There witch hunt in Europe It was one of the darkest and most tragic periods in history, which can be placed between the 15th and 17th centuries, in which thousands of people, especially women, were accused of witchcraft and had to undergo trials, torture and death in most cases, either by burning at the stake or by drowning. It is a period of mass hysteria and systemic persecution which is still widely studied today.
Witch Hunt: Here Are Its Origins
What led humans to start this witch-hunt persecution is a very complex set of popular, religious and social beliefs: in the Middle Ages, in fact, witchcraft was very often associated with paganism and was consequently considered a crime against the Christian faith. It was the Catholic Church through the Inquisition that began this persecution of anyone suspected of heresy or esoteric practices.
During the period of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, persecutions increased significantly as religious tension between Catholics and Protestants created a climate of suspicion and fear and accusations of witchcraft thus became a powerful weapon to free oneself from both political and religious enemies.
In 1487 a document was published that greatly fueled the witch hunt, namely the “Malleus Maleficarum” (The Hammer of Witches), written by Dominican friars Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. It was a manual that spoke in detail about how to identify and subsequently eradicate witches and consequently became a guide for inquisitorsas well as a means of spreading fear of witchcraft throughout Europe.
In most cases, witchcraft trials were based on unfounded accusations and on flimsy evidence, since confessions were obtained after unimaginable torture and every little out of the ordinary behavior could be interpreted as evidence. Women were the most accused, especially the extremely beautiful ones and those with red hair. Furthermore, the witch hunt was not limited to Europe only, but also reached America, as in the case of the Salem Witches in New England which led to the execution of 20 people in 1692.
Fortunately this phenomenon came to an end, when in 18th century enlightenment criticized superstitions and inquisitorial practices: in fact, the Enlightenment intellectuals denounced these facts as barbarism and tried to bring back rationality between people and respect for human rights. In addition, there were several legal reforms that contributed to reducing the credibility of witchcraft accusations, as well as the advent of modern science and consequently witchcraft trials were abolished and victims rehabilitated.
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