My Sisters, Rise Against These Injustices!

While most of the readings for Monday reiterate the public’s need to watch for acts of witchcraft, I was very intrigued by Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg’s article. Besides the fact he has a pretty awesome name, I actually found myself condemning him less than Desiderius, Gianfranceso and Hadrian VI. I still think they’re all delusional, but Kaysersberg has some relevant points about witchcraft that no other has brought up before.

Instead of directly blaming the witches for their actions, Kaysersberg blames the Devil. It is the Devil himself who casts plagues upon the people. The witches are nothing more than a façade for the Devil’s work. I don’t remember any other writer who made this type of distinction. It is a rather unusual argument, as most people directly believed witches held the power to change weather, kill/hex people and do other nefarious activities.

Kaysersberg states that the witch, when she desires something to be done, gives a sign to the Devil. On page 238, Kaysersberg says, “the devil sees the sign and hears the word, he knows what they indicate; then he performs the act, and it is the devil who does this and not [the witches].” While the witches may have evil intentions, they do not possess the ability to carry out their actions. Rather, it is only the Devil who may grant their wish and do their bidding. I admit to being one of those people who automatically thought witches hold the power. Reading Kaysersberg twist on the matter makes me rethink how I’ve viewed witches.

Are they capable of doing such diabolical things or is an evil spirit, the Devil, taking advantage of their ill will to do bad? Can these women truly be called witches following his belief? Kaysersberg also gives us three reasons why women are more prone to witchcraft. He cites William of Paris for the reasons and they are similar to the reasons mentioned by the Malleus. He cites their “instability of spirit,” “understood better by demons,” and “their talkativeness” as reasons women are ‘weaker’ (K/P 238).

Personally, I find the aspect of talkativeness to be hilarious. I feel like the men put that down because they were annoyed by their wives nagging them or constantly gossiping with friends. Men did not understand women (and still don’t), therefore I think it was easier for them to categorize witches. If a woman did not fit the perfect, obedient, submissive role, she could be cast into this negative light.

With this in mind, I’ve wondered, if witches truly existed—if these men proclaimed so many to work for the Devil, wouldn’t you think there would be a mass uprising of witches against such massacre? I’ve no doubt a group of powerful witches would be able to wipe out the trials and murderers of their sisters. Do you think the religious men of the time even considered this fact when deciding if witches existed? Probably not, the ignorant bastards. 

LOL, you're all going to die, probably

Let's face it, after the scare of witch craft was spread, if someone even thought of anything concerning witches, they were convicted as a witch. If you were a girl, you also had no chance. You were a witch if you were a woman because they are "weak" and cannot "control their emotions" as well as men. Women were also easily convinced because of their weakness and sensitivity.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love witch accusations as much as the next person, and reading about how scared that these people were, is kind of funny, but chapter six got a little personal...being a girl and all. I could only imagine how long I would have lasted in that century. Honestly, think about it, I am a girl who does not hold her tongue. I give myself until the age of 15 if I were alive then.

Uhhhhhhhhhh...

"Girls are gross and they have cooties and they scare me."

No, that's not a direct quote from the reading, as hard as it may be to tell. This reading was something alright. I'm not quite sure what kind of something it was though. My copy of the book is used and I've found occasional notes left by a previous owner, but this chapter was absolutely full of highlights. I could almost picture the look on their face. One sentence that I can tell made them extra excited was both highlighted and covered in asterisks. "Therefore let us now chiefly consider women, and first, why this kind of perfidy is found more in so fragile a sex than in men." (181).

Another point of interest: on page 185, where Socrates is brought up, the owner underlined a few lines and wrote "Socrates" in big letters and drew an arrow to part of the text, almost as if they were in disbelief about what they were reading. I was quite surprised myself. "And when the philosophy Socrates was asked if one should marry a wife, he answered: If you do not, you are lonely, your family dies out, and a stranger inherits; if you do, you suffer perpetual anxiety, querulous complaints, reproaches concerning the marriage portion, the heavy displeasure of your relations, the garrulousness of a mother-in-law, cuckoldom, and no certain arrival of an heir." (185). This was definitely not something I would expect of someone who spent so much time thinking.

A lot of this reading was, honestly, quite repetitive. There are only so many ways to say, "Women are weak-minded, therefore they fill victim to temptation more than men." and Kramer and Sprenger certainly said it in all those ways more than once. With such headings as, "Why Superstition is chiefly found in Women" they are sure to make their feelings known. "When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil." (183). "All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable." (188). I probably don't need to list any more quotes to get the point across: these two 'gentlemen' were quite set in their ways against women.

Looking back from a modern perspective, where a lot of things have changed, it's not difficult to think poorly of these writers. I don't think you could find many people that would agree with what is written here, at the very least. When this stuff was written, of course, people were a lot different. Stereotypes were likely even more widespread, because not everyone could write, and those that could were looked up to. And with this writing talking about women being weak, vulnerable to demons, unable to control their lust, and innately evil creatures, among other things, I wouldn't be surprised to find the common person starting to believe in these things upon reading them. Certainly, if I were to read this with an empty mind, perhaps as an alien that had just discovered Earth and knew nothing of the people on it, I would read these many pages and form an opinion that women are indeed everything these men say they are.

Of course, I'm not an alien and so I don't think this way at all, but I guess it's understandable (and unfortunate) that people back then might have been led to think this way. When the people who know how to write and utilize their knowledge do it to pass on their own beliefs, well, it's hard to stop others from latching on to those beliefs as well. And when people are as impressionable as they were back then, with magic being so feared and talked about, it helps to have a scapegoat to pin blame on or a way to rationalize what's going on. Of course, that still doesn't make it okay.

And suddenly everything gets really creepy

The excerpts in this week's readings from the Malleus Maleficarum are incredibly disturbing. To me, this witch-hunting handbook is clearly not just the insane rambling of two bloodthirsty religious fanatics (I mean it totally is, it just isn't ALL it is), it's an outline for a clearly defined, meticulously organized system that led to the deaths of countless innocents.

The basis for the Malleus is already established in the readings of the last few weeks. There's already a firm theological and legal basis for the persecution of witches, and people all over Europe, including popes, clearly believe there are untold legions of witches lurking everywhere, conspiring to corrupt Christian civilization. Kramer and Sprenger technically aren't saying anything new here, they're just codifying their own opinions of a fear that's already vastly widespread.

The text itself is full of examples from theologians and court officials from around Germany dealing with the subjects of women, who to the medieval mindset were inferior to men and especially prone to spiritual corruption, and witchcraft. It seems meticulously researched, and even if Kramer and Sprenger made some or all of their examples up, the Malleus presents to the medieval reader what appears to be a scholarly, authoritative, and more importantly, thanks to the Summis Desiderantes Affectibus, papally authorized method of obliterating the perceived scourge of witches from the face of Christian Europe.

Behind the scholarly veneer, though, the text is full of circular logic that provides very little in the way of justice for the falsely accused. For example, accused witches cannot be sentenced to death without a confession of guilt, no matter how much "evidence" is brought against them. Therefore, the accused must be kept imprisoned and tortured for up to a year in order to secure a confession. Even if the accused does not break under months of torture and imprisonment, they are then thrown to the proverbial wolves of the secular courts as an "impenitent heretic." They either confess and the church has them executed, or the secular courts get ahold of them, and, since the secular courts don't necessarily have to deal with the strictures of Church law, things might actually get even worse from there.

This circular logic, though, could easily have seemed sound to the medieval mind. Annihilating witches from this earth in the name of Almighty God was certainly more important than a few innocent human lives. After all, if an innocent was killed due to the system laid out in the Malleus, God would certainly save that person's soul... right?

I find the Malleus so disgusting because it starts on a foundation of pure madness and then proceeds with something a medieval person could easily see as logic and rationality from that point. Kramer and Sprenger didn't start the witch craze, but their contribution to it is so massive and thorough that it's hard not to see them as utterly dominating it.

Money and Prestige; the bringer of things

I read through part of chapter seven until I came upon a quote that really struck me and ended up blowing my mind to billions of tiny smithereens, "Men's hearts to every ill incites Th'accursed love of gold…"(KP 233). The motives of most people in this day and age for doing better in their jobs and careers and generally most things, is money and notoriety. Up until reading this selection, I thought that was always a more modern thing to be out for money and prestige. Apparently, I am wrong. money and status has always been the defining factor in all things. prestige is how people have power over others and money is the enabler. you cant have one without the other. They make each other better. Like lewis and clark, or ice and cream, or like cookies and warm milk. Money is so important to people that sometimes people will even sellout their family or friends for it like judas did to jesus. Money can get you anything and everything. Money is the down fall of society. But it can also bring people up. It can just as much bring up a good cause as much as a good one. 

With enough money, you can bring a government crashing down. With enough money, you can bring yourself prestige and notoriety. With increased prestige and notoriety, it can bring boatloads of dough. With such influence and monetary support, you could do anything you wished. See, thats why people want money. It can level the playing field. The devil seems to be the dealer in money. so in that respect, it must be evil or an incentive to evil. Everywhere you look, people seem to be selling their souls for stockings filled with endless gold, or even better, skills that can get them as much gold as possible in the least amount of time. People have been fighting over money for years. usually, the guy with the thickest wallet won. That just seems to lead to better equipment, training, and overall, better soldiers. Money can be a blessing or a curse. too much coin in your pocket can make you sink to the bottom of a lake or it can buy you a boat in an effort to not have that happen. 

The way I look at it, I think money will always sort of be the bane of humanity. It is the reasoning behind why when societies went agricultural, the man with the biggest surplus of food, was the highest up. But, with the evolution of the food systems, as people gained more and more stuff, war and fighting would ensue. Overall, money and its equivalents might bring good tidings and high class, but its no good when your gone from this world to the next.

Manifest Mother Issues

At long last, it's the birth of the traditional witch hunt in all it's glory. Fear mongering, emotional knee-jerk reactions to the apparent enemy, and the immediate and forceful putting down with anyone and everyone who disagrees with your opinions that you believe to be 100% factual and correct. So basically just regular politics but with more magic and mass murder.

What really stood out to me in this chapter, though, is how absolutely abysmally these two guys feel about women. They keep going on and on about how women are weak mentally and easily corrupted, and how they're just a necessary evil used to have children but will make your life miserable in the process. According to them, women are only good when they're gentle and subservient, and any other time they are the manifestation of Hell itself. No middle ground, no thinking "Hey, maybe she's just unhappy that I keep her chained to the stove 6 hours a day," just one or the other. Sounds to me like they had super fun home lives as kids that caused them to develop some serious mother issues.

Of course I'm getting ahead of myself, because I must mention that right out of the gate Kramer and Sprenger disable any and all possible debate by basically saying that everyone who disagrees with them is stupid and evil and needs to be punished for not acknowledging the far mentally superior beings who are lords Kramer and Sprenger. This typical type of mentality isn't uncommon in people throughout history, but the difference between modern and olden times is that a figurehead doing that today will get him super far with a small portion of the population who just so happen to have the same ideas, and exactly nowhere with the vast majority that is the rest of the world. Trying to pull that nowadays will only have the influence of getting people to make fun of him over the internet in a manner similar to this:

A large portion of the rest of the text is them trying to figure out what exactly witches are and are not able to do, such as overturning the Canon's declaration that any bodily transportation occurs only in the imagination, because nobody can ever seem to agree on any of this. Seriously though, at this point you'd think that SOMEONE would have at the very least come up with some theorem that at least most learned people could agree upon, but I guess real people don't work like the scientific community and witchcraft doesn't work like physics, so it's probably too much to think that a medieval Einstein would come along and solve the puzzle of the proverbial ether. This is why my best friend is a statistics textbook with a face drawn on the cover.

Guilty or Not Guilty. You still rot in Jail/Witch Frenzy!!

I have to admit, I am a little overwhelmed from this chapter. Not only was it long but it was very thorough. To me this chapter was about methodically charging and sentencing someone accused of witchcraft/heresy.

This process is so delicate yet utterly confusing. In a sense, its just one big cycle/loop. Once you get accused, innocent or not, you are going to go through a lot of #$%$#, pardon my french. Take for instance, page 221: "they have revoked their evidence and confessed that they have out of malice put that crime upon the accused. Therefore the prisoner in such as case is not to be sentenced hastily, but must be kept for a year or more before he is delivered up to the secular Court." So the person that is charging me and is my sole witness, says they lied and I still have to wait over a year before anything else happens. What kind of system is that? Moreover, Kramer's logic is so contradicting.

Let's dive a little further in the chapter and Kramer. He published this infamous book "Malleus Maleficarum," after being expelled from Innsbruek. (Wikipedia) I have very few good things to say about this fellow. He refutes anyone who disagrees with him especially about the existence of witchcraft. He depicts women as fragile and easily corrupt. In the chapter Kramer says "what else is a woman but a foe of friendship, an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, ...and domestic danger" (pg. 183). The chapter expands on the devil, the process of accusing, the process of judgment, etc.

Now let's dive into what's going on in my thoughts. Kramer talks about torturing the accused to produce a confession. I see copious things wrong with that. If it were me in that position, I would admit to whatever they are torturing me for. Having read how the system works, either way I'm screwed. It would takes miracle to walk out of this. Furthermore, Kramer uses the term "conjuring" as something a Judge or Priest can say, even though they are punishing a civilian("witch") for practically doing the same. In page 215, Kramer states that "the Judge or priest may use some method ...and say I conjure you by the bitter tears shed on the Cross by our Saviour..." This is the very typical style of witchcraft that Kramer sheds light on. The only difference is who is invoked.

I can't fathom what would have been going through the mind of some of the people. All the jargon coming out of priests and Judges would be so confusing. Unless you were an educated scholar, it wouldn't make sense. The jargon they use is so blended and mixed with multiple meanings. It's just a never ending cycle. Then you have the questioning and torture. Kramer says you are innocent till proven otherwise, but they practically treat the accused as guilty. The delicate process of getting accused and charged is so meticulous, but also incredibly contradicting. If you are accused your screwed.

Also, if you look up facts about Kramer and this publication, it's a very infamous book that led whether directly or indirectly 600,000-9,000,000  (over 250 years) of bled shed.(Wikipedia) The Malleus was the hand guide for inquisitors to identifying, prosecuting, and dispatching witchcraft/witches. I find that incredibly disappointing since this publication is contracting and harsh.