Watercolor, charcoal and plaster on paper

Torture was officially enabled in 1287 and remained a legal recourse of the church until 1816. During those five and a half centuries, not only were official burnings commonplace, but so were starving families, unrecorded suicides and unofficial burnings. Perhaps millions died unnoticed during the papal crusades against heretical groups. In the town of Treves, a chronicler reported the entire female population of two villages was wiped out except for two women in 1586.

-- Walker, Barbara G., The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1983. Page 444.