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Witch-hunts increased again in the 17th century. The witch trials in Early Modern Europe included the Basque witch trials in Spain, the Fulda witch trials in Germany, the North Berwick witch trials in Scotland, and the Torsåker witch trials in Sweden. There were also witch-hunts during the 17th century in the American colonies.
[a] The number of witch trials in Europe known to have ended in executions is around 12,000. [70] There were an estimated 110,000 witchcraft trials in Europe between 1450 and 1750, with half of the cases seeing the accused being executed. [71] Witch hunts began to increase first in southern France and Switzerland, during the 14th and 15th ...
In contrast, the witch trials in the Protestant Netherlands stopped earlier and they were among the least numerous in Europe, while the large-scale mass witch trials which took place in the autonomous territories of the Catholic prince-bishops in Southern Germany were infamous in all of the Western world, and the contemporary writer Herman ...
A witch hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. Practicing evil spells or incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the Middle East. In medieval Europe, witch-hunts often arose in connection to charges of heresy from
The witch trials of the Catholic Prince Bishops of South West Germany were arguably the biggest in the world. Witch trials did occur in Protestant Germany as well, but were fewer and less extensive in comparison with Catholic Germany. The witch trials of Catholic Austria and Protestant Switzerland were both severe.
Contemporary pamphlet about the Würzburg witch trials. The Würzburg witch trials of 1625–1631, which took place in the self-governing Catholic Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg in the Holy Roman Empire in present-day Germany, formed one of the biggest mass trials and mass executions ever seen in Europe, and one of the largest witch trials in history.
Witch trials were most frequent in England in the first half of the 17th century. They reached their most intense phase during the English Civil War of the 1640s and the Puritan era of the 1650s. This was a period of intense witch hunts, known for witch hunters such as Matthew Hopkins.
The Valais witch-hunt is the first of the systematic campaigns which would become much more widespread in the decades to come, initiating the period of witch trials in Europe. The persecutions started in French-speaking Lower Valais ( House of Savoy and prince-bishopric of Sion ) and spread to German-speaking Upper Valais and to nearby valleys ...