Talk:Martinet

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Contents 1 Removal of "Brazil" reference 2 Zwarte Piet 3 Is the tone of this article misleading? 4 Italian witches

[edit] Removal of "Brazil" reference

I am a huge fan of this Terry Gilliam film - in fact, it is my all time favourite film. I'm saying this because the secretary who is busy transcribing the torture sessions in the film is doing so quite happily. She is not, in any way, a representation of a Martinet. If anything, she is simply a representation of bureaucracy in action - a common thread that runs through Gilliam's films. --One Salient Oversight 29 June 2005 10:41 (UTC)

[edit] Zwarte Piet

The mention of Zwarte Piet -or black peter in english- and the claim that this item is frequently used by this character is incorrect. The actual item Zwarte Piet carries is a birch. An example of the item can be found under the activity; birching --Paddy Fitzgerald 03:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is the tone of this article misleading?

"Martinet" is generally considered a strongly perjorative term. You don't get much sense of that in reading the article.

[edit] Italian witches

So why were presumably Italian witches referring to "the Devil" as Master Martinet, a French term? My information is from Montague Summers' English translation of Francesco Maria Guazzo's Compendium Maleficarum, written in Latin. In a footnote to elucidate the usage of "Petit maistre" as an epithet for the Devil, Summers references Jean Bodin's La Démonomanie des Sorciers, which quoted Paolo Grillandi's firsthand examination of a witch in Italy. Lisa the Sociopath 23:33, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

The corresponding word in Italian is martello (<Latin martulus), which means "hammer". In the same footnote Summers also quotes an author (?) named Debris (I cannot find information on this author), book II, chapter XVI:

"Evocabatur voce quadam, velut humana ab ipso daemone, quem non vocant daemonem, sed Magisterulum, aliae magistrum Martinettum, sive Martinellum."

Magisterulum is Latin for "Little Master"; magistrum Martinettum, sive Martinellum is Latin for "Master Martinet, or Martinel(lo)". I don't know if in Italian it also referred to a whip. The epithet is interesting. The Devil in witch lore was often said to flog witches, either for "fun" or because they violated some practice or rule (thus it could refer to the whip or the stickler who uses it). Yet the "hammer" meaning also may have been intended for reasons I will discuss later, although it is apparently OR and not usable here. Lisa the Sociopath 00:23, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't find my book but there was a version of Ptah (basically the demiurge among the ancient Egyptians) who was depicted as a diminutive figure holding a hammer (indicating his function as demiurge). Ptah was here depicted as diminutive presumably to indicate that he is an "emanation" of a greater power above the demiurge (which fits in with ancient Egyptian beliefs). The Italian witches referring to the Devil as Martinello or Martello etc. could then be evidence that there were witch cults in Medieval Europe who viewed the Devil as the demiurge of the world, similar to the view of the Cathars in southern France. This would explain the "Little Master" and "Master Martinet" or "Martinello" epithets. Lisa the Sociopath 00:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)