In life, humanity is bound to make mistakes. Individuals are condemned to walk a narrow
path of right and wrong. Once a person
falters, can they regain their footing and walk along the path once more? According to Burchard of Worms, it is
possible if the correct penance has been paid for the crime. His written work, The Corrector, was widely accepted
and used as a consult when dealing with an act of sin.
Frequently, his punishments were fasting for a number of
days on bread and water. I find this
form of punishment (or begging of forgiveness) strangely tame. In later times, people who had committed the
same acts were tortured and/or burned. Yet
in this time period, the acts can be forgiven with a simple amount of
fasting.
Did the punishment and persecution of witchcraft become more
violent as the years went on? If this
document is anything to judge by, I would say so.
It is also interesting that punishment is viewed as almost
starvation. Hunger is by far one of the
most unpleasant feelings a human being can experience and at the time hunger
might have been common; especially in the lower classes where the “sinners”
were most likely found. Was his
punishment really meant to make them feel remorse like a child standing in a
corner or symbolic in a religious way?
I also find it interesting that as we continue to read
through his acts of evil and the penance that should go along with them, he
starts to target women more and more.
Initially, the acts of evil seemed to be neutral. They could be done by a man or woman. But once we get to the later ones, he begins
to focus more intently on females.
Numbers 153, 170, 175, 180, and 181 all start with roughly the same sentence.
“Have you done what some women…”
“Have you done what some women…”
It is as if he is directly implying that women are more
prone to fall for these sins or sin in general.
It seems that he believed so but it is hard to say based on what is
provided by Kors and Peters.
