Sailing across the heavens on a broomstick, the clichéd depiction of a witch is as a primarily female entity – to the extent that the ensemble has become the default Halloween garb for females of all ages. But from whence did this gender-based cliché originate? A segment of the answer lies in medieval conceptions of sorcery and the attributed roles of men and women in the “offense” of witchcraft.
Investigating one facet of the witch’s portrayal in mainstream culture – her link with flying – we observe an evolution in perspectives from the early to the later medieval times. In the 11th century, Bishop Burchard of Worms commented on certain heretical views:
Certain vile women, reverting to Satan and lured by the deceit and hallucinations of demons, suppose [that] in the nocturnal hours they journey atop certain beasts with the heathen deity Diana and a legion of females, and they traverse a vast stretch of the globe in the tranquility of the deep night.
According to Burchard, these females were in reality slumbering, however, they were ensnared by the devil, who beguiled their minds in slumber. He also posited that only the exceptionally “gullible and dull-minded” would imagine that these flights had genuinely occurred.
Yet by the terminal 15th century, perceptions of sorcery had shifted significantly. While numerous notions about females flying through the skies remained, the view of them had altered from skepticism to dread. The magical nocturnal flight became linked with clandestine congregations of witches named “the sabbath,” involving malevolent deeds such as infanticide, engaging in lascivious revelries, and devil worship.
This intimates that what was formerly deemed a superstitious conviction solely among women and naive males was now being perceived much more gravely. So what came to pass to engender such a drastic shift?
An interpretation posited by scholar Michael D. Bailey is that at some juncture during the 14th and 15th centuries, ecclesiastic authorities, perhaps inadvertently, amalgamated two separate traditions: that of “erudite” magic and “vernacular” magic. The vernacular variety of sorcery necessitated no scholarly instruction, was commonly recognized, could be executed by both genders, and was generally connected to affection, sexuality, and healing.
Conversely, erudite sorcery arrived in Europe from the Orient and was chronicled in the “magical texts” that circulated among literate males whom Richard Kieckhefer categorized as constituents of a “clerical underbelly.”
Notably, accounts of human flight do make an appearance in these text – albeit in reference to males rather than females. An example is detected in a 15th-century compendium wherein the male scribe recounts soaring through the skies on a magically invoked “demon-steed.”
Two significant divergences between this narrative and those concerning females are that the flyer is an educated man and demons are now explicitly implicated in the event. By merging popular beliefs about the nocturnal flights of females with the demon-summoning sorcery of the clerical underbelly, medieval inquisitors began to dread that females would succumb to the lure of demons they lacked the ability to command.
Sorcery and Females
While males also appear in the infamous 15th century manual for witch-chasing, Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of the Witches), the text has long been acknowledged for its deep-seated misogyny. It insinuates that women’s alleged inferior intellect rendered them vulnerable to demonic manipulation. A snippet declares:
As through the primary defect of their [women’s] logic they are more inclined to renounce the faith; hence through their secondary flaw of unrestrained emotions … they perpetrate a range of retaliations through sorcery. Hence it is hardly surprising that such a multitude of witches is found in this gender.
By the medieval times’ conclusion, there had emerged an impression of women as immensely prone to witchcraft. The belief that a sorceress could navigate on a broomstick (particularly when contrasted with the male who summons a demon steed for his travels) highlights the domestic realm which women were thought to inhabit.
The notion that females were transcending their anticipated social functions is likewise reflected in numerous allegations made against males accused of witchcraft.
As an illustration, a 13th-century missive from Pope Gregory IX depicted a conclave of heretics that bore a striking resemblance to subsequent portrayals of the witch’s gathering. It claimed that if women were scarce at these debauched revelries, men would perform “vile acts” with fellow men. Hence, they violated the presumed sexual laws and became womanish, challenging societal expectations.
In numerous respects, magic was perceived by the ecclesiastical authority as a symbol of dissent against traditional mores and structures, encompassing gender identities.
The impression that women could be involved with diabolical magic, usually attributed to scholarly males, albeit possibly misconstrued, was alarming. Neither gender was sanctioned to consort with demons, yet men were believed to have a better resistance to demonic authority due to their scholarly background, unlike women.
Women’s supposed intellectual deficiency, combined with prevailing opinions about their “emotional nature,” signified that they were deemed more susceptible to enter into compacts of “allegiance to devils” over whom they wielded no control – thus, according to medieval ecclesiastical viewpoints, women were more prone to sorcery than men.
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