Witch-Hunts Fear permeated the sixteenth-century society and helped turn the attacks on “superstition” into an assault on witches. Most reformers saw the remnants of paganism as diabolical and evil, and many texts discussing the nature of the devil were published. In the widely used catechisms of Martin Luther and the Jesuit St. Peter Canisius, the Devil was mentioned more often that Jesus Christ.

Characteristics of Defendants Witches Old, past child-bearing Rural Quarrelsome personality, Smeddum (Scottish for Feistiness) Lower-class

The Idea of Maleficia The idea that maleficia, evil spells, could be carried out when one entered a pact with the devil preceded the Reformation, but some of the crucial developments linking witchcraft to women occurred only during the fifteenth-century. The Malleus Maleficarum, a handbook published in 1486 by two German Dominicans proved to be very influential. Unlike most other writers on the subject at the time, these two had actually tried 50 people for witchcraft, 48 of them women. In their writings, they used a feminine noun in the title to describe witches.

The Malleus Maleficarum The Malleus contained a lengthy discussion on why women were especially prone to witchcraft Women are more credulous and more impressionable than men Women have “slippery tongues and cannot conceal from other women anything they have learned by the evil arts.”

The Malleus Maleficarum Women had greater sexual appetites, so their lust leads them to accept even the Devil as a lover Women are defective and cannot control their affections or passions and so they “search for, brood over, and inflict various vengeances, either by witchcraft or by some other means.”

Evidence that a Witch is a Witch The water-test The pricking-test The tear-test The fire-test The bier-test The weight-test T. H. Matteson’s The Examination of a Witch, 1853

The water-test: the most know and most commonly used method It was practiced by having the accused witch tossed into a lake to see if she would float or not. It was said that the water would refuse to accept the witches. This meant that if one were to drown, one was not guilty; if one floated, on the other hand, one was a witch and would therefore be burned at the stake. There existed methods to keep the "witches" floating If people were so unfortunate that they held their breath the moment they were thrown in, they might stay afloat for a second, and that was enough to be mistaken for a witch. Those who sank were supposed to be pulled out of the water, but usually they were not. A lot of people believed in the water-tests, and a great number of those who had been victims of gossip insisted that they should go through the water-test, strong in their belief that God (and the water) would accept them, thus proving their innocence.

The pricking-test: widely used A known fact was that witches had an mark on their body that did not feel anything. To find this mark, they would prick them with long needles. After a while, the "witches," nearly stung to death, would be so numb that they could not tell one sting from another. Since they would not cry in pain during this particular prick, the accusers had found the mark, and the accused were, therefore, witches. The marks they found might have been mole or any kinds of small wounds. The Devil's mark was said to be the mark from the Devil's hoof.

The tear-test: simple but not as commonly used as a decisive test It was a known fact that Witches cannot cry. If a "witch" stops to cry after a few hours of torture, it was a solid proof saying she was a witch. If she did cry, it was perhaps because the Devil had helped her, and thus she was a witch. The fire-test: not very common The accused had to carry red-hot coal in their hands. Their hands would later be bandaged, and after a few days the bandaging would be removed. If there were no wounds or the skin was clean, she was not a witch.

The bier-test: macabre and not widely used The accused was supposed to touch the body of a newly deceased, and if blood came out of the person's nose, she was a witch because blood does not float in dead bodies. This test was not widely used, probably because the results were not what they had hoped for. The weight-test: another very common one Witches were considered to have a low body-weight, thus having the ability to fly. One judge would guess the weight of an accused person, and that person would then be weighed. If he/she weighed less than the guess, he/she was a witch. In the Netherlands you could get a certificate that showed that you had enough body-weight, and you could therefore not be in the service of the Devil.

Characteristics of a Witch-Trial The trials were rapid, often lasting two weeks or less, They were usually conducted by a group of male judges, sometimes experts who toured the countryside to “help” communities eradicate evil Evidence was circumstantial and not scientific

The Peak of the Witch-Hunts It was only in the sixteenth century that large amounts of women were put to death as witches; however, this occurred in virtually every corner of Europe. The peak lasted from 1560-1670, and we will never know the exact number of executions. Germany was clearly the center Surviving evidence lists about 3,500 deaths for witchcraft in the southwestern corner of Germany

Allowing for inaccuracies in record-keeping most historians estimate that 100,000 people probably went on trial for witchcraft, about a third of them being convicted and executed. Although the rates of trials and executions vary across Europe, everywhere women were the majority of the victims. The Dutch Republic and Spain were the first countries to stop the witch trials.

Witch hunting declined only in the 18th century, when the Enlightenment began- this was a movement that stressed logic and science as a means of understanding the world. The Enlightenment, beginning in the late 1680s, suggested that there was no real evidence that alleged witches caused real harm, and taught that the use of torture to force confessions was inhumane. Once the educated ruling class started to doubt witches, the craze began to end.

Now a secularized image, a joke, or a fun “tradition” Witches Now a secularized image, a joke, or a fun “tradition” From a 1914 Greeting Card From a modern photo