What if the Church did not burn Witches?

[Brunaburh]

I'm still looking for a reliable source saying how you can divided the HRE between catholics and protestants and what percentage of the population were of each confession.

But the numbers I provided show that the Witch Trials was at a very large majority a German tradition (the HRE being in majority German) and that Protestants countries outside the HRE killed a far greater numbers of witches that catholic countries, both in numbers and even more per capita. Small Great Britain and small Scandinavia executing more witches that far greater France, Iberia or Italy.

The table you rely on in wikipedia is not really evidence of anything. It is cited to a book, which looks to be a decent source, but we don't know whether it is a table copied wholesale from the book, a user's attempt to take statistics from the book and display them for wikipedia's readers, or a patchwork of bits from the book and things users have added later on. Really, don't base your opinions on wikipedia. I write the damn thing, and I don't.

The table is wrong on the British Isles for a start, it underestimates the deaths in Scotland by a factor of 3,, and it groups regions senselessly. England had around 5 times the population of Scotland and between a quarter and a sixth of the witch killings, Ireland had the same population and almost none. Within Scotland, the Gaelic-speaking area had almost no deaths. Wales had much lower numbers per capita than England, but not as low as Ireland. So what purpose is served by grouping these areas in the table? What about the HRE? How much more variability is shown there?

Did you notice the massive list of incidents I posted in which the Catholic authorities of German-speaking regions killed several hundred people at a time? The biggest incidents of mass-killings were carried out by Catholics in Germany, especially in the 17th century when the prime movers were Prince-Bishops. The fact Germany had Catholic polities in which the death rates were much higher than anywhere else in the world, like the Prince-Bishoprics of Bamberg, Wurzberg and Trier, show that classifying witch hunts as a Protestant phenomenon is simply wrong. I can recommend this book to read about them:

Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Volume 4

The fifteenth to eighteenth centuries was a period of witchcraft prosecutions throughout Europe and modern scholars have now devoted a huge amount of research to these episodes. This volume will attempt to bring this work together by summarising the history of the trials in a new way - according...

books.google.co.uk

There were Protestant areas that witch-hunted fervently, and ones which did not, just as there were Catholic areas which fervently witch-hunted, and ones which did not. Attempting to suggest that this was a religious division is facile, it is a phenomenon which occurred within the Christian world as a whole as a response to both modernisation and social stress.

And once again, be careful relying on wikipedia. It led me to this book, but I didn't trust it til I had read the source.

 

[Brunaburh]

but the processes in Valcamonica for example were not made or presided over by the Inquisition (I say unfortunately) but by the secular authorities so the church can do little to stop this

Ok, fair enough, I misread the post. I would agree with that then. Outside the Holy Roman Empire, secular authorities were much more likely to impose death penalties.

 

[DJ03]

No, I understand the whole era is messy, I'm just not going to pretend like one organization deserves a gold star for restraining its cruelty to an "acceptable" amount. Because the only acceptable amount is  zero.

I mean, if that's the mood you're going w/, I suggest you never open any book on modern history

 

[Sian]

No, I understand the whole era is messy, I'm just not going to pretend like one organization deserves a gold star for restraining its cruelty to an "acceptable" amount. Because the only acceptable amount is  zero.

In a discussion about which was precieved as “least bad” it’s not quite helpful to claim that any non-zero amount of terrible is equally bad

 

[piratedude]

In a discussion about which was precieved as “least bad” it’s not quite helpful to claim that any non-zero amount of terrible is equally bad

Pretty sure the original question was "how can we avoid the mass executions of accused witches" not "how can you make the witch hunts incrementally less bad by putting dommy mommy church in charge"

 

[Sian]

Pretty sure the original question was "how can we avoid the mass executions of accused witches" not "how can you make the witch hunts incrementally less bad by putting dommy mommy church in charge"

But to answer that question it’s valuable to define where the problems arise from and as such which dials and levers we get most movement out of

 

[Metempsychosis]

Pretty sure the original question was "how can we avoid the mass executions of accused witches" not "how can you make the witch hunts incrementally less bad by putting dommy mommy church in charge"

The thing is, to answer the first question, we'd need a Western world where people aren't as superstitious. And the thing is, that's nigh impossible without going back to the Roman Empire and somehow stopping the trend towards people looking for witches and charlatans to do things, at the very least. No matter what religion rises from Rome, it'll be one that has to contend with the idea of black magic.

 

[PeterEzgo]

The thing is, to answer the first question, we'd need a Western world where people aren't as superstitious. And the thing is, that's nigh impossible without going back to the Roman Empire and somehow stopping the trend towards people looking for witches and charlatans to do things, at the very least. No matter what religion rises from Rome, it'll be one that has to contend with the idea of black magic.

Being superstitious is not limited to Europeans or European descended people. Many people around the world believed in magic, both good and bad. The outbreak of witch-hunting in early modern europe was caused by societal stress. Plenty of places around the world have had similar outbreaks when their societies are put under stress. Belief in witches did not begin with Christianity or the Roman Empire. It was always there and will always be there. Its still there today. Have you heard of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s? When people believe in magic, they will believe in bad magic.

 

[Metempsychosis]

Being superstitious is not limited to Europeans or European descended people. Many people around the world believed in magic, both good and bad. The outbreak of witch-hunting in early modern europe was caused by societal stress. Plenty of places around the world have had similar outbreaks when their societies are put under stress. Belief in witches did not begin with Christianity or the Roman Empire. It was always there and will always be there. Its still there today. Have you heard of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s? When people believe in magic, they will believe in bad magic.

Yep. Exactly that.

 

[Fire and shadow]

Weren’t supposed witches hung not burned?

They were burned in continental Europe and modern Africa.

 

[da Racontor]

Seems to me that actual domination is not the primary factor, rather culture, distance from political influence, and most especially panic level.

What denomination does seem to effect is whether the witch hunts are legal or not. Now while I would say that is important it's not relevant here as illegal witch hunts still occurred (obviously).

Now for the OP question,
Part 1. The whole "witches had hidden knowledge" thing has no hard evidence. In fact, it seem that most of what they could have known that would have been useful would have fallen under the category of an apothecary. An actual job at this time. So I doubt anything changes on the knowledge part.

Part 2. Given the time period and human nature, what would we need to do to reduce the number of hunts?
Seems to me the most likely option other than an mass and well organized and centralized education effort (good luck pulling that off in the time period, but still the best option) is to have an central authority declare witch hunts to be bad, then have them create an organization who can go beyond national boundaries to put to trial those who attempt to accuse others of witches. Given that this is the Middle Ages/Renaissance/Early Enlightenment that organization's methods would probably be unsavory to us (and justifiably so) but we are working within the given time period... hey wait a minute... I guess no one expected that...

 

[Ilúphatar]

That...kinda ignores the blatant misogyny at work during the witch mania, as well as the prolific use of torchure to extract confessions (even in places where that was expressly illegal)

Oh indeed, I quite agree. I think Lewis was commenting solely upon the possible deservedness of the death penalty rather than on the practice of witch-hunting as a whole - in his discourse it was just an incidental illustration rather than a full treatment.

What a doublethink, kaiserreich truly was into something

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I quite follow that remark?