The Burning Times
This page is dedicated to all of the men women and children
who died during The Burning Times and to those who died more
recently of violent hate crimes and misguided attempts at
*purging* the world of evil. To all of those innocents, this page
is in your memory, hopefully we can extinguish the fires of hatred
in at least one heart, and honor you with our efforts.
Since the beginning of time a war has been waged, a war that
recently has receded to hate crimes but in the past was waged in
courtrooms, town squares, and peoples own homes. This is the
war of good versus evil, not in the biblical sense or in the sense
that most would think it, but in the sense of the good and evil in the
human soul and heart. This evil is much less defined then any evil
that first comes to mind at the mention of the word. This war
surfaced many times throughout history but not so horribly as the
WitchCraft Trials. These trials contrary to popular belief did not
start and end in the 1600's but rather began with time and has
never ended. Granted the 1600's and the 1700's were when it was
most prevalent, however, that does not mean that the slaying of
innocent families in the recent past (1996) should go unheeded or
without tear shed. Nor does it mean that the deaths of three
women in the 1950's in Mexico should go unnoticed, 2 of these
women were hung and one was unfortunate enough to be burned at
the stake. It wasn't 300 or 3000 but does that mean that it is
unimportant? Or perhaps it is just water under the bridge to know
that in the 1930's a woman was stoned to death for being a witch
in France. Stoned for those of you lucky enough not to know is the
method of throwing rocks at a person or persons until they lay dead
perhaps of internal bleeding or of massive head injuries.
The death of those innocents has been approximated at 7-
12 million. Mind you, very few of these deaths were actually
recorded, in the past *witches* were viewed as demons not
humans therefore for the most part historians have had to use
personal diaries and other documents of that nature to estimate
the number of deaths.
The most common methods of execution or more
specifically murder were burning, hanging, stoning, pressing
and drowning. Burning was most commonly carried out as
follows, the condemned witch was dragged to her death sight
behind a horse bound at her hands, most often her condition
was so weak she was actually half dragged. Once she would
reach the sight (which would be crowded with onlookers)
she would be bound hands, feet and head to a large pole
protruding from the earth, commonly known as a stake.
Firewood and kindling would be placed around her, the
onlookers would spit and say cruel things to her most
commonly. The drywood and kindling would be set aflame,
and the crowd would watch her burn to death as she screamed
for mercy, if she wasn't gagged. Occasionally a "sympathetic"
executioner would break her neck before the dry wood was set
aflame, but that rarely happened as doing such a "merciful"
thing could condemn you to the same fate. Most hoped for a
less painful death like hanging, but that was only because they
didn't know what it was like. Hanging was just as horrible as
burning but in different ways. When you were hung most often
you did not suffer a broken neck and die almost immediately.
Rather you were suspended from your neck and suffocated to
death in 2-3 minutes while suffering excruciating pain feeling
all your nerve ends slowly die. Drowning was a common death
for witches as well, however this was not an execution but a
test. You were tied at hands and feet and weighted with rocks
(sometimes) and thrown into water you were fished out minutes
later and if you were alive you were innocent and god had
saved you. Another variation of drowning was binding witches
hands and legs to a long wooden "plank" the plank is lowered
so your head is under and you are left. If you struggle you are a
witch, if you sit still and trust in god and your innocence and
live you were, by default, innocent. Stoning was another
popular execution. Pressing commonly confused with stoning
was a means of torturing names or information out of a witch.
In the case of Giles Cory it was a way to torture a "guilty" or
"not guilty" plea. Which he never did, his last words were,
"more weight". Pressing consists of this a supposed witch
would be bound either to a large flat rock or several boards and
then boards would be placed atop them. Onto the boards
extremely large, extremely heavy stones were placed one by
one. The more you refused to cooperate, the more weight. This
continued until you either did as they asked or you died.
Bare in mind, these are not the only methods of
execution, torture, and testing that were carried out, rather the
most commonly used.
