Talk:Witch trial (disambiguation)

Old talk

I'm not convinced this should be merged with witch-hunt. I think this should be renamed Great European Witch-hunts or something similar, and then relevant material from witch-hunt merged in along with all of Burning Times. But witch-hunt should be left as a more general term, rather than referring to a particular period in history as this does. —Ashley Y 06:20, 2004 Jul 13 (UTC)

This paragraph should be fact-checked:

It should be noted that according to Roman Law, now Civil Law (based on the rights of people), all persons are considered innocent until the contrary is proved, but according to Canon Law (based on the "sinful" nature of people) all persons are considered guilty until their innocence is proved.

Not sure about either half of the claim, and not very NPOV to me.—Henry Troup 13:25, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Accuracy Dispute

This article needs to be significantly rewritten to reflect several points:

• that witch trials persecuted innocent men and women and not actual witches
• that civil authorities participated in addition to various agencies of the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches
• that the Salem Witch Trials were not the only accusations of witchcraft in colonal America
• that accusers and prosecutors operated on hysterial, moral panic, fear, and local politics in addition to religious notions
• that a tight separation needs to be made between witch hunts and witch trials during early modern Europe and the widespread conversion of European peoples to Christianity a thousand years earlier
• in addition, actual practices should be separated from "suggested" practices such as those in the Malleus Maleficarum
• finally, this page needs to be about a specific type of legal trial, not popular ideas of the past, not misogyny, and not witchcraft as it is practiced today. -Acjelen 15:01, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The assertion that "~90% of witchtrials ended in conviction (and execution)" does not correlate with the section "Number of executions" and is likely a large overestimation.

We seem to be labouring under a misunderstanding: "that witch trials persecuted innocent men and women and not actual witches"

In fact a minority, but still a significant number of the victims of the witch-trials had practices (or believed they had practices) that might well fit in the category of witchcraft, depending on your definition. Ronald Hutton has popularised the incorrect view that not a single person persecuted was a practitioner of a pagan religion. This he based largely on Norman Cohn's theories, supported with misrepresentations of the work of Monter, Midelfort and others; in fact leading academics including Monter, Gustav Henningsen, Carlo Ginzburg, Eva Pocs, etc etc have established beyond doubt that pre-Christian belief systems played a part firstly in the beliefs of some of the accused, and from there, in the formulation of the Sabbath stereotype.

These beliefs, which are remarkably consistent over wide geographical and chronological distances, involve the person leaving their body in spirit, interacting with the dead, fighting battles to secure fertility for their village, healing or placing maleficium on others, or feasting under the auspices of a lady or goddess.

Although these people had different names for themselves, and didn't often call themselves "witches", their claimed actions are quite close to popular conceptions of "witchcraft", and they are included in many studies of the subject. Of course most victims were "innocent"; however some were (or believed themselves to be) practitioners of what the man on the street would call "witchcraft". Fuzzypeg☻ 05:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Comments

The following was (possibly misplaced) in the Accuracy Dispute (and not a separate post). It was moved here to aid viewing.

To the poster above me, I found what you wrote kind of disgusting. You feel the need to clarify that they were not witches. It seems you are implying that if they were the killings would be ok. You then say they were innocent and not withces as if innocence and lack of witchcraft were mutualy exclusive. Saying the weren't witches is like asking Mrs. Lincoln about the show. Saying they weren't even witches is an attempt to justify with hunts. Please don't do that.

• A clarification would remove any doubt. Claims made by witchcraft practitioners notwithstanding, there is no scientific evidence witches (those in possession of magical or supernatural powers) now, or ever have, existed. Not everyone (children) knows this.

• The perceived implication, if they were (witches) the killings would be ok, is incorrect as this is not implied (a fallacy).

The remaining concerns appear to be fallacies of one form or another, or sufficiently disconnected as to make no sense whatsoever.

Merger discussion

Moved from Wikipedia:Duplicate articles.

• Witch trial into witch-hunt. -Sean Curtin 05:31, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • hmm... Witch-hunt is used as a verb and still goes on. there needs to be some type of differentiation. maybe witch-hunt separate from the other 2 Williamb 06:39, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • "Witch hunt" is the more common term. For example, Burning Times refers exclusively to "witch hunts", not once to "witch trials". Google hits for "witch trial": 11K; for "witch hunt", 271K; for "witchcraft trial", 2K; for "Burning Times", 26K. Uses of the term "witch-hunt" in reference to modern-day activities should be discussed in the article, not moved to a separate article. -Sean Curtin 00:07, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone'. Someone already has merged Burning Times into witch-hunt. Witch trial is such a big page that merging it into witch-hunt would make witch-hunt too long. I have put into each page a pointer to the other. Anthony Appleyard 14:16, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Although I could see making witch-hunt into an article about the social phenomenon and witch trial into an article about the trial itself, doing so would be a pretty arbitrary split. Both articles are still pretty redundant with one another. -Sean Curtin 04:02, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
  • Frankly, both articles need to be reworked so that they have clear-cut and delineated subjects. A couple of sections from Witch trial needs to be moved into witch-hunt and vice versa. Our goal should be to ensure that editors add their contributions to the appropriate articles. -Acjelen 14:35, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• This article seems to be OK now; removing disputed merge tag. -- Beland 04:25, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality Questions

There are several points in this article that still need to be addressed.

• Overall the article suffers from the fact that the term 'witch' is not clearly defined. The term is used in several distinct ways chiefly by anthropologists and wiccans. The distinction between the different uses is not made clear.
• The section on Hypatia suggests she was seen as a witch, but the historical source cited does not accuse her of this, only of having special magical knowledge. The view that the trial of Hypatia was a witch trial is a modern reflection on the events and was not characterized as such at the time.
• The following paragraph should be fact-checked. "In the decade of the 390s, when all the oracles were silenced, including the sacred oak at Dodona, many priestesses of the oracles were slain, as chroniclers report with satisfaction. Once the old religions had been securely repressed, however, witchcraft concerns ebbed in the Christian imagination." The historical source for these events should be cited. The characterization of this conflict at "witchcraft concerns" is inappropriate unless such language was used at the time.
• The section on the female nature of witchcraft seems to imply that women were especially targeted. Modern historinas (eg Witches and Neighbors by Robin Briggs) suggest that about 60% of persons convicted were women and %40 men. There should be some clarification.
• The role of the malleus maleficarium needs to be clarified. This was written by two Dominicans but was not an official document of the Catholic Church. It was a popular publication and was widely consulted at trials but has no special relationship with the Inquisition as is suggested.
• The section on attitudes of the tribunals towards women should probably be removed from this article and made into a seperate article on Patriarchy. While it accurately reports the opinions of historical Christian leaders it makes no references to the attitudes of the tribunals themselves.

"Witch"

How can it be that Wikipedia has articles on "witch hunt" and "witch trial", but not "witch"?

• There is a disambiguation page for "witch." It is a word that is used in such different ways by different groups (wicca, anthropologists, folklorists, etc.) that a single page to define it is probably impossible.

Pregnancy

The article states:

If the condemned was pregnant her belly was opened with a knife, the foetus extracted and trod under foot (because "it was the offspring of a demon with the woman, or consecrated to the Devil by the witch"), and then she was killed.

This statement is presented as being absolutely true, but I'm almost positive one woman condemned to die during the Salem witch trials escaped death because she was pregant. Also quotation marks are used but no hint is given to where the quote actualy comes from. Nor is the assertion sourced at all.--198.93.113.49 18:38, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, "pleading your belly" was a way many women escaped execution in the Renaissance period in both witchcraft related and other capitol cases. I believe this was the case in several New England witch trials. The statement may have been true in some cases but was certainly not true in all. There were great differences in Church and civil trials against witches, between Protestant and Catholic countries, and between different countries generally. The statement fails to make any distinctions.

POV

From the article

The attitude of the tribunals towards women was in general intolerant in a patriarchal society based on a patriarchal religion that even depicted its god as an old man (the image of a patriarch), with a divine son, and surrounded by male angels. Since early times Christianity has considered women inferior to men, partly due to the inheritance from patriarchal Judaism. Apostle Paul of Tarsus was influential in those conceptions.

This is just a POV essay against christianity slipped into the article.--198.93.113.49 18:43, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

So what? If it's true, it's true.

No, it's not, it's naïve. Belief systems don't come in packages; they're believed by people. People read their sacred texts actively, not passively. They read the politics and concerns of their own time into their belief system. That patriarchal traditions existed in Christian origins is irrelevant unless you can demonstrate why Christians at that specific time were using that specific interpretation of those traditions.

I see no bias in the statement "Since early times Christianity has considered women inferior to men, partly due to the inheritance from patriarchal Judaism". It's different than someone blatantly calling Christians sexist or something of the like.-Raven 22:56, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It is a misleading statement, as society in general - Christian or otherwise - has until relatively recently been largely patriarchal. Without going into too much detail, it can be very well argued that in the early centuries, women had considerably more rights, influence and status in Christian circles than in contemporary pagan society.

Poor article

This is one of the worst articles on Wikipedia. I pointed out to problems above, bu there are many more. In general it reads like it was written by someone with limited knowledge of the subject writing from memory and occassionally lapsing into POV asides.--198.93.113.49 18:43, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. There is POV all over it. The facts it has are suspect. (How can anyone estimate the total number of victims of witch trials? We're talking about over all of Europe for 500 years. Any estimate would be absurd to the point of absolutely not being anything but misleading.) There are no citations. There is a "further reading," but no indication of the validity and neutrality of these sources. Given the prevalence of contemporary "witches" in the form of neo-paganism, the likelihood of entirely anti-historical allegations creeping in is nearly 100%. That combines with the lack of interest non-"neo-Pagans" have in the subject to demonstrate one of the weaker points of a populist encyclopedia. I'm not in the mood for a long content dispute right now, myself, so I'm not getting in, here. Geogre 11:40, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

especially, regular trials of the Inquisition (for heresy) should not be lumped together with Early Modern witch trials during the height of the craze as if they were the same thing. I hacked together a history section to provide some sort of framework. Of course the article still needs much work. Since we have witchhunt to account for the phenomenon in general, I think this article should explicitly focus on the trials in Early Modern Europe. The Inquisition played a minor role in that, afaik, but inasmuch as it did play a role, it should of course be mentioned. Details of how the Inquisition operated do not belong here, of course. de:Hexenverfolgung seems like a fair article and may be used for reference. Note that de: does merge witchhunt and witch trial in a single article. This may be a good idea here, too. 81.63.114.127 11:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• • I concur. Not only is this article hopelessly POV, it's also factually wrong in several places. Catholics never considered Protestants to be witches, for instance. This reads more as a tirade than any academic attempt to handle the matter. -- Jbamb 13:10, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Incomplete

The article fails to explain the context which led to witch trials, nor does it mention economical and political motivations of most of the accusations.

Duplication, POV, Reference?

This article's topic is duplicated by Witch trials, which has serious POV issues and lacks references. I strongly recommend merging these articles and recommend this version of the article over Witch trials. - CNichols 22:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Inaccuracy removed

Removed the following:

Witch-trials were thus a Protestant phenomenon, with the classical Catholic nations (Italy, Spain, France) being little affected, the Spanish Inquisition concentrating on the harrying of Jews, Muslims and Illuminati. After the 1484 Summis desiderantes, Catholic parts became also affected, again mostly in German speaking areas.

Since this referred to a period between 1400 and 1500, when there was no such thing as a Protestant, it cannot be accurate. -- NakedCelt 06:35, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

-And just for the record, the Inquisition did NOT harry Jews, Muslims, or Illuminati. It only had authority over Catholics. Now, did it target Jews and Muslims who 'converted' to Catholicism but secretly worshipped their old religion. But it is not true to say that ot targeted people who publically proffessed those religions. Rob 14:31, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Image

I'm confused. The image tag one editor added seems to be a warning that the copyright on the image is unverified, so the image might be lost. Why is another editor removing the tag and saying that "that information has no place in the article"? Maestlin 16:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

When James VI of Scotland became James I of England

“Some areas, such as Britain (with the exception of some notable trials in Scotland) and Spain saw few trials”

Though witch trials were less common in England, in the early modern era, the number of witch trials did increase dramatically during the reign of James I England (James VI of Scotland). By far the most notable witch trial in English history was actualy during this early modern period. To quote Wikipedia - Pendle Witches.

“The story of the Pendle Witches is one of the best known examples of alleged witchcraft in the history of England.

On August 20, 1612, 10 men and women were hanged at Lancaster Castle for the alleged murder by witchcraft of 17 people in the Pendle Forest area of Lancashire.”

Perhaps the Pendle Witches trial should be given a mention, as a notable trial.

Remaining items of dispute

I'm trying to determine which items of dispute are still current. Looking at past comments, it seems that several of these items have been largely resolved. I'm compiling a list of outstanding major problems below; these are major problems that would call for a "disputed" or "verify" tag. Please add to or remove from this list if you believe it is incorrect, and leave comments below it. This is so we have an up-to-date todo list:

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Items to clean up

• clarify that accusers and prosecutors operated on hysterial, moral panic, fear, and local politics in addition to religious notions
• clarify that a tight separation needs to be made between witch hunts and witch trials during early modern Europe and the widespread conversion of European peoples to Christianity a thousand years earlier
• The assertion that "~90% of witchtrials ended in conviction (and execution)" does not correlate with the section "Number of executions" and is likely a large overestimation.
• Overall the article suffers from the fact that the term 'witch' is not clearly defined. The term is used in several distinct ways chiefly by anthropologists and wiccans. The distinction between the different uses is not made clear.
• The section on Hypatia suggests she was seen as a witch, but the historical source cited does not accuse her of this, only of having special magical knowledge. The view that the trial of Hypatia was a witch trial is a modern reflection on the events and was not characterized as such at the time.
• The section on gender issues seems to imply that women were especially targeted. Modern historinas (eg Witches and Neighbors by Robin Briggs) suggest that about 60% of persons convicted were women and %40 men. There should be some clarification.
• The "Gender issues" section reads suspiciously like original research. Needs verification.

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Comments:

Compiled list. Fuzzypeg☻ 06:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

No-one seems to have responded. Moving list into the (as yet empty) to-do box at top of page. Edit the list there from now on. Fuzzypeg☻ 06:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Sex with the devil because of family status?

Many also believed that women were sometimes envolved with sexual relationships with the devil due to their low status in the family.

I removed the above, not because putative witches were not accused of having relations with the Devil, but because this was not related to status within the family. Kramer and Sprenger make it quite clear that they believed that witches would have sex with the devil because of their innate sinfulness and tendency to promiscuity. I can find the exact reference upon request. Justin Eiler 01:07, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

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I added a paragraph explaining the difference between actual witchcraft and acused witchcraft. I traced the term maleficium from ancient Greek law and Roman law through medeival law and up until the witch hunts of the early modern period. There is some hidden comments as to where I got my information. This should clear up some of the problems people had. P.S. I might need to have my spelling checked. I didn't bother.--Ss stous 01:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Recent edit (actual vs. accusatory witchcraft)

Hello Ss stous (and others), although I imagine that your recent addition was made in good faith, I reverted it for a few reasons. One, it is not written in a very neutral or encyclopedic way, nor was it formatted to fit Wikipedia standards. Two, it was not properly sourced (please see WP:CITE for information on how to cite in Wikipedia articles). Three, I believe that the information you presented is valid and good to include for the most part, but I think a better way to do so would be to incorporate it into the existing text. Having a separate section (that reads like an opinion piece) does not really fit, in my opinion, with the rest of the article. Finally, it is not acceptable to sign your edits in articles; signing is reserved for talk pages. Please take some time to familiarize yourself with editing Wikipedia at WP:HELP, and then I would encourage you to incorporate your ideas (with citations!) into the body of the article. If you or others disagree with my actions, I would appreciate a dialogue on the matter. Thanks, and happy editing! romarin [talk ] 19:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)