Help with ye olde english

[tatapb]

I'm thinking of writing HP Founders era fanfiction.

According to the page on the hp wiki, the date for the creation of Hogwarts is pretty much a free-for-all, since the only reference to them was made by Binns claiming that Hogwarts is over a thousand years old, exact date unspecified, which means Hogwarts could have been founded pretty much any year prior to 992.

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↑ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 9 (The Writing on the Wall) - "You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago - the precise date is uncertain - by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age." Binns says this late in the year 1992. Given that Gryffindor would be of age by the school's founding, the latest he could be born is 976.

Witches and Wizards live long lives, so I wanted to place them in a place in British history that would make sense. I've been reading up on some history (though honestly, everything medieval is a bit fuzzy) however I'm not the greatest at reading ye olde English. Below is a quote from Wikipedia, Witch-hunt article: 

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Early secular laws against witchcraft include those promulgated by King Athelstan (924–939):

And we have ordained respecting witch-crafts, and lybacs [read lyblac "sorcery"], and morthdaeds ["murder, mortal sin"]: if any one should be thereby killed, and he could not deny it, that he be liable in his life. But if he will deny it, and at threefold ordeal shall be guilty; that he be 120 days in prison: and after that let kindred take him out, and give to the king 120 shillings, and pay the wer to his kindred, and enter into borh for him, that he evermore desist from the like.^[33]

I was wondering what this means exactly...?

Any help would be appreciated!

Maria

 

 

[VaguelyCreativeName]

I'm not entirely sure because the way I'm reading it seems to be a bit self-contradictory, but here's what I'm getting from it:

-if someone practiced witchcraft/mortal sin, resulting in the death of another person, they are liable with their life, i.e. they will be executed.

-however if they deny it, and are still found guilty by trial (I popped 'ordeal' into the MED, and apparently that's trial by torture: if the accused overcomes this pain, they have been saved by divine intervention and are therefore innocent - nasty business), they are instead charged to 120 days in prison. This is what I'm unsure about, because why would they get a lighter punishment if they are still found guilty?

-after those 120 days have expired, the potential magic-wielder will be released into the custody of their family, who have to pay a fine and stand surety/guarantee to the community that the convicted will never partake in witchcraft again. I'm not entirely sure about the 'wer', but according to the OED it's a compensation paid for homicide, so I'm assuming the 'his kindred' in that sentence refers to the victim's family, who have to be reimbursed for their loss - the exact fee would depend on the rank and social status of the victim

 

Hope this helped some!

[tatapb]

You are invaluable, I swear I was having so much trouble reading this (and apparently it wasn't just the weird english)! Now that you've split it into readable bits it makes much more sense!

Maybe the distinction between those who denied it and did not was a matter of intent? Someone who would outright admit to it would be subject to immediate death whereas someone who was unsure or thought themselves innocent or justified in their actions (or were just lying to save their skin) would be tried by ordeal...? 

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Trial by ordeal was an ancient judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused was determined by subjecting them to a painful, or at least an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience. The test was one of life or death, and the proof of innocence was survival. In some cases, the accused was considered innocent if they escaped injury or if their injuries healed.

What's bothering me is the punishement even if they did live so maybe it's a gray area?

Someone could survive even if they were technically guilty, which meant they were saved by divine intervention and therefore were worthy of being reformed? I can see it happening in the Middle Ages, 'well, I did curse him, but he was an arse and he deserved it' and then survives the trial by ordeal of drowning or some such and then the overall conclusion is 'well, God apparently agrees that the guy was an arse and that you didn't deserve to die so here's a slap on the wrist and try not to do it again will ya".

[VaguelyCreativeName]

I definitely see the point in making a distinction between outright admitting it and denying it; the matter of intention vs accident (or, trying to get off scot-free) makes for a sound argument!

8 minutes ago, tatapb said:

Someone could survive even if they were technically guilty, which meant they were saved by divine intervention and therefore were worthy of being reformed? I can see it happening in the Middle Ages, 'well, I did curse him, but he was an arse and he deserved it' and then survives the trial by ordeal of drowning or some such and then the overall conclusion is 'well, God apparently agrees that the guy was an arse and that you didn't deserve to die so here's a slap on the wrist and try not to do it again will ya".

I love this image! The idea of some unrepentant wizard weaseling his way out of serious punishment by sneakily using healing magic during the torture and then going "what did you expect, he was an arse" is too funny! I'd love to see what you come up with for your founders fic!

[tatapb]

I really wanted to take this fiction seriously but the more I read about Early Medieval times, the more I think this has the potential to be absolutely hysterical.

I don't know if you're interested (I'm basically raving about this) but I'll just slip this here just in case. I was actually was googling more about this (literally googled the whole law to see what popped up) and a few interesting things came to light:

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The consensus of all of them is that the witch hunts didn’t begin in earnest till the 15th century, though there might have been persecutions here and there. In fact till the 14th century, belief in the very idea of witchcraft and that witches had the powers to do what some people claimed they did was banned. To believe in the possibility of someone practicing witchcraft was as much of a heresy as to practice witchcraft. It wasn’t until the 14th century that the Inquisitions were authorised to prosecute for witchcraft and even then it seems to have only been investigated incidentally during investigations for heterodoxy.

Apparently in these weirdo days of old, it was as much a crime to be a witch as to point fingers and say someone was a witch. Heresy was as much a punishable offence as witchcraft.

Which makes me think maybe we're reading this wrong and it's the other way around: maybe if someone killed someone for purportedly being a witch and they were caught in the act, they'd be instantly killed, no questions asked. If there was reasonable doubt, on the other hand, they'd be subjected to the threefold ordeal - which I've been googling as well and just discovered is a bit different than the dead or alive situation we were picturing.

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Legal texts from reign of King Athelstan provide some of the most elaborate royal regulations for the use of the ordeal in Anglo-Saxon England, though the period's fullest account of ordeal practices is found in an anonymous legal text written some time in the tenth century.[10] According to this text, usually given the title Ordal, the water had to be close to boiling temperature, and the depth from which the stone had to be retrieved was up to the wrist for a 'one-fold' ordeal and up to the elbow for a 'three-fold' ordeal.[11] The distinction between the one-fold and three-fold ordeal appears to be based on the severity of the crime, with the three-fold ordeal being prescribed for more severe offences such as treachery or for notorious criminals.[12] The ordeal would take place in the church, with several in attendance, purified and praying God to reveal the truth. Afterwards, the hand was bound and examined after three days to see whether it was healing or festering.[13]

Which explains why someone surviving the ordeal would still need to pay reparations. If you healed, you were innocent and completely off the hook, if you didn't, you were guilty and had to pay for your crimes. What is still unclear is why, even after being found guilty, they didn't get killed. Maybe it's because they already had gone through that ordeal (omg, this is where the expression comes from) and they weren't complete savages?

Like "we've hurt you, that thing is festering and you'll probably die anyway, so think about what you've done and try to be better if you do survive"?

I'm actually so happy I'm doing this whole research thing and I found this one Tumblr post that has been a whole education. Not only did I discover they were incredibly chill about magic until the fifteenth century (which was when the actual witch-hunts started), but that was also when the whole Pureblood nonsense began.

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Historically, the Malfoys drew a sharp distinction between poor Muggles and those with wealth and authority. Until the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692, the Malfoy family was active within high-born Muggle circles, and it is said that their fervent opposition to the imposition of the Statute was due, in part, to the fact that they would have to withdraw from this enjoyable sphere of social life. Though hotly denied by subsequent generations, there is ample evidence to suggest that the first Lucius Malfoy was an unsuccessful aspirant to the hand of Elizabeth I, and some wizarding historians allege that the Queen’s subsequent opposition to marriage was due to a jinx placed upon her by the thwarted Malfoy.

With that healthy degree of self-preservation that has characterised most of their actions over the centuries, once the Statute of Secrecy had passed into law the Malfoys ceased fraternising with Muggles, however well-born, and accepted that further opposition and protests could only distance them from the new heart of power: the newly created Ministry of Magic. They performed an abrupt volte-face, and became as vocally supportive of the Statute as any of those who had championed it from the beginning, hastening to deny that they had ever been on speaking (or marrying) terms with Muggles.

AND

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Magical opinion underwent something of a shift after the International Statute of Secrecy became effective in 1692, when the magical community went into voluntary hiding following persecution by Muggles. This was a traumatic time for witches and wizards, and marriages with Muggles dropped to their lowest level ever known, mainly because of fears that intermarriage would lead inevitably to discovery, and, consequently, to a serious infraction of wizarding law.*

Under such conditions of uncertainty, fear and resentment, the pure-blood doctrine began to gain followers. As a general rule, those who adopted it were also those who had most strenuously opposed the International Statute of Secrecy, advocating instead outright war on the Muggles. Increasing numbers of wizards now preached that marriage with a Muggle did not merely risk a possible breach of the new Statute, but that it was shameful, unnatural and would lead to ‘contamination’ of magical blood.**

As Muggle/wizard marriage had been common for centuries, those now self-describing as pure-bloods were unlikely to have any higher proportion of wizarding ancestors than those who did not. To call oneself a pure-blood was more accurately a declaration of political or social intent (‘I will not marry a Muggle and I consider Muggle/wizard marriage reprehensible’) than a statement of biological fact.

I want to scream okay? So basically Salazar Slytherin was a cretin and a completely unusual bigot for his days and everyone thought he was a loon until the Muggle world started getting serious about the witch-hunts, at which point the Wizarding World started getting downright paranoid (let's face it, there was a good reason).

Which means that Salazar's "keeping the children safe from the mean old Muggles" and the whole Chamber of Secrets debacle? Completely unfounded! No wonder words were exchanged and friendships torn. 

ALSO, in canon, Binn does mention something about the 10th century being quite active about witch persecutions, which was why the Founders hid the castle, but it turns out JK actually retracted that:

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Slytherin’s discrimination on the basis of parentage was considered an unusual and misguided view by the majority of wizards at the time. Contemporary literature suggests that Muggle-borns were not only accepted, but often considered to be particularly gifted. They went by the affectionate name of ‘Magbobs’ (there has been much debate about the origin of the term, but it seems most likely to be that in such a case, magic ‘bobbed up’ out of nowhere).

So overall, this Founders fic will have them basically being witches and wizards out in open daylight and everyone just averting their eyes out of fear they'd be called heretics. Godric Gryffindor going 'look at me, floating this GIGANTIC rock with my wand' and the peasants are all 'nope, nope, nopeeeee, we're not seeing this, we're DEFINITELY not heretics'.

I'm sorry, I got overexcited, but hopefully someone will read all this and be just as mind-blown as I was.

[VaguelyCreativeName]

I'm so glad you shared this! I would absolutely love to read a hysterical founders fic! a lot of high fantasy can be quite serious, so I'd love if you subverted that! iirc, quite a bit of Old English literature pretty heavily features magic anyway, and also with the heroes using it, so it would make sense that 10th century muggles would be more chill about it - if you picture those fictional texts as like, being based on actual events, that could also put a nice spin on magical and muggle society being more intertwined. I also really, really love the idea of the founders just getting up to hijinks to confuse local muggles and I'm really intrigued by Salazar not being bigoted as much as just eccentric and a bit paranoid.

If you ever do want to rave about your Hysterical Founders AU, I'm absolutely here for it and my inbox is always open!

[Darling_take_off_the_mask]

6 hours ago, tatapb said:

Godric Gryffindor going 'look at me, floating this GIGANTIC rock with my wand' and the peasants are all 'nope, nope, nopeeeee, we're not seeing this, we're DEFINITELY not heretics'.

Need this fic in my life immediately.

Feels very Monty Python-esque.