ELIZABETH BATHORY Countess Elizabeth Bathory is known as the most vicious female serial killer. Coming from a noble family in Kingdom, Hungary, no one really knows why she went out of her way torture hundreds of women. Either way throughout about a 20 year time span, Bathory spent her time not only ruling multiple castles, but taking in innocent women and children of the local men and women and making them her own. “Bathory and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young women between 1585 and 1610” (Wikipedia 1). Investigation By 1605, rumors of Bathory’s cruel acts had spread through the Kingdom of Hungary. Both publicly and in court, people had made complaints about the acts of Elizabeth. When the year of 1610 came, many rumors had not gone away, so King Matthias assigned 3 other men to investigate the scene. “In 1610 and 1611, the notaries collected testimony from more than 300 witnesses” (Wikipedia 4). They investigated that the victims of Bathory’s atrocities were young women, daughters of the local peasants. The atrocities described most consistently include severe beatings, burning or mutilation of hands, biting the flesh off faces, arms, and other body parts, freezing or starving to death.” (Wikipedia 4). Many witnesses went into great detail of what they had heard, seen, and even went …show more content…
“In addition to the testimony, the court also examined the skeletons and cadaver parts found as evidence.” (Wikipedia 5). There is no record or evidence of how many victims Elizabeth actually killed, but there were rumors of a so called book. The book was said to have lists of all the victims that Bathory had. The book was only seen by one person, Susannah, but was never actually revealed to be real. Although there were 32 letters that were found, written from Elizabeth, explaining some cruel acts of
...they arrested her. She had a trial, and not death because of her wealth. During the trial, witnesses, as well as Elizabeth’s other helpers, stated all they knew when they were present. Most of them did not know much because of Dravulia. She was usually the only one in the room, because Elizabeth knew that she could rely on her. Dravulia was killed after the trial. She was murdered by one of the noble’s as revenge. During the trial, a servant found her diary covered in names and techniques used. This made the case. She stated that she had done what she had done because the servants were not respecting her. Elizabeth was never present at her trials due to her nobility, although she was told what was going on. She was eventually sentenced under solitary confinement. Meaning she was in a room by herself for the rest of her life. She was found dead in 1614, in her room.
Rebecca Nurse was the embodiment of a kind, pious, and gentle citizen during the 17th century in Salem, Massachusetts. Having spent her entire life a devout Purist, Rebecca was hardly a typical candidate to be accused of such a heinous act such as witchcraft in 1692. And yet, she was violently taken from this world before her time had come, accused of afflicting girls through the medium of witchcraft, causing pain, suffering, and fits to such innocent younglings. How could someone who seemed so innocent be sentenced to the worst, cruelest punishment of all, death? A consensus on her innocence has been undisputed by historians and scholars since her travesty of a hanging.
The first accusers of those on trial for witchcraft were group of teenage girls. The first girl, Betty Parris, began to have painful contortions, fever, and what were most likely hallucinations. These symptoms may have been the result of ergot poisoning, the result of eating bread made with moldy rye, but at the time, no one knew that was possible. The family’s slave, Tituba, had come from Barbados and was knowledgeable in stories of voodoo and black magic. She shared these stories with Betty and her friends. After seeing the attention Betty was getting because of her behavior, her friends began to exhibit the same behavior. Because the local doctor knew of no medical explanation, he suggested the cause was supernatural. Tituba, with her knowledge of magic became the first person accused. She thought she could save her life by confessing and naming other women as her conspirators. Tituba’s accusations were unreliable because she was trying to do anything she could to save her life. Others were also accused by the girls. These women were generally unpopular or strange in some way, so it was easy for them to be targets of the girls accusations. For these girls, who were at the center of the town’s attention and perhaps had no real understanding of the seriousness of their accusati...
The witch hunts in early modern Europe were extensive and far reaching. Christina Larner, a sociology professor at the University of Glasgow and an influential witchcraft historian provides valuable insight into the witch trials in early modern Europe in her article 'Was Witch-Hunting Woman-Hunting?'. Larner writes that witchcraft was not sex-specific, although it was sex-related (Larner, 2002). It cannot be denied that gender plays a tremendous role in the witch hunts in early modern Europe, with females accounting for an estimated 80 percent of those accused (Larner, 2002). However, it would be negligent to pay no heed to the remaining 20 percent, representing alleged male witches (Larner, 2002). The legal definition of a witch in this time, encompassed both females and males (Levack, 1987). This essay will explore the various fundamental reasons for this gender discrepancy and highlight particular cases of witchcraft allegations against both women and men. These reasons arise from several fundamental pieces of literature that depict the stereotypical witch as female. These works are misogynistic and display women as morally inferior to men and highly vulnerable to temptations from demons (Levack, 1987). This idea is blatantly outlined in the text of the 'Malleus Maleficarum' written by James Sprenger and Henry Kramer in the late fifteenth century. This book is used as the basis for many of the witch trials in early modern Europe (Levack, 1987). The text describes women as sexually submissive creatures and while remarking that all witchcraft is derived from intense sexual lust, a women is thus a prime candidate for witchcraft (Sprenger & Kramer, 1487). In this time period, men are seen as powerful and in control and thus rarely...
...147). Women were often tortured for a confession, and to stop the torment and pain inflicted on them, many women accused other women in order to save themselves.
The Wife of Bath is a complex character-she is different from the way she represents herself. Maybe not even what she herself thinks she is. On the surface, it seems as though she is a feminist, defending the rights and power of women over men. She also describes how she dominates her husband, playing on a fear that was common to men. From a point of view of a man during that time period, she seemed to illustrate all of the wrongs that men found in women. Such as a weak parody of what men, then saw as feminists. The Wife of Bath constantly emphasizes the negative implications of women throughout the ages. She describes women as greedy, controlling, and dishonest.
Tituba’s confession sparked a massive, hysterical, witch hunt in which at least 22 people were killed, in which nineteen people were hanged, between four to thirteen people who died in prison, and one person who was pressed to death. What is astounding is that although Betty and Abigail were the ones that were possibly sick, many others played along and accused people. Together, they accused almost 100 people of be...
Once the accusations began, many innocent people in the community were taken away. They were then either forced to admit that they were witches, to free themselves from a public hanging, or deny that they were witches, saving their integrity, but subjecting themselves to an unjust public hanging.
During the early modern period Europe experienced a phase of vicious prosecution of the people accused of the crime of ‘Witchcraft.’ There has been an estimated death toll of up to 50,000 people during these Witch-hunt crazes, although the exact figures are unknown. What is known is that overall 75-80% of those accused were woman although this varies in different states. In this essay I will discuss the role of gender in witchcraft and why the majority of people executed as Witches were women.
During The Salem Witch Trials of 1692, over 100 people were either jailed or executed
Anne Llewellyn Barstow finds that there was a disproportionate amount of women who were accused of Witchcraft in Western Europe between 1400 and 1650. Barstow moves on to point out through the text that these Women were victims of Misogyny due to the definition of Witchcraft being so broad and actually fitting the descriptions of the lives of many women. The patriarchal society of Europe at the time also bound women to lives of a lesser class if they were not living under the protection of men. Women were also seen as sex objects, and were seen as a threat to men who viewed women as untrustworthy and whorish. The findings of her research and views led Barstow to find that women were more likely to be accused and put to death for Witchcraft than men, as they were seen as minors before the courts and could not hold high positions but, they could be accused before the court for the heinous act of Witchery. Women were blamed for every malfunction of their reproductive systems, including stillbirth and were also blamed for preventing conception. Barstow believes that the first ever accounts of Witchcraft prosecution rose in the fifteenth century Europe as a means to control women’s sexual and reproductive lives. Barstow states, that in the English county of Essex, an amazing 92 percent of those accused of Witchcraft were women. The author proves that authors of the day do not concentrate on Women as the victims. In fact Women’s issues were merely brushed o...
In the tale that Geoffrey Chaucer had wrote, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, a man was described as a Knight. This Knight wasn’t like any normal Knight, he messed up and raped a girl. This is a big mistake, giving a lot of Knights a bad name, and having those that look up to them start to be disappointed in them. Usually the punishment that is given to those that rape, or in general any other crime, is death or time in the slammer, however, the Queen says no because he is a good looking guy. Instead of death, he had find out what women most desire from men. He is given a year and a day to find out, and on the last day, when he nearly had given up all hope, he sees an old woman in a field who makes a deal with him. The old lady gives the Knight a choice: to have an old, but faithful, wife, or to have a drop-dead gorgeous woman, but to have her never to be faithful, before she tells him what the Queen wants to know. The old lady and Knight get married and she wants him to sleep with her, like husbands are supposed to do with their wives. They argue and she gives him the two choices again; to have an ugly wife, but she is faithful. The other choice is to have a drop-dead gorgeous wife, but is never faithful. With this, he learns a lesson, and sufficient punishment.
The Wife of Bath The Wife of Bath:An Illusion of Reality When one thinks of marriage, the most common ideal is equality of control among man and woman. Chaucer incorporates two opposing viewpoints on marriage in The Canterbury Tales. The Wife of Baths tale, in which she says that one spouse, preferably the wife, must have mastery over the other. On the other hand, The Franklins tale disapproves of the Wife of Baths philosophy by saying that equality and trust are essential in holding a marriage together as expressed here: ....
When Shakespeare was born in 1564, Queen Elizabeth had taken power a mere 6 years prior, and her justice system was very different from ours. In this paper, I hope to explore some of the ways punishments were different, such as how many crimes had individual punishments, often times depending on how severe the crime was. I will also go in-depth to one of the most infamous cases of the medieval period.
Huppé, Bernard F. "Rape and Woman's Sovereignty in the Wife of Bath's Tale." Modern Language Notes 63.6 (1948): 378-81. The Johns Hopkins University Press.