The hunter is to be above the rules of good and evil. - Classic line from The Last Witch Hunter
In most Western literary works, "witches" or "witches" have become indispensable horror elements, adding a lot of fun to the originally boring historical works.
For example, the crossover film "The Last Witch Hunter", starring Van Diesel, tells the story of a "witch hunter" from the medieval period who took the profession of fighting against wizards, and after gaining the ability to live forever, he still held on to his fate and vowed to die to fight the evil witch.
The witch hunters in the film make it their mission to save the world and maintain order, emphasizing the confrontation between good and evil and the quality of loyalty to promise.
But in the Middle Ages and even in modern Europe, witch hunters were not as well known as they were in the movies—they were actually a mysterious assassination profession, a fan and mastermind of riots, and a fan of religious and political power.
If I had to compare it to him in a certain profession today, I think "private mercenaries" would be the most appropriate. Although their size and strength are far less powerful than those of mercenaries, they do no less "dirty" and "tiring work" than they do.
Below we will explore a real "hunter" ecology through different dimensions according to the 3 main stages experienced by the "witch hunter".
<h1>The first stage is the embryonic stage</h1>
The earliest recorded period of witches in Europe dates back to ancient Greece, when Theoris of Lemnos, from Theemos, became a witch accused by the authorities.
Although authorities did not ascertain the details of her crime, she and her family, a swaddled baby, were brutally executed. Later, this event was recorded in detail in the historical texts of ancient Greece, becoming the earliest and most complete case of witch trial in European civilization.
In ancient Rome, the 12 bronze tables also specified the death penalty for those who used witchcraft. They are mainly aimed at those who try to destroy crops and vineyards, or deliberately spread disease among sheep and cattle.
However, during the Imperial period, Rome deepened its hatred of witches, believing that if they wanted to get rid of witches' magic, they had to tie them to pillars and burn them alive.
At the time, almost all calendars had zero tolerance for witchcraft. Moreover, some emperors like Claudius, Vitellius, and Vespasian deliberately tightened their restraints in this regard, and countless people were executed every year for "witchcraft".
So, it is no exaggeration to say that in the early history of Europe, laws and emperors were the harshest "witch hunters".
<h1>The second stage is the cocoon breaking period</h1>
This phase refers primarily to the early Christian middle ages.
Alamannorum
According to Alamannorum, a code of law from the early 7th century AD, the Germanic tribes compared witchcraft to poisoning and "enjoyed" the same punishment.
The Code also states that if a free man accuses a free woman of witchcraft or poisoning, the defendant will be required to swear an oath in front of twelve judges to prove her innocence, or one of her relatives will attend the court of battle and justify her with her life.
However, even if the relative ended up winning the fighting trial, the plaintiff would only need to pay a small fine to avoid the punishment of "false accusations".
Battle Trial
Combat trials (also known as judicial duels) are a solution to Germanic law for settling allegations without witnesses or confessions. In this case, the two parties to the dispute will break their differences by means of a contest (both sides can also appoint candidates); the winner will eventually win the court case. It was very popular in the European Middle Ages and eventually faded away in the 16th century.
Therefore, it is not difficult to see from the Alamannorum code of the early Middle Ages that the judicial process for sentencing witches is not complicated and the cost is extremely low, which provides sufficient legal protection for the future "sweeping of witches" with great fanfare.
Later, as the process of Christianization intensified, the belief in witchcraft began to be seen as a superstitious heretic.
The Leper Council of the time drafted a "superstitious list" in 744 AD, explicitly prohibiting the sacrificial activities of saints and requiring people not to use the norse mythology of "Thor" or "Odin" to name it.
When Louis Pious ascended the throne in 814, he also began to take very extreme measures against witches and necromancers.
Because of his influence and authority, the punishment of witchcraft has since become more severe, and there is evidence that both the church and the civil authorities seem to have relaxed the judicial process of trying witches, which means that people can use lynchings against those who consider themselves "witches", and the results are quite frightening.
However, this manifestation of inaction also gave birth to what we call the real "witch hunter". However, the early "witch hunters" were still jealous of royal law and did not do anything too out of the ordinary.
Because as early as 789 AD, Charlemagne had spoken out about witches:
Only a pagan would burn a man he considered a night witch, if he did... He will also be executed.
charlemagne
Similarly, Article 643 of the Lombard Code provides that:
Do not allow anyone to execute foreign maids or slave girls who are considered "witches" without authorization, for this is impossible and should not be believed by Christians.
This provision is fully consistent with St. Augustine's theory that "witches do not exist."
Therefore, in the early Middle Ages, whether it was the political center headed by the king or the power center headed by religion, the view of witches was relatively "ambiguous" and relatively mild. But the "witch hunters" whose mission is to hunt heretics already have the environment and capital to expand, and they are looking for opportunities in the dark corners.
<h1>The third stage is the growth period</h1>
The middle to late Middle Ages can be said to be a stage of rapid growth of "witch hunters" - on the one hand, Europe fully implemented religious rule, "witches" became synonymous with religious persecution, and "witch hunters" became religious "East Factory Guards".
On the other hand, this period also saw the emergence of magicians led by "astrologers" and "alchemists", who usually served as important advisers to the emperor, so the game between "royal power" and "religion" also led to the execution of a large number of innocent "magicians".
The three witches in "Macbeth"
At first, the religious attitude towards magic was not bad, and even had a certain symbiotic relationship.
Around the 11th-13th centuries AD, the church focused on the persecution of pagans in order to maintain doctrinal unity, but the authorities relaxed restrictions on the practitioners of folk magic.
And, contrary to common sense, the folk "magicians" we refer to here are very diverse, and they may include monks, priests, surgeons, midwives, folk healers, or fortune tellers.
Some of these so-called "magic" were not evil, and some were even more than the process of healing the medicine of the healers— at that time, every monastery was expected to be able to provide medical assistance, and some of them had some monks who would use "magic potions" to treat diseases.
The root cause is that the medieval people were quite convinced of magic, and they believed that medical practice was a form of "natural magic" - one of the doctor's manuals called "leechbook" introduced medical methods led by "herbal magic".
For example, the book describes a process of treating skin diseases: first one prepares the herbs one needs, then draws a little blood from the patient's neck, pours it into running water, spits three times of saliva on it, and then recites a special mantra, which is completely completed.
Of course, in addition to healing people, "magic" is also widely used in other fields.
In the twelfth century, for example, parish priests were obliged to perform "lighting ceremonies" for barren land—people would dig up the soil on the cultivated land, spray it with holy water, oil, milk, honey, herbs, and finally recite the scriptures for a good harvest the following year.
These "magics" were considered a normal "Christian" act at the time, as the "mantras" spoken by priests were taken from the Bible, especially from the scriptures in The Book of Genesis.
Therefore, under the patronage of Christianity, these magical acts are very common and have certain social value. However, as the "magicians" developed with great fanfare, the church gradually realized the terrible power of this class and began to subconsciously suppress their living space.
Finally, the opportunity for the "witch hunter" arrived.
In the 13th century, the newly formed Inquisition was tasked with witchcraft in the south of France, and for the first time they conflated magic with witchcraft.
In 1390, the Inquisition again accepted a folk "white magic" incident, in which two women convicted by the inquisitor, who were eventually brutally executed by the "witch hunters".
In 1425 AD, in a notorious case of "court witches", Hermann II and Count Thayer accused his daughter-in-law Veronica of Dicines for using witchcraft— and although she was acquitted by the court, the count drowned the poor beauty.
In this case, the accusation of witchcraft became a political weapon for aristocrats like Herman II—because Veronica was born into a lower aristocratic class, the Count thought that the beauty and his son were "not a good match", so he killed her under the guise of a witch.
Of course, in addition to the above-mentioned persecution of witches at the political level, religious authorities have also endorsed the actions of "witch hunters".
Saint Bernardine (1380–1444)
The most famous Franciscan missionary, St. Bernardine (1380–1444), denounced the evil of witches.
St. Bernardine's sermons focused on gambling, witchcraft, infanticide, and usury. Among them, he considered the infanticide of pagans or witches to be the most intolerable, and made a famous speech in 1427:
"One of the witches told me without any pressure and admitted that she had killed 30 children by shedding blood... Later, she confessed more, she described how she killed her children with her own hands...
Answer me, my dear saints: How can a man who, in this way, who has killed twenty or thirty children, make me intercede before the monarch?
Thus, after a sermon by St. Bernard, the devout saints became more convinced of the evil of the witch and began a large-scale hunt.
Subsequently, a professional "witch hunting guide" appeared - the most cattle and legendary "witch hunting manual" of the Middle Ages, "Malleus Maleficarum" ("Witch's Hammer").
Malleus Maleficarum
The Witch's Hammer was written by Jacob Sprenger, a Catholic monk and inquisitor, in 1486, and the first edition was published in Germany in 1487.
For the first time, it brought together the most popular witchcraft and witch knowledge in Europe since the Dark Ages, and even provided detailed methods such as how to identify witches and how to prosecute them.
As soon as the book was published, it sparked a rush to buy it, especially for "witch hunters" to provide professional and detailed hunting guidelines.
《Malleus Maleficarum》
There is no doubt that the appearance of "The Witch's Hammer" exacerbated the prejudice and persecution of witches in European society at that time. Thus, witch hunts reached their peak at the end of the Middle Ages, and with the development of Christian doctrine, "Satanism" and witchcraft were all considered heretics.
Later, at the beginning of the Renaissance, witch hunts still did not decay. It was mainly due to the prevalence of mysticism that led to a general aversion to witchcraft among the educated classes of Europe.
Moreover, the belief in witchcraft gradually became a representative of Satan theology in the folk and was considered to be an extremely evil idea. So, until the second half of the 15th century, witches were tried in secular and ecclesiastical courts.
<h1>The fourth stage is the peak period</h1>
I guess most people would think that by the Renaissance, science and technology had made significant progress, and religious forces were not as powerful as before, so the "witch hunt" should have relented.
But, I'll tell you: the opposite is true.
The witch hunt craze reached its historic peak between 1560 and 1660. After 1580, the Jesuits replaced the Dominicans as the main Catholic witch hunters.
The Catholic Rudolf II (1576-1612) also presided over a long persecution of witches in Austria. Some religious people have even pointed the finger at their own people.
In 1630, for example, a group of nuns plotted to accuse Father Urban Grandi of being a wizard by pretending to be a symptom of torture: they pretended to convulse, rolled on the ground, talked gibberish, and accused Grandi of indecency.
In the end, Grandi was convicted and burned alive; however, after the conspiracy succeeded, the nuns' condition did not improve, and they still faced the risk of being accused by their companions, which proved how crazy the witch trial was at that time.
<h1>The fifth stage is the recession period</h1>
Eventually, in 1687, Louis XIV issued a famous decree against witchcraft, but it was rather mild compared to before: it ignored the black cat and other sensational elements about witches.
After 1700, although there were still incidents of witchcraft, the number of witches accused and condemned had clearly declined.
Modern scholars estimate that during europe's roughly 300-year witch hunt, the total number of people executed for witchcraft was between about 40,000 and 50,000.
But some estimate that about 200,000 to 500,000 people have been executed for witchcraft, and some even think that this number may be 1 million or more.
Most of the accused were from the lower classes of European society, and "the typical witches were agricultural workers, wives or widows of small sharecroppers, who were known for their quarrelsome and aggressive nature." ”
But while the majority of victims in Germany were women, political persecution elsewhere in Europe was directly directed against men: so 92 percent of "witch" defendants in Iceland were men, about 60 percent in Estonia, and two-thirds in Moscow.
In the end, we can find that the "witch hunters" are actually the executioners of the religious secrets, who undertook most of the political assassinations and incitement of terrorist riots, and finally became the most terrifying and shameful profession in the Middle Ages, and they were really far less glorious and sacred than in the movies.
<h1>Wen 丨huo Yan</h1>
Literature for this article
1. Erich Goode; Nachman Ben-Yehuda (2010). Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance. Wiley. p. 195. ISBN 9781444307931.
2.Lois Martin (2010). A Brief History of Witchcraft. Running Press. p. 5. ISBN 9780762439898.
3. Jean Sybil La Fontaine, Speak of the devil: tales of satanic abuse in contemporary England, Cambridge University Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0-521-62934-8, pp. 34–37.