The Burning times.... How that strikes fear and sickness to our hearts. Why did it happen?
The Church began to feel threatened by the power these wise women and men had over local communities, soon this fear filtered back to Rome. The Church began to look at its policy towards pagans and witches in particular more closely. Why should the people look up to these pagan people and not to the Church? After all as far as the Church was concerned, they were Gods representatives, not pagans, heathen witches...
Finally, the Church made a decision, which would change the lives of so many people, forever and bring about much suffering and pain through many centuries...
Jean Bodin, in 1580, gave the legal definition of a Witch as "One who knowing God's law tries to bring about some act through an agreement with the devil".
King James I changed his bible to read: "Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live" just because he was afraid of the Scottish Witches who had prophesied doom for his family line.
Practice of Witchcraft was banned under Pain of Death.
Soon, the witch-hunt fevers set in. People would accuse their neighbors of Witchcraft, just so they could get their hands on property etc owned by the accused. And if you were accused, you had no ability to defend yourself. In a huge show trial, you would be accused of Witchcraft, sleeping with the Devil, Heresy, and the list goes on and on... You would be removed form your home, paraded down the streets to the town square, where your clothes would be ripped from your body. Imagine the jeering screaming crowds, spitting and throwing things at you... then they would take a Witch Pricker otherwise known as a bodkin, a long thin needle about 3 inches long, with a wooden handle, and poke it into you to see if you bled. You would be examined in front of the crowd for blemishes, moles warts etc... A common sign of a Witch apparently. If you did not bleed, then you were a Witch, if you did, well they could cover that up. Your hair would be shaved from your head, in case you kept spells in your hair???? And then you would be marched to the courthouse.
You would have to walk in backwards, and then turn to face a judge. You would be told to answer that you were a Witch and had indeed slept with the Devil in gruesome orgies, and if you would not confirm this, you would be taken and tortured. The torture was horrible. Huge claws that would gouge out skin, and rocking cradles full of spikes, and then the rack.. All this you as the accused would have to pay for! You would then be sentenced to death by the judge whether guilty or not, and be taken from the courthouse to the square again, through the jeering crowds, in chains. Dragged along by the choking chain around you neck, you would arrive at the square, to find a huge stake. You would be chained to this stake, and brush and firewood placed around it. You would stand there screaming in terror as they put lighted torches to the brush and wood. They would stand and watch you die in agony slowly, and think it was wonderful.
Some of the terrible things they did:
1.) A lord chief justice of England closes his eyes to proven fraud by a prosecution witness, even when it is drawn to his attention by his associate judges.
2.) A trial judge in Germany, repulsed by a woman to whom he made improper advances, in revenge seizes her sister, accuses her of Witchcraft, cruelly tortures her, and burns her alive the same day.
3.) A distinguished professor of law at the University of Toulouse advocates the suspension rules in Witch trials, because "not one out of a million Witches would be accused or punished, if regular legal procedure were followed."
4.) A bishop in Germany burns a minimum of 900 men and women, including many respected and wealthy citizens, as Witches, and confiscates their estates and properties for his own enjoyment.
5.) A Protestant minister in Scotland refuses Christian burial to a woman crushed to death by a mob because a 16-year-old lad had accused her as a Witch.
6.) A famous French magistrate regrets that, instead of burning young children accused of Witchcraft, he had merely sentenced them to be flogged while they watched their parents burn as Witches.'
7.) Consider some of the varied tortures and injustices Witchcraft inflicted on the persecuted. (These are the lesser of the evils)
8.) At Salem two young men are trussed at their neck and heels until the blood drips from their noses, to force a statement used to convict those accused.
9.) A woman in Scotland is burned as a Witch for stroking a cat at an open window at the same time the householder finds his brew of beer turning sour.
10.) A mother and daughter in England are executed as Witches on accusations by a 10-year-old girl of bewitching her with fits.
11.) A witness in a Witch trial in France makes a dying confession that the prosecutor had dictated his evidence; nothing is done to reopen the case, and the accused, a nun, dies in solitary confinement.
12.) A woman in Scotland is convicted as a Witch for curing unhealthy children by washing them.
13.) A poor immigrant in Boston, speaking only Irish and saying her simple prayers in Latin, is hanged as a Witch because she could not repeat the Lord's Prayer in English.
14.) Any person having a mole, wen, scar, or bunion is considered to posses a devil's mark, and is therefore to be executed as a Witch.
This behavior traveled across the world, the last major trials were held in Salem ,MA. and they were all over Ergot!
Because of the hatred and fear surrounding the craft, it was thought best that we went underground.
