Kindly note the DATE! Would we consider 1484 the Middle Ages or the Renaissance?
Nothing to do with the question, just a little side dig at those who diss the M TO me this is too like those buffoons who diss the Constitution because Jefferson and Washington had slaves.
But bearing in mind the hunger of my opponents for the abasement opf those with whom they contend ...
It was dumb to torture witches. It was dumb to torture in almost any case. Dumb and wrong. ALL those who did it were wrong to do it.
It is easy for us, most of whom either kill babies in the womb, support that slaughter, or sit dumbly while it goes on in our communities, to criticize our great grand parents.
I will not judge all the soldiers on either side by Auschwitz, Dresden, Nagasaki, or the Burmese Railroad. We Dominicans feel a special shame for our brothers who went WAY off the rails. But we insist on a certain ambivalent pride in those who were notoriously more gentle and careful than the civil courts of society as a whole.
Maybe it cannot be shown conclusively, but it certainly can be suggested that non-Catholics in Ireland and England and in New England were not exactly towering beacons of gentleness and toleration. AFTER the ratification of the Constitution, maiming was still a legal punishment in Virginia. Let's get a grip on the context here.
Shall I describe the legal punishment for a traitor in 17th century Protestant England? It is almost too hard for me to write. I hope you do not want to read it. Compared to it, mere decapitation was a mercy.
Excellent post!