[MUSIC] In 1996, The British historian Jonathan Barry stated that, I quote, "few historical enterprises have been as intensively historiographical and reflexive in character as the study of witchcraft." Barry's words do indeed illustrate a fact, that is, that during the last 200 years dozens of scholars have devoted their studies to the history of witchcraft, thus offering a huge amount of historiographical literature to delve into. In this unit, we will try to sum up some of their conclusions, in order to understand the emergence of the witch craze at the end of medieval times. To do that, we will first analyze the so-called "witch stereotype", which appeared in Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries. A central aspect of this "witch stereotype" is clearly related to the world of malificent magic. Along human history, most societies have believed in the existence of some people capable of causing harm to others through magical means. Those practices were known in medieval times as <i>Maleficia (</i>maleficent crime), often accompanied by the expression <i>Veneficia</i>, this is, poisoning. During the first medieval centuries, secular laws established a clear difference between that kind of evil practices and beneficial magic. We can find an example of that in the Law Code promulgated by the Castilian King Alfonso the Wise during the 12th century. It goes like this: "Every person of the village can accuse soothsayers, sorcerers, and other impostors, of whom we talk about in this chapter, in front of the judge. And if witnesses prove that they have done some of those evil deeds, they must die for that. But those who perform enchantments or other things with good intention, such as to expel the demons from the body of people, to heal couples afflicted with magical impotence, to prevent the hail that falls from the clouds, to avoid the mist that spoils the crops, to exterminate the locusts and aphids that spoil bread or vineyards, or for any other beneficial reason such as those, they must not be harmed, and they should even receive a prize for it." This distinction between good and bad magic (depending on the intentions of the performer) was not so clear among ecclesiastical elites. For them, most kinds of magic were superstitious and should be avoided, as they could lead people away from the belief in an only true God, as you have already seen in the previous unit. Nevertheless, such distinction was well established in people's minds, as can be seen through the secular laws of medieval Europe and the trials held against maleficent magic in many secular courts. For example, we can find numerous trials against men and women portrayed as "<i>malefici</i>" for preventing sexual intercourse between couples through magical means. We can also find secular laws against those women who were capable of provoking goitre and other throat diseases to people or cattle, an affliction quite common in European mountain areas. The penance for those crimes was quite severe. According to a 14th-century law code from the Pyrenean Valley of Àneu, the defendants had to prove their innocence through the ordeal of iron. This ordeal consisted in forcing them to hold a red-hot iron and then assessing the evolution of their wounds. In the case of a fast recovery, the woman was considered innocent. Otherwise, she was seen as guilty of the alleged crime, and was to be burned, whereas all her possessions were confiscated and went to both her lord and her accuser. As we have seen in the previous unit, all kinds of magical practices, both good and evil, started to be seen under a more sinister light during the last medieval centuries. They were associated with a diabolical behavior and even with heresy. This phenomenon, attested to in many theological works and in the sermons of the mendicant preachers, entailed a change in the way in which people who perform magical activities were perceived. At that point, those diviners and sorcerers, and also those <i>malefici,</i> started to be seen not only as evil individuals, but as members of a maleficent group of people, a sort of heretical sect who polluted Christian society with their devilish means. Some 15th-century works started to talk about the sect of the diviners, while some mendicant preachers, such as Vicent Ferrer or Bernardino de Siena,
talked about some sects whose members gathered at night to carry out dark rituals, and were capable of provoking illness or death through sorcery or poison. In that scenario, Pope Alexander V promulgated a bull in 1409 in which he condemned, I quote, the "new sects integrated by Christians and Jews that are sorcerers, diviners, invokers of demons, enchanters, conjurers, superstitious people, and soothsayers who use damned and forbidden arts that pervert and sully Christendom." Within that context, the ancient accusations against individuals for maleficent magic gave place to a much more disturbing scenario, in which the evils that haunted society were to be attributed to the misdeeds of a heretical and diabolical collectivity. Remember the ordeal of iron to which the women allegedly causing throat diseases in the Pyrenean valleys were subjected? Well, a hundred years later, in 1424, the notables of that same valley decided again to legislate against those magical crimes. But this time, the suspected women were not only accused of individually causing the illness, but of being part of a group of people that gathered by night, abjured Christian faith, paid homage to the Devil, kidnapped little babies from the side of their mothers to kill them, and provoked throat diseases and other illnesses through poison or sorcery. This merging of heresy and diabolism with maleficent magic brought about the crime of witchcraft. [MUSIC]