I have to do a history project about medieval witches and i was wondering if there was anything anyone knew about them? thankssssssss!!
2007-05-03 15:49:43 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
"1. The original religion from which Margaret Murray asserted witchcraft was the religion of Dianus. This religion never existed...Murray's argument verged on accepting the Christian polemic that all pagan religions are alike.
2. Certainly paganism did not die out at the first trumpet of Christianity, and it lingered longer in some areas - such as Scandinavia and Russia - than others. In every area, bits and pieces of pagan beliefs and practices survived the conversion (to Christianity) and persisted through the Middle Ages.
3. Not until about 1300, does a substantial body of evidence about witchcraft appear, and this evidence shows witchcraft not as a fertility religion but as a Christian heresy based upon diabolism.
4. Two huge time gaps in the evidence exist. The first is the one from the conversion to the beginning of the witch-craze; the second extends from the end of the witch-craze to the end of the nineteenth century."
"By 1300 all the elements of european witchcraft had been assembled. For the next century and a half fear of withces spread gradually throughout Europe. Then, about 1450, at the end of the Middle Ages, the fear became a craze which lasted more than two hundred years."
2007-05-03 16:14:13 · answer #1 · answered by WMD 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They had professional witchhunters called 'Common Prickers' who would stick a long pin into your cheek, and if you bled or flinched - you were a witch and would be horribly tortured to death. The witch hunts in Europe went on for over 300 years, mostly aimed at women and the very old, and the witch hunts were secular - the Catholic Church had nothing to do with witch hunts! It was done by the Sheriffs, barons, and the constabulary. The witch hunts spilled over into the colonies were 110 people (and a dog) were hung as witches in 1690s Salem, Massachusetts by a court of Magistrates. Some of the smartest people in Massachusetts found a dog guilty of witchcraft? The witchcraft trials are a blotch on the legal system that cannot be removed.
2016-05-20 00:29:49 · answer #2 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The witch persecutions were more a product of the reformation/renaissance era, than of the medieval era.
2007-05-03 15:55:54 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Check out:
http://medieval.etrusia.co.uk/witch/
2007-05-03 15:52:50 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, they were all burned.
2007-05-03 15:58:17 · answer #5 · answered by Daniel T 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋