If I were to ask you what you think a witch is, I’m sure you’re probably going to answer me with “someone who practices magic, perhaps even black demonic witchcraft, and typically a woman”.
Your response would make you half right but also half wrong. The idea of either a midwife with an ugly appearance or an enchanting young seductress riding on a broomstick through the night and with their familiar and invoking all forces of evil is, in fact, far from the truth of what a witch is. Especially if we consider the time when all this terror frenzy began, right in the Middle Ages, we will only realise how much pop culture, the media, and incredibly inaccurate textbooks have twisted the reality of it all.
When referring to Pagans, and therefore sorcerers, during the 1200s, the term Paganism must be necessarily considered a word that functions as an umbrella, for it contains far more meanings than what we give it credit for. It has been used to describe countless practices, most of which were simply the custom of older times—things that are not common anymore and definitely seem bizarre nowadays. That’s not to say that Paganism doesn’t exist, not at all; however, it is used to round up what was not part of the Church’s theology, often pushing together extremely diverse beliefs and forgetting how variegated even Christianity was at the time.
Europe is not a single country and certainly wasn’t during the Middle Ages—yet somehow people always seem to forget that.
Merely thinking that ideas, theories, and even notions were the same all throughout this continent is foolish; instead, thinking that they were similar is far more the accurate opinion. What became in history “The Burning Times”, although I myself adore anything spiritual and full of rage, has indeed derived from historians who, yes, study the past, but they make it as well. It’s like the saying, “History is written by the victors”, and for a long time it has been, but then the coin reversed, and light was shone on the actual victims of this chapter of our past. Tens of thousands of people were killed, and this dark period of our history I’m about to explain does not talk light-heartedly about fun and fantastical witches. It’s about real people who have died at the stake by the hand of men and absurd deceptions.
It’s about hatred and its poison of the human mind.
Up until the 13th century, although the word ‘witch‘ may have appeared in the Bible, it was not part of its theology. Different kinds of doctrines continued to be practised on the European continent for quite some time even after the spread of the Church, revered as part of ancient traditions and not considered at all as a threat to the Christian’s faith. It was not all appraised as good and virtuous, of course, but it wasn’t as black and white as some history books affirm. Witchcraft was sanctionable by the law, but the majority of these odd customs fell under civil law’s jurisdiction and not ecclesiastic’s; furthermore, it was not gendered in any way. Solely in the case that a person or an act was considered heretical, it was punishable with death.
Women were indeed not thought of as equal to men; however, they still held certain rights, while older madams were regarded as wise and knowledgeable.
With the 1258 Papal Bull of Alexander IV, the circumstances shifted a little bit as he declared that any form of magic was to be managed by local authorities unless proven heretical. As the word ‘witch’ began to be spread around, along with the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century—while some of these investigations became rather barbaric—people began looking for someone to blame. Their index finger lifted, and they started pointing at anyone who seemed unusual, ready to cry out the presence of evil, whether for fear or dislike. What culminated in the witches’ trials, though, happened in the century after, the 15th, exactly when the burning at the stake of Joan of Arc in 1431 unleashed in Europe what then became “The Burning Times”.
But if we ought to find one of the culprits for all the deaths that came after, we must ourselves point towards one of the vilest pieces of writing ever created in history. Published in 1486, The Malleus Maleficarum by Heinrich Kramer, a German churchman and member of the Inquisition, became the second most diffused book for 300 years—a true horrifying guide on how to recognise a witch, her powers, and familiars, and how to eliminate her. Yes, eliminate her because what Kramer did cannot be described in any other way than as eradicating and appalling. The book was adopted by both Catholics and Protestants, leading to the killings of tens of thousands of people, and it is heavily misogynistic. It is abominable in its descriptions of women as both weak and evil, manifesting his deep hatred towards them and his bloody desire to suppress them all. Kramer helped nullify the 1258 Papal Bull, replacing it with the Summis Desiderantes Affectibus, declaring all witches as heretics and granting himself and the Inquisition the authority to hunt and prosecute sorcerers in whatever manner they saw fit—of course, attesting to it directly in The Malleus Maleficarum. The latter contained any possible detail about magic and its usage, like, for example, the stigma diabolicum (the witch’s or devil’s mark) and became widely known by scholars and any member of the Church. It did help that the Christians rejected Kramer’s ideas three years later after his volume had been published; what did not help, however, was how this man’s complex diction had sort of entranced people, making any form of salvation simply too late. By the 1500s, The Malleus Maleficarum had been adopted as a guide, the terror of witches had taken hold of most of Europe, witch-hunting had become a revered job, and thousands of women whose names we’ll never know had been murdered. Since the first one, the trials continued for centuries, reaching a peak between the 16th and 17th centuries.
Unjust killings that shockingly still happen today.
Ad hoc, we obviously know that Kramer was expelled from his district for his sickening methods of torture and all the fibs he had created to manipulate the public, and that, contrary to history textbooks, lots of people were just set free after being accused and detained. We now know that the victims who unfortunately ended up being sentenced to death were more likely to be hanged, drowned, buried, or boiled alive instead of burnt; that both genders were charged with heresy; and that the accusers themselves were often deemed insane.
Nonetheless, even though “The Burning Times” chapter of our past presents significant inaccuracies and oversimplifications about the history of capital punishment during this period, completely misunderstanding at times the complexity of witch hunting, we must remember the forever-unknown number of women—yes, women, not witches—who have been murdered by men with too much hatred in their hearts and too much power in their grasp. Men who will never pay for their actions.
But we must remember, dear reader. We must remember all the children, the kids, the women, the men, and even all the animals, for they were and are more than just a number.
For they were and are more than just a burning stake.
Up, The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse (1886)
Sources:
The Burning Times – The History of Witches Part 1
Witches in History and Art – The History of Witches Part 2
Debunking the Pervasive Myths About Medieval Witch Hunts
Historians Answer Witchcraft Questions
The Books That Lit the Witch-Hunting Craze: Malleus Maleficarum & Demonology
Witchcraft – Malleus Maleficarum – The Hammer of Witches – History and Analysis of the Inquisition
The Library of the Unseen 
Beautiful description of my sign! Thank you ☺️ 😘😘