Download 9th November, 2006

9th November, 2006
Sexual Politics and Religious Reform
Reading:
Today:
Klaits, Chapter 3.
Coming Up:
Barstow “Controlling Women’s Bodies” CP p.97-106
Transition Era:
About 1516 to 1521
This is the period that coincides with the religious schism in western Europe.
This was the time that ‘Protestantism’ arose and began to flourish.
The Reformation Era:
Caused large scale political violence, marked by 7 Wars of Religion in France alone.
Influenced dynasties of ruling monarchs across Europe.
Brought local violence as competing factions took control of towns and villages.
The Malleus during this Era:
1486-1521, Fourteen Editions.
1521 – Malleus disappears from presses.
1576-1670, Sixteen Editions.
In 1580 alone, Five Reprintings
Two ‘Best Seller’ phases separated by a 55 year long period of utter neglect.
1521-1576
Why was there a generation of disinterest?
Possible that protestant clerics had little use for the work of two Papist Dominicans.
It’s also possible that people had other more obvious things on their minds.
1559-1560:
1559: Papal Authorities publish the INDEX LIBRORVM PROHIBITORUM
Precedented by previous Popes, but this list of prohibited books would be maintained and
regularly updated.
Books on it were forbidden to be read by Catholics without authorization.
Demonology revived after about 1560, witch trials increased in frequency.
The Questions:
Why did the number of witch trials in Western Europe increase greatly after about 1550?
Why did the crime of witchcraft, familiar for centuries, suddenly appear as so much more
menacing that thousands of trials unfolded between 1500 and 1700, whereas only a few hundred
seem to have occurred earlier?
Intellectual History:
What was common knowledge?
The ‘common folk’ had varying definitions of witchcraft.
The ‘elite’ had their own, more standardized definition that had substantially different
elements.
Two Contending Theories: p.49
Kieckhefer: internal changes in the definition of the crime of witchcraft from 1300 to 1500.
Trevor-Roper: external tensions engendered by the Reformation powered witch-hunting
industry.
Klaits’s Thesis: p.49
To extend the internal and external analyses exemplified by K & T.R. and to single out one
variable as a bridge between these two explanations: attitudes towards sexuality.
That changes in sexual attitudes can help explain both the metamorphosing definitions of
witchcraft and the role of reforming religious ideologies in creating the environment in which
witch hunting flourished.
Definition Among the Elite: p.50
After 1375, and during last 2/3 of 15th C.
Combination of traditional sorcery and “novel diabolism”.
Witch was no longer merely a worker of malefice
She was now thought to be a servant of the devil
Her powers were a manifestation of abilities granted to her by Satan.
Demonizing the Body: p.50
From 1550s onward, witches were Satan worshipers, and Satan worshipers were his sexual
slaves as well.
Sexual ‘abuse’ became a normal part of the indictment.
Both in the belief that people were sexual deviants, and in that they were in turn sexually
abused by the justice system.
Simply Put:
The new charge of devil worship overlay the older charge of sorcery.
Sexuality was the unifying component in the new, broad understanding of witchcraft.
Sexuality, and sensuality, were gendered concepts, typically associated with the female.
4 out of 5:
A wide survey of 7,500 trials shows an 80% majority of women accused.
In parts of England, Switzerland, and Belgium, women accounted for 9 out of 10.
Changing Proportions:
Before 1400: Sorcery
–Women – 50-60%
After 1400: Diabolism
–Women – 60-70%
During Craze:
–Women – 80%
Class Horrors:
Geneva, 20% of population lived in rural dependencies, but supplied 50% of suspects.
“That an urban, reformed patriciate regularly subjected country women to the rape-like
humiliation of the search for the devil’s mark is an indicator of elite suspicions about rural
sexual habits and of the dehumanizing consequences that such suspicions could produce,
even among relatively careful and lenient judges” p.56
Legal Horrors:
Stripping and shaving suspects.
Searching for the devil’s mark or witch’s tit.
Genital torture, repeated “pricking”, etc.
Reformation Era:
Tensions arising from the first era of real religious conflict within Europe caused a
proportional increase in paranoia and hatred.
That hatred was eventually given an object, a real shape, in the form of female heretics.
Evangelization or Else: p.60
Missionary work brought the new spiritual reforms to all levels of European society, from the
ruling elites to the common peasants.
The new ideology of the religious elite came to be a potent political and social force.
Social Historical View:
Reformation era responsible for an upsurge in spirituality, attempt to “Christianize” daily lives
of people across Europe.
There were persecuted minorities resorting to secret religious services, and this added fuel to
the fires.
Belief in the Devil:
A Psychological Necessity for many people
Both major movements in Christendom, Catholicism and Protestantism:
–Encouraged intensely introspective habits and preoccupation with sin
–Heightened feelings of inadequacy and moral responsibility
Klaits on Scapegoating (p.61)
“Thus there was created powerful psychological pressure to project the resulting guilt feelings
onto an external personage, the devil, if not onto the devil’s human servant, a witch…
Meanwhile, the Reformation era’s profound political and social upheavals seemed clear proof
of Satan’s increased activity. Rival groups regularly cast their enemies as representatives of the
devil, just as they viewed themselves as fighters on the side of God.”
Folklorized Christianity:
Brittany, peasants believed that buckwheat (a dietary staple) was created by Satan, not God.
In good spirit, they offered thanksgiving to both God and the Devil for food.
Missionaries were understandably disturbed to discover this kind of ‘manichean’ view under
their noses.
Folklorized Christianity:
The Benandanti (people who go out to do good)
Group of Italian peasants from the Friuli region northeast of Venice
Select individuals whose job it was to protect crops against the depredations of witches.
Folklorized Christianity:
In eyes of community, these individuals had magical powers because they were born with part
of amniotic sac around their heads.
They carried a part of this with them throughout their lives as an amulet to ward off the Devil’s
servants.
Entered a trance-like state and went out in spirit on first night of each season of the year to do
battle against demonic witches.
They Changed Their Ways:
New spiritual order held that even ‘beneficent magic’ was heretical.
Under the influence of the Roman Inquisition:
–Abandoned opinion that they were doing good
–By 1630s some came to admit that they had attended sabbats.
–By 1650s they regularly confessed to full-scale participation in devil worship.
The New Misogyny:
Belief that women were second class humans, or worse.
Popular medieval view that only through virginity and motherhood could women hope to
redeem themselves.
Based on the cult of Mary.
Not All Europeans Were the Same:
Life in the Basque region very different from other parts of Europe.
Men in villages along shore were absent for months at a time in fishing fleets.
Women left to administer homes, towns, and to participate in religious ceremonies
See Page 52-53
de Lancre’s account of the sabbat.
Written in 1612.
Was a counselor in the Parlement de Bordeaux, and a prosecutor under Henry IV’s commission
in S.W. France.
In 1609 alone he sent 80 women to the stake.
Analysis of de Lancre:
Passage taken from his 200 page account
Sexual elements are prominent (broomstick ride, excited whipping, devilishly huge genital
organs, baby-eating, frenzied orgy)
“The Sabbat” doesn’t appear in the Malleus, (1486) and only has very infrequent mention
elsewhere before 1500.
Elite Ideas Imposed on Commoners:
Pierre de Lancre:
“His informants about the witches’ sabbats were about 500 boys and girls ranging in age from
10-19, who had been recruited to attend the sabbats and bring back detailed reports. Plainly, de
Lancre and his assistants were eliciting these accounts from suggestible children and
adolescents.” (p84)
Imagery:
See p.60
Symbolism of sabbat included:
–Making an obscenity of the Holy Kiss
–Turning consecrated bread into devil’s food
–Diabolical stigmata of Devil’s Mark
–Orthodoxy charged heretical enemies with these crimes, whether they were Catholic, Protestant,
or Witches.
END.