Centuries have passed since the Witch Trials. However, we are still living by the prejudices and beliefs stemming from medieval Europe. Or did we construct new myths revolving around this witchy archetype? Witches in Hollywood and their portrayal in today's pop-culture, embody and propagate some myths we still hold on to today. So in the spirit of Halloween, let's delve in and demystify the real lives led by these condemned, yet fierce beings.
Demystifying the Medieval Europe WITCH
Life in medieval Europe was fairly different: a question of survival. Among the many accused, those aged, neurodivergent, sufferers from ailments and women were the common targets. Once accused, your fate was sealed. Only about 25% of the accused, made it to court to defend their charges. However, few survived.
It is interesting to note here that the accused often stand alone, with zero support from the village and in a highly patriarchal society, they very rarely are under the "protection of a man". Consequently, making it easier for the villagers to exact their revenge on someone they had a disagreement with.
Witchy Elements
We often associate the word, "Witch" with certain elements: hat, broom, familiar, athame, cauldron, wand, chalice, pentagram, and so on. The witch too quite often seems to be old, a woman, poor, outspoken, unliked, Catholic, antisocial, queer and/or disabled.
The medieval society played a major role in creating boundaries between the Self and the outside. Just as the house was protected with sigils to keep the residents safe, the properties held within were kept safe by the housewife it employs. A clear, enforced boundary was necessary to keep totems safe. A Witch in essence, to a medieval society was everything a housewife wasn't: an anti-housewife.
Unable to churn butter from milk, often resorting to borrowing money and food items to satiate her family, a businesswoman stepping outside the boundaries of the house to associate herself with "male-typical attributes" such as running a business, seeking pleasure in activities, often outspoken and rebellious, highly antisocial and eccentric, Catholic and speaking in tongues, all contribute to the making of a witch. Au contraire to popular beliefs, witches weren't all unmarried and/or childless. Many of them were married, although plenty were widowed.
With regards to witchy elements, the hat was actually inspired by a Puritan hat: the same Puritans who were hunting witches. The broom was suspected to be associated with a witch because of its usage as a dildo. The athame that was used to draw the circle and charge the elements of nature, was originally employed as a quill-sharpener. Women who could read and write were out of the norm. Imagine a woman who wrote so often that her quill needed sharpening!
The cauldrons and chalices were found in every medieval household. The wand though seems to be a remnant of pre-Christian fairy belief. In the later stages, anything capable of magic, received a wand. The tongues witches spoke in were quite often Latin, a language that a majority of the Catholics would still speak, despite the rise of Protestants and Puritans in the area. It almost seems as if the witches were being punished for not keeping up with the changes in time. The familiar though has an interesting story. Apparently, those who loved their pets, spoke to them, nurtured them, taught them tricks, were considered witches as they could speak in an animal tongue.
To further demystify the Witch trials, the infamous Malleus Maleficarum was hardly accepted by the populous. In fact, the Catholic Church had rejected it. Furthermore, the book did not drive the witch hunt, it was however, influenced by the hunts. The picture of the burning witch has more to do with the 20th century imagination rather than reality. Witches were hung.
Demystifying the Feminist WITCH
In 1968, a holocaust was constructed: the WITCH, an acronym for Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell with one mission: quieten the oppressor. Unknowingly, these over-zealous forces fed into the gendered ideology of being a witch, alongside reinforcing several myths.
Recast in a protofeminist ideology, the WITCH, rebirths herself in the 21st century. Au contraire to popular belief, witches were not burned alive at the stake, be it in the United States or in Europe. They were hung and most probably given a mass cremation as it was believed that they don't deserve a Christian burial. To further topple the feminist backbone of the Witch theory, accusers were mostly disgruntled women.
"A tendency to treat stories of women witnesses as patriarchal ventriloquism may have arisen from early feminist attempts to seek a global explanation for witch-hunts in a simplistic opposition between patriarchy and femininity, or- even more simplistically- between men an women."- Diane Purkiss
In many retellings, we hear of witches of the midwifery and herbalism profession, when there exists no reliable source suggesting that the accused were midwives and healers. In fact, historians such as Diane Purkiss once wrote: "midwives were more likely to be found helping witch hunters." Further, a thorough knowledge of medicinal plants was a necessity for all housewives.
Apart from popular media, there also exists no reliable source to suggest that witches were unmarried, sexually liberated or lesbians. Most witches were married, with kids and coexisting with husbands. Yet we still believe in these modern myths.
We humans, are very suggestible. A slight change in the wording an argument and we can trigger our own perceptions. Poems, songs, imageries, videos, colors, all contribute to a perception we create of the world around us. The myth of Burning Times was introduced to us by Mary Daly and Elizabeth Brooke.
I remember, how I remember the smell of burning flesh, the hair catching alight, the awful awful agony of your feet slowly burning up. I remember the jeers of me who all watched, and the frozen dread of the women and children who were forced to watch my ending.
Hysterical fantasies posing as historical facts and yet, the story is too good to let go off. A majority of these radical feminist poems are considered found poems. One such is Anne Cameron's poem entitled "Witch", which in essence, bits of Barbara G. Walkers' Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, tagged along with the ideology that a witch is essentially fighting the submissive ideal pushed down her throat.
Witches, Fairies and Pagans, now stands on speculative grounds of existence, their history and stories bear the mythical imprints of time.
The Ugly Duckling Label
In a patriarchal society, a woman is nothing but property, and her only assets are beauty and youth, tolerated in conditional quantities. For the rising popularity of the Church, free will, education, independence and money with respect to women were not only frowned upon, but those possessing such assets were condemned.
The success of the Patriarch, their strong foothold upon their followers, heavily depended upon the Chambers of Oppression they had erected. A woman's primordial importance in this society is her role in marriage and motherhood. Any woman who digresses from this idealized concept of "Womanhood", was often dealt with harshly.
A witch was portrayed with boils and pimples, short, plump, aged, grey haired, barren, sick and presenting thyself with all sorts of ailments known to humans at that time. It is interesting to analyze the concept of beauty that quite often accompanies this idealized version of womanhood. For a woman, to the patriarchal society, was nothing but an object that could be owned, showcased and often bedded.
The challenge presented itself when those accused of witches were highly independent and no longer dependent on a man for their survival. Of course, society has always piggy-backed upon eliminating women who could not only fend for themselves but also think and exist in a narrative beyond a "hole that needs penetrating."
With lack of access to healthcare at the time, many individuals presented a variety of ailments at once. However, women were often the accused for it is their "beauty" that the ailment tarnished, thus ruining her reputation and rendering her unable to marry or bear children. Those aged, were the most disliked for not only were they not fulfilling societal expectations of the time, they would quite often disregard any societal politeness they were asked to adhere to. With no guardian, of course their fate was sealed.
There also exists a narrative of a tarnished beauty being represented as a lack of Grace and as evidence of the Devil's presence. The idea that one's eyes are the windows to one's soul perhaps stems from the beliefs of that time suggesting that if one were to look at anything short of beauty, one was inviting the Devil's presence. To narrow it down to a specific gender, seems to highlight a misogynistic view of women being inferior creatures and thus more susceptible to the Devil's charm.
The Eve and the Satanists
Often reminded of the subjected cruelties once accused, we are also introduced to this ideology of the Eve, biblical reminders of the woman's position within a society: the ideal domesticated woman corrupted by knowledge and power, aiming to overthrow the patriarchy.
To possess such an unimaginable wealth of knowledge and power, independent and able to survive without a Male entity playing its role, was terrifying to the Patriarchy in its attempt to control women's autonomy over their bodies.
To justify the existence of these non-submissive and opinionated women, foundations were set to link them to Satan, as sexually explicit, insatiable lovers, apprentices or even as child-bearers, thus reducing a woman's imprint to her sexual expressions and of course, motherhood. The justification was essential in ensuring a righteous passage through the Christian faith.
...the witch has offered herself completely and has bound herself to the devil really and in truth and not fantastically and in the imagination only, and thus it ought be understood that she cooperates with the devil in body and in truth; for all works of witches are to this end, whether they always carry out their witch-craft through the pact, or through a glance, or through the spoken word, or through the operation of some instrument of witchcraft deposited under the threshold of a house.
Witchy Archetypes of the past: Maiden, Mother and Crone
Even as a Witch, a woman is seen to bear a gendered role, rooted in her utility on the reproductive scale. The Feminist Witch and the Medieval Witch, both highlight the role of women as a Maiden, Mother or a Crone, particularly idealizing the Crone's existence as a woman of wisdom. The Maiden however, is cherished in her youthful exuberance, a stunning portrait of innocence, naivety and virginity. The Mother, an epitome of fertility, an ideal femme being of nurturing and protective abilities.
The existence of a woman in this cycle of womanhood, and the world she could be exposed to, is clearly chalked out in Vives, "The Instruction of a Christian Woman". This treatise on female education is divided into 3 parts: Book I “Which Treats of Unmarried Young Women”, Book II “Which Treats of Married Women,” and Book III “On Widows"- in essence the books are divided based on where does the woman lie on the reproductive scale: Is she a Maiden, Mother or a Crone?
"For many things are required of a man: wisdom, eloquence, knowledge of political affairs, talent, memory, some trade to live by, justice, liberality, magnanimity and other qualities …. But in a woman, no one requires eloquence or talent or wisdom or professional skills or administration of the republic or justice or generosity; no one asks anything of her but chastity."- Juan Luis Vives
The witch trials and the portrayal of the feminist witch introduces us to a single idea of a WITCH - a pre-Christian womanly identity. It is fairly coincidental that a 1529 book on educating a Christian woman mirrors the identity of a Witch as a Maiden, Mother or a Crone. Perhaps, the two are identical in many ways, as many convicted witches were in fact, Christian - Catholic, to be precise.
"The real reason for ecclesiastical hostility [to midwives] seems to have been the notion that midwives could help women control their own fate, learn secrets of sex and birth control, or procure abortions. The pagan women of antiquity had considerable knowledge of such matters, which were considered women's own business, and not subject to male authority."- Barbara G. Walker
"The old woman carries a basket if herbs and roots she has dug; it feels heavy as time on her arm. Her feet on the path are her mother's feet, her grandmother's, her grandmother's grandmothers'; for centuries, she has walked under these oaks and pines, culled the herbs and brought them back to dry under the eaves of her cottage on the common. Always, the people of the village have come to her; her hands are healing hands, they can turn a child in the womb; her murmuring voice can charm away pain, can croon the restless to sleep."- Starhawk
"Sunshine coming through the open door cast a bright square on the floor planks, and dust motes quivered in falling rays like veil of light. Tiny points of light twinkled from the shelves of crocks and jars; otherwise the room was shadowy and cool, with a tang in the air from bunches of dried plants hanging among the rafters."- Meghan B. Collins
So, the construct of a witch, in Medieval times would have been very hard to differentiate from their Pre-Christian housewives. The Feminist witch as well, bears anecdotal references to the Medieval Witch. The labelling of domestic skills as professional skills in a witch, reinforces the ideology of femininity constructed for and in a patriarchal society.
"The roles of the herbalist-midwife-witch are traditional feminine roles: nursing, healing, caring for women and children. They are roles which center on domestic space and activity, especially activities derived from women's traditional roles as homemakers, such as the provision of herbal remedies, flower-gardening and so forth. Many of these skills are represented as either innate or matrilineally inherited, as 'natural' rather than learned."- Diane Purkiss
Witch trials and their significance in the 21st century
Although the medieval period and the modern era vastly differ in their underlying social dynamics and mechanisms of social control, there does seem to be some common threads linking the two.
Moral Panic and Social Control
The witch trials preyed on intense fear and hysteria gripping the continent. Moral panic allowed for strict social control and the rising distrust among community members. Similarly, rising policies issuing abortion bans stems from polarized viewpoints that view certain behaviors as morally repulsive, and thus establish a need for social control.
There exists a common definition of what a woman should be from a social standpoint. One such social construct that features itself is the concept of motherhood. While medieval societies centralized around birthing, raising and populating their trade with children, the modern era spotlit birthing children.
To medieval society, witches and demonic spirits existed at the fringes of their dwellings, and any interaction with these entities rendered them vulnerable to the witch's spellcasting. While medieval people sought to eliminate these external entities to protect themselves, modern societies focus on addressing behaviors they classify as unruly or self-destructive. The malefic activities questioned in the medieval period were believed to harm the community, whereas today, the behaviors under scrutiny are often self-inflicted.
Target: The Woman
Its interesting how after centuries, social anxieties revolving around women's body and autonomy are still contributing factors to policy making and governance. This speaks to my earlier argument: The success of the Patriarch, their strong-foothold upon their followers, heavily depended upon the Chambers of Oppression they had erected.
The underlying Biblical ideologies on power distribution and control may be remnants of Puritan beliefs, coupled with Capitalism. For during the Witch trials, fearmongering tactics were often employed to reinforce ideologies specific to a Christian nationality. Today, we have a similar approach, with the same protagonist: an independent woman, who could care less of societal views, who steps out of the norm, and displays male-specific traits.
One such, could be argued as the need to not have children. Pop culture would have one believe that maternal needs are inherent in a woman. To not want kids, she would highlight her "male-specific tendencies to be polyamorous, childless and free". God forbid women do exist beyond their reproductive scale which highlight their societal roles as the Maiden, Mother and Crone.
A trend one might identify is the need to over-express their role as the Patriarch of the society, often revealing thy dark nature in times of uncertainty, liberation and freedom of expression.
Religion, Judicial processes and Fear
Central to the accusations during the witch trials and today's political landscape, is one's interpretation of their religion. Conformity and moral policing, influence legislation and societal norms. The legal proceedings are often marked with a lack of evidence and scientific knowledge.
Scapegoating and the Blame game, are central dynamics to both these proceedings. With the Witch trials seeking retributions for unexplainable events in the people's lives, the far right campaigns seeking outcomes to the constant threat to their "traditional family systems". Today, the witch hunts seek out those who refuse to bear a child, embody different gender roles than the traditional norms, who behave in varying sexual contexts beyond the heteronormative, essentially social threats to the idealized existences of traditional family systems.
The overarching term, "Sin" evolves through time to incorporate the moral panic with the residual stigmatization it incurs. These recurring patterns can be influential in mapping patriarchal outbursts as it attempts to regain control over its demographic.
Witch Archetypes in the 21st century
Upon redirecting our attention to the reproductive scale, one can confidently remark upon policy making with respect to where women exist on that scale. Although the Maiden, Mother and Crone traits made it to the 21st century, they had morphed into their alleles: The Slut, Lesbian and Hag.
Threads of behaviors of these right-wingers solely rests on the idea that in a male-dominant workspace, women play a submissive, low income and a non-political role. For when she steps into the limelight, having surpassed the abilities of her male co-workers, she is labelled a Witch: a whore, a stepmother, a childless freak, a cat lady, etc. The idea that women could hold positions of power are so out of the norm for these 21st century morphed witch-hunters that they echo a call for someone who can "put the women in their place."
The Slut
The slut is the dark interpretation of the Maiden who is no longer a virgin or a Mother, who doesn't remain faithful. The world would still have us believe in chastity and faithfulness as the strength and fortress offered to the Patriarch as symbols of voluntary submission and obedience. Further, there still exists a stigma associated with sexual activities devoid of reproductive means.
This highlights the pleasure politics we observe today: that certain bodies have the right to feel and demand pleasure. The slut's ostracization begins when she steps out of the cage to want, need and desire. A woman crossing these boundaries set by society, is considered as one embodying "male-specific traits" for within a patriarchal institution, being benign is considered natural to being a woman, as natural as reacting passively as opposed to passionately.
The relation between the model of household containment and model of the chaste body of the virtuous woman is clear. By contrast, women who were not virtuously enclosed were associated with sexual availability, economic profligacy and political disorder. The physical boundaries of property became identified with the social boundaries of property. As well as remaining within the boundaries of the household and ordering its contents, woman was represented as guarding its resources from overflowing or escaping into the general economy.
Echoes of women's place in society mirroring their role on a reproductive scale, still happens to be the topic of conversation today. The parallel between a Slut/Whore and a Witch highlights a deliberate pathway, engineered to facilitate the agenda of far-right enthusiasts in a highly politicized environment. From a misogynistic stand-point, a slut/whore would perhaps be better defined as an individual who transgresses the norms of femme sexuality. To be appointed as a Witch, one perhaps needs to be that Whore and simultaneously transgress the norms of femme power.
A witch transgresses norms of female power – punishing her makes others afraid to follow in an unruly woman’s footsteps.
When one critically analyses the US Presidential campaigns, one begins to catch up on this narrative. During the Clinton v Trump campaign of 2016, images of Hillary Clinton adorning a black hat and riding a broomstick or cackling with green skin, flooded the social media. Labelling her as the Wicked Witch of the West and further testifying that she smelled like sulphur, reinstates the long-held belief that women in power, are witches that cannot be trusted.
We have yet again, triggered the same conversations with respect to President-nominee Kamala Harris. However, this time the narrative refocuses itself around her role as a stepmother and a woman who doesn't have her own children.
To digress from this political narrative, let's discuss about step-parents. Although, stories of step-mothers dominated the folklore and fairy tales, in late 20th century, the thus coined, "Cinderella Effect" highlighted several studies on step-parent induced harm; however, they were often induced by step-fathers and not step-mothers. To further drive my point, during a separation a majority of the children have reported to feeling closer to the step-mother as she often acts as an additional support for the child.
The perceived role of the step-mother as villainous, stems from medieval interpretation of who a mother is: an overtly nurturing, protective and devout woman who ensures the safety and sustenance of her family. Categorically, according to the fairy and folk writers, if there exists a bad mother (with the lack of resources in the medieval period there were plenty), the step-mother would have been the worst as she would have favored her own children over her step-children. However, medieval laws prevented divorced women from taking their own children to the new household upon remarrying as the children were considered the property of the previous husband. In essence, the only children brought into a new marriage by a step-mother would have arisen from her existence as a widow.
Having established the socio-political landscape, one must critically analyze these fairytales from which one may derive an opinion. One such tale, the Hansel and Gretel, where the step-mother is seen to have told the father to abandon his children as they do not have enough money to feed an entire household, was actually the children's birth mother up until the 4th edition of the book (which was published in the 1840).
So let's reassess Harris' situation. From a Christian narrative, as mentioned earlier, women's role stems from their position on the reproductive scale. Harris, a step-mother, bearing no children of her own, is a direct attack on the ideology of a woman, or the traditional family systems and the Christian ideal as to who can bear positions of power. It is predictable for the far-right to react to Harris and in future, label her as a Witch.
The Lesbian
When we venture into homophobia and lack thereof of Lesbianism in Literature, it is impossible to ignore Valerie Traub's 'The Renaissance of Lesbianism in early modern England':
“Lesbianism is a theme rarely treated in Latin literature. . . . though Ovid regards the love of boys as commonplace, love between females is unthinkable in his world."
“Female homosexual issues do not appear explicitly in medieval English literature. . . . For lesbians attempting to understand why they have been silenced for much of the English tradition, it is with the silence of medieval English texts that they should begin.”
“Lesbianism is almost invisible in the [English Renaissance].”
Pleasure as a choice for women was unheard of during the witch trials. However, there were some records of Lesbianism being the leading charge against women who were later labelled as Witches. Maude Galt, Jane Pirie and Marianne Woods, were some of the few to have survived in records. In fact, with the case of Galt, the authorities were reported to have been so shocked that they decided to charge her with witchcraft as lesbianism was too hard to cope with.
One of the queerest cases I have come across, was that of Mrs. Anne Turner being convicted and hung for a murder case in 1615. However, the case was popularized because she decided to wear a male-specific apparel, called a ruff to court, which triggered the then King James I, the Chief Justice Edward Coke and the pamphlet, Hic Mulier, to make an example out of her and her fashion choices at court.
"From the first you got the false armory of yellow starch, for to wear yellow on white, or white on yellow, is by the rules of heraldry baseness, bastardy, and indignity"- Smith, 268 of the Hic Mulier pamphlet
James I ordered his clergy to preach against ‘the insolence of our women and their wearing of broad-brimmed hats, pointed doublets, their hair cut short or shorn’.
When passing his sentence, Chief Justice Coke decided to turn Mrs Turner into an example by calling her, "a whore, a bawd, a sorcerer, a witch, a papist, a felon and a murderer".
Ironically, women dressed as men, made them more desirable to men. The Hic Mulier, returned with another pamphlet printed by Trundle, comparing Mrs Turner to Lady Pride, a woman who is so far removed from chastity, that she walks the street with her bosom on display. It further remarked, "Lady, I . . . desire to be imployed in your service."
From a far-right standpoint, a woman in an authoritative position challenges long-held patriarchal beliefs of gender roles. With the settling of puritans on the shores of America, the notion of the superiority of men over women stands firmly rooted in US' political infrastructure. To further emphasize, the Right often doubles down when its perceived idea of traditional family systems is being questioned.
The Hag
The hag has been notoriously condemned for a crime she never had any control over: growing old. She is older than the body-time continuum within which a woman's body is considered useful, whether in terms of beauty, child-bearing, or even community service—old enough to be considered obsolete.
In fact, one of the earliest usage of the word 'hag' can be found in Cursor Mundi, a 1400s Northumbrian poem written in Middle English: 'Þis castel..It es hei sett a-pon þe crag, Grai and hard, wit-vten hag [a1400 Göttingen MS. hagg];' where "hag" refers to a break, a gap, or a fissure in a craig or cliff—something obsolete.
Meanwhile, in 1230, Ancrene Wisse was written as a monastic guide for early nuns, using "hag" in comparison with the seven deadly sins. The passage, "Nv ȝe habbeð ane dale iherd..of þeo þe me cleopeð þe seoue modersunnen..& of hwucche meosters þes ilke men seruið i þe feondes curt, þe habbeð iwiuet o þeose seouen haggen," originates from Icelandic and Middle English. It translates to, "Now you have heard a part about those whom we call the seven deadly sins, and of what types of tasks these same men perform in the devil's court, who have been bound to these seven hags."
Borrowing from these two older accounts of "hag", one can sufficiently point out that the society she belonged to, viewed her as obsolete, equivalent to the seven deadly sins- essentially a hagge, or an old woman. As we can observe from our previous accounts, it was often the old woman of the village, considered a burden by the parish, who would be termed a "witch" and hung.
In fact, in Smith's interpretation, hags have surpassed the 3 femme existences that society values: the 3Fs- femininity, fertility and fuckability. Thus, rendering the hag, even from a 21st century perspective, obsolete.
Nothing threatens a witch-fearing society than a woman who continues her existence beyond the reproductive scale narrative. In fact, while we assess the narrative, one can't help but ponder upon the existence of a modern woman on the aforementioned scale- especially if the said woman has access to reproductive health and has autonomy over her femininity, fertility and fuckability. Rendering her, a hag in the traditional society's eye, obsolete to the reproductive scale society designs for her, and terrifying to the torch-bearers of traditional family systems as they can no longer ensure her positionality on the scale.
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