Tea at Trianon: The World’s Worst Witch Hunts

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

The World’s Worst Witch Hunts

From Just History Posts:

One of the most characterising events of the Early Modern period in Europe were the hunts against people perceived to be witches. It is estimated that anywhere up to 100,000 witch trials may have taken place during this time, with further estimates that between half and two-thirds of these people were executed for their supposed crimes. The nature of these trials and hunts varied from country to country and century to century, but those that occurred in Trier, Germany, during the 1580s and 1590s are usually considered to be the largest of all.
Belief in magic and witchcraft occurs in many world cultures at many different periods of time, but in Europe this belief was low during the earlier medieval period. It was only towards the end of this time – around the 14th century onwards – that belief in people capable of wielding evil magic started to rise. There were various high-profile cases of suspected witches across European courts which caused this growing belief in these evil people. In a world where Christianity and the Church held such sway, those who partook in witchcraft were seen to be heretics acting against God and in league with the devil. As the Early Modern period arrived, this belief really took a hold on the general population. Witch-hunting manuals such as the Malleus Maleficarum began to be published which narrowed down for the first time the exact characteristics of a witch, which made it easier to find these witches now that people knew what they were looking for.

Trier in modern-day Germany is a city near the country’s border with Luxembourg with a long history. Founded in the late 4^th century BC, it became an important Roman settlement, eventually becoming one of the Roman Empire’s four capitals. During the medieval period, Trier was considered not just a city but a wider region controlled by an archbishop-elector under the Holy Roman Empire. This made it a particularly important region. As with many other European territories, interest in witchcraft in Germany spread towards the late medieval period. It is thought that at least 1/3^rd of all those prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe came from the Holy Roman Empire, and Trier was to become one of these heartlands. (Read more.)