The Glorious Witch Trials and Punishments

Note to the reader(s): The following essay presents, aside from the objective information,
my views on the chosen topic, through many incursions in the text. It might be found
inappropriate by some, maybe even offensive, but we were encouraged to express what
we think as much as possible and I took great advantage of that and wrote things as they
came to my mind, without censoring the part of my personality that intrudes in the middle
of the matter just to add some unimportant remark or a sarcastic question meant to bring
up smiles. Even if it may seem so, I did not take this assignment as a joke and I actually
put in a big amount of time and effort to write it. I chose to write it in such an alternative
style as I felt that, out of all the choices, this style allowed me to express my self most
clearly and freely.
Choosing a subject for this essay was not easy, as I had many ideas (such as the Donner
Party, The Black Death, piracy, the activity and continuity of the IRA, the Cucuteni
culture, organized crime in twentieth century Birmingham and so on), but I ended up
choosing to write about witch-hunting and witchcraft trials, as I have a certain affinity for
torture methods and brutal executions.
Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, Europeans, as well as their colonies
from North America have gone through a social crisis known as the Great Witch Craze.
The name itself gives us a hint about what went on during those times. If I were to give it
the shortest definition possible, I would have put it like this: people living in the Christian
world were scared that some (more or less) innocent women were apprentices of the
Devil and that they represented a great threat towards the Church and all of Gods great
creation (to give you a hint of how scared people were about witches and their doing, I
will present a quote from an Italian priest describing a Witchs Sabbath as he imagined it:
the attendants go riding flying goats, trample the cross, are made to be re-baptized in the
name of the Devil, give their clothes to him, kiss the Devils behind, and dance back to
back forming a round.). People were genuinely terrified of the Sabbath and the things
that would take place during one. There were accounts saying that during such an event,
the preferred ceremonial meal of the witches was human flesh, especially children, along
with bones stewed in some way. It was also said that the Sabbath began at midnight,
ended by dawn and was followed by a procession, a banquet and a Black Mass, all ending
in an orgy filled with sexual intercourse with demons taking the form of males or
females.
Given the stories above, it is not surprising that all those accused of witchcraft and
sorcery were put to trial and, those who were found guilty were punished, the punishment
for their deeds varying from one region to another. (Well, only the brutality of it was the
thing that varied, as all found guilty were to be executed in various and quite inventive
ways.)
A large number of heretical groups were heavily persecuted The Catholic Church (big
surprise, right?) during the end of the Middle Eve, these actions being the trigger for the
great hysteria which followed in the Modern Era. Rationalism did have an important role

in the decline of these barbaric treatments, but, prior to it, the witch hunters and the
Church had a blast burning witches like marshmallows at a bonfire party.
In about three centuries, around 40,000 people have lost their lives in the persecutions
and trials (but thats alright, they sold their souls to the Fallen One long before they died,
at least thats what the Church said to warm us up about the mass killings yes, I did
intend that pun-)
Lets talk about the victims for a second. Most of the accused ones were women from
lower class (which is not a big surprise, nobody cared if 20 peasant widows were killed).
But that was not necessarily a rule; men were accused too, in great numbers in some
remote regions. Children didnt escape the all-seeing eye of the Church either. For
example, in Sweden, after a number of children claimed that their parents had taken them
to a witch Sabbath, both the children and the parents underwent trial and, as a result,
fifteen boys over the age of 16 were executed and forty younger children were whipped.
(Only God can know what those poor kids did to deserve such a treatment)
Now lets get to the good part: the interrogation and torture.
The ways used to make supposed witches confess were, lets say, a bit over the top.
Although it was practiced before 1468 as well, torturing witches was not such a
widespread method, but that year, the Pope declared witchcraft to be crimen exceptum
and with it, he basically allowed all the ways of torture one can come up with to be used
towards these unholy apprentices of the darkness if evidence was hard to come across in
the cases. (and I am pretty sure people back then would have chosen finger
smashing*sorry for the spoiler* over searching for the most evident clue at any hour of
the day or night but I do not necessarily blame them, I am lazy as well and would easily
choose the easy way myself-)
So, what other things were done except turning fingers into jelly worms? Well, in Italy,
the accused was often deprived of sleep for long periods of time. Also, people seemed to
have a certain affinity for sexual humiliation torture back in the day (Im not judging, we
all have our special side that we hide from society, but maybe, just maybe these were a
bit wrong), such as a forced sitting on glowing red iron stools, to ensure if the accused
woman had performed sexual acts with the Devil himself (apparently the ones who went
through this and did not confess were let go afterward, but if I was in their place, I would
have confessed and accepted death at the hearing of the word glowing). The accused
would sometimes go through a method of interrogation called Strappado. The person had
his or her hands tied up behind the back, then a rope was attached to that and the accused
one was pulled up to the ceiling and then released quickly towards the ground, this action
being repeated until the victims shoulders were dislocated.
Humans have proved themselves lovers of physics long ago, and that, along with
imagination came in quite handy when they started designing and using torture devices.
Witches underwent a lot of horrible methods of torture, but few were as gruesome as the
Judas cradle, a tall stool with a wooden pyramid on top. The victim was stripped naked,
bound and suspended above the device. As you may have guessed, the accused was then
lowered very slowly (because, lets admit, its way more funny this way), as the pyramid
entered the vagina or anus. But its not ending here, the victim (eh, follower of Satan)
was often bumped, rocked, dropped and so on. Oh, and we should not forget the small
twist to this device: it was almost never cleaned, so death due to infection was just a

matter of time (and they had all the time in the world, the torture lasted up to several
days).
Another device was the common metal chair, covered in spikes, on which the victim sat
until he or she died because of the bleeding (either before confessing or after it).
The chocking pear (beautifully named The Pear of Anguish) is another device that
caught my attention. It was a pear shaped instrument, made up of three metal leaves. It
was shoved down an accused witchs vagina and then the leaves slowly spread from the
center, as the one in charge of the torture would turn the screw at the top.
I cannot end the list of devices and methods without mentioning the dunking device,
which I first learned about when I was around four or five years old (I remember seeing it
on an episode of Scooby Doo). The accused was tied to a chair or platform and then lifted
with a crane type device above a pond of water, then slowly submerged. If the victim was
about to faint, the chair was lifted out of the water, to give the accused an occasion to
confess. If the confession was not obtain, the supposed witch was dunked again, the
process being repeated until a confession was obtain, which was almost always followed
with an execution.
Another way of deciding if the accused one was a follower of the Devil was tying the
trialed ones hands together, as well as the legs and then throwing the victim into rivers or
lakes. If the victim sunk, the charges were lifted and he or she was declared innocent,
while if the victim floated, it was considered to be clear proof of witchcraft, followed up
by an execution.
The methods of execution for those who, after torture were found guilty and were not
fortunate enough to die during the trial itself were not that special, they were used not
only for witches, but for other types of severe law breakers as well. The ways used to end
the lives of those mentioned above were usually hanging (also used for pirates, beggars,
thieves, counterfeiters and enemies of the state), beheading (used for a vast majority of
villains) and, the most famous one, burning at the stake (also used for homosexuals in
some places of the world at the time).
Fear, propaganda, lack of superior education, paranoia (and how could I forget the Pope,
head of the loving Catholic Church) were the causes of the great number of trials and
executions of so called witches in the late Middle Eve and the Modern Era. Indeed, the
victims might have had their part of guilt too (I mean, I want to think any person with at
least half a brain, even in that period, would have thought before sneaking into the woods
at night, even for the most innocent reasons, or the most important and secret ones, that
maybe- the local community would have its doubts about the spiritual integrity and
dedication towards Christ of the person in question-but again, who am I to know?)
To conclude this writing, I would say that we have always been imaginative and
preferred to listen to rumors than investigate and seek answers (habit which,
unfortunately, still plagues our society) and we choose to be frightened by what we not
know or understand, and we seem to foolishly reject the lessons that the past tries to teach
us. I presume that another witch crisis will not take place too soon, propaganda and fear
have been used to control the masses quite efficiently during the past one hundred year,
thing which will most probably go on for ever, as we have a deep and long lasting

relations with what scares us and tend to jump from one extreme to another instead of
confronting that and dealing with our fears once and for all.1

Clinescu Teodor-Bogdan
Secia Istorie, anul I

If my essay does not meet the requirements or is found to be inappropriate I will gladly
make another one for the next class, based on one of the topics listed in the first
paragraph of the first page.
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