I am a witch, now please kill me! Many innocent women happily welcomed death byconfessing to witchcraft in order to end their excruciating torture during thewitch hunt craze between 1450 and 1750. Since many records were lost, destroyedor never kept, the best estimation of the total deaths is several million (4). The main cause of the witch hunts was the Church inflicting fear upon the commonand educated man by lying to them about what witches do and who they are.
TheChurch also directly and indirectly increased the pain that accused women wouldgo through during their torture. The Church made it clear, to all those whowould listen, that all women were evil and capable of witchcraft. “TheBible’s Apocrypha states, ?Of woman came the beginning of sin / And thanksto her, we all must die. ‘(Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus 25:13-26. )” (2). Viciouscomments like this caused even women themselves to fear what other women may do.
This fear only lead to the distrust of woman. A book written by two German men,titled Malleus Maleficarum, “The Hammer of Witches”, only furthered peoplesfear of women’s evil. It states that women are more likely to become witches:”?Because the female sex is more concerned with things of the flesh thenmen; because being formed from a man’s rib, they are only ?imperfectanimals’ and ?crooked’ where as man belongs to a privileged sex from whosemidst Christ emerged. ‘ (Malleus Maleficarum, 1486)”(2). The men that wroteMalleus Maleficarum refer to the bible for reasons to why they consider womenevil, so if the Church had never incorporated such things into the bible suchthings may have never been thought.
Many ancient myths portrayed goddess’s asevil. Consequently those images of evil were kept and later attached to witcheswho kept goddess worship alive centuries later (4). Even devotion to the VirginMary (who is the biological mother of Jesus) was considered an indication ofevil (2). One women, named Aldonca de Vargas, was even reported just for smilingat the mention of the Virgin Mary (Henry Kamen, Inquisition and Society inSpain) (2). Once a women was accused of witchcraft she would first have toconfess in order to be executed. The torturing of accused women was sounbelievably horrid and sadistic that you would think a man of low standingwould be the one to carry it out, but sadly it was the men of educated positionssuch as bishops, judges, professors and others.
By doing the torture themselvesit set them in a position of fear throughout the community and it is even saidthat “after the execution of a wealthy witch, officials [would treat]themselves to a banquet at the expense of the victim’s estate. (BarbaraWalker)”(2). All of the victim’s estate became the property of thegovernment as soon as they were accused. The torture was done in such abusinesslike fashion that the relatives were charged for the victims torture anddeath (4).
They were charged for such things as the “ropes that bound them andthe wood that burned them. (Barbara Walker). “(2). Some methods of torturingthe accused witches into confessing were thumbscrews, whips, red-hot tongs, andthe rack, this lead to there bones being crushed, limbs severed and fleshseared. After being locked up and tortured for days on end, most women wouldconfess in order to die and some would also accuse neighbors and friends hopingto end their own pain (4). Another method of determining the guilt of theaccused was to stab needles into her eyes and if an insensitive spot was foundthen she was considered guilty.
A Spanish church even went as far as to conforma statue of the Virgin Mary into a device of torture. They did this by coveringthe front side of the statue with sharp knives and nails, then they used leversto make the arms of the statue crush the accused against the knives and nails(Jean Plaidy, The Spanish Inquisition) (2). Men would also brutally attack thebreasts and genitals of accused witches if they became sexually aroused aroundher, because it was thought that the ?witch’ caused them to be. Theyattacked the breasts and genitals with pincers, red-hot irons and pliers (2).
The Churches not only condoned all method’s of witch torture but some churchmembers would even perform the torture themselves. A bishop of Wurtzburg wasproud to claim the lives of 1900 witchcraft accused people in five years (2). “Churchmen portrayed the healing woman as the most evil of all witches. William Perkins declared, ?The most horrible and detestable monster. . .
is thegood witch. ‘” (2). The Church declared this because they believe that Godshould be the only one to heal and consequently anyone who was found with herbaloils or ointments could be charged with witchcraft. Midwifes were most oftenthought to be witches because of their knowledge of herbs to relieve laborpains.
The Church thought it was a sin to help ease a women’s labor painsbecause of God’s sentence upon Eve in which she and all women following hershall be plagued with labor pains (2). Even influential people such as MartinLuther stated his believe about childbirth when he wrote, “If [women] becometired or even did, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth that is whythey are there. ” (2). When chloroform was introduced to help decrease laborpains the Church strongly opposed it.
A New England minister even went as far asto call chloroform “a decoy of Satan. ” (2) The Church made it incrediblyeasy to accuse people of witchcraft. At first only ugly or deformed old womenwere suspected of witchcraft but soon anyone who looked or acted different was aprime suspect. One Scottish woman was even convicted of witchcraft after washingan unhealthy child because of its rarity (2).
Eventually all women were a targetfor accusations. If someone felt guilty after turning away a person in need thenthey could accuse that person of witchcraft because of the belief that theycaused them to feel guilty (2). It was so easy to get a witch executed that in1586 every female except two were executed from two different villages (2). TheChurches mentally sick and demented ways of viewing witched and women didn’tstop with the end of the witch hunting craze in the 17 hundreds it continuesstill today. In 1976 Elizabeth Hahn, a poor spinster who lived in a small Germanvillage, was accused of witchcraft and was suspected to keep devil’s agents inthe form of dogs.
Her neighbors threatened to beat her to death with rocks butinstead they burnt down her house in which she was badly burnt and her animalswere killed. And in 1981 a Mexican mob stoned a women to death after suspectingher of the witchcraft, that they believed caused the attack upon Pope John PaulII. (2). I feel that it is because men ran churches that witch hunting got soout of hand.
I love Helen Ellerbe’s following statement: “It is hardlysurprising that women who not only possessed medicinal knowledge but who usedthat knowledge to comfort and care for other women would become prime suspectsof witchcraft. ” (Helen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History)(2). In onecomplete sentence Helen was able to sum up women’s early medical knowledge andtheir ability to care for one another. What the Church did to women, witches ornot, sickens me as it should sicken every conscious living soul.
They used theirpower and also their fear of losing that power to execute millions of innocentwomen. Not only did they execute them but they tortured them in unthinkableways. The Church and men alike should be forever sorry for their part in thewitch hunting craze.
