The Ottomans: A Measured Tolerance

by Sammy Riaz

During the later years of the empire, the Ottomans were overtly portrayed by Europeans as callous and tyrannical autocrats who subjugated Christians in the Balkans. Such narratives portrayed the Ottomans as a brutish Islamic empire, whose only ambition was to persecute its Christian minority. Such a notion is not entirely accurate, as it fails to depict the actual relationship the empire had with its minorities.

During the empire’s rise, on the outskirts of the Byzantine border, the burgeoning principality started to see military successes against the deteriorating Byzantine empire. As this Muslim principality began to seize more Byzantine territory, it attracted Byzantine nobles to migrate to this rising state and utilised their ability to administrate and govern, building the bureaucratic institutions that would contribute to the Ottoman Empire’s longevity. Thus, we can observe the Ottomans adopted a pragmatic approach when it came to the construction of their empire, drawing upon the talents of their minority population.

Dhimmis - those who practised Christianity and Judaism, Christians and Jews, were allowed to practise their religion, administer their schools, and had judicial authority over their adherents in exchange for jizya, a tax which facilitated the acceptance of Ottoman rule by these minority groups. This concept is best exemplified by the Jewish Ladino community who were expelled during the Spanish Inquisition, yet found refuge in the Ottoman Empire. Due to their religion, the Ladino established thriving communities, and their cultural practices blossomed and became rather widespread as a consequence.

However, it goes without saying that the tolerance given to its minorities was limited, with such limits illustrated during the unravelling of the Ottoman Empire. During the 19th Century, when notions of nationalism, citizenship, and statehood began to emerge, the Ottomans faced rebellions from minorities who were influenced by Ottoman ideals, pursuing autonomy for themselves. The Greek War of Independence was the beginning of a long line of successive nationalist revolts that weakened the Ottoman Empire. The once multi-ethnic and multi-religious polity desperately attempted to reclaim its authority over its dwindling minority population by enacting radical reforms.

The Tanzimat reforms largely failed to quell the growing tide of nationalism that both consumed the empire and pushed radical nationalist groups, such as the Committee of Union and Progress, to seize control in 1913. This was the final ‘nail in the coffin’ as minorities who persisted in the empire fell into the hands of the administration. The creation of a one-party state signified the tragic end of the once tolerant Ottoman Empire which transformed from a place of refuge into one of peril.

Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: A Female Crime?

by Lauren Gibbon

It is no coincidence that Shakespeare dramatised accusations of witchcraft upon his sixteenth-century stage when dealing with politically powerful women, like Joan of Arc, who threatened the early modern patriarchal social order. By the early sixteenth-century, sixty-thousand Europeans were executed for witchcraft, four-fifths of whom were female. Biological sex did not offer exclusive protection against accusations of witchcraft, but let us discuss the sex-related reasons that compelled an overwhelmingly female majority of witchcraft accusations in early modern Europe.

Misogynistic mentalities pervaded early modern Europe. In an attempt to justify why he believed women were fifty times more likely to succumb to demonic temptations, French demonologist, Jean Bodin (1530-1596) insisted ‘Satan addressed himself first and foremost to the woman’. In 1486, Heinrich Kramer issued Malleus Maleficarum that severely condemned female intellect, morality, and sexuality. Kramer extended his criticisms of the female sex to originate from Eve (‘the first woman’), therefore biologically blaming female immorality on evil witchcraft’s existence.

out their seed’. As a result, male anxieties concerning sex, contributed to sex-related witchcraft prosecutions.

Elderly widowed women were especially vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft as they had lost their husband’s socio-economic status. Widowed women endured poverty and weakened mobility, and they relied upon their communities for material assistance, which increased social tensions. Historians have argued that older women’s displays of hostility during social conflicts, prompting witchcraft accusations, were unconscious acts of aggression triggered by female menopause (although more research is needed to prove this).

‘See how the ugly witch doth bend her brows, As if, with Circe, she would change my shape’ (Shakespeare, King Henry VI Part I).

Witchcraft accusations often involved deep antagonisms between women, particularly accusations from new mothers against women who occupied maternal roles (i.e., midwives). Early modern Europe’s high infant mortality rate inevitably increased public suspicion of midwives. Witchcraft accusers may well have been suffering from extreme post-natal depression and subsequently projected their guilt, seeking revenge against their lying-inmaids, who also happened to be old and post-menopausal.

Early modern ecclesiastical suppression of female sexuality increased women’s vulnerability to witchcraft accusations. Descriptions of witchcraft had become threatening expressions of unconscious sexual desires. Early modern sexual beliefs validated witchcraft as a female crime. Elderly widows were believed to have increased sex drive, and thus were understood to use witchcraft to ruin young men’s fertility by ‘suck[ing]

Women were most vulnerable to witchcraft accusations during the early modern period. The patriarchy subscribed subordinate roles to women, which limited their mobility and socioeconomic autonomy. As mothers, midwives and widows, early modern European women were significantly at risk of prosecution for the crime of witchcraft due to Europe’s tolerance of female suppression, and prevailing patriarchal anxieties around women’s biological potential.