Who burnt more at stake: church or secular?

[outhouse]

At any rate, what the article states sounds pretty counterintuitive because of what @Jumi points out. "Secular" wasn't really a thing in those times.

That would be correct in my opinion.

I want to know what this author calls secular.

 

[outhouse]

Thank you for the post.

Seems strange you would appreciate unsourced rhetoric.

Not often I see you fall for pseudohistory

 

[rocala]

The following site may be of interest; http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/w/witch/peters5.html

 

[Robert.Evans]

I would like to see credible sources backing this up.

As well as sources for their definition of secular.

So would I.

 

[Robert.Evans]

The following site may be of interest; http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/w/witch/peters5.html

Okay. Thanks. From your link:

Before the mid-sixteenth century, trials for witchcraft usually took place in ecclesiastical courts, but ecclesiastical officials also urged secular magistrates to assume jurisdiction over the offense, as permitted under English common law and later under statute law in 1542-1547 and 1563-1705.

My understanding then, certainly in England, was that there was little difference in church and state because all believed - it was a way of life. Yet, we can see a difference in a secular court that might well believe, but as active members of that court, take no position on that; unlike a church court which would be heavily influenced from scripture and their interpretation of it (hence the mistake of burning a scorcer.scorceress in the first place).

References:

9 The most reliable discussions are those of Merry E. Wiesener, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1993) Lyndal Roper, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern Europe (London, 1994); Briggs, Witches and Neighbors, 257-286; James Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England, 1550-1750 (Philadelphia, 1997), 169-199, and Clark, Thinking with Demons, 106-133. The literature is exhaustively reviewed by Diane Purkiss, The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations (London-New York, 1996), and Marianne Hester, "Patriarchal Reconstruction and Witch Hunting", in Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe, 288-306. The otherwise very interesting study by Gerhild Scholz Williams, Defining Dominion: The Discourses of Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern France and Germany (Ann Arbor, 1995), has been criticized for what some reviewers consider its uncritical feminist perspective.

10 On the midwife problem, see D. Harley, "Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-Witch," Social History of Medicine 3 (1990), 1-26, and the further references in De Ridder-Symoens, "Intellectual and Political Backgrounds," esp. 51-2.

11 The best study of the idea is that of Clark, Thinking with Demons. For the earlier period, see the seminal work of Richard Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials: Their Foundation in Learned and Popular Culture, 1300-1500 (London and Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1976).

 

[Robert.Evans]

The following site may be of interest; http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/w/witch/peters5.html

This is an exert from a PDF which appears to be worth reading and certainly shows that there is a difference between church and secular, which opposes most views on this thread.:

Potential for conflict between Church and State arose after the
passage of a series of Acts of Parliament during the early seventeenth
century that made drunkenness a temporal crime. 39 The opinion
among English common lawyers held that, in the absence of an
express savings clause, creation of a common-law offense ousted
ecclesiastical jurisdiction.' The English civilians responded to this
argument by saying that this did not apply where the purpose of their
jurisdiction was different from that of the secular courts, and that in
the case of drunkenness, their purpose was not so much to punish the
habitual drunk for a crime as it was to restore harmony among Christian
neighbors. Hence, the ecclesiastical records normally stated that
the drunkenness had been "greatly offensive unto all [the defendant's]
neighbors."4 The prosecution was meant, in other words, to accomplish
something quite different from punishing misdeeds proscribed
by Act of Parliament. Truly considered, no conflict existed between
secular and religious law

http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2487&context=journal_articles

 

[Robert.Evans]

So the courts of the king, the common law of the land, is secular.

The civilians were not reflective
enough, and the records they produced were not articulate enough,
for the historian to be sure whether they ever felt the conflict between
religious and secular obligation as keenly as Thomas Becket. Even if
they did, the evidence is sufficiently clear to demonstrate that they did
not regard the conflict as a call to take direct action against the courts
of the King. There certainly was conflict between common law and
canon law at all times between 1250 and 1640. But the dominant
themes in the responses to it on the part of English ecclesiastical lawyers
did not include defiance. Rather, they were accommodation and
self-defense through means that avoided, rather than confronted, the
common-law rules.

NOTES:
67 Statute of Consultation (1289-90), 1 Statutes of the Realm 108 (1810).
68 See, e.g., the award in Potts c. Davy (Archdeaconry of Buckingham 1597), Buckinghamshire
Record Office, Aylesbury, Act book D/A/C/25, f. 29, (listing the expenses associated
with procuring the writ of consultation). A medieval example is Prior of Wells c.
Valeynes (Canterbury Court of Audience 1304), Lambeth Palace Library, London, MS. 244, f.
9v (ten pounds was awarded, "pro dampnis et expensis que et quas dictus prior occasione
cuiusdam vexacionis in curia regia sustinuit et fecit."). See also Singer c. Gill (St Alban's
1572), Hertford Record Office, ASA 7/9, f. 32; Grindall c. Thomson (Carlisle 1607), Cumbria
Record Office, Carlisle, DRC/3/62 s.d. 20 October; Broughton c. Poval (Chester 1608),
Chester Record Office, EDC 5 (1608) no. 75.
1991]
HeinOnline -- 12 Cardozo L. Rev. 727 1990 - 1991
728 CARDOZO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 12:707]

 

[Robert.Evans]

Now we might define what a witch is.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Again from the same PDF:

From the time Edward I expelled the Jews in the late thirteenth century until the time Cromwell readmitted them in the seventeenth, all English men and women would have been subject equally to the summons and the sentences of both sets of courts. All were Christians, and hence bound by the rules of the spiritual law. All were subjects of the King, and hence equally bound by the rules of the common law

 

[Robert.Evans]

The following site may be of interest; http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/w/witch/peters5.html

This is interesting and shows how ideas can be exaggerated out of all proportion. The 'swim' was a test that most witches (male or female) would survive from, not drown.

Swimming Test

As part of the infamous “swimming test,” accused witches were dragged to the nearest body of water, stripped to their undergarments, bound and then tossed in to to see if they would sink or float. Since witches were believed to have spurned the sacrament of baptism, it was thought that the water would reject their body and prevent them from submerging. According to this logic, an innocent person would sink like a stone, but a witch would simply bob on the surface. The victim typically had a rope tied around their waist so they could be pulled from the water if they sank, but it wasn’t unusual for accidental drowning deaths to occur.

http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/7-bizarre-witch-trial-tests

 

[Robert.Evans]

@rocala
Yet another site that says the secular courts were worse than the ecclesiastical courts. So I stand by findings, until sometime proves otherwise:

This was due to an important reform in the legal system in the late Middle Ages when the accusatio was gradually replaced with the inquisitio. To modern ears this immediately summons up images of the Inquisition although it was secular rather than clerical courts and certainly not papal inquisitors that were responsible for the vast majority of fatal witch trials. When before the Inquisition, a confession and willingness to do penance was always supposed to be sufficient to avoid the death penalty for a first offence while no such leeway existed in most secular courts

http://www.bede.org.uk/decline.htm

 

[outhouse]

So the courts of the king, the common law of the land, is secular.

That is not what it says.

. Rather, they were accommodation and
self-defense through means that avoided, rather than confronted, the
common-law rules.

You have not defined secular in context to the time period

 

[outhouse]

This is an exert from a PDF which appears to be worth reading and certainly shows that there is a difference between church and secular,

In context it is difference between church and state. Defined by this article secular is defined as state government. I hope your not trying to pass off secular as atheism. The way your quotye mining out of context, it sure looks like it.

It only talk briefly about secular. in the case of drunkenness,


in the absence of an
express savings clause, creation of a common-law offense ousted
ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

This means the church was fighting for rule and lost and was ousted on this one topic and time.

 

[rocala]

In one of the links posted earlier is a reference to Elizabeth I of England creating a law that witches were not to be executed unless they had caused harm to others. If as stated earlier on this post the bible urges the killing of witches, I would suggest that this is an example of secular law.

 

[Robert.Evans]

In context it is difference between church and state. Defined by this article secular is defined as state government. I hope your not trying to pass off secular as atheism. The way your quotye mining out of context, it sure looks like it.

It only talk briefly about secular. in the case of drunkenness,


in the absence of an
express savings clause, creation of a common-law offense ousted
ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

This means the church was fighting for rule and lost and was ousted on this one topic and time.

But if th church fought and lost, it must have been fighting something other than itself. I have seen too many citations to "secular" for me to ignore it. I look primarily from England's point of view; the common law of the land and king were secular. That is not to say they did not believe however. But I think it is clear, there is a difference between the two. If you say not, then you will have to provide sources. And one other thing, would you prefer I comment without "quote mining"? Then you would complian that there was no source. Or would you prefer I let someone read pages of writing to get to one point.

 

[Robert.Evans]

In one of the links posted earlier is a reference to Elizabeth I of England creating a law that witches were not to be executed unless they had caused harm to others. If as stated earlier on this post the bible urges the killing of witches, I would suggest that this is an example of secular law.

But it doesn't mean kill witches. If you read the who passage, it is speaking of a woman that would be thrown out and have to make her living being a scorceress. That is what you should not allow, not allow a woman to live as a witch, or you might say, as an example, not to allow a woman to live as a prostitute. It does not mean kill. Peopl translated it to what was in their hearts.

What is your summary so far of what has been given?

 

[rocala]

@Robert.Evans, Thanks for a very good and interesting post. It is a highly emotive subject full of tragedy and mystery. It involves social, political and legal history.

It is primarily an historical subject and is therefore, as a post, on very shaky ground as no specific historical period has been given. Of course a more general conversation may have survived this but this one seemed to centre on definitions of secular.

The demands for definitions were as doomed as the original post i.e. they failed to give a time period that met with that of the O.P.

It might be interesting if the same question was later posted again with some modifications.
1/ A specific time period.
2/ The sole use of the term 'executions'.
3/ Geographical precision.
4/ Some definitions of the main terms.
5/ Suggestions for the reasons for the alleged disparity in judicial reasoning e.g. corruption, local knowledge etc.

 

[outhouse]

But if th church fought and lost, it must have been fighting something other than itself.

You have not figured it out yet?

Government verses religion.

 

[Robert.Evans]

You have not figured it out yet?

Government verses religion.

That's what I've been saying all along. Hence the title of the thread in the first place. Common law of the land against church.

 

[outhouse]

Common law of the land against church

that's right but secular is not part of it.


Secular in this context is the religious members of the government. Who ever started using the word secular was actually wrong.

Because these government decisions were not religiously free. They were still religious in nature, just NOT under the church's control.'


These governments were still all religious in nature. Its why they were out on a "which hunt"