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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Maggiep. Peer reviewers: Weinrichks, Scheckelse.
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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): JMWeisen.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 13:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
Please see new article Witch's tests. I've had a go at tidying, but it needs a better title and more comprehensive content. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck ( talk) 15:09, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
"Sexual humiliation torture was used, such as forced sitting on red-hot stools with the claim that the accused woman would not perform sexual acts with the devil."
A red-hot stool? What is that? It is very abstract.
In the Execution section: "The frequent use of "swimming" to test innocence or guilt means that an unknown number also drowned prior to conviction."
What is the source of that? People didn't drown - they had a rope attached and dragged up from the water. It a myth.
Fightdane ( talk) 18:22, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
This article is about the witch trials in the Early Modern period. Yes, there can be some amount of background material, but for some reason, this article seems to attract giant excurses into barely related topics. This is not the European witchcraft article. Nor is it the Witch-cult hypothesis article. It does not deal with witchcraft as such, but with the very specific topic of the persecution of supposed practitioners of witchcraft between 1450 and 1750. Fringe speculations about pagan remnants in European folk magic are entirely misplaced here, because such pagan remnants would be, well, remnants, exhibiting continuity throughout the Middle Ages, where the witch-hunts which are the subject of this article are a new development which arises more or less suddenly in the late 15th century. Whatever the role of pagan continuity in European folk magic, it has nothing to do with what this article is about. This is what the European witchcraft article is supposed to address. -- dab (𒁳) 09:50, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
the point is that I created a nine million witches article at one point to cover this misconception, but later decided it shouldn't be a standalone topic but merged into the history of the reception of the European witch-hunts.
As this article now stands, it is bizarre. It is supposed to be about a serious historical topic, yet it prefers to dwell on fringe issues like Shamanism, witch-cult, and feminist and neopagan ideology. These are all valid topics, but they do not belong here. We have a fair witch-cult hypothesis article. It is enough to make brief mention of it here. It is also rather telling that the author pushing this material is more interested in discussing Shamanism on this page than in sitting down and writing an actual page dedicated to European Shamanism.
I honestly tried to be accommodating towards Midnightblueowl's blatant, single-tack neo-witch perspective. But enough is enough. The attempts to turn all articles remotely related to this editor's topic of interest into apologist pieces defending their personal convictions is not acceptable. Yes, there are a number of neopagan scholars who think the witch-hunts were somehow sparked by a medieval witch-cult. This is a fringe theory, and it has its own article. This article, however, is about a serious and notable topic of early modern European social and legal history, and it must not be side-tracked by such marginalia. Let alone be turned into a propaganda piece advocating them. -- dab (𒁳) 11:55, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
it seems a little bit one-sided to only have a paragraph about the way witch-craft was 'proven' (by torture and such) and not have a corresponding paragraph about the way the accused could prove their innocence. i'm thinking along the lines of: -weighing a witch to see if she wasn't unusually light (thanks to lacking a soul) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oudewater -if a witch didn't float she would be pulled back in (rather than drown, as is the popular conception) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_ordeal#Ordeal_of_water -etc
there's mention in the text that a large number of witch-trials did not end in a conviction. so it would be nice to have some elaboration on that: how did those accused managed to get acquitted? Selena1981 ( talk) 23:46, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
In Beginning of the witch hunts during the 15th century, the "Witch-Bull of 1484" is interpreted as refering amongst other things to abortion, and contraception. Whereas there is no reason to dispute the first point, the second is not so straightforward ( as "contraception" in its modern sense does not involve "hindering men from performing the sexual act"). That part should be explicited, rewritten, or otherwise, the bull contradicted. -- Askedonty ( talk) 20:25, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Someone has listed Thurston 2001 p. 1 as the source for the date range of the trials. I own Thurston 2001 (Witch, Wicce, Mother Goose). There is nothing on page one about the date range for the trials. Was this an honest mistake, or did someone just fake a source citation in order to make their information "pass muster," here? This is the kind of situation which makes Wikipedia seem like a fairly untrustworthy source. Someone needs to cite a good source for this.
Athana ( talk) 16:17, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
"Based on records of the 29 year period 1569 to 1589"
1589 – 1569 = 20
BijouTrouvaille ( talk) 16:18, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
It seems to me that giving an extended paragraph to the Heinsohn theory is completely overblown WP:UNDUE. Also, this Heinsohn thing is incorrectly filed under "gender conflict", while the gist here is "macroeconomic" and misogyny doesn't enter into it.
If I understand correctly, this is a "proposal" concocted in 1982 (but still elaborated upon in 2004) to the effect of "an interpretation of the European witch-hunts of early modern times as pro-natalist re-population policy of the then dominant Catholic Church after the population losses the black death had caused". In essence,
If the argument is that this was an incidential consequence of the witchhunts it would still be kooky (let's see some kind of solid evidence that killing all midwives will in fact lead to increased population growth because clearly, their contribution towards contraception far outweighs their prevention of complications at birth and infant mortality, and allowing that, let's see some evidence that the 100 or so people killed every year in all of Europe made any appreciable dent in the population of midwives). But the suggestion that it was all a "pro-natalist" conspiracy is so far around the bend that I doubt we should mention this at all.
Fwiiw, Heinsohn is a complete kook, who rejected Velikovsky's chronology because it wasn't drastic enough and came up with a better version arguing that the clueless Egyptologists are off by fully two millennia of "phantom history". He is obsessed with genocide, birth control and population explosion, and he simply used the witch-hunts as a quarry for "support" of his overarching theory he was going to argue anyway.
What I am saying is that the Heinsohn theory is so far into WP:FRINGE territory that it should at the most be briefly mentioned as an alternative view without significant support, but more likely it would be more reasonable to just drop it entirely. -- dab (𒁳) 08:56, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
Hello everyone, I've just added some edits about the Little Ice Age's effects on the witch trials in the "Causes of the trials" section under the subsection "Socio-political turmoil". Please let me know if there's anything I should clarify or expand on. Also, I'm afraid I might have been a little argumentative with my edition of the last sentence, "Miguel (2003) argues that witch killings may be a process of eliminating the financial burdens of a family or society via elimination of the older women that need to be fed, and an increase in unmarried women would enhance this process." I added the second clause of the sentence in order to clarify why Miguel's argument is important to the rest of the paragraph, but that addition might be considered an argument. Let me know what you think; I could get rid of it and just leave the Miguel (2003) argument and hope that readers make the connection themselves. Maggiep ( talk) 17:16, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
The theory proposed and quoted by Marvin Harris isn't correctly referenced (Harris, 205) After obtaining this book for essay research, this quote was nowhere to be found on this page. Would like a correction as this quote would be useful for my college essay Witch_trials_in_the_early_modern_period#Class_conflict Marmalademoll ( talk) 00:30, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Update: I've since obtained the correct reference for this quote. I will edit it now for other users Marmalademoll ( talk) 00:55, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
This article is messy, messy. Some of this will always be the case due to messy over-large subject, but nonetheless there is (was) an incredible amount of repetition within (tried to fix a lot). I am attempting to re-organize along these lines: 1. Chronological, especially tracking trials. There are great records saved and available free online by Limborch (1692) HC Lea, Charles Molinier (1880), Joseph Hansen (1901), GL Burr. We could first try to list these chronologically with a brief description, and well before we get to all the quarreling between the various opinionated writers of 20th c. monographs. 2. Little or no "folklore" speculation on this page please. The trials were organized, conducted, and recorded by the powerful first two "estates of the realm"-- the church and the state. With power should come accountability, at least from the historian. These trial records began being treated as something of a gold mine by folklorists during the last quarter of the 20th c. hoping to uncover the views of the "illiterate masses," but that is not really the title/subject of this article. It seems folklorists should have a separate article for their careful extrapolations (we hope) regarding an understanding of the popular view of witchcraft as it seems to emerge from those who were tortured or felt compelled to bear witness against their neighbors. Jakob Grimm did us all a wonderful service sitting down in front of female storytellers and listening and writing down their stories. Those are great tales and other than the occasional appearance of a witch, they seem to bear little resemblance to the unimaginative sadism of H Kramer or the other Dominican Inquisitors. We also don't have any way of dating the origins of the volk tales (hence the folklorist interest in the trials?)-- for all we know they could have originated in the 18th c. But Grimm's main argument with the so-called "rationalist" WG Soldan seems to have been the question whether the various magic elements originated on German soil, or showed an ancient Greek and Roman influence. Grimm was a German nationalist who wanted to claim these as homegrown. Lewismr ( talk) 21:15, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
"Malleus Maleficarum was printed 13 times between 1486–1520, and—following a very curious 50-year pause that coincided with the height of the Protestant Reformation—it was printed again another 16 times, following the Council of Trent (1574–1669)" This sentence is entirely structured to insinuate that Malleus Maleficarum was influential amongst Catholics and rejected by Protestants. Why mention the Council of Trent (and dated wrong too)? There were plenty of things going on in these years that the resurgence of printing could be said to 'follow', so unless the Council of Trent has some relevance by making some comment on the publication there is no need to mention it. What is more directly worth mentioning, however, is the fact that the Church banned the book in 1490 and the Spanish Inquisition disputed it in 1538. 82.25.113.167 ( talk) 09:14, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
Recently a page, Witch-hunts Around the World, was created that seems redundant to this article. An AfD discussion is being held here: View AfD. AnandaBliss ( talk) 23:03, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
«Miguel (2003) argues that witch killings may be a process of eliminating the financial burdens of a family or society, via elimination of the older women that need to be fed,[83] and an increase in unmarried women would enhance this process.»
Is there a problem in argumentation by Miguel (2003) when a claim is made that, on the one hand, older women were being eliminated, so as to eliminate financial burdens, while on the other hand, an increase in the number of unmarried women enhances the process. The issue at hand is that the word "enhance" detracts from comprehension, perhaps "contribute to" would be better. 2001:14BA:2BFD:2100:5149:6421:B344:521B ( talk) 08:24, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
/info/en/?search=Pendle_witches — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C8:6B05:2301:C95C:6431:694A:850C ( talk) 20:26, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
I agree, I do not understand why the need for this section. If anything would it led to others needing to be included. Edmund Patrick – confer 16:54, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
One document included a word that centuries later would be on the title of an unrelated book about witch hunts? Really? IMO, it's not relevant and should be removed.
Given that it was 14th c., it was most certainly a sentence for heresy, not the "witchcraft" as it was understood later, in times of witch trials. 176.214.206.199 ( talk) 16:37, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Under the 1486: Malleus Maleficarum section ( /info/en/?search=Witch_trials_in_the_early_modern_period#1486:_Malleus_Maleficarum) we can find the following claim:
"The theological views espoused by Kramer were influential but remained contested, and an early edition of the book even appeared on a list of those banned by the Church in 1490.[36]"
This claim is not substantiated; neither by the reference cited, nor by the Malleus Maleficarum article, nor by any other source I can find. In fact, even the claim that a list of books banned by the Church seems unsubstantiated as the Index Librorum Prohibitorum wasn't started until 1560, with some early lists starting to show up in 1527. Although the Church undoubtedly did have prohibitions prior to that, I can find no references to official lists, or records that the Malleus Maleficarum ever featured on one of them.
The cited source, footnote [36] references: Jolly; Raudvere; Peters, eds. (2002). Witchcraft and magic in Europe: the Middle Ages. p. 241.
Here is a link to a preview of the book, with the cited page included: https://books.google.com.fj/books?id=5f5GcD1FwZYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=malleus&f=false
As you can see, there is no mention of books being banned at all from the source. In fact, it seems as though the book was actually granted a papal bull, Summis desiderantes affectibus, granting (or confirming) the authority of the author to prosecute witchcraft in Germany.
The original claim should be appropriately supported or removed entirely. As it is, it has an air of revisionism in favor of the Church. RenardSouriant ( talk) 19:55, 14 February 2024 (UTC)