Today’s Women Would Have Burned
Originally posted Aug 22 2022
In May this year, the last woman accused of witchcraft in Salem was exonerated. It took 329 years to clear her name, which piqued my curiosity about witch hunts. In Europe, between the years 1500-1600, an estimated 80,000 suspected witches were executed. 80% of them were women. I imagine the number is far greater than reported, but this is what history tells us.
How would modern women fare back then? Ladies, most of us would have burned.
The frenzy for rooting out witches was fed by the publication of “Malleus Maleficarum,” or “The Hammer of Witches,” written in 1486. This book was the definitive guide to identifying, hunting, and interrogating witches. It recommended torture and deception to gain confessions, and the death penalty was the only recourse for the accused. It became the authority for both Protestants and Catholics and was used by the royal courts during the Renaissance. It single-handedly contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands of women during the 16th and 17th centuries, and at the time, it sold more copies of any book except the Bible.
The author, Heinrich Kramer, was originally expelled from his city by the local bishop for his desire to prosecute witches. He was deemed senile, crazy, and sexually obsessed. He focused solely on women, believing them to be corrupt and evil by nature. Kramer appealed to the Pope and was approved to move forward with his work. Before the publication of his book, those accused of witchcraft might have spent a day in the stocks, but Kramer’s ravings changed everything.
Europe was in an endless cycle of war. There were famines, fires, droughts, plagues, and the failing elites needed a scapegoat. Accusing others of witchcraft allowed for silencing political opponents and dissidents while explaining why everything was going to hell. Another aspect was that the Roman Catholic Church wanted to eradicate the Pagans, typically peaceful people who worshipped Nature. Those who didn’t convert to the Church were seen as a threat to complete power and control. Using medicinal plants and spells (what we now call affirmations), or following the cycles of the seasons was portrayed as the Devil’s work.
But it wasn’t just the Pagans. One would think that women who had dedicated their lives to the Church would be safe. Sadly, not true. Due to scarcity, many nuns were expelled from their convents and left destitute. These unwed, middle-aged, childless women, who were strangers to communities, were targeted as the cause of crop failure, stillborn babies, disease, and anything else that needed a fall girl. It is estimated that 25% of the witches executed were these former Sisters.
The witch hunts spread to the New World with Salem, Massachusetts, taking the lead in violence against females. Now, turns out there was rivalry between two main families in Salem, the Porters and the Putnams, the latter being the standard-bearers for the less prosperous farm families in the area. As the witch hunts gained traction, many of the accused were enemies of the Putnams. Ann Putnam’s name appeared over 400 times in court documents. She accused nineteen people and saw eleven of them hanged. What a convenient way to be done with one’s rivals.
It started with three girls. When medicine couldn’t explain their incessant screaming and seizures, witchcraft was suspected. The girls blamed a slave, a beggar, and an old woman.
An interesting theory has emerged as to why they became “possessed.”
Bread.
Rye can develop a fungus called ergot that leads to the disease ergotism, known in the Middle Ages as St. Anthony’s Fire. The fungus forms in the rye after a harsh winter and wet spring, and historians confirm this was the case in 1692. Ergotism is now classified as poisoning resulting in headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, spasms, convulsions, mania, psychosis, and gangrene.
It can also cause stillborn deaths. Seeing as how only women can give birth, these tragedies were used as ammunition against both the mother and the midwife, marking them as being in cahoots with the Devil. But why didn’t everyone get sick? The theory presents that the young girls’ immune systems were not fully developed, making them susceptible to diseases such as ergotism. Anyone with a compromised immune system could have fallen to it. It is assumed that the abrupt end of the witch trials in May 1693 happened simply because Salem ran out of the ergot-contaminated rye. Either that or they finally came to their senses. You can only kill so many women until it hurts society.
Here's an interesting fact about ergot. In large doses, it is lethal, but in small amounts, it can be a powerful hallucinogen. The father of LSD, Albert (Abbie) Hofmann, accidentally came across its psychedelic effects. Hofmann was a Swiss chemist interested in the medicinal compound ergotamine, used to treat migraines. In 1938, he created a derivative of ergot that would later be called lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD. He had his first trip when a drop of LSD accidentally fell onto his skin.
Hofmann wasn’t the first to experiment. Many “witches” sought mind-bending experiences and found a way to do it. They brewed up Belladonna (deadly nightshade), Hyoscyamus niger (black henbane), Mandragora officinarum (mandrake), and Datura stramonium (jimsonweed) into various concoctions to see what happened. Curiosity killed the cat, and consequentially, its mistress.
When ingested, these herbs produced unwanted side effects such as nausea and vomiting. The ladies found a different way to administer their drugs. They discovered they were better absorbed through the skin, and the most receptive areas were the sweat glands in the armpits and the mucus membranes of the genitals. Given that they were bound in layers of clothes that were not easy to get in and out of, the most obvious route was vaginal. The best method of administration? A broom handle. That’s right, the portrayal of witches flying on a broomstick comes from curious women getting high. Here’s an excerpt from 1324 describing the act:
“In rifleing the closet of the ladie, they found a pipe of ointment, wherewith she greased a staffe, upon which she ambled and galloped through thick and thin.”
Gracious! The scandal! I need to fan myself. From this moment forward, I won’t be able to look at a picture of a Halloween witch riding her broomstick without smiling. It’s quite humorous if you can overlook the execution part.
So, what makes a witch?
Here are some of the crimes that led to persecution.
Female
Over the age of 40
Childless
Unmarried
Talked to herself
Midwife or natural healer
High pain threshold
Floats, if thrown into the water
Wore old clothes
Wore mostly black
Financially independent, or, too poor
Had a cat
Left-handed
Sexual
Had a third nipple, mole, or birthmark
Didn’t attend church
Illiterate
Argumentative, outspoken, or made enemies
Had curdled milk in her house
Let’s run through these, shall we?
Many victims were middle-aged women who couldn’t have or didn’t want children. So, the absence of motherhood raised suspicion. Got it. Glad to know we’ve moved on from penalizing women for their reproductive status, as well as their financial, educational, and marital condition.
Cats are unpredictable, independent, and nocturnal. It was believed they harmed others on the witch’s behalf. Actually, cats were blacklisted well before the witch hunts. The Catholic Church deemed cats to be evil in 1233, probably due to the popularity of the Cult of Freya, who rode on a cat-drawn chariot. Pope Gregory IX called to kill all the cats in response to the satanic cults in Germany, and later, in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII encouraged the ritual sacrifice of cats.
When Mary ruled England, cats were burned to protest Lutheran heresy. Under Elizabeth the first, the next to rule, cats were burned to protest catholic heresy. That makes sense. Supposedly, live cats were burned at her coronation as part of the celebrations. Finally, in 1648, Louis XIV of France prohibited the sacrificial burning of cats, and they went back to being mousers. His decision might have been influenced by Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister to King Louis XIII in 1624, who was known to have fourteen cats as companions.
To be fair, it’s noted that two dogs were put to death in Salem for acting bewitched. Maybe they were upset when strange men entered the home and plundered the closet. I know my dog Stella would have something sharp to say about that. Even today, superstition mars black cats and dogs, and they are less likely to be adopted from a shelter, often leading to their deaths. Next time you search for a companion, consider one with black fur.
Now, let’s punish the women who didn’t care much for fashion. If their clothes were shabby, they were pegged as witches. More likely, they were poor and only owned one coat. Not an unreasonable assumption. But if it was a black coat or cloak, it was incriminating evidence of witchery. I wonder what Londoners, Parisians and New Yorkers make of this information. It’s interesting to note that black was the color of power, worn initially by nobility, and it was a difficult color to create during the Renaissance, so it was expensive. Perhaps women wearing black suggested power, and we all know that just wouldn’t do.
Torture was inflicted on women suspected of witchcraft, often to gain a confession. They were repeatedly pierced with needles or blades on a mole or birthmark, called a witch’s mark, believed to be immune to pain. Known as ‘pricking,’ it was done by professional witch hunters who earned a living through deception. It turns out they were using instruments that had hollow wooden handles with retractable points. It would give the appearance that the point had sunk completely into the skin without showing a mark, blood, or pain, thus sealing the fate of the poor woman.
The water thing. To test a woman for witchcraft, she was thrown into the water. If she instinctively held her breath and floated, she was a witch. If she sank and drowned, oh, well, she wasn’t one, but too late to get her back. Sorry!
Who among us hasn’t found a soft cucumber or limp celery in the bottom of the fridge? The fridge! As for curdled milk, maybe her kid accidentally left the bottle in the sun, and it went off. A woman might have been careless, distracted, or spaced out from all the Belladonna up her hoo-hah. For all we know, she could have been making cheese. But having spoiled milk in the home was used as evidence. Seems the smallest of things could have marked you as evil.
When we look at these supposed crimes, they are ridiculous in a modern light. The abuses in Salem contributed to changes in the U.S. court procedures, with the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the right to legal representation, and the right to cross-examine one’s accuser. In 1702, the General Court declared that the Salem witch trials had been unlawful, and several individuals, including a presiding judge and Ann Putnam, apologized for their involvement.
I have no doubt that my circle of friends and I would have been deemed witches. I am drawn to strong women who speak their minds. And back in the day, we would be guilty by association. It was a perfect way to turn women against each other. After all, a gathering of women could have been a coven. But even a lone woman, seen talking to her dog or cat, would have gathered suspicion.
So, you see, it didn’t matter what a woman did. She was guilty because of her sex. Women were at the whim of men in power and if you didn’t toe the line, you were put to death. Thankfully, today, there isn’t such an easy fix, and they have to work much harder to keep us down.