As I understand it, it starts in Germany and spreads, the latest country to catch on being England. As to the general argument about how many were killed during what is really a period of four centuries, all told, that doesn't interest me as much as the why.
>It did take many places three
>centuries to recover to pre-Black Death (1349-52)
>populations, so that supports the ide that if
>Germany's recovery from the 30 Years War took only a
>generation or two, that we are not talking abour Black
>Death mortality rates + millions of excess female
>deaths due to the witch craze.
No, I think five generations was the estimate I cited for recovery from the Thirty Years War, not two.
> I'm pretty sure
>> they preceed second wave
>> feminism, though. Arguing that it couldn't have
>> happened on such a scale locally
>> because it would've caused economic chaos is not,
>> unfortunately, evidence of much
>> when it comes to the Church in Europe. Even their
>> own inquisitors get the
>> stake occasionally.
>
>A weak argument. The Inquisitors didn't have the power
>to execute anyone (it had to turn prople over to the
>secular arm) , and the nobility and bourgeoisie,
>greatly strengthened in power the perood of the witch
>craze, would have put the kibosh oan anything sp
>economically insane. Shall we ask Brob Brenner, a
>friend and comrade of mine, who is a pre-eminent
>expert on this period and a sometimes lurker?
It would be delightful.
> Just because we haven't figured
>> out a materialist
>> explanation doesn't mean it couldn't happen, it just
>> means we haven't figured it out.
>
>Sure. But, btw, Chris, there is an obvious amterialist
>explanation for medieval antisemiyism, with the Jews'
>roles as moneylenders.
>
>>> Well, there's the question of the ratio of the
>> sexes--if there were a lot
>> more women than men, due to wars, then you might
>> have a different situation than
>> that which you are describing. That maternal
>> mortality rate sounds high to
>> me.
>
>But it's accurate -- see Laslett or Boswell or lots of
>sorces, About half the children died before the age of
>5. This is pretty much rock-solid.
I agree on the child mortality rates, I was quibbling with your maternal mortality rate of 'about 35%.'
> When male doctors started to make considerable
>> inroads in the nineteenth
>> century (and started spreading puerperal fever) it
>> *increased* the maternal
>> mortality rate to one in 20.
>
>A big decarese if only one in 20, though medical
>intervention in childbirth was no help.
Right, it increased maternal mortality.
>Now, the rates
>might have dropped in the 18th century due to improved
>public health measures and to incresed agricultural
>productivity, edtc. Gerneral mortality dropped in the
>18th C and life expectnact increased. Doubt taht it
>dropped to the point taht one in 20 counted as an
>increase.
OK, check, on the 18th c. increase in population and decrease in maternal mortality, but 35% of pregnancies? That death rate still seems out of the park, I don't care if you are a 14th c. peasant. That kind of rate would have a massive number of women scrambling for anything to stop a pregnancy--over 1 in three chance of death? Where do I sign up to be a witch instead? At least there you get a trial.
>> I agree that the argument that there was a threat to
>> the 'medical profession'
>> is weak, since there wasn't much of a medical
>> profession. (Maybe someone
>> else made that argument here?) I was repeating
>> Jules Michelet's (1958)
>
>Michelet was a mid 19th historian/
Sorry, 1858. My copy (which has gone missing) is 1939. Looks like '39 is the first English translation. It's been a while and I wish I could look at the book but I remember his arguing that the 'witches' were using experimental methods for figuring out which herbs were useful, harmful, and in what doses. Vs. the church's position--affliction is from god suffer and die to live in the next world. He almost sets it up as another church/science conflict.
> argument
>> that it was the *church* that was threatened. If
>> afflictions were brought by
>> god as punishment, you could see that curing them
>> might be undermining of
>> doctrine and authority. Among those afflictions (or
>> gifts from god, depending on
>> how you look at it) would be unrelieved
>> childbearing.
>
>More nonmaterialist explanation. The church vuried its
>objections to the new science (astromony, etc.) pdq
>when this proved practically useful. It wasn'y going
>to go aroung burning millions of potentially
>childbearing women --an activity which would have
>required the cooperation of the seculaty authority --
>on merely religiosu grounds.
How about a hundred thousand, then? Even if you argue that the witch craze was not significant enough to have a population effect (and if a significant portion of its victims were women past childbearing age then-pace Kristen Hawkes-that may well be) then there is still the question of motivation. You've discarded explanations having to do with midwifery and medicine, the church trying to eliminate competing religious practices, and population pressures (either sex-ratio related or motivated by the goal of eliminating contraceptive practices). So what's your hypothesis?
Jenny Brown