Were the women burned at the stake, those hundreds of years ago, actually witches?

Question

Or are they women hated because they show signs of intelligence and independence, and science?

Answer 1

Women of the time were considered property. They came over from the old world.
It was an excuse to "get rid" of unwanted women who did not conform to the standards of the day.
Seriously, women of the day did not have independence nor were they of science.
If the belief of witchcraft were true and when they burned them they were real witches, the people burning them would have been in big trouble. If they were a witch they could have easily gotten away and so on.
You should read some history books on it. It was rather eye opening.
It was kind of a racial/gender genocide.

Answer 2

The later, or they really knew how to help people using herbs and natural healing techniques, which some saw as witchcraft.

A lot of midwives at the time were burned because they said that babies were killed by the "witch", or something was wrong with the baby that "proved" the lady was a witch. Never mind the fact that infant mortality was around 50%-or higher- back then, and never mind the fact that birth defects happen. But they didn't understand that sort of thing back then. Still, most of these women were just trying to help others, provide comfort and support. Great way to show their thanks huh??

Answer 3

In England people were burnt at the stake for heresy, this was to cleasne their souls. People charged with Witchcraft were generally hanged.
There were a number of reasons they would be charged, quite often they were the only source for healing in the district. If their medicines failed or there was an epidemic they would often come under suspicion. This would include the health of livestock as well as people.
After the Middle Ages many of the churches had their own apothercaries and hospitals, often the independent healer would be unpopular amongst the religious community.
It often boiled down to local politics of which religion was normally a party.

Answer 4

It was not only grown women who were killed, nor was it just an English phenomenon. The following is an abridged list of those executed in the Bishopric of Wurzenburg in Europe:
The Sixth Burning, six persons
The Steward of the senate, named Gering.
Old Mrs Canzier
The woman cook of Mr Mengerdorf
The tailor's fat wife
A stranger
A strange woman

The Eighth Burning, seven persons Inc.
Baunach, a senator, the fattest citizen in Wurzburg
The steward of the Dean of the Cathedral.
A knife grinder

The Twentieth Burning, six persons Inc.
A student who knew many languages, an excellent musician.
Two boys of the Minister, each twelve years old

The Twentieth - Fifth Burning, seven persons Inc.
David Hans, a canon in the New Minister
The little son of the town council bailiff
Wagner, vicar in the Cathedral was burnt alive

The Twentieth-Eighth Burning, six persons Inc.
The infant daughter of Dr Schultz
A blind girl
Bernhard Mark, vicar in the Cathedral.

It is only Hollywood and the British Film Industry, plus the subject being ignored by most modern day historians that we have this distorted view that it was purely a gender issue. It was not, it was about power and control.

Answer 5

The huge sort is unknown. yet in the process the witch hunts, a entire of no extra advantageous than one hundred,000 have been burned on the stake. and that's throughout Europe. earlier that, historians can purely speculate. there have been some hundred or so performed in Nigeria for "witchcraft", yet not all of them have been women. that's actually occurring perfect now.

Answer 6

If you are referring to the witch trials in and around Salem....

The storage of grain products, the damp / cool...the rye that was stored became mildewed...the product was consumed....the particular mildew rye combination produced a different chemical that was much the same as magic mushrooms in their effect...an accidental hallucinogenic..

every one was seeing things.....

The puritanical ideology was still very strongly influenced by the years of Catholicism from the middle ages and their ideas of can't explain it / it must be witch craft / burn it....ignorance begets ignorance....


the women were no different than any one else, simple country folk trying to survive in the new world...

Answer 7

Probably the latter, because being different or cleverer that the norm defined a women as unusuall therefore witches.

I would love to know how many were actually classed as witches after they died? (Because if they died it was said to be a shame, they were not actually witches, witches were the ones who survived)

Answer 8

Apparently if they were witches then they could have saved themselves and thus proven they were witches.
If not they would die an honourable Christian death during the test.
Realistically though it was probably just an excuse for the men to get rid of the women who they didn't like or they thought talked too much.

Answer 9

No. Why do you not give yourself a name for your own status....rather than someone else's appendage?
PS Genesis 1 says male and female were made in God's image. We have a lot to catch up with!

Answer 10

I believed that some of it was done to keep order by creating fear. People who didn't go to church were persecuted, women who started thinking for themselves. Of course they would call them witches people wouldn't have went along with 'we must burn this woman because she thinks to much' or 'her clothes look better than mine' it was much easier a scape goat to say they were witches when they were not.