Witch Hunting in Medieval Europe

We know it sounds terrible, but even in the simplest situations, subjecting women to torture that leaves them dead is It was a fact of the Middle Ages. What was the witch? Was it only necessary to be a woman to be a witch? Why was the concept of witch introduced?

The concept of witch, which we are accustomed to in fairy tales and epics until now, seems to have been used for very different purposes in the Middle Ages. Especially This cult reached its peak in the 15th century. It almost caused a shortage of women in Europe.

This accusation is usually “saint” What they said was done to women.

This trend, which emerged especially in Western Europe, resulted in the death of many women. Women, young and old, accused of being “witches” They are killed, burned, and if necessary, their hands and feet are tied and thrown into a water well; If they could get out, it would be proven that she was not a witch.

The reason for these practices is more strange; The church did not want a rival, it wanted the absolute truth to be in itself alone. Because of this Women who are called “saints”, He was a front row victim of this practice.

Witch; christian world It was an image that cooperated with the devil and performed various spells. While they tortured and killed women and children, they would call this practice witch hunting.

The first thing to confront is the gender of the witch.

In fact, witch hunting goes back a long way. Imagine that in 1320 Pope John XXII John; gave the authority to judge witches, and the pressure of the church on people became even harsher. Women called witches; It was considered the culprit of negative events such as famines, animal deaths, and lost wars.

By the late 15th century, witches were seen as anti-religious and deserving of all forms of violence. Because the church was the only address of truth; Reading, learning and researching meant going against religion. This situation gradually turned into a mass massacre.

Historians estimate that the number of people killed during this period was over a hundred thousand He states that these victims are mostly women. According to clergy, the majority of witches are women It was explained for a very simple reason: By eating the forbidden apple, Eve became the source of all evil and was expelled from heaven. For this reason, women at that time were seen as more susceptible to demonic influence than men.

The first targets of witch hunting were midwives and healers.

Yet In times when medicine was not advancing, There were healer women who made various medicines with plants. These people had the potential to become “witches” because they could heal people. Moreover, since it was closely related to science, the church did not like this situation at all. Women who practiced these practices were accused of witchcraft and were subject to arrest and prosecution.

So what about a person? finding out if you are a witch What were their ways?

Of course, we are not talking about simple applications. We are talking about strange and inhumane practices that result in brutal deaths. For example, the bleeding test was the most famous of these.

To measure the body’s pain threshold needles were stuck everywhere, until you don’t feel the pain. After a while, the woman would stop screaming and reacting in pain, and since her blood was drained, there would be no blood coming out. This would be enough evidence to prove that she was a witch.

People were given the right to defend themselves in a public court. That’s all well and good, but why was there a defense if there was death as a result?

You can understand from here that the defenses actually have no validity. The court is held open to the public, those who are tried for witchcraft are defending themselves; As a result of the trial, the person who was found guilty was -mostly- killed by burning or by various methods. If you’re wondering why, let us explain right away.

The court actually does this job in a way. He poured it into money. Because if the person to be burned was rich, the church had the right to confiscate that person’s property. This reached such a point that they were trying to kill everyone passing by by calling them witches. Many believe this movement inspired the misogyny movement.

According to belief; A woman who practiced witchcraft could tear the man’s genitals from his body.

Woman; weak by nature, easily apostatized, He had an identity that was easy to deceive and easily captured by pleasures. So, on what basis and according to whom were these witchcraft trials taking place?

A very simple example: belief. Yes, No matter what you believed in, it was inevitable that you would be judged as a witch because of what you believed in other than Christianity. People who were not Christians were tried by the court and tried to convert them to “religion”, and those who did not convert were punished as witches. The trials, religious preaching and torture of the Inquisition were carried out by people called inquisitors.

Rules were set for this; the 1670 Ordinance, which can be considered the beginning of today’s European criminal law, is the best example of this.

The tortures were very cruel. Burning at the stake, crushing heads with screws We see that various torture methods such as are used. Before starting these tortures, the person would be subjected to psychological violence, torture instruments would be introduced one by one, and he would be expected to ask for forgiveness from the church. Apart from this, another method used to find out whether people were witches or not was the water test.

Hands and feet tied in front The defendant was left naked in the river, If he did not sink but floated, it was believed that his soul was captured by the devil. Another form of this is bleeding. The woman, who was believed to be a witch, was thought to carry the spirit of the devil, and therefore it was said that she carried a trace of the devil on her body that could not be seen from the outside.

You didn’t have to be a midwife or a witch to be accused of witchcraft.

Maybe just being a woman, or maybe being a person that someone doesn’t like, was enough for this. People did this at that time, They turned it into a method used to slander. People who wanted to get rid of someone they didn’t like complained to the church that she was a witch and expected her to be killed. Anything that would break the existing power of the church was directly prohibited.

Absolute power should be in the churchTherefore, healers, who contributed to the advancement of traditional medicine to some extent, constituted the most important class tried in the courts. It is also a known fact that women are sometimes judged for being women and are subjected to thousands of tortures as a result of the patriarchy that has not been broken for centuries, just because of their gender.

If you think that the victims of the witch hunt were long-nosed, old women with flying brooms., you are wrong. Having red hair, having a freckled face, having a painless birth, going through menopause, being rich, being extremely devoted to religious beliefs, getting old, being weak, having a birthmark, laziness, yawning…

We could extend this list so much, but there is no point in even writing down daily activities here. Because that’s how You could be judged as a “witch” even for simple reasons.

A dark side of the Middle Ages also appeared at this point, Witch hunting that took hold in Europe in the 15th centuryIt corresponds to a terrible period when people boasted but destroyed more than half of the population at that time. Although they are not currently being tried under the name of witchcraft, many women are experiencing similar scenarios just with their identity.