# Burn'n Witches **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 9, 2002, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burnn-witches/131539 "2002-10-09T14:37:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![monica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a183cd/32.png) [@monica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monica)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burnn-witches/131539/21 "2002-10-11T02:04:26Z")
Just something interesting I thought I would share: My AP European History teacher doesn’t say that people get burned at the stake. Instead, heretics “got thier own private Bar-B-Q.” ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burnn-witches/131539/22 "2002-10-11T02:14:34Z")
One thing to consider is that an accusation of witchcraft against a woman who owned property was one way to get it away from her. In the 1640s and 50s, when Puritans dominated England, they burned witches. Coincidentally, just now I was reading Edward Rutherfurd’s novel _Sarum_, the chapter set during Cromwell’s time when a Puritan preacher is out to burn his sister as a witch, and fakes the evidence against her, to get her farm. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burnn-witches/131539/23 "2002-10-11T12:56:48Z")
As it happens, I am currently reading H. R. Trevor-Ropers’ THE EUROPEAN WITCH-CRAZE (of the Sixtenth and Seventeenth Centuries and other Essays). I am about half way through the book and have believe I have a fairly good grasp of who and how, but I do not yet have a good handle on why. The trouble seems to have started when the Inquisition successfully petitioned the Pope to allow them jurisdiction over witchcraft cases as in addition to heretics. The Inquisitors had developed an effective toolkit for ferreting out organised opposition to The Church. When used against a real community of heretics, they were able to identify almost all of the participants and eradicate the lot. However, when these techniques were used against an imaginary community, there was no way for the spread of accusations to be contained. That is, in a real resistance movement, eventually all the participants are named and no amount of further torture will bring forth new names. If the question of “Who else was at your meeting?” does not have a real answer, there is no limit to the numbers of persons who could be implicated, especially as the torture would be continued until the uncooperative subject saw the error of her ways and chose to ---
**Author:** ![Wumpus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8c91f0/32.png) [@Wumpus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wumpus)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burnn-witches/131539/24 "2002-10-11T13:51:25Z")
Wendell Wagner is correct – Prosecutions for witchcraft were a late Medieval/Early Modern thing. They were not at all common during the High Middle Ages. (You could probably count all the executions for witchcraft in England from 1150 to 1350 on the fingers of your hands, for example.) Which goes to show two things: the Middle Ages weren’t as “medieval” as people think, and that there’s no uniform, guaranteed Historical March of Progress towards freedom, tolerance, and common sense. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burnn-witches/131539/25 "2002-10-11T16:55:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > **In the 1640s and 50s, when Puritans dominated England, they burned witches.** To repeat, the usual punishment for witches in England in that period was hanging, not burning at the stake. It also needs to be said that the idea that the ‘Puritans’ of the 1640s and 1650s made a particular point of persecuting witches is almost entirely due to the activities of Matthew Hopkins, the so-called ‘Witchfinder General’, which were highly localised and of short duration. Otherwise, the number of witch perscutions in England during those two decade was not that unusual. **DrFidelius** , Trevor-Roper is always worth reading (I toyed with the idea of re-reading it myself just the other month), but you need to bear in mind that this is a fast-moving field and _The European Witch-craze_ is begining to look a little dated. You might find the following article interesting as it gives an excellent overview of the historiography of the subject since then. [http://www.cog.org/witch\_hunt.html](http://www.cog.org/witch_hunt.html) ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burnn-witches/131539/26 "2002-10-11T17:28:21Z")
Just by way of another useless snippet - much as I hate to say it - burning was used here in Scotland. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2002, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burnn-witches/131539/27 "2002-10-12T01:12:46Z")
What I’m concerned about is if the Pat Robertsons, Jerry Falwells, Jack Chicks, and Phelpses take over America, they will re-institute persecutions of our Wiccan friends, not to speak of hounding non-Christians and non-Protestants. I am seriously worried about them taking power especially under the Bush administration which coddles these religious extremist types. It is a chilling thought that America is facing such an internal threat to its religious civil rights. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2002, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burnn-witches/131539/28 "2002-10-12T03:00:45Z")
And that is why we have a Great Debates forum. Let’s stick to the facts, shall we? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burnn-witches/131539.md?page=1)