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Witches and Heretics During the significant period of time the terms heretic and witch were associated with evil, spiritual pollution, blasphemy, and flagrant crime that society and judges had no hesitation in saying that they are justly to be subjected to every torture and put to death in flames (). However, in contemporary context, witchcraft and sorcery are perceived as mystery, terra incognita, some spiritual experience that goes beyond conventional imagination. Simultaneously, heretic is usually interpreted as individuals everlasting desire to explore the unknown, to discover the truth, and to create. Being an essential part of world cultural and intellectual history, witches and heretics are surrounded with peculiar halo of romanticism and mystery, which agitate peoples curious and insatiable minds. One of the major phenomenon in regard to witches is the fact that church and state continuously supported campaigns of unmitigated violence against women, and particularly against those who are elderly, feeble, ailing, poverty-stricken, and socially ostracized. Infamous inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger undertook significant efforts to make female sexuality identical with heresy and to elucidate why it is that women are chiefly addicted to Evil Superstitions (Kramer and Sprenger 1971, 41).
Thus, great inquisitors alleged that all witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which in women is insatiable (Kramer and Sprenger 1971, 47). These explanations depict the spirit of the atrocious campaigns conducted by the church and the state during male renaissance, which was built on the demonization of female sexuality, and which was specifically and brutally aimed to bring a punitive and ruthless machinery to stand directly on women. From the critical standpoint, the examination of Christian early demonology and theology of witchcraft indicates the peculiar similarities between paganism, ancient Judaism and Christianity. In particular, specific allegations and testimonies presented during witch trials, namely nocturnal gathering, ritual murder, conspiracies, and child-murder, circulated among rival cultures and religions of pagan world across Greco-Roman territories (Cohn, 21). However, the heretical beliefs and practices were associated with a form of treason, which required the exceptional punishment, accompanied with the use of torture, that had, with Roman-Canonical law, always been saved for the highest of crimes - conspiracy against the king, arbiter of Law. Simultaneously, as numerous witchcraft historians have indicated, the references found to witches and heretics as servants of Satan and enemies of God during the early Renaissance demonological tractate's of inquisitors and witch-hunters contain little relation to material found in Greco-Roman law and literature, where crimes against God were of little legal interest or consequence (Larger, 1981, 51).
Historians have pointed throughout the Renaissance Europe women did not exist for almost all criminal offences, except of infanticide and witchcraft. Moreover, women in most regions were neither responsible nor eligible as witnesses in criminal trials (King 1993, 10). However, more than 100, 000 witches were executed by the secular courts for witchcraft. The number depicts the extraordinary price paid by women as scapegoats and sacrificial victims in the discursive and political contests for autonomy and jurisdiction over the evil they represented. Brian Levack asserted that "the great European witch-hunt was essentially a judicial operation, a phenomena of rough country justice (Levack, 1995, 68) in rural areas of continental Europe, particularly in the late 1500 s and early 1600 s. Particularly, Levack have investigated the secular craze as a legal anomaly, examining the prosecutorial activities of lower courts in regard to witch hunting as a function fundamentally inconsistent with the established standards of justice, namely in criminal procedure (Levack 1995, 93).
As a judicial operation across continental Europe, the witch and heretic hunts were assisted by many factors: the introduction of the inquisitorial procedural system, the rise of secular jurisdiction over witchcraft, the renascence of Roman-canonical law, including its application of judicial torture, and the autonomous functioning of local courts, independent of central political and judicial control (Levack 1995, 93). Simultaneously, Christina Larger indicates in the case of Scotland, that regional judges held virtual autonomy over judicial life, however, where there was little regulation or no accountability to higher jurisdiction, the cases of torture and other atrocities were far more numerous and atrocious (Larger, 1981, 79). Archival records reveal what Roman portrays as an eloquent story of a struggle to combat the centrifugal tendencies of the lower courts - particularly in villages and small towns - and of the institutional innovation to achieve this goal (Roman 1989, 3). One may experience a feeling of skepticism towards the judicial trends regarding witches and heretics, however, documented first-hand testimonies of executioners shape the necessary knowledge. Thus, J. Remy, Paris magistrate, who sentenced heretics and witches during some 800 capital trials, affirmed that he really knew that there were witches and heretics, men and women of evil committed the exceptional crime of treason.
In addition, Remy asserted that for when a man has himself seen and heard these things, it gives him the greater confidence to speak of them, and the greater resolve in defending his opinion against those who dissent from it (Remy 1974, xiii). From the critical point of view, if indeed there was an adequate reason to question whether witches and heretics could perform the deeds for which they were sentenced, if indeed there was another reason to question whether they enjoyed true seductions by demons, sabbat gatherings, and conspiracies projected as evidence of their exceptional malignancy, then there was good reason to question the legality of the work of these magistrates. According to the famous jurist Bodin, if the whole body of the state did not diligently... search out and severely punish witches, ... there is a danger that the people will stone both magistrates and witches (Bodin 1995, 174). Bibliography Kramer, Heinrich and Sprenger James.
Malleus malefic arum, trans. Montague Summers. New York: Dover, 1971 Larger, Christina. Enemies of God: The witch-hunt in Scotland.
London: Chat and Windus, 1981 Cohn, Norman. Europe's inner demons: An inquiry inspired by the great witch-hunt. New York: Meridian, 1975 King, Margaret. Women of the renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993 Levack, Brian. The witch-hunt in early modern Europe. 2 d ed.
New York: Long-man, 1995 Roman, Alfred. Decriminalizing witchcraft: Does the French experience furnish a European model? Criminal Justice History 10: 1 - 22, 1989 Remy, Nicholas. Demonolatry, trans. E. A.
Ashwin. Secaucus, N. J. : University Books, 1974 Bodin, Jean. On the demon-mania of witches, trans.
Randy A. Scott. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 1995
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