Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Artistic depiction of the execution by burning of three alleged witches in Baden, Switzerland in 1585. This is a list of people executed for witchcraft, many of whom were executed during organized witch-hunts, particularly during the 15th–18th centuries. Large numbers of people were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe between 1560 and 1630. [1]
A 1555 German print showing the burning of witches. Current scholarly estimates of the number of people executed for witchcraft in Europe vary between 40,000 and 100,000. [a] The number of witch trials in Europe known to have ended in executions is around 12,000. [70]
Witch-hunts were seen across early modern Europe, but the most significant area of witch-hunting in modern Europe is often considered to be central and southern Germany. [56] Germany was a late starter in terms of the numbers of trials, compared to other regions of Europe.
Between 40,000 and 60,000 [2] [3] were executed, almost all in Europe. The witch-hunts were particularly severe in parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Prosecutions for witchcraft reached a high point from 1560 to 1630, [4] [5] during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion.
Bamberg Cathedral Engraving of Johann Georg Fuchs von Dornheim by Johann Salver. Witch prison Witch burning. The Bamberg witch trials of 1627–1632, which took place in the self-governing Catholic Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg in the Holy Roman Empire in present-day Germany, is one of the biggest mass trials and mass executions ever seen in Europe, and one of the biggest witch trials in history.
"Most historians today believe that the witchcraft trials that led to thousands of deaths and burnings at the stake in Europe during the Dark Ages were likely related to outbreaks of ergot ...
Those same years saw, in central Europe at least, the worst of all witch-persecutions, the climax of the European craze. Many of the witch-trials of the 1620s multiplied with the Catholic reconquest. In some areas the lord or bishop was the instigator, in others the Jesuits. Sometimes local witch-committees were set up to further the work.
Trier witch trials (Pamphlett, 1594) The Cathedral of Trier. Memorial, 2015. The Witch Trials of Trier took place in the independent Catholic diocese of Trier in the Holy Roman Empire in present day Germany between 1581 and 1593, and were perhaps the largest documented witch trial in history in view of the executions.