Witches and Christianity

Another common misconception about the past, particularly in medieval era during this time. Is that a majority, if not all, was a zealot Christian types in flooded churches, Bibles in hand. That majority was a pious Christian. But when looking back it shows a different picture. The word religion unfortunately is today used as a broad stroke covering every single belief there is, and this is incorrect.

“The classical Latin definition for the word Religiosus meant, Scrupulous, conscientious, exact in the observance of duties (especially sacred or moral duties). And “Devout, pious.”

It wasn’t until the 12th – 13th century to now where the definition began broad stroking the picture, and the definition became,

“Belonging to a religious order, monastic”

And this allows for the twisting of histories to take place as they have done now. The reality is that the majority of this period and even before, weren’t religious Christians, rather they had much in common with the people now, in that they were more culturally Christian, occasionally going to church, agreeing with some things here and there but not truly understanding why they believe or their much of anything of the Faith.

Some of the cities and towns, because of the state run churches, and in some cases required, many lost the meaning behind Christianity, attending for more of the formal aspect rather than a religious one.

Rodney Stark in his book “The triumph of Christianity”, had a lot to say about the state of medieval Christendom.

“…most medieval Europeans disdained the moral expectations of the church, remaining alienated from sincere Christian commitment”

Rodney also quoting from Humbert of Romans, a Master General of the Order of Preachers, Admitted very few people attended church.”

Also taking quotes to and commentary from other well known figures of that time describing the church at the time, quoting Martin Luther saying

“The common man, especially in the villages, knows absolutely nothing about Christian doctrine; and indeed many pastors are in effect unfit and incompetent to teach. Yet they are called Christians, are baptized, and enjoy the holy sacraments- even though they cannot recite the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed or the Commandments.”



St. Antonio said very few peasants attend mass.

St. Bernardino of Siena reported that the few parishioners who came to mass late and left early.

By the 16th and 17th century, it wasn’t often to see a full church attendance. Eamon Duffy estimates 80 percent of the churches of the 16th century in Geneva had no clergy, and when a pastor was assigned absenteeism was, “rife”.
And in 1528, William Tyndale, a respected English Bible translator, in his book The Obedience of a Christian Man reported that hardly any priests knew the Lord’s prayer. Telling a story about his conversation with a cleric,

“And when I asked him: ‘If ye will not teach the people the Lord’s prayer in English, how will ye bring them to know it?’
He answered: ‘It is enough that we priests know it.’
Then said I: ‘But Christ bade us pray it, and taught us how, and said not that it was enough if ye priests prayed it alone.’
And he said: ‘The people need not know it; it is enough if we pray for them.’
I answered: ‘Christ commanded every man to pray it, and said not that we should let the priest pray for us and we pray none ourselves.’”


A lot of records exist of the same sort of cultural Christianity, becoming the norm even before the 16th century.

In 1222, the council of Oxford said the parish clergy were dumb dogs. In 1417, Bishop Albergati reported that many priests could not identify the 7 deadly sins.
Even St. Bede in 730, who was an English monk, scholar, theologian, and historian, complained that few priests knew Latin. Saying in his “Letter to Egbert”,

“And, indeed, there is no doubt that those who have studied the Latin language will be found to know these well; but the vulgar, that is, those who know only their own language, must be made to say them and repeat them over and over again in their own tongue.

This must be done not only in the case of laymen, who are still in the life of the world, but with the clergy or monks, who are without a knowledge of the Latin tongue. For thus every congregation of the faithful will learn in what manner they ought to show their faith, and with what steadfastness of belief they should arm and fortify themselves against the assaults of unclean spirits: and thus every choir of those who pray to God will learn what they ought especially to ask for from the Divine Mercy. Wherefore, also, I have myself often given English translations of both of these, namely, the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, to uneducated priests.”

All this to say that this history can give context to what I am about to write and further context to how this witch hunting really had little to do with the whole of Christianity or Christendom. That the types of people in the coming writings were rather following a Extrinsic religiosity rather than an Intrinsic religiosity. In other words, they knew little of what they claimed they were practicing.


As per usual, yet another misrepresented tale upon the whole of Christendom has been made a prominent polemic for anti religionists and atheists alike. The lie being that Christianity was responsible for the witch trials that were going on during the 15th and 16th centuries. Grounding their stance against Christianity with the illogical and faulty math of Gottfried Christian Voigt, a German scholar. Gottfried estimated that 9,442,994 people were executed for witchcraft across Europe over 11 centuries, 600–1700 CE.

This figure is often rounded to nine million to the anti- religious groups and became a polemics against Christians for decades now. He based his calculation on local records from his birthplace, Quedlinburg, where he estimated about 37-39 executions from 1569-1589.

Using the extrapolation method, (Gottfried made these assumptions based on his area that was an outlier and not representative of the whole truth.) He estimated
133 executions per century for his area, then
Scaled up to the entire European population at the time, coming up with the figure 858,454 per century.
Multiplied by 11 centuries 9,442,994 total.

So simply, again, Gottfried made these assumptions based on his area that was an outlier and not representative of the whole truth.



People like Sam Harris, from my other writings a known deceiver when it comes to his polemics against Christianity, used Charles MacKay, a Christian with a rightly guided hatred towards the witch trials in Europe, but even he was misled with his numbers. With his words,

“An epidemic terror seized upon the nations…The word [‘witch’] was upon everybody’s tongue—France, Italy, Germany, England, Scotland, and the far North, successively ran mad upon this subject, and for a long series of years, furnished their tribunals with so many trials for witchcraft that other crimes were seldom or never spoken of. Thousands upon thousands of unhappy persons fell victims to this cruel and absurd delusion. In many cities of Germany…the average number of executions for this pretended crime, was six hundred annually, or two every day, if we leave out the Sundays, when, it is to be supposed, that even this madness refrained from its work.”

But In reality, most towns and villages across Europe, even in Germany, as Charles MacKay claimed,  never executed a single witch.

The Holy Roman Empire, long seen as the greatest perpetrator of the witch-hunts, with over inflated claims of 9,442,994 later 9 million executions from anti-Christian polemics. Has now been shown by modern archival research to have had its executions tightly concentrated in a small number areas. The majority of areas and communities within the Holy Roman Empire saw few or no witch trials at all.

From 1560-1750 The Duchy of Bavaria, the biggest Catholic territory in southern Germany, had only about 200–300 executions total and almost none in rural villages.The Electorate of Brandenburg, later Prussia, fewer than 50 known executions.

Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, etc. almost none. Saxony, Thuringia, and Westphalia: very few, Austria, fewer than 100 executions total.


How about the Spanish Inquisition, another misrepresented time in history like the Crusades.
During the witch craze of the time roughly 300–350 total executions in Spain from the 1480–1820 period.

The Inquisition was highly skeptical of witchcraft claims after the 1610 Logroño auto-da-fé; Suprema issued strict rules against mass trials; most accused were acquitted or given light penances.
The 1610 Logroño auto-da-fé, November 7–8,  was the single largest witch-burning ever carried out by the Spanish Inquisition. 5 women, 1 man were burned alive, while 11 were burned in effigy. And 53 were penanced and 5 died in prison.

Effigy, was a process where the accused was either dead and too decomposed to take out of the grave or, simply couldn’t be found due to the accused fleeing. They would light a dummy filled with straw in place of the accused. This was a practice that was all over Catholic Europe; France occasionally, the holy Roman empire, Italy, Portugal, Spain.

Seeing this the council of the Spanish Inquisition in Madrid, or Suprema was disgusted with the practice enough to rule against it. Not just because of the barbarity of it, but because of the mass panic and false accusations stirring up even more panic hysteria.

With Alonso de Salazar y Frías, a Priest,  saying
“There were neither witches nor bewitched until they were written and talked about.”

With the Suprema’s endorsement in the Instrucciones del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición 1614 document, setting guidelines that
“Confessions obtained under torture shall not be considered valid without corroborating evidence.”


And

“The acts attributed to the sabbat are most often illusions or fantasies induced by fear or suggestion, not pacts with the devil warranting the death penalty.”
And
“In cases of multiple accusations arising from rumor or common opinion in a place, the tribunal must proceed with great caution, as such reports often stem from imagination or malice rather than truth.”

300–350 executions for  witchcraft from 1480–1820 in Spain.

Similarly, the Portuguese Inquisition followed the Spanish treating witchcraft as superstition or illusion after 1680 with almost no executions after 1720. With the Portugal and Portuguese colonies with roughly 140-180 executions. 

In Madeira & Azores about 15-20 mostly during the 16-17th centuries, in Goa, Portuguese India, 25 to 40 verified cases, with the Inquisition there being known for their harsh penalties, most of the Hindu population there were at worst whipped, at best banished.

With Portugal having the higher count with scholarly opinions, like Timothy Walker, Ana Cristina Araújo, and Francisco Bethencourt being a few, that settling on 100 being the approximated total. Interesting how real history can change perspectives.

Next: Pt.2 Salem’s Lot, Isabella Mendes.