in the Bible - all this remained part of people's daily life. Christian priests were not happy about this, but did not rush to root it out, realizing the full power of the past. So for the time being, people who were considered sorcerers or witches lived relatively calmly.
Fight against heresy
Somewhere before the 13th century, representatives of the church perceived witchcraft as a superstition and punished for believing in it with ordinary repentance. The secular authorities regarded the use of witchcraft as just another means.
Punishment threatened those who used this tool for openly criminal purposes. Although witchcraft was still considered a matter not befitting an honest person.
Here, for example, is a quote from the Salic truth - the code of laws of the kingdom of the Franks, compiled at the beginning of the 6th century: “If someone calls another a servant in witchcraft, that is, an accomplice of witches, or someone who is rumored to be carrying a cauldron where witches cook their potions, 2500 denarii is awarded … If someone calls a free woman a sorceress, and is not able to prove, 2500 denarii is awarded. If the witch eats a person and is caught, 8000 denarii will be awarded."
Meanwhile, the church began to persecute more and more harshly and irreconcilably those who tried to interpret Christian teachings in their own way. The trials against the heretics were carried out one after another, the measures taken against them became more decisive, and the reprisals - more and more cruel. In order not to leave neither the flock nor the clergy in any doubt that any heresy should be eradicated, theologians accused the dissidents not of delusions, but of direct connection with the enemy of the human race. So from the scholastic treatises on demonology, which were previously only read by theologians, the theme of the devil migrated into the public space.
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Realizing that somewhere near them live people who have made a deal with the unclean, people began to passionately desire to get rid of such a neighborhood. It was difficult for illiterate peasants to understand the intricacies of heretical teachings. But to accuse a village sorceress or a healer of a terrible sin, whom everyone knew very well and, of course, were afraid of, this suggested itself.
Around the 1430s and 1440s, the first wave of witch hunts swept across northern Italy, southern France and western Switzerland. The massacres were chaotic and brutal. Neither secular nor ecclesiastical authorities gave their approval to them. After all, if today the peasants realized that they could burn the witch on their own, then where is the guarantee that tomorrow they will not decide to deal with the unloved lord in the same way? In France, all cases of witchcraft were urgently transferred to the exclusive jurisdiction of the provincial parliaments. And in Germany, bishops and priests issued proclamations warning their flock against ill-considered cruelty. But it was too late. The seeds fell on fertile soil.
Treatise of the Inquisitors
Very soon, those inside the Catholic Church appeared who wished not only to support, but also to lead the hunt. In 1486, the Dominican monk Heinrich Kramer, in collaboration with the dean of the University of Cologne, Jacob Sprenger, published the monumental work Hammer of the Witches. Both co-authors had experience in the Inquisition, and both were quite authoritative scholastics. They quite succeeded in putting the spontaneous persecution of witches on a rigorous scientific basis.
Having enlisted the support of the Pope, they generalized the experience of the trials of witches known to them, systematized methods of inquiry (from the formulation of questions to the sequence of torture) and generously seasoned all this with their personal conviction that witches are the main thing that a good Christian should fear.
One way or another, the witch hunt has touched almost every European country. Although somewhere (for example, in Italy or Spain) there were very few processes, but somewhere (in Germany or Switzerland) the persecution became widespread. This attack also did not pass Eastern Europe. By the way, it was not women who became victims of slander there, but men - according to pagan traditions, representatives of the stronger sex were engaged in witchcraft. According to rough estimates, from the 15th to the end of the 17th centuries, about 50 thousand people were executed. But it should always be borne in mind that most of the lynching courts were not recorded or reported.
However, it would be completely unfair to blame the Catholic Church and the Inquisition for everything. After all, the witch-hunt, surprisingly enough, reached a special scale in those countries that were affected by the Reformation.
If the courts of the Inquisition nevertheless regularly passed acquittals, then the Protestants destroyed their brothers, suspected of having ties with the devil, without any hesitation.
At the beginning of the 17th century, witch hunts began to be used as an ideological weapon by the participants in the Thirty Years War. Moreover, on both sides. German Catholics and Protestants endlessly accused each other of witchcraft, thus justifying any atrocities and executions.
Sorcerers and witches were now to blame for absolutely everything - crop failure, epidemics, cattle deaths and even a lack of money. The researchers noticed that the poorer this or that country or territory was and the weaker the central government acted there, the more reprisals were committed against the witches by the local residents. This attack did not bypass England. But on the shores of Foggy Albion, the witch hunt took on a very special look.
Rogue with a needle
The most famous English witch hunter was named Matthew Hopkins. He acted for only a little over a year, but during this time he managed to sentence to death and execute about 300 people, mostly women. For comparison - in the previous 100 years in England fewer people were executed for witchcraft!
From March 1645, Hopkins, accompanied by his assistants, began to travel around the country, presenting himself to the local authorities as the main witch hunter. Although such a position in the kingdom simply did not exist! However, the rogue behaved so confidently, and most importantly, pressed on such sensitive topics that he easily received official support. Times were very turbulent - in the country there was a civil war between supporters of parliament and supporters of the king. People lived in constant fear. Whom were they willing to blame for their troubles? Of course, witches and sorcerers!
Arriving at a new place, Matthew Hopkins very quickly "found" a witch (or several) there, after which a monstrous in its cruelty process of inquiry began. The victim was not allowed to sleep, driving her to madness. Cut with a knife (if the blood did not start flowing immediately, this was considered sufficient evidence, so Hopkins simply used a dull knife). They pierced the body with special needles, in search of the "devil's mark" - a tiny speck, insensitive to pain. In the end, anyone broke. The unhappy woman pleaded guilty and went to the gallows (traditionally in England, witches were hung, not burned). And some were tied to a chair and thrown into the water - the drowned were considered justified, and those who, by some miracle, were able to swim out, were immediately sentenced to death.
Perhaps worst of all, for Hopkins, his work was just a lucrative business. For his services, he took very substantial fees from the local authorities. For example, in Ipswich he was paid 50 pounds (about 10 thousand in modern prices), in Stowmarket - 23 pounds (about 6700). The authorities sometimes even had to introduce temporary additional taxes in order to settle accounts with the "main hunter". In fact, the fraudster profited from ignorance, pain and death of people. In the summer of 1647, he died of tuberculosis, having managed to describe his adventures in a brochure that portrays him as a disinterested hero and a brave fighter against evil.
With all this, it was England that became the first country to officially abolish the criminal liability for witchcraft. According to a law passed in 1735, a maximum of a year in prison was now imposed on the spread of pagan superstitions. And the organizers of unauthorized reprisals were responsible for their affairs as ordinary murderers. In other countries, rulers increasingly took personal control of witchcraft cases to curb the massive frenzy that was destroying their subjects.
Last victims
As to who was the last woman executed in Europe for witchcraft by a court verdict, there are different versions. Most often referred to as the Swiss maid Anna Göldi. From 1780 she worked in the house of Johann Tchudi, judge of the city of Glarus. After Chudi's second daughter suddenly fell ill and began to suffer from seizures, the maid was accused of trying to poison the girl, and also added needles to her bread. Although the judge's daughter survived and recovered soon after, a full-scale prosecution was launched against Anna.
In order to extract a confession to the poisoning, the girl was tortured. In an effort to end the torture, she confessed everything. Including in connection with the devil, who allegedly appeared to her in the form of a large black dog. This item was not included in the official conviction. But Anna Göldi was sentenced to death and beheaded on June 13, 1782, although according to the current legislation, the poisoner could not be executed if his victim survived. There is no doubt that the girl's reputation as a "witch" was of decisive importance for the judges.
Subsequently, many additional details were revealed, and the court of the city of Glarus was publicly condemned. According to one of the versions, Judge Chudi himself made the girl a "witch", who thus wanted to hide an extramarital affair that could damage his career. However, it was not until 2008 that Anna Göldi's sentence was officially recognized as a miscarriage of justice.
The second candidate is Barbara Zdunk, who lived in the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1811, she was publicly strangled, and then her body was burned. True, the death sentence in this case was not imposed for witchcraft (which by that time was no longer considered a criminal offense in Prussia), but on suspicion of arson. However, the reason for the arrest was precisely the fact that she did not hide her passion for magic. Convincing evidence that Zdunk was at least somehow involved in the fire, the investigation has not collected. But the crowd thirsted for the blood of the "guilty" - and received it.
Despite progress, in the 19th century, the courts of some countries continued to seriously consider charges of witchcraft. For example, in Spain in 1820 a certain woman was sentenced to 200 blows with rods and banishment from the city for six years.
What can we say about the independent massacres that periodically happened in different countries for quite a long time. The reasons were all the same as in the Middle Ages, fear and ignorance. Sometimes these dark qualities of human nature make us demand reprisals against someone “alien” or “strange” in our time.
Victor BANEV
With all the forces of the soul …
The Papal Bull Summis desiderantes affectibus was published in 1484 and later featured as a preface to The Hammer of the Witches. Here is what it said: “With all the strength of our soul, as required by pastoral care, we strive for the Catholic faith in our time to grow and flourish everywhere, and all heretical impiety to be eradicated from among the faithful. Not without excruciating pain, we recently learned that in some parts of Germany … very many people of both sexes neglected their own salvation and, turning away from the Catholic faith, fell into carnal sin with the demons incubi and succubi and their witchcraft, spells, spells and other terrible superstitious, vicious and criminal acts inflict premature childbirth on women, send spoilage to offspring of animals, cereals, grapes on vines and fruits on trees,as well as spoil men, women, pets and other animals … and that, at the instigation of the enemy of the human race, they dare to commit an infinite number of all kinds of unspeakable atrocities and crimes … But we will remove from the path all obstacles that can in any way hinder fulfilling the duties of inquisitors and so that the infection of heretical impiety and other similar crimes does not poison innocent people with its poison, we intend, as our duty requires and as our zeal for faith prompts us, to use appropriate means. "who can in any way interfere with the performance of the duties of inquisitors and so that the infection of heretical impiety and other similar crimes does not poison innocent people with its poison, we intend, as our duty requires and as our zeal for faith prompts us, to use appropriate means "who can in any way interfere with the performance of the duties of inquisitors and so that the infection of heretical impiety and other similar crimes does not poison innocent people with its poison, we intend, as our duty requires and as our zeal for faith prompts us, to use appropriate means"