I, apparently, suck.

[xp_daytripper]

Just got a batch of links from my mate Charlie. Seems the Burning Times is another one of those myths, like that Pope Joan. Yes, witches [1] were tried and burned and tortured, but it wasn't a wholescale genocide sort of thing. At least, not during the times courts kept records. Of course, that only goes back to the age of the printing press and doesn't cover what happened to the Druids when Britain was invaded by the Romans, but then again, unless I work out how to summon the ghost of Magic Users Past, that's probably just another myth too.

So, you're all right, I'm wrong (again) and I'm going to stop attempting to be clever and go play with Meggan.

Edit: The links, since you lot obviously don't understand the words "I got it wrong":

http://www.cog.org/witch_hunt.html
http://www.wiccaweb.com/suck_misconceptions.php
http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_burn.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_burn1.htm


There.

Edit 2: [1] or perfectly non-magically adept people who for whatever reason were called witches.

Comments

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

...

Catseye does not understand. Catseye used that Google thing and many of the pages say that the people who were hurt were not actually witches but just accused of that because it was a good way to find people who were Christian but that the Church thought were heretics. Yes, Catseye knows what "heretic" means now. :p

And Catseye also read that they didn't torture or kill them that often and it was over several centuries and that the Inquisition still exists today and is called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and there is still a lot for Catseye to read.

What? Catseye got curious!

[x-forge.livejournal.com]

Look who's all Big Words all of a sudden. Just in time for finals...

[x-crowdofone.livejournal.com]

Funny how that works out, isn't it? :)

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

PBHHHHHT!

Cats know everything! Nyah!

[x-crowdofone.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah? What's the secret to life, the universe, and everything, then? ;)

[xp_daytripper]

Again, you lot are right, I'm wrong and the Christians were nice fuzzy people who only wanted to bring civilisation to a heathen world. Okay? You lot win, I got it wrong.

[x-mirage.livejournal.com]

riiiiiiight. sure. have you been talking to Manuel again about "savages"?

if you want to vent, I'm here, okay? even if I am a-called heathen.

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

Last time Catseye checked, Catseye could post information and things she'd read about without it being about putting someone else down.

Catseye thinks someone is being pissy tonight. :p

But if that pissy someone would rather not get more information and sulk about being wrong instead, Catseye can read up on things for her own sake just as easily. Pfff.

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

Not to impugn your or your friend Charlie's knowledge but a quick Google search gave me a bunch of links that suggest the "witches" burned where nothing of the sort. That's like saying that only the mentally ill were put into Nazi concentration camps. Sure they were but that wasn't the largest group. Saying that witches were burned (which is inaccurate anyway because what do you mean by witches? Wiccans who didn't exist yet? Pagans? Nature worshippers? Satanists?) presumes that people were sophisticated enough to differentiate between a real witch and just the guy down the street who owes you money. It's not realistic. Most of the people were probably just like the rest of Europe at the time, Christian of some flavor or another.

Court records go back plenty further than the printing press. They're just hand-written is all.

Wasn't Britain colonised by the Romans? Who weren't Christian and generally fonder of not giving a damn about religions that didn't rouse-rabble?

Oooh, except that I see this one site is blaming the Burning Times on the Inquisition. Yeah, that's about as inaccurate as you can get.

[xp_daytripper]

Fuck, I'm agreeing with you lot. I got it bloody well wrong. I'll give you the blody links, if you insist...

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

No, no, I read what you were saying and it still sounded like you meant that witches were the ones getting burned. Which wasn't the case. Again it's like saying Jews were the target of the Spanish Inquistion. They weren't. Only Jews who claimed to be Christian but were secretly Jewish fell under the offices of the Inquistion.

Links are good though. I like links.

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

Or, you know, think of it this way: history isn't something that's set in stone. It's not 'what happened'. It's about the interpretation of facts, and it's written by the 'losers' as often as it's written by the 'winners'.

Morever, when it's used as collective history, it shapes the development of individuals and groups whether it's accurate down to the last name and date or as far from being accurate as possible. We all see the past through a filter of our own perceptions, and seeing the filter is as important as the names and dates.

That being said, I remember being more than a little surprised when I studied the Roman Inquisition back in university and found out just how... tolerant it could be.

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's how I felt about the Spanish Inquisition. 'Common knowledge' history ain't. Propaganda can do so much to change what we know is "real" history, can't it?

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

Actually, no, that's not what I meant. "Real" history is just as questionable as "popular" history, when you get right down to it. At least when you go beyond the last few centuries and the source material gets sketchier and sketchier.

It is possible, in some cases - not all - to know what happened with a reasonable degree of certainty. It's next to impossible to know for sure why something happened. It's also possible to overcompensate, and just because history is inaccurate doesn't mean it's not influential on a present course of events. The ethnographers who looked into the question of race in the early medieval period and explored precisely what they thought it meant to be 'Germanic' certainly weren't expecting nationalist theorists (and later, the Nazis) to pick it up and run with it to new and scary places.

...good God, I'm lecturing. Someone stop me.

And speaking of history...

[x-empath.livejournal.com]

the de la Rocha has several first-hand accounts of the Inquisitions in the family archives.

They're probably gone now, disappeared into some academic's to-do list somewhere. If not used to heat the old family home.

Manuel

[x-crowdofone.livejournal.com]

The Romans had an Inquisition too? I thought that was the Spanish.

Or wait, did you mean the Roman Catholics?

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

Even that is a bit confusing because the Sacred Order of the blah blah Inquistion wasn't in charge for most of the Spanish Inquistion, the Spanish Church and government was.

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

The Romans indeed had an Inquisition. It actually tended to be a little... nicer, on the whole, than the Spanish Inquisition. Damn, it's been a long while since I studied this sort of thing...

If I really wanted to get started, I'd be telling you about how the medieval period was actually fundamentally more tolerant than the period of the Renaissance and Reformation. So much for the 'Dark Ages'.

[x-kitten.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I got that you were saying you'd been wrong.

[xp_daytripper]

Thanks, Kit. Bad enough that I have to basically take back everything I've ever said about that, but people have to keep arguing with me and make me look even more stupid than I feel? Fuck this for a lark.

Good thing I already know I'm going to fail my finals, isn't it?

[x-kitten.livejournal.com]

And it's rather doubly harsh for being stuff that's important. Finding out your wrong about little stuff doesn't matter so much as stuff like this.

[x-gambit.livejournal.com]

I got vomited on by a guy I thought was Magneto.

I'll spot you and the bit a coke if you want to commiserate.

[x-juggernaut.livejournal.com]

And here I thought all your shirts looked that way normally.

[xp_daytripper]

I thought you were allergic to munchkins?

Never mind, we'll be right down. Thanks, Remy. Escape good.

[x-gambit.livejournal.com]

I am, but I see 'Uncle Cain' is still up, and he just looooves kids to play with while we talk.