From: bbeistle@mail.sas.upenn.edu (Bronwyn S. Beistle) Subject: Re: Neopaganism Date: 14 May 1994 03:48:48 GMT : ipfoot@ic.ac.uk (Ian Paul Foot) writes: : : >At a recent talk here in London, Dr. Ron Hutton said that he has now : >revised his estimate of the number of people killed during the : >"burning times" down to around 40,000. Contrast this with the : >(fictitious) 9 million mentioned in the song (although on one day : >193 women were burned in a single village in Germany). : Brook Schoenfield (brook@crl.com) wrote: : Up to now, I've been pretty much out of this debate (how many) 'cause I'm : not that scholarly, and, really, I wasn't there (this life, or others : ). But, I did just recently read a seemingly rather well researched book : (awful politics, good tidbits and factual history) by Pennethorne Hughes, : Witchcraft. I do notmuch care for Mr. Hughes' analysis, but I want to : present some facts for discussion. : He sites the following to support the idea that the numbers are rather : large: 600 in a single bishop in Bamberg, 900 in a single year in : Wurzburg and Nuremberg, 200/year. 1000 in a year at Como, 900 in 15 years : at Nancy, 500 in 3 months in Geneva. In one single execution in : Toulouse, 400. These kind of numbers begin to add up fairly : significantly rather quickly. (all from the 15th and 16th centuries). : It is important (and I didn't realize this before) that Britain was spared : a great deal of this, because it was not illegal to be a witch unless : someone was poisoned until quite late (1560 or so). The burning times : didn't really come with all their ferocity to Britain. I believe that : burning was never really used much anywhere in Britain or Ireland. : As I said, I don't care for the writing of Hughes, but he speaks with : authority about the records. : Comments from my more learned friends? : Brook Schoenfield: brook@innosys.com brook@crl.com : "..desire cracks open the gates. If you're ready it will take you through. : But nothing lasts forever, time is the destroyer, the wheel turns again and : again, watch out it will take you through." - Starhawk Um. I'm afraid this is inflammatory but I'm going to say it anyway. I have a hard time with the numbers game. I've noticed it played at times between Jewish folk and African-Americans--a sort of competition as to who had the most killed--the Holocaust vs. the centuries of slavery. I know we're not doing that here, but does it really matter whether it's 9 million or 40,000? I mean, once I get past a few--maybe ten--thousand people killed for no reason, it seems immaterial, and almost disrespectful of the suffering of those involved, to tote it up in terms of numbers-- I guess I get the feeling that we're saying: "Oh, it's not really that bad. Those early Wiccans were so exaggerated. Why, it's only forty thousand people, not nine million!" _Is_ that what this thread is saying? -- Bronwyn Beistle There aren't going to be any damned permits! How can you get a permit to do a damned illegal thing? Leonard McCoy