Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

When speaking of mass deaths in Slovenia, one must certainly mention
the deaths of those women who were convicted of witchcraft. Their persecution
coincides with the disintegration of the church organisation in the fourteenth
century and the second half of the fifteenth century. At that point, the persecution
of witches was publicly supported by the Pope. Persecution of witches and
wizards was formalised through the Papal Bull Summi desiderantes, which was
issued by Pope Innocent VIII in 1484. 22 The first wave of witch persecution,
which was linked to the heresies of the fourteenth century, did not affect Slovenia.
The first witch trials in Slovenia date to the first half of the fifteenth century.
Between 1425 and 1717, there were 400 witch trials. Lenard suggests that “a belief
in witches gained ground in the countries which were under German cultural
influence at the end of the Middle Ages. A punishment of being burnt at the stake
was imposed on them by the national authorities. They were tortured until they
confessed. The notion of a witch in medieval Slovenia was rather broad, involving
ordinary criminals, no-goods and other lowlifes, as well as various wretches, the
mentally poor and people who were convicted of this crime as a result of human
mistake or malice.” 23 Women were stretched out, prodded with needles, poured
over with different types of boiling liquid, wound up, cut, whipped and burnt
alive. Looking at the pictures, one can also recognise a certain degree of sexual
perversion in the said acts, which can sometimes even be observed in church
frescoes. While hangmen who are drunk or otherwise drugged are either putting
various objects into women’s genitals, anus or mouth, or cutting and pinching
their breasts, grown-up men are following these activities from a close vicinity,
with the torture devices positioned in a manner that facilitated a good view.
Franja Mihelic 24 claims that all social classes believed in witches, including
the poor, the rich and intellectuals. It therefore comes as no surprise to find “that
superstitious women in Slovenia learned various charms, spells, incantations
and sorceries, which they used for healing people and animals, evoking spirits,
exorcising, freeing the obsessed, raising treasures, and causing hail and fires. Such
women were called prophetesses or even goddesses. People respected them highly
and were also very afraid of them: all calamities, disasters and misfortunes were
attributed to them, sometimes even inhumane revenge was inflicted upon them,
as they were supposedly witches. Malice, envy, jealousy and hatred often brought
them to the stake.”
22
Vilfan, 1961: 266.
23
Lenard, 1922: 42.
24
Govekar, 1926: 29–30.
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