In the reading Lyndal Roper talks about the confessions of the accused witches and their stories of sex with the devil. She mentions that the confessions didn't quite match up with demonological theory. The explains that some of the accounts were "numbingly formulaic" She also mentions that the stories the women told were virtually interchangeable. This being said she then goes on to talk about a woman who called the devil by the name of Bonifazius while this woman's sister referred to the devil by the name of Pauli Fazius as Roper says "the unconventional detail now repeated in garbled form"
This made me think of the telephone effect we discussed briefly in class the other day. Its interesting how many of these accounts of sexual interaction with the devil were merely all the same and even the names mentioned above were fairly similar, one being just a garbled form of the other. Kind of like how phrases or words get jumbled up in the telephone game we all played as children. This relates back to our class discussions of torture and how many women would confess to witchcraft during torture. Well, wouldn't you tell them what they wanted to hear? This being said it seems as though throughout time many of these women heard the other women's stories and kept many of the details in the telling of their own. And if you're accused of witchcraft that almost always includes sex with the devil so why not give them a juicy tale about it?
This is a really thought provoking post. Whenever I was reading it I was also thinking of the Roper reading and remembered how she said that the confessions were quite possibly pieced together by the torturers. I wonder if this also had something to do with the similarity in all confessions concerning sex with the devil. It also made me think of the use of soundbites by the media today and how they can be used to the advantage of the media in order to frame stories how it so chooses.
ReplyDeletesimilarity: sex with devil (yes, interrogators wanted that as it was sound evidence, proof of a witch); yet the small details differ so interpretations of the act were subject to the woman under torture. I'm thinking about how "juicy" these tales are. Yes, the theme is pretty juicy--but there is an underlying tone that is somewhat non-juicy too (promises of stability).
ReplyDeleteKayla,
ReplyDeleteYou make an extremely valid and significant point in mentioning that these women would go to endless lengths - even if it meant confessing to engaging in intercourse with the Devil - in order to end their torture. Something that has occurred to me, though, that I haven't heard echoed by others, is that although these women would essentially provide the same information and the same general structure to their confessions, they would also need to provide personal details in order to specifically tailor their claims to themselves. If one woman is giving an account claiming that the Devil came to her in the form of a goat, but she cannot positively identify what animal a goat is, her confession doesn't hold as much weight as it would have.
Even though these confessions were similar, we can also see how they differ. The reference to the Devil as "Bonifazius" and then later as "Pauli Fazius" could be coincidental, or could be due to the repeating of information previously heard. Regardless of the reasoning and explanation, we can see in our coursepacket and in the reading that some women would give extremely detailed accounts and acted almost without shame when telling of their adulterous actions, and some would blush and attempt to remain as cleanly and pure as possible in the recounting.
It's an interesting concept on how these women would essentially provide the exact same information, with minor changes, and that none of these inquisitors questioned these similarities any further.
Thanks for a great post! It was pretty thought provoking!
Graham