Witch Exoneration

  

I am in the process of trying to find 365 women who are no longer living, ordinary women who did some extraordinary things. Mostly I want those who contributed to society in on one way or another.

Witches have always fascinated me. Although most of the women I am looking at/for would have made the world better. Witches were different. They were persecuted in the thousands throughout Europe.

In the 15th Century Henrich Kramer, published Mallens Maleficarum or in English the Witches Hammer. It raised witchcraft to a criminal status.

Witches were tried and executed by a variety of reasons.

Over the past few years, there have been attempts to exonerate those witches, although when you have been drowned, decapitated, stoned, or burned at the stake, exoneration after death seems a bit too little too late.

Alice Kyteler was the first person to be condemned for witchcraft in Ireland. She escaped but her servant was burned at the stake n 1324. 

Anna Göldi, considered the last witch executed in Europe, was exonerated by the Swiss Canton of Glarus in 2008.

Elizabeth Johnson who was tried in the late 1600 but was not executed was exonerated thanks to the efforts of a group of Massachusetts school children.

Now Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, is issuing a public apology to the 4000 or so women executed as witches until 1736 under the Witchcraft Law in her country.

Although people encouraging these apologies and exonerations say it will send a powerful message, I am not sure to whom. It won't bring them back. These women were victim of ignorance and male domination. Hmmm...both still exist today and not just about witchcraft. It would be wonderful to think that the exonerations would change the actions of the ignorant the males who wield power against women.

I doubt it.