There is no evidence of a sharp upward pressure on wages or shortage of labor in the period thereafter, such as is clearly recorded after the Plague of the 14th century -- when, for example, England passed a vagabondage law making it unlawful for an able-bodied person to be unemployed. The real death toll (and and women) for the European witch craze probably do not exceed the mid-high tens of thousands, maybe less, though historical demography is a tricky business.
The idea of villages wiping out all the women, or the authorities doing this to villages, is something I have never seen in any reputable source, and it makes no sense in light of everybody's understanding of the need for spouses, labor (because women worked, and children.
When we talk about explanations for a phenomenon like the European witch craze it is unscientific and ninmaterialist to attribute, except as a proximate cause, to fear of the Devil -- obvious ideological, which doesn't mean phony, but requires an explanation -- or an inexplicable attack of misogynistic mass murder.
The idea that it was some some of attempt by the medical profession to assert control over healing by wiping out the competition is not plausible -- the medical profession (a) didn't have that sort of clout and (b) didn't treat the peasants, who couldn't for the most part afford the fees, and (c) would have been opposed by men needing spouses, coworkers, and a general recognition that killing women is bad for the labor supply (in a society where children were also your social security and infant mortality was about 50% and death in childbirth probably about 35%.) Nor does killing women en masse because some of them practiced abortion and taught contraception make any sense -- in fact I don't know of any witch trials where these chars were brought up, as opposed to, Dame Jill cursed my cow, that srt of thing.
I don't know whata a plausible materialist hypothesis is, but so far neither of you has suggested one.
--- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Thanks for the info Jenny. Couple questions.
>
> 1. How was their population pressure in Europe in
> the
> late 1400s? It was only a century after the Black
> Death wiped out half of the pop?
>
> 2. I don't see allusions to abortion or
> contraception
> in the MM, at least in Innocent's Bull. He says
> things
> _that could be interpreted as_ allusions to abortion
> or contraception. (I translated the Bull into
> Russian
> last night for the benefit of the workstaff at the
> bar
> where I was. ;) )
>
> 3. Why were these wise women only women, why were
> there no wise men? (Or perhaps there were, and the
> witch-hunters didn't target them.) BTW the old woman
> in the village with the arcane lore is still around
> in
> Eastern Europe -- my ex-girlfriend saw one when her
> son was born sick.
>
> 4. Interesting that Innocent focuses on northern
> Germany, an area that IIRC had not become Christian
> that long before. I imagine there might still have
> been remnants of the pagan religion around (which
> would be Thor and Loki worship, I suppose).
>
>
>
> --- JBrown72073 at cs.com wrote:
>
>
> >
> > Except that it wasn't very firmly situated if
> people
> > were pretty much
> > ignoring its authority when they had a real
> problem,
> > and going to other sources of
> > knowledge and 'cunning.' We know these women
> > existed, not because they left
> > medical records (many were illiterate), but
> because
> > the male doctors that followed
> > them did, sometimes citing to them as the source
> of
> > their knowledge of plants
> > and diseases. They were the midwives, wise women,
> > referred to in plenty of
> > contemporary texts. Indeed, there is little
> record
> > in medical texts and
> > herbals of experimentation by the authors
> > themselves. They were relying on the folk
> > experience of generations, and writing it down,
> > often without specifying
> > dosages or recording what part of the plant should
> > be used.
> >
> > Also, there is kind of a mystery about why so much
> > folk knowledge was lost,
> > especially with respect to contraception and
> > abortion, between the Medieval
> > writers and the Renaissance writers. Possibly
> many
> > of their living sources were
> > tortured and burned.
> >
> > But that's not the only possible explanation for
> > this massive outbreak of
> > torturing and killing of women (at the height of
> it,
> > it was truly gynocidal, in
> > some villages all the women were killed, or all
> but
> > one). There were plenty of
> > stirred up 'hicks' at various points revolting and
> > generally causing the
> > church and lords significant pains, so things
> > weren't exactly going swimmingly for
> > them right then. Then there were population
> > pressures in a generally
> > inflexible and unproductive system. In the 70s
> > Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre
> > English made the claim in that witches were
> targeted
> > for their distribution of
> > effective contraceptive information and potions.
> (As
> > Charles notes, abortion and
> > contraception are alluded to in the Malleus
> > Malificarum.)
> >
> > Someone who's more conversant with church history
> > than I am could probably
> > set this straight, but it's my understanding that
> > the devil-on-earth was
> > specifically reintroduced as a concept as a
> > precursor to the witch crazes. While
> > before, wise women were an irritation with their
> > potions and alleged spells and
> > whatnot, they get elevated to witches, a real
> > threat (and not to believe in
> > them was heresy) in the late 1400s. They were
> > supposed to be the devil's
> > consorts since women are, as everyone knows,
> > sexually insatiable.
> >
> > Jenny Brown
> > ___________________________________
> >
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
> Nu, zayats, pogodi!
>
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