This paper concerns itself with the accusation of witchcraft against Apollonia Madizza. Apolonia’s imprisonment and escape drew the eye of the Catholic Church, who at the time was investigating accusations of witchcraft and devil worship in the countryside of Friuli towards the end of the Renaissance. This is not a tale of simply witch-hunting a woman who fit all of the descriptors of a witch, but rather a tale of a woman described as “dynamic” and “clever”, which not only was well connected in her small town, but also well connected with nobles in Venice. Trying to unravel the truth from the lies of her story is impossible, but there is much to learn from her story, the possible lies within that story, and the society in which she lived.
The story starts with the Benandanti, which loosely translates to “good Christians”. The Benandanti would go out on certain nights of the year and fight agents of the devil themselves. It’s not clear why the paper mentions the Benandanti. The Benandanti may have had women priests in their ranks, but the Benandanti aren’t significantly mentioned in the reading after the introductory paragraphs. The real source of the Catholic Church’s investigation was the real powers of these smaller communities, the woman priests. They were the women healers, the signers, and the love magicians of the communities. In the rural areas, these women were the day-to-day connection to Christianity. The reformed church did not want women priests. When this was discovered, an investigation was launched to see if these women were actually witches and used their powers for evil purposes.
A priest, Capuchin friar Pietro di Venezia, visited Latisana to preach the Lentin sermons in 1591. He heard tales of possible w...
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... penance, and exiled to Pescarola. With this, she was fully reintegrated into the church. After her exile, she returned to her community. Whether she returned to her old ways, we don’t know. She went though great trials to gain this acceptance from the church, and with that, she was able to reintegrate with the rest of society in Latisana. She never thought she was doing anything wrong; she simply didn’t want to be denounced by the church that she respected, and in turn, lose her soul. With these great sacrifices and the appropriate penance, she now felt that her soul was safe. The relatively light punishment and the fact that the women priests were allowed to continue their practices in a more discreet fashion may suggest that Apollonia continued to heal and do love magic. The author of the paper thinks this is likely. We know that they continued for a century.
In the book, Giovanni and Lusanna, by Gene Bucker, he discusses the scandalous actions of a Florentine woman taking a wealthy high status man to court over the legality of their marriage. Published in 1988, the book explains the legal action taken for and against Lusanna and Giovanni, the social affects placed on both persons throughout their trial, and the roles of both men and women during the time. From the long and complicated trial, it can be inferred that women’s places within Florentine society were limited compared to their male counterparts and that women’s affairs should remain in the home. In this paper, I will examine the legal and societal place of women in Florentine society during the Renaissance. Here, I will argue that women were the “merchandise” of humanity and their main objective was to produce sons.
Although the Catholic Church kept nuns enclosed in convents in order to regulate their sexualities, Jeanne de Jussie’s writings highlight some of her own experiences with violence, in addition to offering examples of the stories that Catholics circulated (Crawford 87). In the chronicle, Jeanne de Jussie mentioned issues of domestic conflict incurred by the Reformation; many women were caught between their husband’s wrath and their Catholic faith (de Jussie 95). She also described some of the violence committed by heretics against Catholics; for example, before the heretics locked away the Lords of Bern in an inhumanely small cell, they “villainously grabbed him and pulled him from the pulpit and treated him harshly, so that he almost died there and then” (de Jussie 94). According to Jeanne de Jussie’s accounts, religious people from both sides of the conflict went to war with each other; she described that “good fathers went to battle with many other monks because it was for the religion but they did not bear arms” (de Jussie 79). Women and children also instigated Catholic violence against the heretics; “many of the women . . . carried rocks in their bodices to throw at the Lutherans. Along with the women there were at least seven hundred children between twelve and fifteen who were determined to do their duty with their mothers” (de
In the traditional political history of Italy the people outside of the ruling class of the society were rarely studied. Only with the use of social history did the issues of class and gender begin to be debated by scholars. Numerous recent articles have done a great job of analysing particularly men of high status. In this paper I will look at the lower classes of Renaissance Florence. More specifically, I will center my focus on the lives of women during this era, how they were treated and viewed by people of other classes and how women were viewed and treated by men.
Antonio Manetti, a Florentine Humanist and holder of several high offices in Florence, was the author of the delightful novella known as the Fat Woodworker. This novella, first published in its final refined form in the 1470’s, tells the story of a rather complex and slightly malicious trick created by a genius architect known as Filippo Brunelleschi. While the trick is mean at times, the reader tends to not notice because of the comedic way that the fat woodworker reacts. The prank that unfolds can in some ways closely parallel the many tricks that occur in Boccaccio’s Decameron, though there are some large differences.
Undoubtedly Artemisia made a big effort to rehabilitate from the story of the rape through a combined marriage, but especially through her career. Unfortunately, the episode clouded part of the artistic achievements of Artemisia, who was long considered a “curiosity...
Associations were made between witchcraft and mental weakness, a person had to be mentally weak to become to the devil or willing to let him in. Both of these ideas were more closely enforced with women, continuously seen throughout the Malleus Maleficaium, which was hinged on the idea of female mental frailty, they were presented as a more popular contender for an allegiance with the devil as their weakness made them easier to approach. As an immensely influential text during the early modern period Malleus Maleficaium can be seen to provide a general idea of society’s view on witches. Malleus Maleficaium provides three reasons as to why women are more susceptible to the devil; their female traits make them ‘naturally more impressionable’ and convert other women in the neighbourhood. The description of women as the ‘fragile female sex’ shows the link between women and vulnerability, whilst both men and women could be seen to be weak, it was primarily a female fault. The idea of women’s susceptibility to sin and her need for guidance was reinforced by society. Tales of women’s wrongs were passed down, beginning with Eve’s original sin, women inherited a unstable nature that could easily fall prey. Pierre de Lancre, a French magistrate during the witch hunts, explained the larger number of female witches by referring to the primarily female names for witches which had been used throughout history, such as fate and nimphe. Similarly the Bible contains many negative examples of female witches such as the Witch of Endor, enforcing the idea of women’s need for guidance to remain on the right path, the idea of the deceptive women was established throughout history and society’s ideas on women made them more likely candidates for witchcraft. The mythology surrounding witchcraft could be
Although the ‘Legend’ of the Wicked Italian Queen is limited by its personal malicious nature, it is credible in its demonstration of Catherine’s ambition f...
The Devil in the Shape of a Woman by Carol Karlsen is a novel about the witch trials responsible for many female executions in colonial America. During these trials, many women were burned, hung, or exiled. The men of the time held comparable confidences to their fathers, spouses, and children. They were bound and determined to do away with ladies that emerged or were distinctive. The men got careful about ladies being as savvy as men and held gatherings just went to by only men on subjects that only they believed they would understand. The most apparent reason that the ladies were abused was because of the men being trepidacious of the ladies getting indulgent of their puissance. The men took this as a risk that the ladies were attempting toheir surmount, or that they were to assume control over the Puritan, male driven culture.
This paper will discuss the well published work of, Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken, 1975. Print. Sarah B. Pomerory uses this book to educate others about the role women have played throughout ancient history. Pomerory uses a timeline to go through each role, starting with mythological women, who were called Goddesses. She then talks about some common roles, the whores, wives, and slaves during this time. Pomerory enlightens the audience on the topic of women, who were seen as nothing at the time. Men were seen as the only crucial part in history; however, Pomerory’s focus on women portrays the era in a new light.
The witch-hunt that blazed a trail across Europe (and indeed the world) over the 15th to 18th centuries stripped women of much of the power they had historically held. Not 100% of all accused Witches were female but 75% to 90% of accused witches in Europe were in fact women (Levack, 1987, p.124).
In the Malleus Maleficarum, Sprenger and Kramer’s basic argument about the origins of witchcraft is that witchcraft is found chiefly in women due to several reasons that focus on characteristics of women. Sprenger and Kramer argue that witchcraft in women is more probable because women were very naïve and impressionable, carnal lust is never satisfied in women, and they are of lower intelligence and weaker memories than men.
In this brief monograph, we shall be hunting down and examining various creatures from the bestiary of Medieval/Renaissance thought. Among these are the fierce lion of imperious, egotistical power, a pair of fantastic peacocks, one of vanity, one of preening social status, and the docile lamb of humility. The lion and the peacocks are of the species known as pride, while the lamb is of an entirely different, in fact antithetical race, that of humility and forgiveness. The textual regions we shall be exploring include the diverse expanses, from palace to heath, of William Shakespeare, the dark, sinister Italy of John Webster, and the perfumed lady's chambers of Ben Jonson and Robert Herrick.
Ancient Greek mythology has made its way into public conscience and knowledge. So much so that any person on the street would be able to name at least one deity from their pantheon. From this public knowledge, much is known about the religions including its stories and mythologies. But less is known about a person’s role in Ancient Greek religion and even less about a woman roles in their religion. What roles the Ancient Greek people did play can be gathered from the Greek stories and myths. But more specifically what roles did Ancient Greek women play in their religion. The Ancient Greek myths and stories tell of priestess and women who remained virgins as a way of worshipping their gods. But more questions come from these, why did these women become priestess and what rituals did they perform? Both the reasons behind these motives and the process one goes through to become a priestess must be explored to better a woman’s role in Ancient Greek religion.
For many centuries to the present day, Christians have lived in fear of witches. They were known as to be the devils child who only practiced black magic and thought of as the Christians “persecution”. Witches have been known to mankind since the 1200’s. Throughout the 1400’s, the examination of witches was more focus and moved from the Jews. In the church’s law, it was stated that the belief of existence and practices of witchcraft was “heresy”. Because of what the Christians believed, churches would then torture and hunt down anyone who they thought were witches and killed the many women and only a few of the men. They even made them make the confession of flying through the midnight sky, being in love with the devil himself, practicing black magic and even turning into animals.
Witchcraft persecution peaked in intensity between 1560 and 1630 however the large scale witch hysteria began in the 14th century, at the end of the Middle Ages and were most intense during the Renaissance and continued until the 18th century, an era often referred to as the Enlightenment or Age of Reason. Representation of witches, nay, representation in general is a political issue. Without the power ot define the female voice and participate in decisions that affect women -similar to other marginalised groups in society- will be subject to the definitions and decisions of those in power. In this context, the power base lay with men. It can be said that the oppression of women may not have been deliberate, it is merely a common sense approach to the natural order of things: women have babies, women are weak, women are dispensable. However the natural order of things, the social constructs reflect the enduring success of patriarchal ideology. As such, ideology is a powerful source of inequality as well as a rationalisation of it. This essay will examine the nature of witchcraft and why it was threatening to Christianity.