Would you have been burned as a witch?

[Nonplusultra]

I’ve gone down a bit of a rabbit hole reading about the history of witch hunting and I never appreciated the sheer scale of it and how it has affected women for centuries since. It never made sense to me how much women have participated in their own oppression through the centuries, and even today. Why there are such different gender standards around beauty, appearance and aging.

All sorts of women were arrested, brutalised and sadistically tortured for weeks or months (not even necessarily for information because whether they confessed or not , or recanted made little difference) and publicly executed, sometimes horrifically.

The spurious grounds for arrest and interrogation included

being old, or menopausal, or just looking old (statistically most of the women murdered were over 40)

being ugly, unattractive, having bad teeth, scars or bruises on your face, a limp or bad posture, or using artificial means to look more attractive (false eyelashes anyone?)

Being poor, a drain on communal resources (on benefits?),

practising medicine (cater, midwife, nurse, doctor?),

having no relatives, or relatives who don’t like you (anyone estranged from family or not get on with the in-laws?), or related to anyone who might meet the criteria of witch

struggling with your mental health, or related to , or associated with someone with mental health issues

working for anyone suspected of witchcraft, or working for someone who is suspicious of witchcraft - not good to be too good at your job or not good enough. Also being made redundant was a dangerous time.

insolent, mouthy, argumentative, or just too talkative

involved in social unrest (ever been on a march or signed a petition?), expressed anti authority views (commented online?)

causing a man to be impotent (dh ever struggle to keep an errection?) or to lose control of his sexual urges (ever been a victim of SA or rape?)

sexually promiscuous (eg not a nun), knowing anything about contraception, or anything about abortion

likes dancing or drinks alcohol

Dressing in men’s clothing (own a pair of jeans?)

Illwished or cursed anyone (Fottfsof), or made occult signs (flipped the finger?)

And, if you’re a man reading this, knowing or being related to anyone fitting the above criteria could get you dragged in too.

So, would you be likely to be found guilty of witchcraft?

YABU - My conduct is beyond reproach in every way
YANBU - I might have ended up tied to a stake

"practising medicine (cater, midwife, nurse, doctor?)"

Cater? What's that?

Yes I would've. Bastards.

I have facial scars, like to drink and dance (went to a gig last night), have opinions and am not afraid to spout them and different colour eyes. Oh and I did give birth to a blue-eyed, left-handed redhead. I don't think my chances of escaping the Witchfinder General would have been very strong tbh.

Yes. By the time middle aged women are elderly, they will had decades of people dismissing them as Karens and feeling disdain towards them. It will be quite ingrained.

I am very very left handed so would struggle with any “handed” item or task -for many it isn’t just the writing

🤣🤣

Yes the witch hunters were the evil ones. Lots of universities are revisiting the history of witches. Tbh it makes me want to scream and cry that these poor women were tortured, taking all their herbal knowledge with them so medicine went backwards during this culling of women who were living quite happily alone until then. Sick sick sick 😩

I'd definitely be in trouble!

I'm a practising Christian but I do dabble in witchcraft despite it being 'forbidden' by the church - my grandmother is a devout Catholic to the extent that she tells my mother she should've stayed in her abusive marriage because the church teaches marriage is for life. I explore other belief systems because fuck letting the church decide what I can and can't do, I'll think for myself thank you very much.

Natural redhead with freckles. I also talk to cats and love bats. I'm into tarot and crystals. I run a small business training professionals in a specific niche industry to use mindfulness and CBT skills in the workplace

Definitely getting burnt

You are me!
Plus I like cats and have opinions which I voice.
No hope for me in 1503!

Yes and not for the generalised reasons most people state. I have epilepsy. Temporaral lobe epilepsy which is STILL depicted in tv shows and films as “possession”. Children are still “exorcised” for seizures. So times haven’t moved on for some of us.

a lot of sufferers ended up in bedlam too.

Urgh! Didn't know that about Simone. Was she co-erced and controlled? 😤

Absolutely

Some judges did stand up to this in the later 1600s and refused to condemn women, dismissing the cases.

DP is the same. I think we'd be carted off together.

@AuntyPanda not true. Witches were burned in Scotland . They often hung them first until they were dead or close to death but not always. The execution of Janet Horne is particularly horrific.

I'm grumpy, old, talk too much, and Mr Tiddles (not his real name) is black. I'm a done for.

@AuntyPanda https://books.google.com/books?id=EK3tCwAAQBAJ

Absolutely. 100%. I meet all the criteria.

To be honest, I don' think I'm safe now ...... 😯

I hear so many people say oh yes I’d defo be burned because I, I dunno, looked at a black candle once…. And I think ok baby but if you were stood next to anyone having a seizure you’d probably be ok 👌🏻

Yes even in 2023. They still burn the “possessed” but with disdain and ostracism.

No question whatsoever.

@WorkSmarter Simone ? Naw sadly, I think she was just another dodgy nonce/nonce apologist/brothel madam with a great education. Happy for poor /vulnerable children and women to be abused as it suits her. Horrible. It really upset me when I found out.

I don't think I would have lasted much beyond 25.

Long grey wavy hair which used to be red, left handed in some things, gobby, old, not pretty, like drinking, dancing and sex, politically active, do herbs and tarot and stuff… oh, and I am a witch.
I'm toast.

Seriously though, the OP has a point about the current misogynistic wave, Karens, surplus women in poverty, etc.

All the women in my family are left handed, not much hope for us, a whole family of witches!

It's because it was mainly women who were mostly hanged in the British Isles but often burned on mainland Europe, that the horrific human rights abuses the Burning Times represent, is not really taken seriously in our culture.

There's a determined effort to ignore the scale and impact of this period of European history.

It must have been absolutely terrifying knowing that some of your neighbours didn't like you and the witchfinders had turned up in the next village. Pretty sure I'd have been in danger, I'm single and in my fifties, that was enough.

I agree with those who say this part of our history, which had a huge impact on our culture and the way women behaved and are seen, should be taught properly in schools