Syphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-Century Europe
| Autor: | Eric B. Ross |
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| Rok vydání: | 1995 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Current Anthropology. 36:333-337 |
| ISSN: | 1537-5382 0011-3204 |
| DOI: | 10.1086/204365 |
| Popis: | While debate continues over the geographical origin of syphilis (Baker and Armelagos I988, Saul I989), it is generally agreed that it made its appearance in Europe at the end of the I5th century. At that time, Europeans became aware of a new and virulent sexually transmitted disease that seems to have spread northward from Mediterranean Europe (Quetel I990:IO-I5). Whether it originated in the Americas or in North Africa or even evolved in Europe from a previous form such as yaws, the societal consequences of syphilis would probably have been the same. But what were they? The debate over the origins of syphilis in Europe has tended to obscure any systematic consideration of its effects. Yet, it may have been implicated in the inexplicable wave of witchcraft hysteria that swept across much of Europe during the same period. Why most of its victims were women has never been satisfactorily explained, nor has the timing of this widespread explosion of misogyny (Monter I976:I97). Syphilis may provide some clues. Witchcraft beliefs, though a long-standing part of European folk tradition, are generally agreed to have been qualitatively transformed during the i6th century. As Cohn (I975:224) has observed, "Until the late fourteenth century the educated in general, and the higher clergy in particular, were quite clear that these nocturnal journeyings of women, whether for benign or for maleficent purposes, were purely imaginary happenings. But in the sixteenth and still more in the seventeenth centuries, this was no longer the case." It would be wrong to suggest that witchcraft was not taken seriously before I500. Russell (I972:25, 279) regards the age of classical witchcraft as having its beginnings in the preceding century, when accusations began to manifest a marked bias against women (see also Monter I976:24).1 The notorious witch-hunter's handbook Malleus Maleficarum ("Hammer of Witches")-the work which the medievalist Henry Lea called "the most portentous monument of superstition which the world has produced" (I96I:835)-was first published in I486 and manifests a virulently misogynist spirit which certainly was not without precedent. But its significance is easily exaggerated (Cohn I975:226). While there is no reason to doubt that the Malleus reflected more general attitudes toward women than those of its Inquisitorial authors alone, it was not in itself the catalyst for i6th-century witchcraft persecutions. For reasons that still remain obscure, those persecutions, with their notoriously misogynist character, emerged some decades later, by which time the Malleus was out of print (Estes i983:277).2 As Larner points out, until the early I4th century witchcraft trials largely tended to revolve around indictments for sorcery and only occasionally involved the charges of diabolism which we associate with classical witchcraft. The imputation of diabolism slowly increased in incidence during the course of the I5th century, but by the beginning of the i6th century, although belief in witches was endemic, witch-hunting per se had waned (Larner I984:4I-42).3 For reasons that, again, are not entirely clear, the trials returned around the I 5 6os, when many regions across Europe were involved in what Trevor-Roper, referring to the unprecedented intensity of events, called the "witch-craze" (I969, cited by Lamer I984:42-43).4 Larner writes (P. 42) |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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