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In the early modern period, from about 1400 to 1775, about 100,000 people were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and British America. [1] 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.
Unlike the severe witchcraft trials that plagued Western Europe, witchcraft historically took on a different form in Romania. The Romanian Orthodox Church's integration of pre-Christian beliefs and the reliance on village healers in the absence of modern medicine led to a less punitive approach. Instead of harsh punishments, those accused of ...
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]
Modern scholarly estimates place the total number of executions for witchcraft in the 300-year period of European witch-hunts in the five digits, mostly at roughly between 35,000 and 60,000 (see table below for details), [a] The majority of those accused were from the lower economic classes in European society, although in rarer cases high ...
Belief in witchcraft as malevolent magic is attested from ancient Mesopotamia, and in Europe, belief in witches traces back to classical antiquity. In medieval and early modern Europe, accused witches were usually women [6] who were believed to have secretly used black magic against their own community. Usually, accusations of witchcraft were ...
As early as circa the year 1400, the high profile Stedelen case documents a witch trial in the region. Switzerland, or at least a part of it, was the location of the first European mass witch trial: the Valais witch trials, which lasted between 1428 and 1459, long before the publication of Malleus Maleficarum (1486). This unleashed the first ...
Fründ speaks of a conspiracy of "700" witches of which "more than 200" had been burned two years into the trials (c. 1430). [11] Contrary to the later phase of the European witch-trials, when the majority of those accused were women, the victims in the Valais witch trials are estimated to have been two-thirds male and one-third female. [4]
Witches were said to make pacts with the devil in exchange for powers, belief and prosecution of witchcraft in Scotland was especially focused on the demonic pact. Witches no longer were seen as healers or helpers, but rather were believed to be the cause of many natural [5] and man-made disasters. Witches were blamed for troubles with ...