In many cases witches and healing women were the doctors of those days and they were considered very respectable. At the same time hated and feared. They celebrated rituals known as witches’ meetings and they practised black and white magic. Their rituals were sometimes considered satanic and for that reason the Church condemned those women with ex-communion and persecuted them as witches, due to the conservative principles typical of that period. The colloquial term “witch-hunt” is applied to those said to be disloyal or untrustworthy.

Use the Internet information to answer these questions specifically related to your role character:

1. Explain what medicine was like in the Middle Ages.

2. Give reasons why witches and healing women were hated and persecuted in the period.

3. Were there any advantages in being a witch or a healing woman at the time?

4. Comment on what it must have been like to give birth to a child in those days.

5. How did they treat diseases in the Middle Ages?

6. If you lived in those years, would you have helped a witch? Argue your case.

• The city of women  

• The occupations that medieval women held

• Witches, Midwives and Nurses

• Roles of women

• The Apothecary

• The distaff side

• The midwife and the witch

• Medieval Medicine