Why Europe was hunted for witches: Four diametrically opposed theories from religion to economics

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

For two hundred years, a furious witch-hunt raged in Europe. Tens of thousands of people accused of witchcraft were killed - mostly women. In the twentieth century, the most popular explanation for what was happening was the high religiosity of the people of the past, which led to a particular superstition. But in our time, much more complex theories are put forward about who and why needed to unleash this bloody massacre.

Biological version: too high population density

Those who like to explain all the processes by hidden biological mechanisms believe that one of the main reasons why the hunt was unleashed was the too high population density in Europe at the end of the fifteenth century. She made people look for how to thin out the population, with an emphasis on young women: after all, the birth rate depends, first of all, on them. That is why pretty girls often suffered, and among the accusations there was always an accusation of seducing men.

However, there is really no reason to believe that young and beautiful women constituted the majority of those killed. In some countries, such as Iceland, Estonia and Russia, men have almost always been accused of witchcraft; in the same place where the women were executed, they were rather elderly women. However, the survival rate of children in human communities directly depends on women of age, so this version should probably not be dismissed at all.

Struggle for hierarchy: reduced the social activity of women

After studying the chronicles and other documents of the Middle Ages and comparing them with the papers of later periods, it is easy to see that in the Middle Ages, ladies were very active - both in the economic and in the socio-political sense. This displeased both churchmen and many radically anti-feminine men. The witch hunt not only made it possible to indicatively denigrate and kill the most active women, but also to intimidate the rest so that they would forever become quieter than water, lower than grass - so that they would not see Satanism in their independence or agility.

It is significant in the light of this version that in the famous "Hammer of the Witches" special attention is paid to the fact that a man can be justified, and a woman by any movement during torture reveals contact with the devil: if she stares at one point, she sees him, if she rotates eyes, then follows how he flies around, and if she closed her eyes, she tries not to betray his presence. There are no options in the spirit of “maybe a woman does not see any devil”.

The Struggle of Religions: Old vs. New

Anthropologists of the twentieth century have discovered that even in urban urban culture, you can find traces of old pagan rites and beliefs, secretly preserved in the female environment - from girls playing with clapping hands and rhythmic text to manipulations that old women find it necessary to perform on babies and pregnant women. … Probably, in the Middle Ages, women retained even more of the old rituals and beliefs, and maybe they secretly worshiped their old goddesses.

At least it is known that the Germans for a long time still had faith in the merciful and terrible at the same time Mistress Blizzard, which researchers associate with the ancient goddess Frigg - the Germans even pointed to one of the mountains as the top, on which the house of Mistress Blizzard definitely stands, and belonged to this mountain with awe. In addition, some of the descriptions of a typical Sabbath resemble pagan rituals - a circle, a bonfire, obligatory nudity, and an orgy that may be associated with fertility rites. The appearance of a goat-like devil may be inspired by the fact that many pagans had a number of animal features for the gods.

Indirectly, for the version of the struggle against disguised paganism (which, from the point of view of the Christian Church, is devil worship), says the nuance that in Iceland, runesnatans were persecuted for witchcraft, that is, men who retained the old faith and related practices, such as the use of runes.

Economic version: redistribution of the market

One of the now popular versions says that it seems that representatives of such professions as healers (manufacturers of medicinal herbal infusions), midwives and brewers (a distinctive feature of the latter, for example, were the very pointed hats and brooms, were the main targets of the witch hunt, which interfered with beer at the initial stages of production), and in a matter of decades these professions from almost purely female …

If we are guided by the principle “look for who benefits”, then it can be assumed that pharmacists 'shops, doctors' associations and just emerging brewers simply got rid of competitors. By the way, the famous Walpurgis, after which Walpurgis Night was named - supposedly the main holiday of witches - was exactly the midwife. The redistribution of the market was really impressive, and as a result, not only the number of midwives decreased (and brewers almost completely disappeared), but also the secrets of the profession, which were passed only from teacher to student, were lost. For example, medieval midwives were able to turn the fetus inside the mother using a device of two knitting needles and ribbons, and beer recipes changed radically.

Without a doubt, the economic factor in the hunt was significant, if only because the property of the witch was then divided, and in some countries they also paid for the capture of the witch. The monstrous methods of fighting the evil of Matthew Hopkins - the most brutal witch hunter in Englandare most likely caused by his greed.