What is the difference between witch hunts and witch trials

Our emails are made to shine in your inbox, with something fresh every morning, afternoon, and weekend. In , the killings began. That year, authorities in the tiny settlement of St Maximin, in present-day Germany, charged a woman named Eva with using witchcraft to murder a child.

Eva confessed under torture; she, along with two women she implicated, were burned at the stake. The pace of prosecution picked up from there. By the mids, the territory had burned people as witches—an astonishing feat, for a place that only had 2, residents to begin with. Why is it that early modern Europe had such a fervor for witch hunting? Conventional wisdom has chalked the killings up to a case of bad weather.

Across Europe, weather suddenly got wetter and colder—a phenomenon known as the Little Ice Age that pelted villages with freak frosts, floods, hailstorms, and plagues of mice and caterpillars. Witch hunts tended to correspond with ecological disasters and crop failures, along with the accompanying problems of famine, inflation, and disease.

When the going got tough, witches made for a convenient scapegoat. But a recent economic study pdf , which will soon be published in the The Economic Journal of the Royal Economic Society, proposes a different explanation for the witch hunts—one that can help us understand the way fears spread, and take hold, today.

This alternative theory comes down to market competition — between churches. The study views the Catholic and Protestant churches as competing firms, each in the business of supplying a valuable service: Salvation.

As competition for religious market share heated up, churches expanded beyond the standard spiritual services and began focusing on salvation from devilry here on earth. Among both Catholics and Protestants, witch-hunting became a prime service for attracting and appeasing the masses by demonstrating their Satan-fighting prowess.

Russ, an economist at Bloom Intelligence, a big-data analysis firm. This concept goes a long way toward explaining not just why witch-hunting mania exploded in Europe, but also why it took hold where it did.

Namely, in Germany. Until the s, the Catholic Church had claimed a monopoly on religion. By nailing his Ninety-five Theses to the door of his local Catholic Church in , Luther was acting as an early consumer protection bureau of sorts, blasting the Catholic church for exploitative practices.

Per usual, the Pope declared Luther a heretic and banned the Ninety-five Theses. This decentralized structure made enforcing Catholicism and rooting out Protestantism much trickier.

Plus, Luther had a hometown advantage. Before long, a slew of German princes had flipped over to Lutheranism—enough that, by , they were powerful enough to force the Emperor to decriminalize Lutheranism. The name of this agreement, the Peace of Augsburg, belies its result. With Lutheranism now officially given the green light, violence broke out across the Holy Roman Empire, as princes fought to force their faith on neighboring territories.

Most likely at the behest of his father, she was condemned as a witch and drowned in the Danube in Katharina Henot pictured here, a statue of her at Cologne's City Hall came from a family of politicians in Cologne and would be considered a successful business woman today. Accused of witchcraft, she maintained her innocence even while she was tortured multiple times. Sentenced to death in , she was granted a "privilege": the executioner strangled her before burning her body. Around , several witch trials took place on this island in the English Channel amidst a conflict between Protestants and Catholics.

In , three Protestant women were burned alive on Guernsey. According to legend, one of them gave birth to a child in the fire, which was first rescued but then thrown back into the fire. The women were later venerated as the "Guernsey Martyrs.

In , witch hunts made their way to the New World. It all began in Salem in what is now the US state of Massachusetts. The puritanical colonialists who came from England rigorously cracked down on suspected witchcraft in their attempt to establish a theocracy in New England. Fourteen women and five men were executed and dozens were tortured.

August 10 marks the World Day against Witch Hunts. Held for the first time this year, the day was created by the Pontifical Mission Societies known in German as missio to shed light on a global problem that is still affecting too many people today. Between the late 15th and the 18th century, approximately 60, people around Europe were executed for supposedly being witches.

Offences such as allegedly flying on a broom or conjuring up crop failures were severely punished. Many confessions were forced through torture and the way they were executed was often horrendous. The historian told DW about parallels between the past and today. Wolfgang Behringer: Calling someone a witch stigmatized them. You might call someone this because you wanted to harm them, or because you were afraid of someone to whom you attributed magical powers.

In Europe, they were often women, but not always. There were certainly similarities between being labelled as a witch in Europe and in other parts of the world such as in Africa, Latin America or South-East Asia. In many cases the suspicion is directed against older women without relatives who could protect them, and against women who were perhaps a little bit odd. In anthropology, it is said that they have something to do with misfortune — and that's pretty much how it is.

Either it is about personal misfortune, for example the illness of a child, a paralysis that occurs, or the sudden death of a child. These kinds of cases affect individuals. There are also collective misfortunes, such as when livestock die or a hailstorm destroys a harvest. Then it is not only individual plaintiffs who appear, but rather entire communities who demand that the authorities prosecute the witches to avert the disaster.

But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of , after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a The evil green-skinned witch flying on her magic broomstick may be a Halloween icon—and a well-worn stereotype.

But the actual history behind how witches came to be associated with such an everyday household object is anything but dull. Vampires are evil mythological beings who roam the world at night searching for people whose blood they feed upon. They may be the best-known classic monsters of all. A mummy is a person or animal whose body has been dried or otherwise preserved after death. When people think of a mummy, they often envision the early Hollywood-era versions of human forms wrapped in layers upon layers of bandages, arms outstretched as they slowly shuffle In early , during the depths of winter in Massachusetts Bay Colony, a group of young girls in the village of Salem began acting strangely.

The daughter and niece of the local minister, Samuel Parris, claimed to be afflicted by invisible forces who bit and pinched them, Since witches were believed to have spurned the sacrament of At the center of the Salem witch trials were a core group of accusers, all girls and young women ranging in age from nine to 20, who screamed, writhed, barked and displayed other horrifying symptoms they claimed were signs of Satanic possession.

Often referred to as the The Devil, also referred to as Satan, is best known as the personification of evil and the nemesis of good people everywhere.

His image and story have evolved over the years, and the Devil has been called many different names in various cultures: Beelzebub, Lucifer, Satan and In late March , John and Bethia Kelly grieved over the body of their 8-year-old daughter inside their Hartford, Connecticut, home.

Little Elizabeth had been fine just days before when she returned home with a neighbor, Goodwife Ayres. The distraught parents, grasping at any Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. History Behind the Legend The Origin of Witches Early witches were people who practiced witchcraft, using magic spells and calling upon spirits for help or to bring about change.

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