Medieval Witchcraft Trials (II) (6:34)

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Из курса от партнера Universitat de Barcelona

Magic in the Middle Ages

724 оценки

Universitat de Barcelona

Magic in the Middle Ages

724 оценки

Magical thought has always attracted human imagination. In this course we will introduce you to the Middle Ages through a wide conception of magic. Students will have an approach to medieval culture, beliefs and practices from the perspective of History and History of Science. Popular magic, as well as learned magic (alchemy, geomancy and necromancy) will be addressed. Moreover, we will also deal with how eastern practices and texts influenced western culture. In July 2016, the course will contain a brand-new module devoted to astrology. Magic in the Middle Ages offers a captivating overview of medieval society and promotes reflection about certain stereotypes associated with this period. At the end of the course, the students: a) will have overcome the usual prejudices about the Middle Ages, b) will be able to analyze historical documentation from the Middle Ages and recognize the most common patterns of juridical documents regarding witchcraft, and c) will be capable of distinguishing between popular magic and the magic of the learned people; will have a notion of which spiritual practices were allowed in medieval Europe and which ones were related to the devil, and will be aware of the link between a cultural product and the society that produced it. This course is taught in English, although subtitles in English, Catalan and Spanish will also be provided. COURSE SYLLABUS Week 1. Introduction to medieval magic (Pau Castell). Week 2. Magic & Heresy (Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel). Week 3. From Magic to Witchcraft (Pau Castell). Week 4. Magic in Islam (Godefroid de Callataÿ and Sébastien Moureau). Week 5. Astrology & Geomancy (Theo Loinaz, Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel, Godefroid de Callataÿ and Blanca Villuendas). © Gemma Pellissa Prades (coord.), Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel and Joana Palau Mumany Magic in the Middle Ages by Gemma Pellissa Prades (coord.), Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel and Joana Palau Mumany is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Из урока

UNIT 3: FROM MAGIC TO WITCHCRAFT

The Medieval Origin of the Crime of Witchcraft (3:46)3:52

Witchcraft and Maleficent Magic (7:18)7:22

The Mythology of Witchcraft (8:04)8:10

Medieval Witchcraft Trials (I) (5:58)6:03

Medieval Witchcraft Trials (II) (6:34)6:40

Optional video: Medieval Sources on Witchcraft (I) (6:19)6:25

Optional video: Medieval Sources on Witchcraft (II) (5:53)5:56

Weekly Video 3 (2015)4:28

Познакомьтесь с преподавателями

Godefroid de Callataÿ - University of Louvain
Professor
Oriental Institute (University of Louvain)
Dr Pau Castell Granados
Research and Teaching Scholar at University of Barcelona
Sébastien Moureau - University of Louvain
Chargé de recherches du F.R.S.-FNRS
Institut Orientaliste (CIOL)
Dr Gemma Pellissa Prades
Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of the Classics, Harvard
Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel
BSc, BA, MA
Dept. of Medieval History, Palaeography & Diplomatics, Institute for Research on Medieval Cultures, University of Barcelona
Blanca Villuendas
PhD Candidate
Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo y Oriente Próximo, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

[MUSIC]

Hi there, in this last video of the unit,

we will analyze the mechanics of medieval witchcraft trials.

As we have already seen in the previous video,

most of the procedures against witches began with accusations for

maleficent magic made by local communities in a context of death or

diseases that were attributed to evil agents who were hiding among them.

Once the court decided to initiate judicial procedures,

an inquiry was started among the neighbours,

asking them about their suspicions, about the presence of witches in the region,

about a death or illnesses that appeared in strange circumstances and so on.

During these first inquiries called inquiries of voice and reputation,

(<i>inquisitio de vox et fama</i>), a series of names were given to the court,

thus allowing the compilation of a list of suspects.

Those suspects, usually women, were arrested and

brought to the court for questioning.

During these first interrogations, most of the defendants maintained their innocence.

Nevertheless, the statements of the witnesses gathered through the inquiry

already constituted a sort of incriminating evidence which

could be reinforced by means of other sorts of judicial procedures.

The most commonly used was the test known as the examination of marks.

It consisted in undressing the accused and searching for marks in her body.

Which were considered as the marks of the devil,

indicative of her belonging to the malignant sect.

As you can see in the image,

the marks were usually found in the shoulders or the back, and sometimes they

were only visible after rubbing them with holy water or piercing them with needles.

With that kind of evidence, the prosecutor could already ask the court for

a condemnatory sentence.

But most of the times this wasn't enough to demonstrate guilt.

And so the court proceeded to what was called

an "interlocutory sentence of torment" (<i>interlocutoria tormentorum</i>).

This meant that the interrogations would resume, but

now with the aid of judicial torture or torment.

As you may imagine, this was a key moment in most of the trials,

since the torment sessions were the prelude of a large series of confessions

to the alleged evil actions perpetrated by the accused.

One of the usual torture systems consisted in hanging the accused by the thumbs

while asking her about the charges.

A similar system consisted in hanging the accused with

her hands tied behind her back,

even adding some weight on her feet in order to increase the pain,

as you can see in the image.

Let's see an example of the kind of confessions issued from these torture

sessions.

In 1471, a woman named Guillema Casala, from the Pyrenean valley of

Andorra, was accused by some of her neighbors, together with six other women,

of being responsible for the deaths and illnesses that occurred in the valley.

Despite refuting the charges brought against her, the secular court of Andorra

decided to pronounce an interlocutory sentence of torment.

After being hanged by the thumbs several times, Guillema confessed being a witch and

having been initiated by another woman named Garreta.

And then she made the following statement:

"That the aforesaid Garreta has made her go to the he-goat.

Because the aforesaid Garreta anointed her under the armpits and told her to say:

'Go up leaf!'

And by that she found herself out of the house with the aforesaid Garreta.

And so they went through the air to a mountain,

whose name she doesn't remember, and there she saw a very big man named the Devil;

and she saw around him 20 people, men and women,

and some of them danced and others ate fruit.

And then the Devil took her and told her to kiss his hand and so she did.

And then she thinks that she kissed his buttocks and paid him homage and

took him as her Lord, abjuring the Creator.

And she promised him to do evil any time she could,

and to never confess it, but to receive each year the Holy Communion instead.

And so, being interrogated, she said that after that,

the Devil had carnal intercourse with her.

Interrogated, she said that he had a very cold member."

Confessions such as this one are common in many witchcraft trials across Europe.

Rather than describing real meetings, these confessions revealed the pattern

used by the interrogators, all of them readers of the same works and

treatises about what a witch was supposed to be.

This pattern was reproduced during the trials with the help of judicial torture.

While maleficent magic was the prime concern of the neighbors, and

the origin of most of the accusations,

the devil made his entrance in the chamber of torments with the help

of the interrogators.

After those terrible sessions of torment,

the accused was left with little room for maneuver.

Having any refutable proof of their guilt,

(this is, their own confessions) the court was entitled to issue a death sentence.

The public executions, by hanging, followed by the burning of the corpse,

did nothing but to reinforce the image of witches as a public threat,

thus opening the door to the terrible persecutions that lasted for

centuries and inflamed the European continent and beyond.

[MUSIC]

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