XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: hayesmstw@hotmail.com   
      
   On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 16:28:51 GMT, Bree  wrote:   
      
      
   >A difference might be the reasons for the torture. Orientals used it for   
   >punishment/deterrent/revenge and for getting information for practical   
   >purposes: espionage, intrigue, investigation of ordinary crimes.  I've   
   >heard (I do hope even they were not as bad as that) that  there was   
   >something in the Middle Ages in Europe about a suspected witch being forced   
   >to confess for the good of her soul? Did either E's or O's use it to   
   >investigate a thought or speech crime such as religious heresy?   
      
   One of the other Inklings, Charles Williams wrote a history of Christianity in   
   relation to witchcraft. The title is simply "Witchcraft".   
      
   It is worth reading if only to discover that the kind of behaviour you   
   describe did not belong to the Middle Ages, but to Early Modern Europe.   
      
   The Great European Witchhunt was a prduct of modernity, not of the Middle   
   Ages. And, as Williams shows, it was an aberration, that lasted about 200   
   years. Many people speak as though witchhunting was "medieval". It wasn't (and   
   isn't). It was, and is, modern.   
      
      
   --   
   Steve Hayes   
   Web: http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm   
        http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius   
      
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