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t. e. 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.
Thirteen women and two men were executed in a witch-hunt that lasted throughout New England from 1645 to 1663. [24] The Salem witch trials followed in 1692–93. These witch trials were the most famous in British North America and took place in the coastal settlements near Salem, Massachusetts. Prior to the witch trials, nearly three hundred ...
In the Nordic countries, the late 17th century saw the peak of the trials in a number of areas: the Torsåker witch trials of Sweden (1674), where 71 people were executed for witchcraft in a single day, the peak of witch hunting in Swedish Finland, [41] and the Salzburg witch trials in Austria (where 139 people were executed from 1675 to 1690).
From the sixteenth century on, there were some writers who protested against witch trials, witch hunting and the belief that witchcraft existed. Among them were Johann Weyer, Reginald Scot, [54] and Friedrich Spee. [55] European witch-trials reached their peak in the early 17th century, after which popular sentiment began to turn against the ...
The Würzburg witch trials of 1625–1631, which took place in the self-governing Catholic Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg in the Holy Roman Empire in present-day Germany, formed one of the biggest mass trials and mass executions ever seen in Europe, and one of the largest witch trials in history. The trials resulted in the execution of hundreds ...
The witch hunt migrated in waves through the villages through village inquisitors toward other cities and Prince Bishoprics and resulted in recurring waves of persecutions with high points in 1593–1598, 1601–1605, 1611–1618 and 1627–1631. [2]
In Peter Elmer's novel Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and politics in early modern England [32] he argues and provides evidence for the fact that many of England's great witch trials occurred at times when political parties and governing bodies felt that their authority was being threatened. During the years of 1629 to 1637 no trials occurred in ...
A portrait of Matthew Hopkins, 'The Celebrated Witch-finder', from the 1837 edition of The Discovery of Witches. Matthew Hopkins (c. 1620 – 12 August 1647) was an English witch-hunter whose career flourished during the English Civil War. He was mainly active in East Anglia and claimed to hold the office of Witchfinder General, although that ...