From: dickeney@access.digex.com (Dick Eney)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: RE: Witch-burning victims
Date: 22 Jan 1993 02:04:02 GMT
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: access.digex.com

SUBJ: Burning Times Body Count

This was on the net about three months, rather than a year, ago,
but it seems to have some of the data that was being requested:

[Begin quote]
From: bwhite@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (William E. White ) 
 
Subject: Rossel H. Robbins on number of executions 
Date: 30 Oct 92 20:17:38 GMT 
 
Since the subject of number of executions has come up and is being 
debated so vigorously, I thought I'd throw my $0.02 in.  I consider
Rossel Hope Robbins to be a very good source, as he lists most of
his.  The following is what he has to say on the number of
executions (taken w/o permission, but I think this falls under
educational use). 
 
.... Because of the varying condition of historical records, all
figures of executions must remain approximations.  Ludovicus a`
Paramo, in his _De Origine et Progressu Officii Sanctae
Inquisitionis_ (Madrid, 1598), said the Inquisition alone within
the space of 150 years had burned 30,000 witches (quoted by
Limborch, 1692).  If an approximation of those executed as witches
be insisted on, the most reliable suggestion is that of George L.
Burr, who estimated a *minimum* [italics RHR's] of 100,000 men and
women and children burned in Germany alone.  One might double this
figure for the whole of Europe. 

    Because the number of burnings on the continent was, even at
the most conservative estimate, very considerable, there is a
danger of assuming an unduly high number for England.  Thomas Ady
estimated "some thousands" burned in Scotland; Zachary Grey (in
1744) quoted a figure of 3,000 to 4,000 between 1640 and 1660; and
Robert Steele (in 1903) gave 70,000 between 1603 and 1628!  C.
L'Estrange Ewen, one of the few writers on witchcraft to examine
original documents, made this pertinent comment: 
 
    The very occasional nature of a trial for witchcraft led the 
    curious to take down and preserve the most sensational of the 
    statements of witnesses and accused.  A considerable amount of 
    such material is available, mainly in the form of chapbooks, 
    prima facie evidence that witchcraft trials with evidence of a 
    hair-raising nature were sufficiently unusual events to excite 
    the interest of the reading public. (Witchcraft and           
    Demonianism) 
 
Ewen "guesses" about 1,000 witches were hanged during the whole
period in England. 
 
--------------------- quoted material ends------------------------- 

Anyway, Robbins also asserts that "witchcraft" in the Burning Times
meant heresy, and that those convicted were convicted of being
Christian heretics (Catharissts, Catharites, Albigensians,
Waldensians, etc).  Sorcery itself wasn't technically heresy, but
the distinction wasn't frequently made.  In any case, Robbins also
asserts that towards the end more and more executions were
performed to remove politicals. 
  
--  
|  Bill White   +1-614-594-3434     | bwhite@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu 
|  31 Curran Dr., Athens OH  45701  | bwhite@bigbird.cs.ohiou.edu
(alternate) | 
|  SCA: Erasmus Marwick, Dernehealde Pursuivant, Dernehealde,
Middle Kingdom  | 
                       + + + + + + + + + +

Mighty far short of the "9,000,000 in four hundred years" that is
sometimes quoted.
Newsgroups: alt.pagan