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On 25 August 1538 there was much discussion about witches and sorceresses who poisoned chicken eggs in the nests, or poisoned milk and butter. Doctor Luther said: "One should show no mercy to these [women]; I would burn them myself, for we read in the Law that the priests were the ones to begin the stoning of criminals." [13]
Following her death, they duly did so, but on the first two nights, as priests were chanting psalms around the body, devils broke into the church and snapped two of the chains on the coffin lid. On the third night, another devil, more powerful and terrifying that the others, burst into the church and snapped the chain, dragging the witch from ...
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 Christianity.
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 use of torture has been identified as a key factor in converting the trial of one accused witch into a wider social panic, as those being tortured were more likely to accuse a wide array of other local individuals of also being witches. [76] Burning of three witches in Baden, Switzerland (1585), by Johann Jakob Wick The burning of a French ...
Apotropaic marks, also called 'witch marks' or 'anti-witch marks' in Europe, are symbols or patterns scratched on the walls, beams and thresholds of buildings to protect them from witchcraft or evil spirits. They have many forms; in Britain they are often flower-like patterns of overlapping circles. [24] such as hexafoils.
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John of Salisbury is one of the first examples related by Richard Kieckhefer, but as a Parisian ecclesiastical court record of 1323 shows, a "group who were plotting to invoke the demon Berich from inside a circle made from strips of cat skin" were obviously participating in what the Church would define as "necromancy". [29]