The Burning Times (1990)

This documentary takes an in-depth look at the witch hunts that swept Europe between the 15th and 17th centuries. False accusations and trials led to massive torture and burnings at the stake and ultimately to the destruction of an organic way of life. The Christian church and the state cooperated in a concerted effort to wipe out the power and independence of midwives, healers, and crones. The film questions whether the widespread violence against women and the neglect of our environment today can be traced back to those times.

The Burning Times is a 1990 Canadian documentary, presenting a feminist revisionist account of the Early Modern European witchcraft trials. It was directed by Donna Read and written by Erna Buffie, and features interviews with feminist and Neopagan notables, such as Starhawk, Margot Adler, and Matthew Fox. This documentary takes an in-depth look at the witch hunts that swept Europe between the 15th and 17th centuries. False accusations and trials led to massive torture and burnings at the stake and ultimately to the destruction of an organic way of life. The Christian church and the state cooperated in a concerted effort to wipe out the power and independence of midwives, healers, and crones. The film questions whether the widespread violence against women and the neglect of our environment today can be traced back to those times. The opening and closing theme music, composed by Loreena McKennitt, was released as the track titled "Tango to Evora" on her album "The Visit".

Quote:
The witch trials in Early Modern Europe and North America refer to a period between the 15th and 18th centuries, when across Christian communities, there was a widespread hysteria that malevolent satanic witches were operating as an organised threat to Christendom. This led to tens of thousands of people across the European continent and the American colonies being put on trial for the crime of witchcraft, with approximately 40,000 to 60,000 being executed. During this era, witches were viewed as being worshippers of the Devil, who engaged in such acts as Satanism, sorcery, cannibalism and orgies at meetings known as Witches' Sabbaths; the majority of historians however concur that there never were any such organised group of witches.
Witch-hunts were seen all across early modern Europe, but the most significant area of witch-hunting in modern Europe is often considered to be southwestern Germany. In Germany the number of trials compared to other regions of Europe shows it to have been a late starter. Witch-hunts first appeared in large numbers in southern France and Switzerland during the 14th and 15th centuries. The peak years of witch-hunts in southwest Germany were from 1561 to 1670. The first major persecution in Europe, that caught, tried, convicted, and burned witches in the imperial lordship of Wiesensteig in southwestern Germany, is recorded in 1563 in a pamphlet called True and Horrifying Deeds of 63 Witches.
Historians and other scholars have long debated the reasons for the witch trials. Theories have ranged from them being an attempt by the male-based authorities to subjugate women to the idea that there really had been a Witch-Cult, which had been pagan, rather than satanic, in nature. Neither of these have been accepted by mainstream historians who have specialised in the subject of the witch trials.
In the film, Thea Jensen calls this period in history the "Women's Holocaust" and gives an estimate of a total of 9 million witches burned, admitting that this is a "high" estimate but quoting no alternative numbers. Scholarly "high" estimates range around 100,000, with estimates around 60,000 more common. The nine million figure has a notorious history of misattribution, and ultimately originates with a 1784 article by Gottfried Christian Voigt.
The movie is inaccurate in other respects, placing Trier in France instead of Germany, dating a stone cross there that is recorded to have been erected in 958 AD to 1132 AD without further explanation. The cross is shown as a "symbol of a new religious cult that was sweeping across Europe," despite Christian presence since 286. Robert Eady, a member of the Catholic Civil Rights League in Canada, has cited the film in a complaint to broadcast regulators, in particular mentioning offense at the movie's quote: "it took the Church two hundred years of terror and death to transform the image of paganism into devil worship, and folk culture into heresy." Eady describes the documentary as propaganda intended to represent the Christian Church as "a wicked, patriarchal, misogynist institution". Kapica adds "Women have genuine grievances with the Church. The Burning Times', however, is not going to help their cause."

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