A Witch Hunt
Simulation:
Germany 1628
Directions
• First, use the following slides on the PowerPoint to
answer questions on the historical background of
witchcraft.
• After completing the historical background questions,
complete the witch hunt simulation.
Witch Scare Time
• During the Reformation and Religious Wars
(from 1560-1660) the practice of witch hunting
escalated to alarming rates, touching every part
of Europe from Ireland to Russia. Scholars
currently estimate that during the 16th and
17th centuries between 100,000 and 200,000
people were officially tried for witchcraft, and
between 50,000 and 100,000 were executed.
What was a “witch”?
• “A witch,” according Chief Justice Coke of
England, “was a person who hath conference with
the Devil to consult with him or to do some act.”
This definition by the highest legal authority of
England demonstrates that educated was well as
ignorant people believed in witches.
• Witches were thought to be individuals who could
mysteriously injure other people or animals- by
causing a person to become blind or impotent, for
instance, or by preventing a cow from giving milk.
Belief in witches began long before Christianity.
For centuries, talks had circulated about old
women who made night time travels on greased
broomsticks to sabbats, or assemblies of witches,
where they participated in sexual orgies and
feasted on the flesh of infants. In the popular
imagination, witches had definite characteristics.
The vast majority were married women or widows
between 50 and 70 years of age, crippled, with
pockmarked skin. They often practices midwifery
or folk medicine, and most had sharp tongues and
were quick to scold.
Church illustration of a
witch’s sabbat
What Caused the Increase in
Witch Hunts?
• The religious reformers who
broke from the Catholic Church
during the Reformation held
extreme notions about the
Devil’s powers. Also, the
insecurity created by the
religious wars contributed to
the growth of the belief in
witches.
Picture of Satan’s Court from
the 1200s
Cause: The Consequences of
the Reformation
• Some scholars see witch hunts as a consequences of
the Reformation: rulers proved their piety and religious
commitment either by fighting religious wars (between
Catholics and Protestants) or by cracking down on
persons considered social delinquents.
Cause: Demographic
Changes
• Demographic changes are changes in the population.
During the 1500s and 1600s people began to marry
later and there was an increase in the number of
women who did not marry at all, women who were
not under a man’s supervision became highly
suspicious.
Cause: Socioeconomic
Factors
• During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there was
severe inflation, periodic famines due to poor harvests,
wars- causing a great increase in the numbers of
beggars and homeless people. In addition, the growth
of commercial capitalism began to undermine
medieval communal values of reciprocity and replace
them with a new individualistic ethic based on private
property and profit. All of these developments created
an atmosphere of fear and instability in which the poor
were seen as threats, as agents of the devil. Some
scholars believe that these fears caused people to
accuse others of witchcraft.
Women and
Witchcraft
• The great European witch scare
reveals something about
contemporary views of women.
Given the broad feelings of
misogyny (meaning hatred for
women) in Western religion, the
long-held belief that women were
more susceptible to the Devil,
and the belief that women were
sexually insatiable, is the primary
reason why more women were
accused of witchcraft. As the
most important capital crime
(meaning a crime punishable by
death), witchcraft has
considerable significance in
women’s history.
Why did the Craze
End?
• 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.
Witch Hunt
Simulation
• Go to
http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/witch
/hunt/index.html
• Complete the simulation and answer the questions that
follow.