Although the total number of victims is unknown, an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 women were executed over a period of 300 or more years during the witch trials. The Burning Times is a documentary that chronicles the Women’s Holocaust.
The Burning Times (1990) This amazing documentary exposes the European witch hunts as a female holocaust carried out by the Christian church. It took the Church three hundred years of terror and death to transform the image of paganism into devil worship, and folk culture into heresy.
Summis Desiderantes Affectibus | Desiring with Supreme Passion
The burning times began on 5 December 1484 when Pope Innocent VIII began the holocaust against women with his directive, Summis Desiderantes Affectibus, which recognized the existence of witches and gave full papal approval for the inquisition team to move against witches and starting 300 years of extreme violence against women.
The peak of witch-hunting was during the European wars of religion, climaxing from 1580 to 1630. The witch hunts declined in the early 18th century, culminating with the British Witchcraft Act of 1735, but there were sporadic witch-trials until the last known which trial in 1782.
The Burning Times
57min | Documentary | 1990 (Canada)
Director: Donna Read
Writers: Erna Buffie (narration written by), Donna Read (additional writing)
Stars: Martha Henry, Barbara Pecarich, Starhawk
The Burning Times, part two of the Women and Spirituality trilogy by Donna Reed, offers a chilly look at the persecution of women accused of being witches in Europe between the 15th and 17th centuries. The Christian church and the state cooperated in a concerted effort to wipe out the power and independence of midwives, healers, and crones. Thousands were tortured and burned at the stake. Matthew Fox and Margit Adler discuss the misogyny behind this massive campaign and also note the continuation of violence against women in our times.
Mary Ann Brussat