Witches executed in Scotland in the 16th and 18th centuries were denied forgiveness
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The Scottish Parliament has rejected a bill that would have exonerated witches executed in the Middle Ages and modern times. The reason is strictly formal. The bill was introduced by MP Natalie Don last year. However, she was recently appointed local government minister. By law, ministers do not have the right to make laws.
THE ENDS ARE NOT FOUND
The bill would recognize that the 4,000 women executed in Scotland over almost 200 years were falsely accused and innocent. Oddly enough, legally this is still not the case. Of course, there are no consequences for the descendants – go and find ancestors in such ancient times, but it is a fact in itself.
The decision is so embarrassing that you will have to work hard if you decide to find details in the media. They try not to write about it.
Indeed. Firstly, Parliament had almost a year to pass the bill before Natalie Don became minister. But the paper mysteriously remained still.
Secondly, Natalie Don introduced her bill when she was NOT yet a minister. Therefore, she had the right of legislative initiative. For example, the author of the bill is no longer in parliament. But there is a bill.
Thirdly, the bill barely made it to parliament, after many years of fighting. The newspaper was pressured by disparate activists, including enlightened professors, feminists, and simply people interested in antiquity. The mere mention that they were rehabilitated in the United States in 2001 forced the document to be accepted for consideration.
Apparently, he really didn’t want to. You may be surprised, but the witchcraft laws were not actually formally repealed. In 1736, witches stopped being burned for practicing witchcraft. The authorities recognized that witchcraft does not exist. But, if so, the women who practice it are scammers. That’s why they were criminally charged along with thieves, illegal businessmen, tax evaders and other merry people. It is difficult to say to what extent the law of 1736 actually works today. I have found no evidence of its practical use today. But it seems that in the eyes of modern legislators, those witches of the 17th century are, if not servants of the evil spirit, at least charlatans. There is nothing to rehabilitate. Yes, burning alive is too much, but those were the times. Do not blame me.
Nor can it be ruled out that many continue to believe in witchcraft itself. A little further north, in Iceland, belief in elves and other spirits is widespread. I did not find any surveys confirming this assumption in open sources.
WHAT WAS IT
It seems that 4 thousand people in almost two centuries is not such a daring scale for the gloomy Middle Ages (in fact, the Middle Ages have already ended; historians call this period the Modern Age). But Scotland is not big. Per capita, five times more witches were executed in the region than the European average.
Mentions of witches, that is, elderly women who collect herbs, perform rituals and solve their problems for a small fee, appear in late antiquity. As a rule, this is a cartoon image. The authors make it clear that they can’t really do anything, old age has simply arrived and there is nothing to do. The terrible deeds of ancient witches (for example, in the novel “The Wonderful Ass” by Apuleius) were composed from scratch to amuse the public, and the writers warned from the beginning that it was all fiction.
Believe it or not, during the time we call the Dark Middle Ages, witches were not touched. The authorities were more interested in astrologers: they were believed to see the future of rulers and therefore were dangerous. Witches are a people, a love spell, something purely everyday, small. Not good, of course. But it’s harmless. In especially difficult cases, the priest forced the witch to repent.
This grim practice did not emerge until the 1430s in modern-day Switzerland. Historians still do not understand how this happened. Furthermore, spontaneous reprisals against witches were initially repressed by both the authorities and the church.
But in the 1480s, Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger published the book “The Hammer Against Witches” (in Russian translation, incorrectly “The Hammer of Witches”). At first, this fantastic work does not inspire confidence, but in 1484 Kramer gets an appointment with the Pope and issues a bull (ecclesiastical law) “With all the powers of the soul” (bulls are called simply by the first words). , and here we go. Secular rulers competed with each other to pass laws against witchcraft.
MYSTERY OF HISTORY
When reading the witch interrogation protocols (specifically in Scotland, the University of Edinburgh published everything on a special website) you get a strange feeling.
The documents are so clear and figurative that it is simply impossible not to believe them. The woman claims to have ridden a broomstick, collected toads and snakes to make a magical concoction, and also turned into animals, ripped out an opponent’s heart with her bare hands, and done other incredible things, and you believe it because the details are deceptively clear. , and the image is useful in the mind’s eye.
What was it? Historians do not have a consensus.
Experts of the “rational school” believe that under the pressure of objective reasons (overpopulation, spread of desperate poverty, loss of control over the minds of people in the hinterland), the authorities have developed a request: “it must be done something “With the poor. It goes without saying that all witches are poor people. The authorities were looking for a pretext and the Pope’s bull, generated by the classroom investigation of the scholastics, reached the courts.
Experts inclined to study medieval consciousness believe that people of that time lived as if in a dream. He “saw” something that was not there, either because of constant hunger or because of the poor quality of the bread, which was impregnated with hallucinogenic plant spores. That’s why the witches’ descriptions of their adventures are so vivid. In fact, they “saw” it and described what they “saw.” They were confident in doing it!
Experts found much evidence of self-incrimination in interrogation records. Thus, in Scotland, torture was a mandatory exercise before interrogation. They tortured him, as a rule, with sleep deprivation, and after a few days the person agreed to many things. It is also striking that supposedly real testimonies often have a literary source, the “Hammer” himself. In other words, the executioners simply wrote the appropriate episodes from there and let them sign them.
Procedural practice practically excluded appeals (they were not allowed at all in those years) or pardon. It was believed that the very act of having connections with impure people is such a serious crime that a person will never repent, and if so, why bother with the death penalty?
WHY WITCHES AND NOT WITCHES
A separate mystery remains the question of why the women were accused and executed, although folklore also knows sorcerers. It is true that sometimes they also suffered from it, but rarely and not everywhere. The ancient Byzantine rule that “if the sorcerer causes harm, he is guilty” applied to male witches. If you poison the water of a stream, you will suffer punishment as a poisoner. They treated women differently, they treated them ideologically.
Apparently, those historians who advise delving into the phenomenon of Joan of Arc are right. She was executed precisely because of her connections with the evil spirit; in fact, she herself could not have taken such power, she is a woman. Clearly someone taught me. And if that someone is not a person, then the darkest assumption remains.
Persecuted, reduced to the role of a talking shadow, the woman was capable of much if given the opportunity. This was well demonstrated in the Crusades, especially the popular ones: often the leaders and preachers were women who were ultimately given a socially significant role. And this means that it is precisely behind them that the inquisitors thought.
WHAT’S THE SCORE?
The total number of people executed worldwide is estimated at 50,000. The figure may be an underestimate.
They did not begin to abandon this terrible practice until the 18th century, after the Enlightenment. The successes of science, still modest, hinted that the path to greater development of humanity lay through education. In Newton’s and Euler’s books there was no place for mysterious powers that witches could use. Education became fashionable among the upper strata of society. Believing in “popular superstitions” has become a shame. And, since the laws were written by the rich, they began the abolition of the absurd documents of the past.
There were countries that stood out more than others. Germany, Switzerland, France and Scotland performed poorly. Although it is the “Spanish Inquisition” that is most often remembered in pseudoscientific disputes, Spain and Italy were not unrestrained. The witch persecution hardly affected the United States, but during the single trial of 1692-1693, as we know, the United States repented.
In Russia, and in Eastern Europe in general, such horrors were unheard of. With great difficulty, a couple of hundred cases are found in which witchcraft seems to appear, but only as an aggravating circumstance and not in itself. The Orthodox Church in Russia (for example, through the mouth of Serapion of Vladimir) prevented the townspeople from lynching “witches” and sorcerers (in Russia, men supposedly cast spells more often than women), and reminded that Spiritual problems can be treated with spiritual methods (repentance). The priests of the 17th century continued to fight against the town’s festivals (pipes, jesters, masks, bonfires and jumping on them), but they did not even think about any repression.
THE NAIS IS OFFICIAL EDITOR ON NAIS NEWS