Witch trials in the Early Modern period

The period of witch trials in Early Modern Europe is a phenomenon that comes in waves and then subsides.

There are early trials in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, but then the witch scare goes into decline, before becoming a big issue again and peaking in the 17th century.

Some scholars argue that a fear of witchcraft started among intellectuals who believed in maleficium; that is, bad deeds.

What had previously been a belief that some people possessed supernatural abilities (which sometimes resulted in protecting the people), now became a sign of a pact between these people with supernatural abilities and the devil.

Witchcraft became associated with wild Satanic ritual parties in which there was much naked dancing, orgiastic sex, and cannibalistic infanticide.Witch-hunts are seen all across early modern Europe, but the most significant area of witch-hunting in modern Europe is often considered to be southwestern Germany.

In Germany the number of trials compared to other regions of Europe shows it to have been a late starter.

Witch-hunts first appear in large numbers in southern France and Switzerland during the late fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries.

The peak years of witch-hunts in southwest Germany are from 1561 to 1670.

The first major persecution in Europe, that apprehends, tries, convicts, and burns witches in the imperial lordship of Wiesensteig in southwestern Germany, is recorded in 1563 in a pamphlet called True and Horrifying Deeds of 63 Witches.

Estimates of the numbers of women, men and children executed for participating in witchcraft vary wildly depending on the method used to generate the estimate.

Brian Levack, author of The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe, took the number of known European witch trials and multiplied it by the average rate of conviction and execution.

This provided him with a figure of around 60,000 deaths.

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