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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
Throughout the medieval era, mainstream Christian doctrine had denied the belief in the existence of witches and witchcraft, condemning it as a pagan superstition. [14] Some have argued that the work of the Dominican Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century helped lay the groundwork for a shift in Christian doctrine, by which certain Christian theologians eventually began to accept the possibility ...
Witch hunts began to increase first in southern France and Switzerland, during the 14th and 15th centuries. Witch hunts and witchcraft trials rose markedly during the social upheavals of the 16th century, peaking between 1560 and 1660. [72] The peak years of witch-hunts in southwest Germany were from 1561 to 1670. [73]
The first person to be tried and executed during the Salem witch trials. [22] Elizabeth Howe: 1635–1692: Massachusetts Bay Colony: Hanged during the Salem witch trials. George Burroughs: c. 1650–1692: Massachusetts Bay Colony: Congregational pastor, executed as part of the Salem witch trials. [23] George Jacobs: 1620–1692: Massachusetts ...
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.
Ordeal by water was associated with the witch-hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries, although an inverse of most trials by ordeal; if the accused sank, they were considered innocent, whereas if they floated, this indicated witchcraft. The ordeal would be conducted with a rope holding the subject so that the person being tested could be retrieved ...
While witch trials were generally uncommon in Europe during the Middle Ages, at least fifteen executions by burning for witchcraft are documented between 1360 and 1437, most of whom in present-day Croatia. [1] The witch hunt in Hungary became more intense in the late 16th -century, but was in its most intense phase between 1690 and 1750.
Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-Hunt is a historical study of the beliefs regarding European witchcraft in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, with particular reference to the development of the witches' sabbat and its influence on the witch trials in the Early Modern period.