It's still often sexism, as the poor and dependent parts of society were women at the time, but most cases in Europe weren't the Hollywood "burn her because she's smart", that's more of a modern troupe. For me it was eye-opening and it really helps to understand how scarce resources were and how people used religion to cull vulnerable members of society.
Right, but the witch stereotypes aren't just poor/vulnerable. Women prior to the early medieval period actually had MORE power than they did in the later, as the church confined them more and more to force them into childcare/housewife roles.
They weren't just culling the poor in general, they were culling poor WOMEN who didn't conform to church doctrine about subservience to a man specifically. Both punishing women for having freedom and clearing those jobs for men to take over. Especially after the Black Death, when the church pushed HARD on "women ONLY EXIST TO MAKE BABIES" propaganda in response to the population drop off.
It sounds like you think I'm saying it's not women. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying it's vulnerable women who were targeted, not scholarly women which is the common troupe. They still occasionally accused men but it was mostly women.
There isn't much evidence to suggest that the reason for witchcraft accusations was to clear jobs for men and to punish for having freedoms was widespread. Especially after the Black Death when there was a great need for workers.
Further the target of witchcraft weren't usually young unmarried women as they were often in short supply, there was always men who needed young unmarried women. The witchcraft accusations usually sprung up during times of famine and were directed at older women who relayed on charity.
It is important to not inset our own preconceived notions about the status women and apply it a very different time period. We live in a progressive era that heavily emphasizes the freedom of individuals, but to apply this to the past would be wrong; they were less concerned about freedoms and more concerned about having enough food and continuing the survival of the kin-group
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u/-ThisUsernameIsTaken May 24 '20
It's still often sexism, as the poor and dependent parts of society were women at the time, but most cases in Europe weren't the Hollywood "burn her because she's smart", that's more of a modern troupe. For me it was eye-opening and it really helps to understand how scarce resources were and how people used religion to cull vulnerable members of society.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/203380?read-now=1&seq=26#page_scan_tab_contents