Witchcraft

Witchcraft

Few episodes from America’s colonial past times are as good known or as notorious as the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. For many, the Salem trials cause got represented the defining 2d inward the history of Puritan conspiracy-minded intolerance as well as superstition; however, belief inward magic as well as witchcraft was an inextricable business office of the seventeenth-century worldview.

Witches were prosecuted inward Europe as well as inward all of the American colonies, non simply inward Puritan New England. While historians cause got produced competing explanations for colonial witchcraft belief, as well as though peradventure no ultimate explanation is possible, they cause got described many of the social, cultural, as well as religious weather inward which witches could live identified as well as witch-hunts could gain momentum.

Briefly stated, a witch was understood to live a soul who had made a pact with Satan to price neighbors, the community, or the terra firma through supernatural means. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 witch, inward other words, was a devil-worshipper, someone whose actions constituted a criminal as well as heretical conspiracy to destroy orderly Christian society.


A World of Wonders

Colonial Americans lived inward an enchanted universe, a “world of wonders,” as historian David D. Hall has phrased it. Their the world was 1 where the supernatural infused the natural, where God as well as Satan were active agents inward daily events, as well as where storms, disasters, illness, as well as crop failure were “special providences” demonstrating God’s volition or displeasure.

Existence as well as livelihood were oft precarious inward early on America, as well as from a rich fund of pop religious beliefs people chose the practices or rituals that mightiness offering simply about sort of added protection from catastrophe. Magic as well as countermagic, spells, astrology, divination, palmistry, as well as witch lore were employed to predict the future, or heal the ill, to price enemies, or to defend against occult attack.

In the seventeenth century, local folk magic practitioners called “cunning folk,” “conjurors,” “white witches,” or “wizards” were omnipresent—though oft suspicious—members of English linguistic communication as well as American social club to whom people could plough for assistance.

Witches were a malevolent business office of this the world of wonders. While the do of magic was an accepted element of folk belief, witchcraft had to a greater extent than sinister connotations. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 witch was someone who had acquired superhuman powers through a covenant with Satan; principal amid these powers was the powerfulness to perform maleficium, or to drive price through supernatural means.

The types of maleficium varied. Witches were oft defendant of causing disease or death, or causing miscarriages, or spoiling beer or butter. They were believed to torment their enemies inward other ways, past times invisibly entering the rooms of sleeping people as well as choking them, or turning themselves into animals to conduct out their evil deeds.

They were also said to live able to tempt others to bring together inward their satanic pact past times a hold back or glance, or past times sending out their specters to haunt their enemies. People nether this sort of satanic influence were believed to live “possessed,” a status that oft manifested itself inward inexplicable physical contortions or illnesses.

And spell belief inward magic as well as witchcraft was feature of pop as well as elite layers of early on American society, for clergymen specially the existent or imagined presence of witches was profoundly troubling. In making a covenant with Satan, the witch was rejecting God as well as godly society.

This import of heresy had deep resonance amid the Puritans, who believed themselves to live a covenant land of God as well as a terminal bastion of Protestantism. Witches inward New England represented aught less than a satanic conspiracy against God’s “city on a hill.”

Identifying these witches was a social process, a agency past times which people controlled social club as well as punished “antisocial” elements. Most accusations of witchcraft were of a face-to-face diversity as well as reflected local tensions betwixt neighbors.

What is oft surprising close these cases is the apparent banality of their origins. Testimony inward the 1651 trials against Mary as well as Hugh Parsons of Springfield, Massachusetts, shows that untidy describe concern transactions lay at the root of the accusations.

Hugh Parsons, a brick maker, exchanged threatening words with neighbors who after argued that he had bewitched them: their children had fallen unaccountably ill, their cow’s milk had curdled—all prove of “bewitchment.”

Other witchcraft trials cause got like quotidian origins. Unexplained illness, crop failures, missing farm implements, or abrupt deaths could easily live attributed to a suspicious neighbor’s demonic intervention.

Many of these cases never came to trial since the defendant would oft countersue for defamation. Yet the confluence of personal or communal misfortune as well as the demand for explanation as well as retribution oft meant that individuals who exhibited “antisocial” demeanour or who existed on the margins of social club were identified as witches.

Most of the individuals identified as witches inward colonial America were women. Historians dispute the numbers as well as gender proportions of witchcraft accusations, but 1 scholar, Carol F. Karlsen, has argued that of the 344 known people defendant of witchcraft inward New England betwixt 1620 as well as 1725, 267 (78 percent) were women.

Most of these were women who, purposefully or not, refused to convey their house inward society. For example, most defendant witches inward New England were middle-aged or older women who were eligible for inheritances; they interfered with the traditional patriarchal patterns of succession.

Women defendant of witchcraft inward New England commonly faced a familiar litany of sins that defined their deviance: excessive pride, sexual promiscuity, lying, discontent, or anger. They stuck out, inward other words, inward a social club that prized them chiefly as submissive Christian wives.

If witchcraft was defined as a rebellion against God, rebellion against the gender norms as well as hierarchy of early on American social club was every bit threatening to godly order. In times of problem or misfortune, marginalized or deviant women were hence amid the most vulnerable to live social scapegoats as well as defendant of beingness “handmaidens of the devil”.

The Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692

These patterns tin give notice live seen writ large inward the Salem outbreaks, which lasted from belatedly 1691 to May 1693. This was non the initiative of all major witch-hunt inward colonial America; in that place had been a pregnant 1 inward Hartford, Connecticut, inward 1662–1665, during which at to the lowest degree 3 people were executed.

And the Salem trials, during which 19 people (fourteen women as well as v men) were hung as “witches” as well as hundreds were imprisoned, were dwarfed inward scale past times the massive witch-hunts that had swept Europe during the sixteenth as well as seventeenth centuries, which reputedly led to the executions of tens of thousands of women.

Salem inward the 1680s was a troubled town. Flooded with refugees from frontier wars with the Native American tribes allied with France, facing a failing economy, as well as separate past times deep shape as well as factional fissures, the town was a tinderbox of the kinds of social antagonisms where witchcraft accusations could thrive.

The outbreak itself began inward belatedly 1691. Several immature women began to experiment with magic as well as spells, as well as simply about of them, including the immature lady as well as niece of Samuel Parris, a local clergyman, began to exhibit the signs of “possession.”

When consulted, physicians as well as clergy could solely conclude that the fits as well as trances that afflicted these women were prove that they were nether the influence of an “Evil Hand.” When interrogated, the girls at initiative of all would non cite their “tormenters” but eventually gave out 3 names, Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, as well as Tituba.

These “witches” were arrested as well as presumed guilty. Good as well as Osborne denied the charges, but Tituba, a Carib Indian adult woman who was also Parris’s slave, confessed. She implicated Good as well as Osborne as accomplices as well as claimed that in that place were many other witches at large as well as conspiring against the community.

This confession initiated a bicycle of accusations as well as trials that extended far exterior of Salem; fifty-fifty the married adult woman of Governor William Phips inward Boston was accused. Some people chop-chop came to the decision that the scale as well as achieve of the accusations meant that the outbreak was all a delusion, if peradventure a satanically inspired one.

Others were non as well as then moderate inward their opinions. Samuel Parris, for one, argued that Salem witchcraft was aught less than a “War the Devil has raised with us.” Judicial moderation was non an option, according to Parris, for “If e'er in that place were Witches, Men & Women inward Covenant with the Devil, hither are Multitudes inward New-England”. Other members of the clergy were to a greater extent than ambiguous inward their assessment of the situation.

When the judges inward Salem asked New England’s clergy for advice, Boston pastor Cotton Mather prepared on behalf of his colleagues a document entitled “Return of Several Ministers” (15 June 1692) that gave mixed directives. On the 1 hand, the document declared, the judges must live scrupulous as well as exacting as they weighed the evidence.

On the other hand, if witchcraft was afoot, the prosecution against it must live speedy as well as vigorous. The hunt raged on until Governor Phips suspended the proceedings inward belatedly 1692; inward the leap of 1693 he pardoned everyone soundless inward custody.

From Magic to Metaphor

The Salem trials were non the terminal witch prosecutions inward the American colonies; a instance emerged inward Colchester, Connecticut, inward 1724. In general, however, witchcraft was no longer treated as a crime.

Many scholars cause got argued that the increment of scientific rationalism, get-go with the Enlightenment inward the eighteenth century, made belief inward magic as well as the supernatural increasingly ludicrous. While this explanation has simply about credence, many people continued to believe inward witchcraft after 1692, as well as soundless do.

The aftermath of the trials brought no immediate resolution as well as healing to Salem or New England, as well as the witch-hunt remained a source of contention as people looked for scapegoats. Among those most visibly selected for censure were the Puritan ministers, specially Samuel Parris as well as Cotton Mather, whose actions many believed were catalysts for the trials.

In Mather’s case, these accusations were largely unfair, since other than his published describe concern human relationship of the trials, Wonders of the Invisible World (1692), his dealings with the trials were relatively indirect.

Nevertheless, inward 1700 a Boston merchant named Robert Calef published a book, More Wonders of the Invisible World (1700), which claimed that the Puritan clergy, as well as Cotton Mather inward particular, had conspired to encourage the witch hysteria inward monastic tell to eliminate heterodox belief as well as to bolster their sagging religious as well as cultural potency inward New England.

The volume was instantly labeled libelous past times the Puritan authorities, as well as Increase as well as Cotton Mather were as well as then angered past times Calef’s accusations that they had copies of the volume publicly burned inward Harvard’s college yard.

Whatever the immediate effect of the suppression of Calef’s book, the long-term consequences to Cotton Mather’s reputation were catastrophic. No unmarried figure is as closely identified with the trials as Mather, as well as his retentiveness remains as the archetypal intolerant Puritan as well as superstitious witch-hunter.

In the twentieth century witchcraft as well as witch-hunting remained live as a powerful metaphor for repression of many kinds: state-sponsored religious or political persecution, or for the oppression of women inward a patriarchal society.

Many contemporary believers inward witchcraft or paganism, called Wicca, vogue themselves as the religious descendents of the victims of the Salem trials, as well as terra firma a continuity of utilisation betwixt their ain struggles for liberty of religious human face as well as the lives of those who died inward 1692. Probably the most famous utilisation of the witchcraft metaphor came with the production of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible (1952).

Declaring that the “witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which laid inward amid all classes when the remainder began to plough toward greater private freedom,” Miller used the Salem trials as an analogy for the political repression of McCarthy-era America.

In his view, the activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy as well as the House Un-American Activities Committee represented a conspiracy against liberty of conscience akin to the Puritan backlash against witchcraft.

Radical feminists inward the 1960s, meanwhile, also employed the witchcraft metaphor. In 1968, the “action wing” of New York Radical Women was formed, as well as they chose the cite WITCH, an acronym for Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell.

The grouping attacked institutions that were seen as emblems of patriarchal power; they hexed the Chase Manhattan bank, for example, as well as disrupted a bride fair at Madison Square Gardens dressed as witches (Purkiss, 8–9). For these women, a witch was an emblem of woman soul empowerment, non patriarchal victimization.

Witchcraft

Witchcraft

Since early medieval times there had been persecution of women deemed to be witches throughout Europe, but the period from 1450 until 1750 perhaps saw the greatest number of people identified as witches being killed.

With the fear of witchcraft beginning about 1450, many countries started enacting laws against witches. These involved targeting older women who uttered curses, lived with black cats, or embarked on “strange” practices.

The persecution took place all over Europe, both in heavily Roman Catholic areas such as Spain and southern Germany, and in Protestant England and Denmark. As witches were deemed to be heretics, their penalty was to be burned at the stake, usually after confessions had been extracted under torture.


If the women confessed their sins, in some places they were garroted before their body was burned. In most cases the women suffocated from the smoke long before being burned. In 1577, it was recorded that 400 witches were burned in the French city of Toulouse alone.

In 1487, two Dominican monks, Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer, wrote the Malleus maleficarum or The Witches’ Hammer, which was initially submitted to the Faculty of Theology at the University of Cologne. This book was an attempt to have a “scientific” method of identifying witches, as the authors both were inquisitors.

The book went through 29 editions until the printing of the Lyon edition of 1669, with the Spanish Inquisition, in 1538, cautioning people that not everything in the book was true. King James VI of Scotland (later King James I of England) also became interested in witches after a visit to Denmark.

In 1597, he wrote about them in his book Daemonologie. He saw all witches as equally guilty of a crime against God. As late as 1687, another ruler, King Louis XIV of France, also published an edict against witches. However by that time interest in “witch hunting” had declined, and the last witch to be executed in western Europe was killed in 1775 at Kempten in Germany.

Colonial America

Witchcraft in colonial New England has captured the American imagination for centuries and remains open to interpretation. Although New England was not the only place in early America where people were accused of familiarity with the devil, it was here that religion, gender, and politics resulted in hysterical outbreaks and the execution of 35 people.

In 1542, England’s parliament first declared witchcraft a capital offense, and in 1626 a Virginia woman named Wright was accused of being a witch. Although witchcraft could mean heresy, most colonists who leveled such charges alleged “maleficium”: doing someone else harm by supernatural means.

When the Puritans settled New England in the 1630s, they took these ideas with them. Intent on establishing the New Israel in America, they were perennially on the watch for any signs that the devil might be threatening their mission. To these early New Englanders, the devil could possess a Native American, a black cat, or a fellow colonist at will.

The first accusation of witchcraft in New England was leveled in 1638 at Jane Hawkins, a midwife and associate of Anne Hutchinson. Hawkins’s radical religious beliefs and connection with Hutchinson probably contributed to her accusation, as did suspicions about her midwifery.

“It was credibly reported that, when she gave medicines,” wrote Governor John Winthrop, “she would ask the party, if she did believe, she could help her.” The first New Englander to be executed for witchcraft was Alice Young of Windsor, Connecticut, in 1647.

Over the next century, nearly 350 people were accused of maleficium, about 35 of these being hanged for their crimes. Although prosecutions ended with the 17th century, as late as 1724, Sarah Spenser of Colchester, Connecticut, was accused of being a witch.

Four of every five New Englanders accused of witchcraft were women, a statistic that reveals how intimately maleficium and gender were linked in the minds of the Puritans. They believed women to be weaker creatures than men and thus more susceptible to satanic temptation. Among women, those who were over 40 and lived alone were most likely to be accused, especially if they owned property.

In terms of timing, more than half of all accusations and two-thirds of executions took place during three outbreaks. In 1662, eight-year-old Elizabeth Kelly of Hartford, Connecticut, suffered possession during which she cried out the name of a neighbor, Goodwife Ayers.

Although Ayers was tried, the incident soon snowballed and over the next year, 12 more were accused and four executed. A similar outbreak occurred in Fairfield, Connecticut, in the 1690s, but these outbreaks pale in comparison to what transpired in Salem.

By 1692, the Puritans’ goal of creating a New Israel seemed to be lost. Everywhere the devil seemed to be winning: the Crown had revoked Massachusetts’s charter, Indians were raiding towns on the Maine frontier, and young people appeared uninterested in religion.

Economic change was also unsettling the region, with coastal settlements like Salem town becoming wealthy and attracting non-Puritans, much to the dismay of poorer agricultural settlements on the interior, like Salem village.

In this climate, witchcraft found popular acceptance. In February 1692, Betty Parris, the nine-year-old daughter of Salem village minister Samuel Parris, began experiencing fits along with her 11-year-old cousin Abigail Williams.

An investigation revealed that the girls had been engaging in occult practices to determine who their future husbands would be. The girls blamed Parris’s Caribbean Indian slave Tituba for instructing them and accused Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne of tormenting them.

In late February, local magistrates investigated the situation and jailed Tituba, Good, and Osborne, but this did not solve the problem. Over the next few months, other young women began to experience fits and by May more than two dozen people had been accused.

At this point, Governor Sir William Phips appointed a special Court of Oyer and Terminer to try the cases. Headed by Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton, the court quickly became a spectacle with accusers screaming when they confronted the defendants and the accused being submitted to bodily searches to see whether they possessed a teat for suckling Satan’s offspring.

Flouting many of the conventions of English and Massachusetts law, the court allowed the admission of “spectral evidence”: testimony about maleficium from a demonic creature in the form of an accused witch.

By June 1692, the outbreak had spread to nearby towns of Andover, Haverhill, Topsfield, and Gloucester, and by October the list of the accused included the wives of Governor Phips and several leading ministers. In late 1692, Phips finally put a halt to the proceedings, and in May 1693, he ordered the last of those imprisoned to be freed. By this point, however, 185 people had been accused and 19 executed.

Spanish and Roman Inquisitions

Spanish and Roman Inquisitions

The Inquisition in the early modern period was a permanent papal judicial institution of the Roman Catholic Church that was to eradicate heresies, originally dealing with alchemy, sorcery, and witchcraft, as well as dealing with heretical groups like the Cathars and subsequently with relapsed converts or “heretics” who refused to recant.

The most well-known of the inquisitions was the Spanish Inquisition, which was established in 1478 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Castile, with the support of, and carrying the authority of, Pope Sixtus IV. Although the inquisitor-general was appointed by the pope, the Spanish Inquisition was run by the Spanish monarchy.

The first inquisitors of the Spanish Inquisition worked from Seville and were so vindictive that even Pope Sixtus IV tried to moderate them. However he was not successful as the Spanish government established grand inquisitors in Castile and placed Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia under the power of the Spanish Inquisition.

The first grand inquisitor was the Dominican friar Tomás de Torquemada, who terrorized his victims using torture and the threat of execution to extract confessions, which resulted in as many as 5,000 people being burned to death at the stake before the practice was ended in 1834.


Torquemada’s reputation for brutality quickly became well known, and other inquisitors were appointed, with the Spanish Inquisition established in Sicily in 1517, although attempts to set it up in Naples and Milan failed. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V introduced it into the Austrian Netherlands in 1522 to use it against Protestants there, and its use continued until 1834, operating in South America.

As well as the Protestants, Muslim and Jewish communities in Spain were singled out by the Inquisition. In the case of these communities, the Spanish Inquisition only had the role of dealing with those who claimed to have converted to Christianity but who went back to their original religious beliefs.

While many Jews and Muslims left Spain for North Africa, many Jewish converts, known as the conversos, and the Muslim converts known as Moriscos, remained in Spain, where some continued to be strong business leaders. It was not long after conversion that some reverted to following their original beliefs and they were deemed, by the Spanish Inquisition, as being relapsed converts.

the torture of the accused

A study of the 49,092 trials held by the Spanish Inquisition between 1560 and 1700 showed that 11,311 were of Moriscos, 5,007 of conversos, 3,499 of Lutherans, 14,319 for heresy, and 3,750 for superstitions, including witchcraft, and 3,954 were for offenses against the Inquisition itself.

Even when the Inquisition tried heretics—often using dubious evidence gained from the torture of the accused—the results were usually that the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to be burned at the stake.

The burning was done not only to purge the sin, but also to serve as a warning of the flames of hell. Occasionally if people recanted and accepted the church teachings, they would be freed. More often they were strangled and spared the punishment of being burned alive. These trials and executions were know as autos-de-fe.

As well as persecuting heretics and suspected heretics, the Spanish Inquisition drew up lists of banned books, which were also burned. Its role served to create a united political unit in Spain, weaken opposition to the Spanish monarchy, and to strengthen the Catholic orthodoxy against the Protestants.

Pope Sixtus IV accused the rulers of Spain of profiting from the Inquisition as people found guilty of heresy had their property confiscated by the state. The Spanish Inquisition survived until it was banned by Napoleon in 1808, and by royal edict in 1834.

The Roman Inquisition was established in 1542 and staffed by cardinals and other papal officials with the role of defending the integrity of the Roman Catholic faith. This involved arraigning people on charges of heresy, sorcery, blasphemy, and witchcraft. With trials presided over by a cardinal, it had jurisdiction on the Italian peninsula and on other parts of Europe under papal rule, such as Avignon.

It was this group that tried the astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1633, when he faced the Inquisition on the suspicion of heresy, following the publication of his ideas about the Earth’s moving around the Sun. Although Galileo escaped with his life, another astronomer, Giordano Bruno, was not so lucky and was burned at the stake for heresy. Bruno is now often considered the first martyr for science.

Generally the Roman Inquisition was not as fierce as its counterpart in Spain, except during the rule of Pope Paul IV (1555–59) and Pope Pius V (1566–72), the latter having been a grand inquisitor himself. It was Paul IV who declared at the start of his short reign that he felt that matters of doctrine were far more important than all other matters facing the papacy.

Indeed Paul IV personally oversaw much of the persecution himself. The persecution of the Protestants in Italy meant that they were eliminated as threats to the states in late Renaissance Italy. The Inquisition continued its activities well into the 19th century but has long since ceased to be a force in Italy or elsewhere.

Native Americans

Native Americans

Native Americans were the featured villains inwards what were likely the inaugural off non-supernatural conspiracy fears experienced past times European migrants to America.

Fear in addition to Loathing inwards the American Woods

The early on American frontier was inwards many ways a deeply fearful place, especially inwards the inaugural off decades of white settlement inwards whatever given region. Settlers knew footling nigh their novel home’s existing occupants, in addition to possessed only the sketchiest notions of how many at that spot were, where they lived, in addition to what their intentions mightiness be.

Though equally many equally 7 1000000 people lived to a higher identify the Rio Grande at the fourth dimension of inaugural off contact, Europeans thought of North America as, inwards Pilgrim leader William Bradford’s words, a “hideous in addition to desolate wilderness”.


In traditional Judeo-Christian culture, wilderness was a identify to live feared rather than cherished, a identify where monsters in addition to devils lived to assay the faith of good, civilized people.

Especially amid the New England Puritans, it was commonly believed that the Indians were devil worshippers out to create their master’s bidding, though non actual devils themselves. (However, it was considered quite probable that the Indians lived amid existent monsters, including dragons!) Thus the expectation of confronting ultimate evil was built into the Puritans’ sense of their “errand into the wilderness”

Certainly non all the colonists shared the Puritans’ high marking of theological dread, but some fearfulness of the Indians was fairly constant in addition to non without justification, since over the inaugural off 3 centuries of European settlement, at that spot was ever some business office of North America where the natives were resisting their ain conquest in addition to displacement.

This resistance often took the cast of a raiding vogue of warfare that was intended to spread terror in addition to normally preferred striking at weakly defended targets, similar an outlying cabin or an isolated outpost. Always seeking ways of fighting that minimized their ain casualties, Indian state of war leaders were non to a higher identify using devious tactics such equally ambushes, sneak attacks, in addition to feigning peaceful intentions.

One of the keen Indian victories during Pontiac’s Rebellion (or War or Conspiracy, depending on your indicate of view) of 1763, the Ojibways’ triumph over the British at Ft. Michilimackinac was accomplished past times lulling the soldiers into complacency amongst a friendly game of ball. The Indian players hitting the ball into the opened upwardly gates of the fort, chased after it, in addition to thus all of a abrupt attacked amongst weapons the Ojibway women had smuggled within the transportation service piece the whites were watching the game.

Native american human foot soldiers

Though the European armies of the Early Modern Period were no slouches at wreaking decease in addition to devastation on the civilian population, Indian warfare was perceived equally peculiarly in addition to intimately awful. In some ways Indians were improve at distinguishing their targets than whites were—the French were often spared inwards raids on European outposts— but their military machine customs made few allowances for noncombatants.

Indian massacre stories invariably featured a scene inwards which a warrior tore an babe from her mother’s arms in addition to dashed her caput against a hearth or a tree; this became a cliché, but past times no way 1 without a footing inwards reality. Numerous mutual practices of Indian warfare haunted the dreams of European settlers, soldiers, in addition to officials, especially the scalping or other mutilation of victims’ bodies in addition to the taking of captives to live assimilated into Indian society.

(It should live noted that whites fighting Indians made few such allowances themselves, in addition to showed far less involvement than the Indians inwards taking captives. Nevertheless, white attacks on Indian villages were called “raids” or “battles,” piece successful Indian attacks on white settlements or military machine posts were termed “massacres.”)


This fearfulness of assimilation past times an alien, collectively minded society, a recurrent theme inwards the annals of American conspiracy theory, has 1 of its roots inwards tales of captivity amid the Indians. Some of the stories fifty-fifty admitted what historians receive got flora to live true, that many captives, especially women in addition to children, were successfully assimiliated, in addition to showed footling want to provide to European ways. Ever to a greater extent than lurid Indian captivity narratives became a staple of American pop culture, in addition to perhaps its inaugural off unique contribution to populace literature.

The before comment nigh Indians haunting settlers’ dreams should live taken quite literally. Recent interpretations of the 1692 Salem witchcraft crisis receive got emphasized the purpose of New England’s lateseventeenth-century Indian wars (1675–1678 in addition to 1688–1691) inwards generating the psychological stress in addition to supernatural fears that exploded inwards Massachusetts.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 large number of the accusers had some at in 1 lawsuit or immediate household unit of measurement sense amongst the Indian wars, in addition to those who didn’t had likely read Mary Rowlandson’s popular, in addition to thus lately published volume on her sense equally a captive during the before conflict, King Philip’s War. The witchcraft evil was thought to receive got inaugural off come upwardly from Indian powwows inwards the forest, in addition to the devil appeared to several Massachusetts women equally “a thing similar an Indian,” or “a Tawny man”.

Accuser Mary Toothaker of Billerica finally admitted nether questioning that she had lashed out because she was “troubled w’h feare nigh the Indians, & used to dream of fighting amongst them.” Toothaker claimed to receive got signed upwardly amongst the devil herself because he had “promised to maintain her from the Indians”.

At to the lowest degree these colonial New Englanders had some at in 1 lawsuit or nearly at in 1 lawsuit sense of the Indians they feared thus much. In afterwards centuries, far to a greater extent than white Americans eagerly consumed Indian atrocity stories some the household unit of measurement tabular array in addition to inwards pop literature in addition to newspapers than ever interacted amongst Indians or witnessed an Indian raid.

Given the emphasis placed on the depredations of “murderous savages” inwards their information nigh the Indians, it is perhaps non surprising that nineteenth-century migrants heading to the Pacific coast on the Overland Trail brought hair-trigger emotions to all their thoughts in addition to actions concerning Indians.

Many reported their scalps itching at the really thought of Indians. Most westering travelers suffered “far more,” according to historian Glenda Riley, “from their ain anxieties what could come about to them than from what really did happen”.

Unfortunately, the Indians themselves did suffer, at the hands of settlers who were easily panicked into acts of violence in addition to prejudice, in addition to eager to back upwardly harsh regime policies against Indians, having learned to bargain amongst their anxieties past times fearing in addition to hating the natives.

The Myth of the Superchief

Although it would live stretching the Definition of conspiracy theory to include all fears of Indian assault inwards this category, much of what settlers, soldiers, in addition to regime officials believed nigh the Indians sure does qualify. Whites often became convinced that the Indians of different villages, tribes, in addition to languages were leagued against them, in addition to secretly plotting mayhem fifty-fifty when relations were peaceful in addition to friendly.

In some respects, a conspiracy model of Indian conduct came naturally to Europeans, who struggled to sympathize or fifty-fifty perceive the complex cultural, social, in addition to political distinctions amid the diverse Indian groups they encountered. As amongst many cross-cultural conspiracy theories, it was slow to displace from lumping all Indians together culturally to believing that all Indians were working together against the colonists.

This pattern emerged fifty-fifty before the get-go of permanent settlement. The leaders of the 1585 lost colony of Roanoke abandoned their isle off the coast of introduce North Carolina out of a belief that Pemisapan, the weroance of the local Indian village, had organized a region-wide conspiracy, involving many tribes, to starve in addition to and thus wipe out the colony.

According to historian Michael Oberg, Pemisapan had likely done naught to a greater extent than than “grown weary of an intolerant, violent, contagious, in addition to subject people”, and, quite understandably, moved his hamlet off Roanoke Island to a to a greater extent than congenial neighborhood. Even so, colony commander Ralph Lane led a forcefulness that brought dorsum the weroance’s head, the culmination of a pattern of precipitous, threatening actions past times Lane.

“No conspiracy is needed,” writes Oberg, to explicate the growing hostility of the region’s Indians to the Roanoke colony. The English linguistic communication settlement abruptly shifted locations after Pemisapan’s death, in addition to disappeared completely a few years after that.

Pemisapan represents the original version of 2 ideas that became touchstone parts of conspiracy theories nigh the Indians: the Indian mastermind or monarch inwards command of tens of thousands of warriors, in addition to the unfaithful Indian ally or convert.

From “Pemisapan’s Conspiracy” on, serious or widespread Indian resistance was normally attributed past times Europeans in addition to afterwards chroniclers to the machinations of some preternaturally brilliant, all-powerful “superchief” (Bourne, 202).

This analysis may receive got been somewhat accurate for the Powhatan Indian rebellions against Virginia inwards 1622 in addition to 1644, which almost destroyed the colony in addition to are to a greater extent than often than non thought to live the run of the state of war principal turned paramount principal Opechanacanough, Pocahontas’s uncle, in addition to the reputed ability behind her manlike someone raise Powhatan’s throne.

The reputations of most other putative Indian masterminds were built on much shakier foundations. In many cases, a widespread conflict was blamed on someone who was really only a major figure inwards some critical early on encounter, or promoted himself equally the primary conspirator inwards a afterwards treaty amongst the white authorities.

For instance, New England propagandists depicted their apocalyptic, region-wide Indian state of war of 1675–1678 equally the run of Philip, sachem of Pokanoket, whom they dubbed “King Philip” to reemphasize their claim that the conflict was, equally Russell Bourne puts it, “not a serial of separate raids past times provoked people but a brilliantly orchestrated war, conducted past times a devilish military machine genius”.

Besides personalizing the conflict equally conspiracy theories thus often do, this conspiratorial stance of the New England Indians’ resistance was a political in addition to ethical convenience for whites, who were authorized past times their belief inwards this evil plot to ignore the purpose of their ain conduct inwards the Indians’ unrest, choose extreme measures against tribes whose the world rights conflicted amongst their ambitions, in addition to to declare the occupation solved when the designated villain was eliminated.

Philip (who changed his cite from Metacom when he became sachem) was the boy of Massassoit, the Indian principal who had befriended the Pilgrims in addition to allowed their Plymouth Colony to survive. Relations had deteriorated after Massassoit’s decease equally the local fur merchandise dried upwardly in addition to agricultural settlement expanded, bringing livestock that consumed the Indians’ open-field crops in addition to forcing them into economical dependence upon whites.

Philip in addition to his people also chafed nether Plymouth’s unequal laws, which had lately been used to travail to hang 3 of Philip’s followers. Plymouth leaders coveted the Pokanokets’ land, in addition to eagerly accepted rumors circulated against Philip past times the sachem’s Indian political rivals, to the final result the sachem planned a major war, mayhap inwards concert amongst the French.

When Philip was recorded at a coming together amongst Rhode Island officials complaining nigh his people’s mistreatment past times Plymouth, in addition to vowing that he was “determined non to alive until I receive got no country”, the drapery of conspiratorial mastermind was fitted in addition to cook to live forced on him.

Philip was thought to live seeking the extermination of New England’s white population. The Pokanokets did get hostilities amongst a much exaggerated raid on the nearby town of Swansea, but Philip himself spent the state of war running piece the Narragansetts, Abenakis, in addition to other tribes some New England did most of the fighting.

He nonetheless ever remained New England’s primary target, in addition to past times the terminate of the war, his hamlet had vanished, his married adult woman in addition to boy had been sold into slavery, in addition to his dismembered trunk was on display inwards the town of Plymouth.

Pontiac played a similarly inflated purpose inwards accounts of the 1763 “conspiracy” that bears his name. An obscure Odawa state of war leader (not a chief), Pontiac touched off a frontier-wide uprising but really led only 1 stage of it, the failed siege of Ft. Detroit.

Both he in addition to the British tried to advance their interests inwards the aftermath of the war, finally a peace treaty that bolstered British claims to the Trans-Appalachian West in addition to acknowledged Pontiac an Indian potentate, but likely got the old rebel assassinated equally a traitor to the Indian cause.

As they had long done amongst the alleged “conquests” of the Iroquois “Empire,” the British authorities in addition to the Anglo-American colonists exaggerated Pontiac’s ability in addition to condition inwards ways that magnified both the military machine threat he posed in addition to the glory in addition to ability that accrued to those who had pacified him.

The operative theory regarding Pontiac in addition to many other superchiefs was good expressed inwards “Ponteach, or the Savages of America,” a drama published inwards 1766 past times French in addition to Indian War hero Robert Rogers.

Rogers’s Ponteach is a haughty woods emperor set tragically depression past times his pride. “This Country’s mine, in addition to hither I reign equally King,” a Rex whose “Empire’s measured only past times the Sun,” the grapheme asserts inwards explaining his disdain for British authority.

In fact, it is unlikely that full general Indian uprisings could ever receive got been the run of a unmarried conspiratorial mastermind, or fifty-fifty a knot of them. The primitive nature of the available way of communication alone—symbolic state of war belts of clamshell beads (“wampum”) were used to coordinate the 1763 risings—precluded whatever variety of command in addition to control. Conspiracies were unlikely for to a greater extent than fundamental cultural reasons equally well.

Most North American Indian tribes lacked whatever variety of truthful principal executive who could impose his volition on his followers. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 chief, different a European general, governor, or king, drew his ability non from police line or force, but only from the honour in addition to dear that his prowess, wisdom, in addition to generosity had garnered amid his people, who could obey him or non equally they chose.

The superchief mythology, from the exaggerations of the leader’s influence in addition to the depth of his scheming to the pop dramas (and often identify names) that celebrated his nobility inwards defeat, was applied successively to every meaning Indian resistance leader after Pontiac, from John Logan of the 1774 Lord Dunmore’s War (immortalized inwards Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia for his oratorical prowess) to Tecumseh, Black Hawk, in addition to Osceola inwards the early on nineteenth century and, inwards a somewhat less conspiratorial vein, to such far western Indian rebels equally Cochise, Geronimo, Sitting Bull, in addition to Crazy Horse. It was applied retroactively to Philip inwards 1 of the antebellum era’s most pop plays, “Metamora.”

The celebrity that the superchief myth brought all of these men should non obscure how damaging it was to Indian people when they were soundless struggling to remain inwards their homelands. In their time, the names of all of these leaders were capable of plunging whole frontiers into panic, in addition to such panics normally brought on white military machine campaigns that would live followed past times the expropriation of Indian lands.

“Our Most Dangerous Enemies”: Indian Converts in addition to Allies equally Victims of Conspiracy Fears

Far to a greater extent than harmful than the “superchief” myth, inwards damage of the brutality it inspired inwards whites, was the related conspiracy theory that all Indians alike were actual or potential enemies, no affair what mental attitude they professed to concur toward whites. Even Indians who had acquire Christians, pursued white occupations, in addition to lived peaceably nigh white towns for decades were treated equally probable traitors, spies, in addition to saboteurs.

Since the get-go of European contact, the colonizers had been urging the natives to lay downward their weapons, adopt European ways of life, in addition to convert to the Christian religion. Most Indians resisted this pressure level when they could, but for many resistance became impossible in 1 lawsuit European settlement had engulfed their homelands.

Some responded to the urgings of Christian missionaries in addition to adopted the faith, piece others sought to only alive equally quietly equally they could, at peace amongst the settlers or fifty-fifty joining inwards the whites’ battles amongst other Indians.

In most of the colonies, then, at that spot were at to the lowest degree small-scale communities of peaceful in addition to often Christian Indians living nigh white towns in addition to farms. In times of full general Indian conspiracy scares, these communities became deeply suspicious to whites, in addition to often suffered equally much or to a greater extent than than the tribes really engaged inwards hostilities.

The residents of Puritan missionary John Eliot’s “praying towns” discovered this during King Philip’s War. Stories circulated of “Praying Indians” joining inwards raids on Christian towns in addition to spying for the rebels. According to historian Jenny Hale Pulsipher, “The English linguistic communication were quick to believe tales of Christian Indian perfidy,” in addition to the burning of English linguistic communication barns or haystacks “became pretexts for English linguistic communication violence against the praying towns”.

The Christian Indians at Wamesit had to abandon their hamlet in addition to nutrient supplies inwards belatedly 1675 after furious English linguistic communication militiamen fired on them without alarm on 2 separate occasions, inwards 1 incident wounding a number of women in addition to children, a twelve-year-old fatally. Various Puritan commentators questioned the sincerity of Indian religious conversions in addition to depicted the “Praying Indians” equally contemptible mockeries of Christianity.

Sometimes amongst in addition to sometimes without official approval, New England troops sacked the villages of Indian Christians in addition to Indian allies. Meanwhile, the authorities close downward many praying towns in addition to interned numerous friendly natives on barren Deer Island inwards Boston Harbor. Some praying Indians fifty-fifty shared the fate of Philip’s family, enslavement inwards the Caribbean.

Other groups of peaceful Christian Indians were visited past times some of the worst atrocities inwards the annals of European-Indian relations inwards North America. The infamous Paxton Boys massacre, for instance, was business office of the fallout from the conspiracy theories surrounding Pontiac.

The Pennsylvania frontier had been wracked past times Indian raids both during the 1763 rebellion in addition to the French in addition to Indian War that preceded it. There were a number of Christian Indian villages inwards the colony, including Conestoga, where a handful of people eked out a meager living selling bowls in addition to baskets.

Looking for payback in addition to charging that some of the Conestoga men had fought amongst Pontiac, a number of men from the town of Paxton, on the Susquehanna River inwards east-central Pennsylvania, concluded that these supposedly friendly Indians amounted to a “Basket & Broom-making Bandittey” who were “in Reality our most unsafe enemies”.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 calendar week in addition to a one-half before Christmas, 1763, fiftyfour Scots-Irish men from Paxton rode to Conestoga, in addition to shot in addition to hacked to decease 6 Indians they flora there, allegedly inwards revenge for Pontiac’s Rebellion. Local authorities gathered the surviving Conestogas (who had been lucky plenty to live out) in addition to placed them inwards a workhouse for protection. The men from Paxton presently rode inwards in addition to killed the rest.

Far from horrifying their beau Pennsylvanians, the “Paxton Boys” flora themselves at the caput of a pop cause. Their numbers swelled amongst novel recruits, the Paxton Boys rode downward to Philadelphia, inwards arms, to choose some Christian Delaware Indians beingness protected at that spot in addition to topple the regime itself if necessary. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 manifesto was issued inwards which the supposedly Quaker-dominated regime of Pennsylvania was charged amongst beingness insensitive to frontier needs because it was also soft on the Indians.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 poetry form called “The Cloven Foot Discovered” expressed the settlers’ stance that whites who gave sympathy or assistance to whatever Indians were traitors to their beau colonists in addition to beau travelers of the Indians’ subway plots against the frontier settlements:

Go, skilful Christians, never spare
To give your Indians Clothes to wear
Send ’em skilful Beef, in addition to Pork, in addition to Bread,
Guns, Powders, Flints, in addition to Stores of Lead,
To Shoot Your Neighbours Through the Head;...
Encourage every friendly Savage
To murder, burn, destroy, in addition to ravage.

Only some fast talking past times leading Pennsylvania political leader Benjamin Franklin finally defused the Paxton Boys situation, but non before to a greater extent than than 50 of the “protected” Christian Delawares died of diseases inwards the city.

Time in addition to in 1 lawsuit again inwards early on America, peaceful Christian Indians flora that the most unsafe identify to live was anywhere nigh their supposed allies in addition to coreligionists, the Anglo-American settlers.

No affair how devout a Christian in addition to firmly committed to peace in addition to friendship amongst whites a grouping of Indians mightiness be, many settlers assumed all Indians were secretly conspiring against them, in addition to inwards the correct circumstances mightiness slaughter whatever Indians they happened to run across. The biggest occupation that the immature the States had inwards recruiting Indian allies during the Revolutionary War was the fact that pro-American chiefs kept getting killed past times American soldiers.

By far the most heinous illustration of intentional “friendly fire” on Indians during the Revolution tin live flora inwards a 1782 incident that came to live known equally the Gnadenhutten massacre, inwards introduce east-central Ohio. The “Ohio Country” was a bitter battleground betwixt the British in addition to Indians on the 1 hand, in addition to the settlers exactly southward of the Ohio River inwards Kentucky on the other.

High German American missionaries from a sect called the Moravians had converted large numbers of Delaware Indians who lived inwards this expanse to Christianity in addition to kept them on the American side. The Moravians were pacifists, thus in 1 lawsuit converted these Indians did non fifty-fifty believe inwards fighting.

The Christian Indians of Gnadenhutten happened to live harvesting their corn 1 24-hour interval inwards 1782 when a state of war political party of American settlers appeared. They were pursuing some hostile Indians who had been seen inwards the area.

The settlers charged the friendly villagers of Gnadenhutten amongst beingness warriors, pointing to the existence of European implements, such equally axes, spoons, in addition to tea kettles, inwards this hamlet of Indians who had adopted white lifestyles, equally evidence they had killed in addition to stolen from whites.

On the strength of this flimsy evidence, the Gnadenhutten Indians were sentenced to death. They spent the black praying to the European God, in addition to inwards the morning time the settlers dragged the Indians out of their cabins inwards groups of 2 or 3 in addition to executed them amongst a mallet thus equally non to waste matter ammunition.

These sorts of incidents often turned white suspicions nigh Christian in addition to friendly Indians into self-fulfilling prophecies. With friends similar the American settlers, many Indians reasoned, who needed enemies?

During wars in addition to state of war scares amongst neighboring colonial powers similar Great Britain, France, in addition to Spain, most Indians amongst whatever access to the “foreign” ability were quite willing to run amongst them against the settlers and/or the the States if they mayhap could, though the Indians’ fondest want was ever to live left relatively independent of whatever European power.

Colonial in addition to U.S. officials oftentimes turned this rational pattern of Indian conduct into the footing of some other variety of conspiracy theory, of the Indians equally cat’s-paws of foreigners out to split upwardly off pieces of their territory or curb American expansion.

Andrew Jackson inaugural off made a cite for himself past times brutally precluding the possibility that the southeastern Indians mightiness collaborate amongst the Castilian or British to block the the States from accessing the Gulf Coast in addition to its ports.

This was the basic aim of his campaigns against the Creeks, the British, in addition to the Seminoles betwixt 1813 in addition to 1818, which began amongst a settler panic nigh a “massacre” at Ft. Mims inwards Alabama, in addition to ended amongst the summary execution of 2 British citizens in addition to an Indian religious leader in addition to the forcible U.S. annexation of Castilian Florida.

But at to the lowest degree Jackson’s enemies were really hostile to the United States. Unfortunately, the mistreatment of friendly in addition to Christian Indians continued long after the indicate had passed when Indians posed whatever existent threat to the the States in addition to fifty-fifty inwards cases where they could hardly receive got done to a greater extent than to demonstrate their loyalty. Perhaps the most egregious illustration of many occurred inwards Civil War era Minnesota.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 grouping of Winnebago Indians, previously removed past times the regime from their Wisconsin homeland, were living peacefully inwards the vogue of white farmers inwards the expanse some Blue Earth. When a Sioux uprising broke out inwards 1862, the Winnebago were forced out of their homes equally a safety threat, in addition to sent to a novel reservation inwards a barren department of introduce Nebraska.

The Winnebago had no connection to the Sioux outbreak, in addition to could non receive got made much of a military machine contribution to it inwards whatever case, since most of the fighting-age Winnebago men were serving inwards the Union regular army at the time. The Winnebago veterans would observe no homes to provide to after the war. At that point, many of them doubtless wished they had been conspiring against the United States.

Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler, founder of celestial mechanics, was born December 27, 1571, at Weil der Stadt, Stuttgart, Germany. His grandfather was lord mayor of the town, but his family had many hardships; his father, Heinrich, was a mercenary who abandoned his family and his mother, Katharina, was an innkeeper’s daughter tried for witchcraft. Kepler amazed travelers with his mathematical knowledge.

Kepler embraced his studies and proved a bright student. After studying in the Protestant seminary at Adelberg in 1584, he entered the University of Tübingen. He joined the mathematics faculty of the Protestant seminary at Graz, Austria, in 1594.

Kepler studied Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) in depth and wrote the Mysterium cosmographicum (The Sacred Mystery of the Cosmos, 1596), a work defending the Copernican system, which postulated that the Sun—not the Earth—was the center of the universe, and that planets moved in circles in their orbits around the Sun.


Kepler is known for his three revolutionary laws of planetary movements, which explained the organization of the solar system. He observed that the orbit of Mars was an ellipse and found similar deductions for orbits of other planets. He realized there was a mathematical explanation, and his first law states that the planets moved in elliptical paths around the Sun.

The second law stipulates that the path the planet travels around the Sun comprises equal areas in equal times as the planet moves its orbit. The first two laws were published in his book Astronomia nova (New Astronomy) in 1609.

His third law of planetary movement states that the square of the time it takes for a planet to revolve once around the Sun is proportional to the cube of planet’s distance from the Sun. The third law was published in 1619 in a book titled Harmonices mundi. The three laws made a seminal contribution to the study of planetary motion.

Kepler made great progress in the development of modern astronomy by abandoning theories held for two prior millennia. However, the reasons behind the laws were discovered by Isaac Newton, who demonstrated that they were the result of the law of universal gravitation.

Religious tensions in Europe forced Kepler to move on more than one occasion. In 1599, he left Graz because of religious persecution and went to Prague at the invitation of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601).

Kepler became the imperial mathematician after Brahe’s death in 1601. Kepler held the post until 1612, when Lutherans were being driven out of Prague. He went to Linz to continue his work in mathematics and stayed there until 1626.

After years of hardship, Kepler died at Regensburg, Bavaria, on November 15, 1630. Kepler the mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer was one of the dominating figures of the scientific revolution that swept Europe.

Avignonese Papacy

Avignonese Papacy

The Avignonese papacy (1304–78) and the Great Schism (1378–1414) are regarded as two of the most dramatic events in the history of Christianity that further undermined and diminished the prestige of the papacy and the authority of the Western Latin Church.

The first penggalan refers to the nearly century-long pontificate of eight popes, who from the beginning of the 14th century until 1378 ruled the Christian world from the French town of Avignon, being held captive by Philip IV the Fair; because of its forced nature, the Avignonese papacy is also called the Avignonese Captivity, or Exile.

Historians attribute the cause of the Avignonese Exile of the papacy to the earlier conflict between Pope Boniface VIII and the young French king Philip the Fair in the preceding century, when the king and the pope were struggling to proclaim their rule over Europe. In the center of the conflict stood new military taxes the king levied on French monasteries, requiring new subsidies to fight his wars with the English.


Boniface rejected the king’s claims for financing his army on account of the church in the bull Clericis laicos from 1290 and later paid for his stubbornness with his own life, literally terrified to death by the king’s chancellor William of Nogaret.

Boniface’s direct successor, Benedict XI (1303–04), did not live long enough to pacify the spirits, supposedly having been poisoned by an unidentified monk; a new pope, old and gravely ill, Bertrand de Got, who assumed the name Clement V, led the papacy into exile.

Residing in France at the time of his election, weakened by what was likely cancer, and discouraged by the fate of his predecessor, Clement V capitulated to Philip’s demands that he should be crowned at Lyon. He established the tradition of the Avignonese papacy, never setting foot in the ancient city of Rome.

Pope John XXII

Clement’s Avignon successors (seven popes, among whom the most famous were John XXII and Benedict XII) all remained loyal to the French rulers, playing whenever necessary against the German emperor and the English, which outwardly may have been seen as an ordinary state of affairs had it not been for the fact of direct influence the French kings exercised in the curia.

Throughout the 14th century the Avignonese papacy was continuously showing signs of decline of papal authority, which was becoming increasingly undermined by the feudal monarchy. In 1312 the papacy surrendered to the will of Philp IV and dismissed the Order of the Templars, famous for its wealth, with thousands of its members accused of heresy, witchcraft, and sodomy and all its treasures confiscated by the crown.

The fiscal oppression of the curia (chiefly through control over the sale of benefices and indulgences but also over tithes and annates) became more amplified during the Avignonese papacy, despite the heavy French presence in the College of Cardinals (seven out of eight Avignonese popes and almost all of the important cardinals were Frenchmen by the middle of 14th century).

In due course the popes built themselves a fortified palace behind the walls of Avignon and lived there surrounded by luxury in the midst of magnificent artificial gardens. The luxurious lifestyle of the popes was subject to constant complaints and gossip. Contemporaries, including such important thinkers as Petrarch, Marsilius of Padua, and Catherine of Siena, relentlessly criticized the Avignonese popes.

The image of the papacy during those years changed sharply, having lost its unconditional spiritual authority and its control over the brethren. Petrarch called the Avignonese papacy “the Babylonian Captivity of the Church” and Avignon popes “wolves in shepherds’ clothing.”

The Avignonese papacy was detested by most social sectors—from peasants who suffered the ever-increasing taxation to intellectuals and theologians who wrote against the tabiat and spiritual degradation of the Holy Office. In the next centuries the Avignonese papacy was described as totally deprived of spirituality.

Subservience to a secular ruler, nepotism, and rapacity of the “puppet-popes” seriously undermined the reputation of papacy in the eyes of Europe, marking at the same time the end of the reign of Church Universal and the beginning of a new epoch, where ultimate power belonged with the national ruler.

The Avignon church underwent a complete makeover. Despite criticisms, almost all Avignon popes undertook serious attempts at reform. They created a sophisticated and effective administration that surpassed anything previously known in the European states. The popes’ involvement in secular politics also grew during these years, despite the forced capitulation to France.

Both developments effectively turned the church into a modern, secularized, and politicized organization. The last years of the popes’ stay at Avignon are also marked by their recurring attempts to strengthen their position in Italy.

Quite unsuccessfully they tried to turn the outcome of the revolt of Cola di Rienzo in 1347 to their favor, but even after this failure popes continued to maintain close economic and political relations with Italy. Their selesai success and return to Rome is indebted to the activity of Cardinal Albornoz and Pope Urban V, who gave constitution to the Papal States.

Taking advantage of the difficulties France was experiencing during the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), Pope Gregory XI (1370–78) transferred the papal residence back to Rome in 1378, dying just a few months after this historic reunion of the church with its ancient capital. This move, however, was attempted too late to save the papacy from disaster: Its return was blackened by the shadow of the Great Schism.

Pope Gregory XI transferred the papal residence back to Rome in 1378

Soon after Gregory XI died, the Roman people, fearing that a new pope might leave them for France once again, gathered under the walls of the conclave, demanding election of an Italian to the Holy See. Cardinals, the majority of whom were Frenchmen, chose the archbishop of Bari, a Neapolitan, Bartholomew Prignano, to be elected the next pope. He accepted the Holy Office, taking the name of Urban VI. No doubt that Prignano, who had previously held a position of a vice chancellor of the curia, seemed an excellent choice to the cardinals.

They were confident they could control the “little archbishop” (as they nicknamed their candidate), who would be grateful for this unexpected promotion. Later the cardinals would announce that they had elected Prignano under threats and for fear of the reaction of the angry mob that was raging on the streets surrounding the palace during the election.

From the very start the pontificate of the new pope was stained with a most bitter struggle with the cardinals and members of the curia of non-Italian origin. Harsh reform measures of the new pontiff, who was irritated at the slightest pretext, and physically assaulted cardinals on several occasions (publicly announcing their lifestyle of pomposity and splendor as sinful), caused the French party to flee from Rome.

Urban soon found himself at daggers drawn with everyone around him, managing to deprive the Holy See of a number of its most loyal supporters, such as Joanna, queen of Naples; her husband, Duke Otto of Brunswick; and the powerful duke of Fondi, not to mention the king of France.

Pope Clement VII

On August 9, 1378, under a pretext that Urban’s appointment was forced, the conclave of the fugitive cardinals issued a lengthy document, entitled Declaratio, where they declared the election invalid and the Holy Office vacant. At the same sitting they unanimously voted for the Gallic cardinal Robert of Geneva, who assumed the office under the name of Clement VII (1378–94), thus becoming an “anti-pope.”

The following 40 years were characterized by almost constant warfare between pope and anti-pope, in which the Papal States were the chief playground. The schism left no one sitting on the fence. Having unparalleled impact on political allegiances, it reshaped European geopolitics, changing cultural boundaries and paving the way for the upcoming Reformation.

With every passing year the split went deeper. On the side of the “French” Pope Clement VII fought such powerful allies as the king of France, the kings of Naples and Scotland, and half of the rulers of Germany; Urban was supported by England, Portugal, and Hungary.

The legal pope continued to be tactless and inconsiderate to his allies, and gradually his authority grew weak. Appointing new cardinals to replace the rebels was not a sufficient measure to keep discipline among the supporters; constantly suspecting treachery, Urban did not hesitate to send several cardinals to be executed for “disobedience” to his will.

Isolated and defeated in most of his battles, Urban locked himself up in his castle—mainly to hide from the French king who had announced a huge prize for the pope’s head. In 1389 Urban VI came back to Rome, where he died, according to one source, surrounded by followers; according to another, he was poisoned by enemies.

Soon after Urban’s funeral it became clear that even the disappearance of one of the ruling pontiffs would not save the situation—the “Italian” party immediately appointed a successor. Thus receiving a precedent, the schism continued—Clement VII was succeeded by Benedict XIII (from 1394); Urban VI by Boniface IX (1389–1404), Innocent VII (1404–06), and Gregory XII (from 1406).

The conflict deteriorated when the Council of Pisa in 1409 deposed both Benedict XIII and Gregory XII, selecting new pope Alexander V (1409–10). The deposed popes refused to recognize the decision of the Council, and the Holy See became occupied by three popes at once.

This development was very favorable to the heretical movements that rose in large quantities all across Europe, preaching noninstitutional evangelism and unbalancing the old feudal system. Secular lords and princes who supported the establishment and the unity of the church were greatly concerned, despite the fact that the decrease in the papal authority contributed to consolidation of power in the hands of secular rulers.

The schism continued well into the 15th century, until, finally, the Council of Constance (1414–18) put an end to it, having deposed three popes at once: John XXIII (successor of Alexander V), Gregory XII, and Benedict XIII, and selecting, to the great relief of everyone involved, a single pontiff—Martin V (1417–31).

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan

Genghis or Chinggis Khan means “universal ruler.” He was born Temuchin, the son of a minor Mongol chief, and overcame early obstacles to conquer the greatest empire of the world to date, which he bequeathed to his sons. Some believe he was a greater military strategist than Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte.

At the time of his birth the varied people of the steppes (Turkic, Mongol, and others) lived in mutually warring tribes, raiding one another for animals and women and looting nearby sedentary populations. The harsh environment of the steppes where they lived provided little opportunity for agriculture, limiting the peoples to a nomadic lifestyle of herding and hunting.

His father, Yesugei, died of poisoning at the hands of foes when Temuchin was eight years old, en route home after betrothing him to a girl from his mother, H’oelun’s, tribe. H’oelun and her sons were cast out to fend for themselves after Yesugei died; thanks to Temuchin’s cunning and ruthless determination, they survived.


Eventually he married his betrothed, named Borte; received help from his father-in-law in establishing himself with followers and animals; and won allies. Borte was the mother of four sons (Juji Khan, Chagatai Khan, Ogotai Khan, and Tului Khan) and a daughter. Juji was born around the time his mother was rescued from captivity (she had been captured in a raid by Temuchin’s enemy), casting doubt on his paternity. These four sons became Temuchin’s principal heirs.

From Temuchin to Genghis Khan

In complicated wars Temuchin and his allies won against tribes named the Naiman, Merkid, Oyirad, Tartar, Kereyid, and others, becoming master of the Mongolian plateau by 1205. A great council or khuriltai was convened in 1206 to signal the formation of a confederation at Burkan Khaldan, the holy mountain of the Mongols under Temuchin, and to give him the title Genghis Khan.

From this point on all his followers, regardless of tribal affiliation, were called Mongols. In Mongol ideology the elevation of Temuchin to Genghis Khan was blessed by heaven and therefore it was his right to conquer and to bequeath his conquests to his family.

Genghis Khan’s first great achievement was to organize his men into a unified army. He used the decimal system: Each 10-man group had a leader; 10 of these formed into a 100-man unit under a leader, and so on up, each commander being responsible for 10 men under him.

In time the Mongolian component of his army grew to between 105,000 and 129,000 men. As his empire expanded, subject peoples incorporated into his infantry and cavalry followed the same organizational rules. The Mongolian army did not possess weapons or technology superior to those of its enemies. Its superiority lay in its discipline, mobility, coordination, and maneuverability.

Records were necessary to administer his people, so in 1206 he ordered the creation a script for the Mongol language, and since the man designated for the task was an Uighur, he used the Uighur alphabet for that purpose. Genghis did not learn to read but ordered his sons to learn the written language.

He also promulgated a code of laws and regulations in 1206, called yasa or yasaq, that provided severe punishment, for example, the death penalty applied to murder, major theft, adultery, malicious witchcraft, and other offenses. The severity of the laws resulted in an obedient society, which visitors observed with awe.

Conquest of Xixia, Jin, and Khwarazm

Genghis Khan’s conquests began in 1209 and his first target was the Tangut kingdom to his southwest called Xixia (Hsi Hsia), leading his army personally. After withstanding a siege of their capital city the Xixia accepted peace terms: submission to Genghis Khan and a pledge to support him in future campaigns, and the king’s daughter given to Genghis as wife. After this demonstration of force two sedentary Turkic peoples, Uighurs and Qarluks, came to offer surrender. Both would go far under Mongol rule.

Genghis Khan’s next victim was the Jurchen Jin (Chin) dynasty in north China. He set out against it in 1211 with three of his sons and 50,000 cavalrymen. Although no longer the ferocious fighters of a century ago, the Jin still had a 150,000 strong cavalry of Jurchen soldiers and an infantry of 300,000 to 400,000 Chinese men.

Moreover the Jin Empire had over 40 million people, three million of whom were Jurchen, opposed to the Mongol nation of not much over a million people. In 1211–14 the Mongols devastated much of northern China and looted three of Jin’s five capitals, until Jin submitted to a humiliating peace. Among the captives taken during this campaign was Yelu Chucai (Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai), a learned man of Khitan background who had served in the Jin government.

He would later play an important role in the government of Genghis and his son Ogotai that benefited their Chinese subjects. North China suffered enormously between 1214 and the selesai fall of Jin in 1234, the result of Mongol raids, uprisings against Jin, and war between Jin and Southern Song (Sung).

Meanwhile commanders under Genghis conquered the state called Khara Khitai, situated to the west of Mongolia, in 1218. This cleared the way for Genghis to march against Khwarazm (or Khwarizm), a Muslim state that included Afghanistan and northern Iran, in 1219.

It involved taking heavily fortified cities such as Harat and Samarkand, for which Mongols used the bloody tactic of using captured prisoners as human shields and moat fillers for their assaulting forces. By 1223 Khwarazm had been subdued and Mongol governors had been installed and garrisons put in place.

While his generals proceeded westward across the Caucasus and into western Eurasia, defeating the Russian princes, Genghis returned to Mongolia in 1225. There he planned the destruction of Xixia, which had earlier promised to supply Genghis with men and supplies in his future campaigns but had refused when he began his war against Khwarazm.

Never forgiving anyone who had betrayed him, Genghis personally led the campaign against Xixia in 1226, destroying cities and the countryside and wrecking the irrigation works that rendered the land cultivable, and besieging its capital. Genghis Khan died in August 1227 because of complications from a fall while hunting in 1225.

According to his wishes the war against Xixia continued until its destruction. His last orders were “The Tangut people are a powerful, good and courageous people, but they are fickle. Slaughter them and take what you need to give to the army.... Take what you want until you can take no more.” Genghis Khan’s body was returned to Mongolia; en route anyone who saw his cortege was killed.

He was buried on Burkhan Khaldun; the exact burial place was kept secret and has not yet been found. Before his death he had divided his conquests among his four sons, who were his principal heirs, and other relatives, and appointed his third son, Ogotai, his successor as Grand Khan, subject to confirmation by the Khurialtai.

The Brutal Military Leader

Genghis Khan was unequaled as a military leader and conquered the largest empire yet seen and with unprecedented cruelty. He was a shrewd strategist who used many means to achieve his goals. He was a good psychologist who used terror and precedence to induce his enemies to surrender because any city that resisted would be razed and its people killed. He was a good organizer who militarized his whole people and saw to the logistical side of campaigns.

He was adept at using spies and probing actions to take the measures of his enemies. He also used diplomacy to prevent his enemies from uniting or forming alliances. Finally he learned new military technologies and adapted to new needs, for example employing Middle Eastern siege engineers to help him take walled cities.

To Christian Europeans he was the anti-Christ and Scourge of God. China had never experienced such brutal conquerors, who threatened to turn the agricultural country into pastureland for their horses. He was especially cruel to cities and city dwellers.

In his sweep across north China in 1212–1213 over 90 cities were left in ruins. The Jin capital in modern Beijing burned for three months. Those persons his forces let live because they had skills became Mongol slaves or were allowed to return to their ruined homes to serve their new lords.