How they hunted witches in different countries and at different periods of history

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The witch hunt and subsequent trials against them (whether for political or religious reasons) have always been truly scary. Throughout world history, innocent people (in the overwhelming majority of cases they were women) were interrogated, punished, tortured, raped and even killed, provided that they did at least something related to the occult or witchcraft. The perverse and strange punishments for these people were often excruciatingly slow and invariably cruel. One thing is for sure: for a very long time, people have tried to overcome their superstitions, and this has led to a huge number of deaths.

1. Witchcraft in prehistory

Until the creation of dominant (and especially monotheistic religions), what would today be called witchcraft was a common practice: “it” was done by everyone because they believed in the supernatural. Witchcraft has existed since the appearance of humans. In fact, scientists have proven that witchcraft existed before civilization. They did this by studying rock paintings, which depict various rituals performed for various reasons, for example, to facilitate abundant hunting. It is also known that shamans claimed thousands of years ago about their special contact with gods, spirits and natural forces. Therefore, they wielded considerable social power due to their perceived abilities. The rock and rock art today speaks of what these people were like, and it is safe to assume that they were greatly respected. But the prehistoric world was cruel and bloody, so for sure, if the shamans did not "provide" the desired result, then they were sometimes killed.

2. Ancient Babylon

Like much of the history of civilization (from beer to sexual rituals and the rise of documented prostitution), the history of the trial of witches begins in ancient Babylon, and this is known from the Codex of Hammurabi. Created during the reign of Hammurabi, king of ancient Babylon, who ruled from about 1792 to 1750 BC, the code contains 282 separate laws that governed human behavior. Among them is perhaps one of the earliest laws against witchcraft, which laid the foundation for the adoption of similar laws later: “If someone brings charges of witchcraft against a person, and the accused goes to the river, jumps into the water and drowns in it, then his accuser must be given the guilty house. But if the river proves that the accused is not guilty, and he does not drown, then the person who brought the charge must be executed, and the accused must be given his house. The ancient Sumerian code of Ur-Nammu contained the same law.

3. Ancient Rome

Now let's move to 331 BC. In the developing civilization of ancient Rome, approximately 170 or so women were tried, convicted of witchcraft, and executed. At that time, Rome was superstitious and had not yet become a powerful force in the world. Medicine was just beginning to emerge, there was no scientific justification for diseases, and people were mainly tried to heal with herbs on the basis of trial and error. But 100 years earlier, around 450 BC, the Law of the Twelve Tables, the first known written legal system of Ancient Rome, was created. This was the beginning of the entire legal structure of the soon-formed Roman Empire. The rules laid down in the Law of the Twelve Tables were, like the Biblical Ten Commandments, the foundations of behavior for the ancient Romans. And in those codes of conduct there were laws against witchcraft.

4. Bacchanalia

In ancient times, there were cults that worshiped the god Bacchus in ancient Rome, and before him, Dionysus in ancient Greece. These two gods personified many things, mainly wine, sex, debauchery and orgiastic hedonism. Massive drunken orgies were held in their name from the time of ancient Greece to the Roman Empire, where they were called "Bacchanals". This continued until Rome passed laws against them in 186 BC. Everyone who participated in the Bacchanal festivals faced dire consequences - they were convicted of witchcraft and executed. In fact, this was the second known witch hunt in ancient Rome. The Bacchanals were forced underground by the enactment of witchcraft laws that attempted to destroy the cults, although they were revived when Julius Caesar came to power.

5. Middle Ages

Contrary to popular belief, the people of the Middle Ages were not aggressive towards witchcraft and at first even had difficulty taking the idea of witches seriously. The theologian and philosopher Aurelius Augustine (Blessed Augustine), who lived in the fifth century, was an influential thinker who believed that everything pagan was not only wicked but also satanic. Thus, his writings only strengthened the connection between anything occult (or beyond the generally accepted framework of Christianity at the time) with evil. A similar idea persists in Christianity to this day. This was a pivotal moment as the growing Christianity subsequently began to persecute witches. However, it was not until the 7th-9th centuries in medieval Europe that new laws against witchcraft and witches were adopted. For centuries after St. Augustine, no one gave a damn about witches, and most people thought it was superstitious nonsense. However, after the laws were passed, people began to believe in magic and evil witchcraft, and practitioners of this kind were increasingly considered to be possessed by the devil.

6. XIII century

In the XIII century, the number of superstitions associated with witches increased sharply, and their persecution by the Church began. Popes and religious leaders began to demonize anyone who practiced any magic or ritual other than Christian prayers. The Roman Catholic Church officially instituted the Inquisition in 1184 under Pope Lucius III, and instituted a new set of laws to combat any religious dissent across Europe. In 1227, Pope Gregory IX appointed the first judges, giving them authority over almost everything in the name of the Inquisition. It was then that the real torture of heretics began. The Inquisition finally cleared up in the XIV century after the trial of the Templars. After that, heretics were tried all over Europe, and there is no need to talk about the horrors that they did to witches.

7. Early modern period

The early modern period of Europe, spanning from about 1450 to 1750, saw a significant increase in the number of witch trials. During this time, about 100,000 people, mostly women, were suspected of witchcraft. Half of them were executed, usually by burning at the stake. Many of these killings took place in Germany, with two particularly brutal areas being Trier and Würzburg, where in just one day in 1589, 133 people were killed at the direction of the Church. The Germans mercilessly killed those they feared. In 1629 alone, 279 people were executed as witches in these places. The idea that any witch, no matter who she is, should be executed, spread like wildfire throughout Europe. Soon, in every country, from Scotland to Switzerland, people began to be massacred. Dozens of massive witch trials have taken place across Europe. Unfortunately, thousands of people died for being suspected of witchcraft. This spawned a new profession of witch hunters who looked for the alleged "devil's mark" on humans, and anyone with even a mole could never truly feel safe.

8. America

Soon, the persecution mania spread to America, and witch hunters were hired to search for witches, who allegedly found traces of devilish signs on almost all suspects. The executions of the "guilty" were carried out mainly by burning at the stake. Connecticut was the first area to be hit particularly hard by this hysteria and bloodlust. Alice Young became the first known victim in Hartford in 1647, and then the Connecticut people began killing others as well. In several cities, mass hunts and "checks" of witches began, as well as executions and purges.

Almost anyone could charge someone with being a witch, and it only took one witness to start the torture. The first recorded confession to witchcraft in Connecticut was given under torture by a woman named Mary Johnson in 1648. In the years that followed, there were many brutal executions following duress confessions. This continued until Governor John Winthrop passed a new law in Connecticut in 1662, stating that two witnesses were needed to convict a witchcraft conviction.

Witch-hunting fever spread from Connecticut to Massachusetts. It led to perhaps the most famous witch hunt in Salem in history. In 1692, more than 200 people were accused of being sorcerers and witches and practicing witchcraft, invoking the forces of nature to do evil will. Of these, 20 people, including small children, were executed. It will forever remain a dark spot in the history of mankind. The persecution came to an abrupt end when the people of Salem felt guilty about so many casualties.

10. Consequences

After nearly two years of fear, panic, paranoia, lawsuits, torture and murder chambers, the last of the so-called witches were freed and the witch-hunt fever subsided. Everyone in Salem just went back to their normal lives as if nothing had happened. But that didn’t mean that the witch-hunt had stopped all over the world. There are still problems with witch hunts in many countries, usually in deeply religious and superstitious areas. More recently, over the past decade, people have been murdered on charges of witchcraft in places like Indonesia, Cameroon, Ghana, etc.