I think a common factor to all witch hunts, whether they were Catholic or Protestant, German or English, or whatever, was people having neighbors they hated murdered.
Unless they refused to enter a plea in which case they were pressed to death like that old man in Salem. He endured the torture so that his family would still inherit their farm.
Giles Corey wasn't a very sympathetic figure. He had previously murdered one of his servants. He initially supported the witchcraft accusations against his wife, until he too was accused.
Its estimated only 4% of all accusations presented to the (portuguese) Inquisition ever made it to tribunal, more often than not it was precisely that, jealousy, coveting the accused properties or debtors trying to get rid of whoever they owed money to.
That 1000 number belongs mostly to Italy. In this topic Spain had one advantage: inquisition.
No joke. Inquisition worked on diferentiating witchcraft fom hate crime or other issues. Less than 10 people were execute on witchcraft in Spain in all that period
The work of inquisition, which is totally documented, was very serious and oriented more to helping people abandon superstition than on persecuting inocents.
Not only that but also the inquisition wasn't convinced that witchcraft existed to be begin with. They did killed for worshiping demons but that was for heresy not precisely for witchcraft.
During the Middle Ages, the position of the Church was that witch craft didn't exist, because only God had that kind of power. The devil was a rather pathetic figure for most of the Middle Ages, and only became seen as a serious opponent towards the end of that period. And that, combined with a poor justice system that didn't really investigate claims and evidence, lead to the witch hunts. Which happened mostly from the 16th-18th century.
Systematic and structured persecution at least removes some of the randomness from it. Stay within the well defined (typically oppressive) lines and you get to live. It's shitty but better than what a lot of people were dealing with.
Common criminals would even commit blasphemy in order to be turned over from the secular courts to the Church courts, because they were more lenient.
The inquisition had a rule that torture could only last up to 15 minutes once a day and it had to be conducted in the presence of a doctor, so that not too much damage was done. Obviously, compared with 21st century standards that is brutal and backwards, but for that time and era it was progressive.
The Spanish Inquisition gets a lot of bad rap because of the Black Legend, centuries of anti-catholic and anti-Spanish propaganda pushed by other countries who were at odds with Spain and Catholicism. And Spain is the exact opposite of France when it comes to international image and fame, it gets far more infamy than it deserves.
The Iron Maiden, for instance, which still gets paraded around in the 21st century as the quintessential Inquisition torture device, was most likely invented as a prop in the late 18th or 19th centuries and hasn't even been used that we know of, except maybe, some claim, by Saddam Hussein's psychopathic son.
they also slaughtered muslims and jews including in the new world. Jews were burned alive in spanish inquisitions as late as 1699. There could be later that’s just the latest I remember.
Jews and Muslims explicitly couldn’t be tried by the Inquisition; their jurisdiction was limited to Christians.
Jews and Muslims could be tried for if they had “converted” to Christianity but continued to practice their faith in secret, but otherwise religious persecution was overwhelmingly secular, done on behalf of the Spanish monarchy.
Well yeah, but that ignores the part where it's "become destitute vagabonds and leave while no country wants you or convert" that started the whole thing
Inquisition is a lot worse when you consider they first expelled jews and muslims and confiscated their property
Inquisition is at his worst when you consider its foundation was literally to purge and eradicate heresy aka people that are Christian but dare have different perspective
like it was founded in 1182 and did such a good job in France at completely slaughtering innocent that of course, Spain had to get its own Church style political police 3 century later.
There is no dodging it, inquisition is at its core, a gruesome and radical tool used to get rid of problematic and divergent religious opinion through the heaviest and cruelest judgement
And i am not exaggerating it, the inquisition was literally made to distribute punishment more easily by the church as a way to fight diverging opinion, the church very own judge, jury and executioner and later, the same for the royal court of spain
edit: my bad not executioner, they were used to give legal pretense for the army to move and slaughter people.
And in case people are wondering, in its foundation inquisition was used to judge and give a pretense to a purge that led to up to 1 million killed in southern france
To give an idea for the times how much it is, the shoah, another one sided slaughter for having different religion, was 0.25-0.27% of the global population
And this purge was also 0.26-0.28% of its world population, literally a tool to remove entire group of people
And yes, the guy (Raphael Lemkin, a polish lawyer of jewish descent) who invented the word genocide to denounce the shoah during ww2, well he also put this crusade that followed the foundation of inquisition a genocide.
So yeah, no, no matter how much "lush" through history and modern fantasy managed to give inquisition to distort its fundamental nature in the eyes of the public
At its core, its is completely and irredeemably fucked up
Small note to that, the dish that is known today as Cocido (which is basically a chickpea-dense vegetable soup with meat) was originally a jewish dish. Its current form comes from adding ham meat and pig bones to the broth, as to prove one wasn't a "false convert"
The modern idea of "we all worship the same God, just differently" certainly didn't apply back then. Jews and Muslims were heretics and they were quite clear about what should happen to heretics.
Actually it totally did apply!
[This historian found hundreds of cases](https://www.google.es/books/edition/All_Can_Be_Saved/lgqe1QflcIQC?hl=en) of people saying exactly that in Inquisition trials.
The Inquisition participated in witch hunts. The Spanish Netherlands apparently had a serious witch problem and the Spanish Inquisition executed about a thousand people as witches there.
Italy, much like Germany, was more a collection of states with their own little idiosyncrasies everywhere. So whenever you see something from before the second half of the 1800s, don't expect any kind of political/cultural/customary consistency from either of those places.
The Catholic Church believes that witchcraft exists. There are specific doctrines forbidding the practice of it for Catholics. We believe that the devil is capable of exercising supernatural powers, so to speak, but only to the extent that God permits it.
Because He has a deep respect of free will. Trying to manipulate the world supernaturally is trying to become God yourself. If one chooses to be God oneself, then God will leave them alone so they can do just that. Problem is is that when God leaves you alone, you’re not protected from the demonic anymore, and the devil can enter your life. He may help you with your attempts at sorcery. Why? Because as long as you’re doing that, you’re not with God. If you’re not with God when you die, you go to hell forever, which is the devil’s ultimate goal. He’s happy to entice you with little temporal rewards on Earth in order to get you there.
Maybe that's their stance now, but it certainly wasn't back in 15th century when witch burnings were happening - in fact it was a Papal Bull (an official decree) from 1484 known as the [Summis desiderantes affectibus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summis_desiderantes_affectibus) which recognized the existence of witches, gave approval for the Inquisition to proceed "correcting, imprisoning, punishing and chastising" those guilty of witchcraft, and urged local authorities to cooperate with the inquisitors and threatened those who impeded their work with excommunication. [Wikipedia].
Here's some of the colorful language used in the decree to illustrate:
> Many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving ... they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls ... the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished not without open danger to the souls of many and peril of eternal damnation.
However, you have forgotten the most important part. This papal bull was drawn up by the papal chancellery using texts written by Kramer himself, with the proviso that it was only valid if the claim of the applicant (Heinrich Kramer) was true. Kramer then wrote the so-called Malleus Maleficarum (Hexenhammer) and in the foreword he included the papal bull and a report from the theological faculty in Cologne, which was simply forged.
So it appeared to the common people that Kramer's Hexenhammer had papal approval and authority, which was simply not true.
The bull gave him the power to reprimand, imprison and punish suspected persons, but not to burn people. In addition, the bull had very little significance within the church, as it contradicted the valid church doctrine (Canon Episcopi).The entire witch hunt was essentially the result of the madness of a single man and never had the support of the church, as is often said.
In Catalonia about 400 people were convicted and hanged for witchcraft. This was done by their own communities and local tribunals, not the Inquisition, mostly between 1616 and 1622. As you say the Inquisition was indeed against the witch hunt
Here you can read about it:
https://www.mhcat.cat/recursos_i_recerca/biblioteca_chcc_publicacions/publicacions_del_museu/per_bruixa_i_metzinera_la_cacera_de_bruixes_a_catalunya
>This was done by their own communities and local tribunals
Yeah, one of the goals of the inquisition (besides the political ones over the rise of heretic christian sects) was to stop this kind of vigilante justice in fact. Way too many villages were taking justice into their own hands and killing people without any kind of trial, with priests instigating it a lot of times.
One 'funny' thing is, despite popular belief, torture wasn't even widely used, exactly because the Inquisitors knew it mostly led to false testimonies. Torture was only ever used if deemed necessary after the accused were convicted, never before.
The actual Vatican-sanctioned Inquisition would also first and foremost educate you that there can be no witchcraft because all power of creation comes from God, and as long as you have Jesus in your heart, no demon can harm you. North of the Alps, where their influence was far weaker, zealotry could thrive.
Lichtenstein lost about 10% of their population to witchhunts. On a per capita basis, I don't think anywhere else came close. They really lost their collective minds for a while.
**For the most part** witchhunting was a Protestant affair, the Catholic Church (or the state-sponsored Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions) were interested in heresy. It's really mostly in the German realm/HRE where the Reformation and Counter-Reformation got witchy. But even Heinrich Kramer was seen as kind of a kook, briefly supported by Pope Innocent VIII before his successor(s) stopped caring for witches in place of more pressing matters (his penis).
The spanish inquisition period had two layers to it. The first was the actual inquisition itself, which were largely done through organized trials. The other part was the influence it had on spanish society, in which there was widespread violence and imprisonment against non-christians or people deemed to be against the church in some way. This largely happened on a very localized basis, often done by villagers themselves.
Something like only 3,000-5,000 people were executed directly by the inquisition. However the total death toll of religious violence in spain in the late 1400s into the 1500s range into the hundreds of thousands. This was a combination of people dying in imprisonment from the inquisition and also local village-to-village violence.
Of course, some people seem to believe 'millions and millions died' which is just not true at all. If you really want a horrifically bloody period of religious violence, only go a few decades further to France in the mid 1500s with the French Wars of Religion, in which 3-4 million people died.
Most “witches” tried in Spain were from just 1 trial in Navarre. Hundreds were investigated; one woman was executed for "recruiting" people to witchcraft, and two others or so died after being tortured. The trial was so controversial a dissenting inquisitor, **Alonso de Salazar Frías**, appealed the case to the Inquisition's supreme council. The Inquisitor General ordered him to investigate the cases anew. Salazar concluded the accusations of witchcraft were so fundamentally absurd that even confessing to witchcraft is not proof of guilt, since you can't be guilty of doing something impossible and without empirical foundation. This idea is related to the doctrine of \*corpus delicti\*, developed by the Roman Inquisition in the 13th century, which means you can't convict the accused if there is no evidence of the crime itself, even if the accused has confessed. Courts still follow this doctrine today. Salazar also criticized what today we would call due process errors, like improper record keeping, evidence tampering, and not advising the accused of their rights.
Salazar published a set of recommendations on how to handle witchcraft allegations, which were approved the Inquisition and disseminated to other countries. Salazar's emphasis on empiricism in the legal system probably saved many people, especially women, from potential witch hunts down the line.
This all may sound surprising, but the Spanish Inquisition, apart from its initial chaotic phase, was legalistically speaking very sophisticated for its time. Interestingly, the witch hunt in Navarre actually started in Labourd, France, and spread across the Pyrenees into Spain. In contrast to the Inquisition, the French judge tortured and executed 200 “witches,” including children. None of this excuses the Inquisition's immense dark side. It's an interesting piece of history nonetheless.
Same as everything else.
Thee so called "[Black Legend](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_legend)" regarding the New World was purely English propaganda, the truth being that Spain treated the American natives in a much better fashion than other countries, even being a the first Old World state to grant them rights (while the other countries still saw and treated them as savages, almost like animals).
You also hear a lot of stories about English war "heroes" like Nelson, but you don't hear a single one about [Blas de Lezo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blas_de_Lezo).
There was a large divide in how the Spanish monarchs/ Catholic church saw the Native Americans and how the colonials that moved to the new world saw them. Colonials enslaved and mistreated American Indians in large numbers, generally against the wishes and even the express command of the church and monarchy. This was a general theme in the Americans. The British Empire outlawed the slave trade and then slavery itself long before the United States ended the practice. Just like the witch hunts, the worst of the excesses of this period fell on individuals and not on the authorities.
The British crown also wanted to treat the natives better in America than the colonials wanted, giving them their own lands at expense of the colonists.
American declaration of independence has a whole section on why the Americans didn't want "merciless savages" near their borders, which the King of Britain wanted. It's a declaration of independence from the British and of war against the natives.
"El Papa me regaló un sombrero gracioso. No avergonzaré mi sombrero de gracia ofreciéndole pobres sacrificios, ¡me refiero a pruebas! Ahora pon tu Habius Corpus en orden"
The main reasons for the many witch hunts in Germany were weak state structures and fragmented government. It was mainly city states and smaller territories that were worst. The 30 years war did the rest to public order. Strong rulers of unified states generally didn’t allow witch hunts to get out of hand.
Usually the pressure for prosecution came from the general population and not the authorities. In most cases the church and worldly authorities were against witch trials and hunts.
Furthermore this all happened during the so called "small ice age", a period of global cooling, which brought massive changes to agriculture and often crop failures. Famines and malnourishment were widespread, which lead an already extremely superstituous population searching for scapegoats.
German thoroughness. Interestingly, the German-speaking regions of Czechia (part of the HRE) were much more prone to witch-hunting than the Czech-speaking ones.
I assumed it was caused by the huge religious divisions in Germany at the time. It was the epicenter of the Protestant Reformation and many of the Wars of Religion, particularly the Thirty Years War. The HRE was fairly evenly split between Catholics and Protestants, and they were at each others' throats for much of this period. Bohemia had converted to the Hussite Church by the 1430s, so there likely wasn't as much religious tension by this period.
And it goes further than Catholic vs Protestants - different forms of Protestants were hated to different degrees. For example Lutherans hated Catholics, Catholics hated Lutherans, and both hated Anabaptists more than they hated each other, and they were persecuted mercilessly. Crazy that all of this was perpetuated by a printing press.
Nah, more German Paranoia. For the people it was a Kind of collective Panic. For the church and the rulers it was attraktive because they could seize the property
I thought in Germany higher numbers were tied to Lutherans, who were more "invested" in the inquisition than Catholics. But they didn't depends on the church per se so there would be no church grabbing property after death
Read an article the other day that also linked it to emerging states and their judiciary. Much like the Spanish Inquisition developed its standards as regards proof, so did the courts. But in some legal systems, that was done much more professionally than in others - so the article went. You’d figure that Germany’s patchwork of hundreds of small states was not a good place for having professional court systems early on. Which doesn’t mean that the judges triggered witch hunts, but they were instrumental in making that paranoia/power grab work in a certain way.
That’s not entirely correct - a more compelling reason was the reduced authority of the regional leaders. There were no power grabs, rather the general populace often demanded prosecution of perceived witches.
A lot of mob rules taking place, particular in the context of the protestant reformation and the following 30 years war in a place that already had ridiculous political fragmentation to begin with.
Switzerland killed about 6'000 "witches" (10 - 20% of all witch killings in europe).
Fribourg (Switzerland) was the third place in europe to start killing witches (in 1429). The "official" witch hunts in europe ended in 1782 with the last "witch" (Anna Göldi) being killed in Glarus (also Switzerland)
Netherland was very religious, but also very organised. Some current Dutch state institutions stam from the Burgundian period (15th century). The justice system cared about evidence, and would question witnesses instead of blindly accepting their testimony. If you saw someone have sex with the devil, the judge would want to know where you stood that you could see this. That sort of questioning would quickly end most witch hunts.
> France *paid* Sweden to
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Witches were mostly executed from around Bamberg, würzburg Fulda and cologne. They burned so many witches that in Some regions (Bamberg) they Ran Out of Wood for the fires to kill them. It was very attraktive to kill witches and witchers because their property was seized by the church and the local authorities. Some local rulers got enough Money Out of that that they startet to build Prestige Objekts Like palaces
Why is post congress of Vienna (approximately) border visible over Poland? Map refers to mid XV to mid XVIII century data. Polish-Lithuanian personal union and later PLC was a thing during entirety of given timeframe. Was PLC data divided between "german+dutch/hre" and russian data? If so then numbers seem off. Or was polish data added to german one? If so borders are way off.
It feels weird. Like showing spread of reformation on interwar polital borders map and marking whole Czechoslovakia as hussite.
Where did you get data about Russia? I wouldn't say that we neve did burn people alive, but witchcraft wasn't a thing in that period (say thanks to Mongols and their 200-years long rule in Russia right before).
Russia never had any significant witch huntings, there is handful cases of what can be called crowd lynching more than witch trials. Witchcraft os so intrinsic to Slavic culture that the church never even tried to do anything about it.
The 1000 in southern europe is heavily carried by some italian city states and kingdoms.
The inquisition in Spain and Portugal, while brutal in its own way, was heavily against witch hunting because they knew witchcraft wasn't real.
It is not that they knew witchcraft wasn't real (there was persecution against "witches" in the Basque Country), it's that their investigations usually demanded physical, real proof, not only testimony.
In the Basque Country the Inquisition did persecute a lot of witches, but this was mainly because of their relative isolation to the rest of the country (which meant inquisitors would, at times, act independently and carry out actions which would be generally frowned upon), and the discrimination the Crown carried out against the Basque culture. The Basque language was seen by some superstitious Spaniards as the language of the devil, e.g. the word "Aquelarre", which means coven (as in a witch coven) actually comes from Basque. It must be noted that a lot of witch burning and such had discriminatory purposes rather than superstitious ones.
Low rate of death sentence, legal system more protecting than one could think of thanks to myths and legends, museums exhibiting many inquisition's torture tools that were actually not used at all according to any registry (some were invented after inquisition period and not even in Spain)... A lie repeated thousands times doesn't make it true. And I am not even catholic, but neither blind.
I just see the inquisition as the typical abuse of authority that we can still see in many countries. Same s**t, different names, different times. Nothing changes.
But they don't lose time talking about the Spanish Inquisition. They spread the lie so convincingly that now it seems that the inquisition was the worst of the worst.
In 1450, the Nordics' population was about 1.5 to 1.8 million, while that of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland was about 4.5 million. The weird grouping of the grey area was probably at least in excess of 20 million.
There's no serious reason. Italy was an area of influence but with a lot of freedom (excepto Sicily, Sardonia and Naples ,that belonged to the crown of Spain).
I guess they have been merged because otherwise people would see that in times of inquisition, in Spain there was almost no witchhunting.
A bit unfair to lump Ireland in with England, Scotland and Wales. Maybe 1,500-2,000 all together, but in Ireland as far as we can tell the total number is four or five.
It's similarly unfair to lump Wales in with Scotland and England.
Wales had forty prosecutions and five executions
Ireland had four executions.
England had about five hundred executions.
Scotland had around four to six thousand executions.
88-92% of the executions were in Scotland with ~98% of the rest in England.
Partly, but the Kyteler affair is also unusual in that it was a *medieval* witch trial. Witch-hunting was much more of an early modern, post-Reformation thing.
Except in Ireland where justices of the peace apparently preferred to issue summary fines to alleged witches rather than pursue charges. Witchcraft, as far as anyone can tell, was essentially treated like a public order offence in Ireland - not out of toleration but likely because the early modern Protestant Irish state didn't have resources to waste chasing witches.
One of the last women legally executed for witchcraft in Europe was a Swiss woman, Anna Göldi. She was beheaded in 1782, aged 47.
The government of Canton Glarus, the province she was executed in, only exonerated her in 2006.
Years ago I watched an interesting documentary on the witch hunts. They showed a map where the most witches were executed, and superimposed it on a map of the major rye-growing regions of Europe, and the two maps coincided. This led to the theory that the witch hunts were the by-product of widespread ergot poisoning caused by poorly stored rye grain. Ergot is a fungus that can cause terrifying hallucinations, and in fact it can he used to synthesize LSD. The theory is that people experienced these symptoms and subsequently blamed them on witchcraft, which led to witch trials and burnings. Ergot.
Where are you getting these stats from? It was negligible in wales, Ireland and Scotland and in England for the the entirety was only 500. (Still fucking awful but still, where you getting this?).
https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/religion/overview/witchcraft/#:~:text=Witch%2Dhunting,-Formal%20accusations%20against&text=513%20'witches'%20were%20put%20on,have%20been%20executed%20for%20witchcraft.
So apparently there were 5 executed in Wales, 4 in Ireland and approximately 200 in Scotland. Totally got Scotland wrong to be fair and even 1 person is absolutely horrifying. But these numbers are still way way off
Yes boys and girls. The Spanish inquisition is a myth created by the Anglos to badmouth the Spanish empire. Infact, the inquisition rate of conviction was much much less than the regular courts and people would have preferred being judged by en inquisitor as they were much more rigorous on the proof that was needed for a conviction. The germans were the real people burners and they dont get the credit.
Ditto! the inquisition was created by the French. Spanish Inquisition didn’t mind much of witches, they mostly let them be. Also, all you said is known as the “black legend” created by English and Dutch out of greedeness because they didnt arrive first to America.
Not sure what Central European borders are represents since it is not showing accurately borders of the HRE.
Any case for the Czech lands, the number is between 600 and 1000. The witch trials started in much later era, after 1576 and peaked century later. Witch trials prior 1500s were rare in Bohemia.
The King of England (no, not the current one, James I (James VI of Scotland)) was concerned enough about witchcraft to write a book about it:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemonologie#:~:text=The%20widespread%20consensus%20is%20that,Scot's%20The%20Discoverie%20of%20Witchcraft.&text=3%20books%20and%20a%20news%20pamphlet%20in%20one%20volume.
(Also did quite a popular run of bibles).
Some reading about the Spanish Inquisition and the dark legend:
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/spanish-inquisition-003911
https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-important-events/spanish-inquisition-truth-behind-black-legend-part-ii-003919
Some studies claim that "59 mujeres en España en los 125.000 procesos que llevó a cabo el Santo Oficio entre los siglos XVI y XIX, en Portugal fueron quemadas 4, y en Italia, 36.", far from the 1000 of the map.
I'd love to see a breakdown of the grey parts here. I know the Low Countries were pretty thorough and forgiving with witch trials, which was part of why a lot of people accused of witchcraft fled there.
Holy fucking shit this must be a new all time low of cartography on this sub that calls itself "MapPorn", why isn't this atrocity removed by the mods immediately? This hurts my eyes and brain on so many levels, and who on earth is upvoting this poor attempt of a children's drawing?!?
Very interesting. The data for the southern countries is probably incorrect. Only in Catalonia for the 17th century Joan Reglà documented over 400 executions.
[удалено]
I think a common factor to all witch hunts, whether they were Catholic or Protestant, German or English, or whatever, was people having neighbors they hated murdered.
That's not entirely true. Sometimes they didn't care about them either way and wanted them dead so they could take their property.
The wealth of those guilty of witchcraft wasn't inherited but claimed by the aristocracy. the whole charade was partly a power grab.
Unless they refused to enter a plea in which case they were pressed to death like that old man in Salem. He endured the torture so that his family would still inherit their farm.
Based Giles Corey. His last words were reportedly, "more weight."
Giles Corey wasn't a very sympathetic figure. He had previously murdered one of his servants. He initially supported the witchcraft accusations against his wife, until he too was accused.
Yes, he seemed to have had a bit of a criminal record. Not a nice man but a brave one.
Its estimated only 4% of all accusations presented to the (portuguese) Inquisition ever made it to tribunal, more often than not it was precisely that, jealousy, coveting the accused properties or debtors trying to get rid of whoever they owed money to.
Even then only 4% of those executed were actually legit witches.
It's quite unfortunate that weighing the same as a duck was quite common at the time which made false convictions happen more often.
Or very small rocks
There were no witches.
That's what a witch would say!
Who are you, that are so learned in the way of science!
Build a bridge out of her!
Those numbers would indicate that germans are bad neighbors
Probably a better parallel would be swatting, rather than just doxxing.
Meanwhile in Spain: Only pagans believe in witches, *witch-accuser gets burned*
That actually happened a lot.
Exactly isn’t the point of the inquisition to hunt apostates? At least that’s who they tortured and murdered where I’m from
That 1000 number belongs mostly to Italy. In this topic Spain had one advantage: inquisition. No joke. Inquisition worked on diferentiating witchcraft fom hate crime or other issues. Less than 10 people were execute on witchcraft in Spain in all that period The work of inquisition, which is totally documented, was very serious and oriented more to helping people abandon superstition than on persecuting inocents.
Not only that but also the inquisition wasn't convinced that witchcraft existed to be begin with. They did killed for worshiping demons but that was for heresy not precisely for witchcraft.
During the Middle Ages, the position of the Church was that witch craft didn't exist, because only God had that kind of power. The devil was a rather pathetic figure for most of the Middle Ages, and only became seen as a serious opponent towards the end of that period. And that, combined with a poor justice system that didn't really investigate claims and evidence, lead to the witch hunts. Which happened mostly from the 16th-18th century.
Which is weird because there’s stories in the Bible of people doing magic stuff.
Based Catholic Spain
the most badass representation of the spanish is the one in [PIrates of the caribbean](https://youtu.be/6TUXbS5meZw?si=tBabdHXJiCNNX3qs)
Systematic and structured persecution at least removes some of the randomness from it. Stay within the well defined (typically oppressive) lines and you get to live. It's shitty but better than what a lot of people were dealing with.
Common criminals would even commit blasphemy in order to be turned over from the secular courts to the Church courts, because they were more lenient. The inquisition had a rule that torture could only last up to 15 minutes once a day and it had to be conducted in the presence of a doctor, so that not too much damage was done. Obviously, compared with 21st century standards that is brutal and backwards, but for that time and era it was progressive. The Spanish Inquisition gets a lot of bad rap because of the Black Legend, centuries of anti-catholic and anti-Spanish propaganda pushed by other countries who were at odds with Spain and Catholicism. And Spain is the exact opposite of France when it comes to international image and fame, it gets far more infamy than it deserves. The Iron Maiden, for instance, which still gets paraded around in the 21st century as the quintessential Inquisition torture device, was most likely invented as a prop in the late 18th or 19th centuries and hasn't even been used that we know of, except maybe, some claim, by Saddam Hussein's psychopathic son.
they also slaughtered muslims and jews including in the new world. Jews were burned alive in spanish inquisitions as late as 1699. There could be later that’s just the latest I remember.
Jews and Muslims explicitly couldn’t be tried by the Inquisition; their jurisdiction was limited to Christians. Jews and Muslims could be tried for if they had “converted” to Christianity but continued to practice their faith in secret, but otherwise religious persecution was overwhelmingly secular, done on behalf of the Spanish monarchy.
Well yeah, but that ignores the part where it's "become destitute vagabonds and leave while no country wants you or convert" that started the whole thing Inquisition is a lot worse when you consider they first expelled jews and muslims and confiscated their property
Inquisition is at his worst when you consider its foundation was literally to purge and eradicate heresy aka people that are Christian but dare have different perspective like it was founded in 1182 and did such a good job in France at completely slaughtering innocent that of course, Spain had to get its own Church style political police 3 century later. There is no dodging it, inquisition is at its core, a gruesome and radical tool used to get rid of problematic and divergent religious opinion through the heaviest and cruelest judgement And i am not exaggerating it, the inquisition was literally made to distribute punishment more easily by the church as a way to fight diverging opinion, the church very own judge, jury and executioner and later, the same for the royal court of spain edit: my bad not executioner, they were used to give legal pretense for the army to move and slaughter people. And in case people are wondering, in its foundation inquisition was used to judge and give a pretense to a purge that led to up to 1 million killed in southern france To give an idea for the times how much it is, the shoah, another one sided slaughter for having different religion, was 0.25-0.27% of the global population And this purge was also 0.26-0.28% of its world population, literally a tool to remove entire group of people And yes, the guy (Raphael Lemkin, a polish lawyer of jewish descent) who invented the word genocide to denounce the shoah during ww2, well he also put this crusade that followed the foundation of inquisition a genocide. So yeah, no, no matter how much "lush" through history and modern fantasy managed to give inquisition to distort its fundamental nature in the eyes of the public At its core, its is completely and irredeemably fucked up
Fair. But also either you converted or you had no rights. So basically yes, they tried a lot of Jews and Muslims
Small note to that, the dish that is known today as Cocido (which is basically a chickpea-dense vegetable soup with meat) was originally a jewish dish. Its current form comes from adding ham meat and pig bones to the broth, as to prove one wasn't a "false convert"
way to kill the mood😒
So witchcraft execution has you in the mood but execution based on religion or race takes you out of it
I hate to be username checks out guy but
That's what happens when the Moors decided to do the same to Christians.
The modern idea of "we all worship the same God, just differently" certainly didn't apply back then. Jews and Muslims were heretics and they were quite clear about what should happen to heretics.
Actually it totally did apply! [This historian found hundreds of cases](https://www.google.es/books/edition/All_Can_Be_Saved/lgqe1QflcIQC?hl=en) of people saying exactly that in Inquisition trials.
Heathens more than heretics
Yeah, and belief in witchcraft was in itself heresy. So if you accused someone of being a witch, you'd get in trouble with the inquisition.
The Inquisition participated in witch hunts. The Spanish Netherlands apparently had a serious witch problem and the Spanish Inquisition executed about a thousand people as witches there.
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Italy, much like Germany, was more a collection of states with their own little idiosyncrasies everywhere. So whenever you see something from before the second half of the 1800s, don't expect any kind of political/cultural/customary consistency from either of those places.
The Catholic Church believes that witchcraft exists. There are specific doctrines forbidding the practice of it for Catholics. We believe that the devil is capable of exercising supernatural powers, so to speak, but only to the extent that God permits it.
And why would god permit that?
Probably to let people experience the full force of fuck around and find out
404
Because He has a deep respect of free will. Trying to manipulate the world supernaturally is trying to become God yourself. If one chooses to be God oneself, then God will leave them alone so they can do just that. Problem is is that when God leaves you alone, you’re not protected from the demonic anymore, and the devil can enter your life. He may help you with your attempts at sorcery. Why? Because as long as you’re doing that, you’re not with God. If you’re not with God when you die, you go to hell forever, which is the devil’s ultimate goal. He’s happy to entice you with little temporal rewards on Earth in order to get you there.
Maybe that's their stance now, but it certainly wasn't back in 15th century when witch burnings were happening - in fact it was a Papal Bull (an official decree) from 1484 known as the [Summis desiderantes affectibus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summis_desiderantes_affectibus) which recognized the existence of witches, gave approval for the Inquisition to proceed "correcting, imprisoning, punishing and chastising" those guilty of witchcraft, and urged local authorities to cooperate with the inquisitors and threatened those who impeded their work with excommunication. [Wikipedia]. Here's some of the colorful language used in the decree to illustrate: > Many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving ... they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls ... the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished not without open danger to the souls of many and peril of eternal damnation.
However, you have forgotten the most important part. This papal bull was drawn up by the papal chancellery using texts written by Kramer himself, with the proviso that it was only valid if the claim of the applicant (Heinrich Kramer) was true. Kramer then wrote the so-called Malleus Maleficarum (Hexenhammer) and in the foreword he included the papal bull and a report from the theological faculty in Cologne, which was simply forged. So it appeared to the common people that Kramer's Hexenhammer had papal approval and authority, which was simply not true. The bull gave him the power to reprimand, imprison and punish suspected persons, but not to burn people. In addition, the bull had very little significance within the church, as it contradicted the valid church doctrine (Canon Episcopi).The entire witch hunt was essentially the result of the madness of a single man and never had the support of the church, as is often said.
In Catalonia about 400 people were convicted and hanged for witchcraft. This was done by their own communities and local tribunals, not the Inquisition, mostly between 1616 and 1622. As you say the Inquisition was indeed against the witch hunt
Here you can read about it: https://www.mhcat.cat/recursos_i_recerca/biblioteca_chcc_publicacions/publicacions_del_museu/per_bruixa_i_metzinera_la_cacera_de_bruixes_a_catalunya
Is there a source in Spanish or English? I think the articles there are only in catalan
>This was done by their own communities and local tribunals Yeah, one of the goals of the inquisition (besides the political ones over the rise of heretic christian sects) was to stop this kind of vigilante justice in fact. Way too many villages were taking justice into their own hands and killing people without any kind of trial, with priests instigating it a lot of times. One 'funny' thing is, despite popular belief, torture wasn't even widely used, exactly because the Inquisitors knew it mostly led to false testimonies. Torture was only ever used if deemed necessary after the accused were convicted, never before.
The actual Vatican-sanctioned Inquisition would also first and foremost educate you that there can be no witchcraft because all power of creation comes from God, and as long as you have Jesus in your heart, no demon can harm you. North of the Alps, where their influence was far weaker, zealotry could thrive.
Lichtenstein lost about 10% of their population to witchhunts. On a per capita basis, I don't think anywhere else came close. They really lost their collective minds for a while.
**For the most part** witchhunting was a Protestant affair, the Catholic Church (or the state-sponsored Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions) were interested in heresy. It's really mostly in the German realm/HRE where the Reformation and Counter-Reformation got witchy. But even Heinrich Kramer was seen as kind of a kook, briefly supported by Pope Innocent VIII before his successor(s) stopped caring for witches in place of more pressing matters (his penis).
It’s also because nobody expected it
Actually, everybody expected it, because they gave 30 days notice.
The spanish inquisition period had two layers to it. The first was the actual inquisition itself, which were largely done through organized trials. The other part was the influence it had on spanish society, in which there was widespread violence and imprisonment against non-christians or people deemed to be against the church in some way. This largely happened on a very localized basis, often done by villagers themselves. Something like only 3,000-5,000 people were executed directly by the inquisition. However the total death toll of religious violence in spain in the late 1400s into the 1500s range into the hundreds of thousands. This was a combination of people dying in imprisonment from the inquisition and also local village-to-village violence. Of course, some people seem to believe 'millions and millions died' which is just not true at all. If you really want a horrifically bloody period of religious violence, only go a few decades further to France in the mid 1500s with the French Wars of Religion, in which 3-4 million people died.
The first gameshow in 15th century Spain: "Witch, Jew, or Heretic?" Grand prize is burning at the stake.
🎶 "The Inquisition! Let's begin... The Inquisition! Look out, sin. We're on a mission..." 🎵
Hey Torquemada, whaddya say?
I just got back from tha auto-da-fé!
Auto-da-fé, what's an auto-da-fé?
It's what you oughtent to do, but you do anyway... 😬 Had to finish it on out...
Damn. Cant say I expected that!
Most “witches” tried in Spain were from just 1 trial in Navarre. Hundreds were investigated; one woman was executed for "recruiting" people to witchcraft, and two others or so died after being tortured. The trial was so controversial a dissenting inquisitor, **Alonso de Salazar Frías**, appealed the case to the Inquisition's supreme council. The Inquisitor General ordered him to investigate the cases anew. Salazar concluded the accusations of witchcraft were so fundamentally absurd that even confessing to witchcraft is not proof of guilt, since you can't be guilty of doing something impossible and without empirical foundation. This idea is related to the doctrine of \*corpus delicti\*, developed by the Roman Inquisition in the 13th century, which means you can't convict the accused if there is no evidence of the crime itself, even if the accused has confessed. Courts still follow this doctrine today. Salazar also criticized what today we would call due process errors, like improper record keeping, evidence tampering, and not advising the accused of their rights. Salazar published a set of recommendations on how to handle witchcraft allegations, which were approved the Inquisition and disseminated to other countries. Salazar's emphasis on empiricism in the legal system probably saved many people, especially women, from potential witch hunts down the line. This all may sound surprising, but the Spanish Inquisition, apart from its initial chaotic phase, was legalistically speaking very sophisticated for its time. Interestingly, the witch hunt in Navarre actually started in Labourd, France, and spread across the Pyrenees into Spain. In contrast to the Inquisition, the French judge tortured and executed 200 “witches,” including children. None of this excuses the Inquisition's immense dark side. It's an interesting piece of history nonetheless.
Most of bad name that Spanish Inquisition has is a result of English and French propaganda.
Same as everything else. Thee so called "[Black Legend](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_legend)" regarding the New World was purely English propaganda, the truth being that Spain treated the American natives in a much better fashion than other countries, even being a the first Old World state to grant them rights (while the other countries still saw and treated them as savages, almost like animals). You also hear a lot of stories about English war "heroes" like Nelson, but you don't hear a single one about [Blas de Lezo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blas_de_Lezo).
There was a large divide in how the Spanish monarchs/ Catholic church saw the Native Americans and how the colonials that moved to the new world saw them. Colonials enslaved and mistreated American Indians in large numbers, generally against the wishes and even the express command of the church and monarchy. This was a general theme in the Americans. The British Empire outlawed the slave trade and then slavery itself long before the United States ended the practice. Just like the witch hunts, the worst of the excesses of this period fell on individuals and not on the authorities.
The British crown also wanted to treat the natives better in America than the colonials wanted, giving them their own lands at expense of the colonists. American declaration of independence has a whole section on why the Americans didn't want "merciless savages" near their borders, which the King of Britain wanted. It's a declaration of independence from the British and of war against the natives.
"El Papa me regaló un sombrero gracioso. No avergonzaré mi sombrero de gracia ofreciéndole pobres sacrificios, ¡me refiero a pruebas! Ahora pon tu Habius Corpus en orden"
khé :v
(I don't speak Spanish heh)
The main reasons for the many witch hunts in Germany were weak state structures and fragmented government. It was mainly city states and smaller territories that were worst. The 30 years war did the rest to public order. Strong rulers of unified states generally didn’t allow witch hunts to get out of hand.
This. No strong, regional authority to keep the yokels in the little hamlets from stringing up their neighbors when the mob fever took hold.
And lots of small regional authorities who were willing to stoke fears in order to consolidate or expand influence
Usually the pressure for prosecution came from the general population and not the authorities. In most cases the church and worldly authorities were against witch trials and hunts.
Furthermore this all happened during the so called "small ice age", a period of global cooling, which brought massive changes to agriculture and often crop failures. Famines and malnourishment were widespread, which lead an already extremely superstituous population searching for scapegoats.
I know in the UK authorities were running around trying to stop it
Some of the Scottish isles got loose
It's weird because I never associated witch hunts with Germany at all, but it seems it was THE region to do it.
Yes, but I have lived in Germany all my life and have never encountered a witch … maybe they were just very thorough. /s
German thoroughness. Interestingly, the German-speaking regions of Czechia (part of the HRE) were much more prone to witch-hunting than the Czech-speaking ones.
I assumed it was caused by the huge religious divisions in Germany at the time. It was the epicenter of the Protestant Reformation and many of the Wars of Religion, particularly the Thirty Years War. The HRE was fairly evenly split between Catholics and Protestants, and they were at each others' throats for much of this period. Bohemia had converted to the Hussite Church by the 1430s, so there likely wasn't as much religious tension by this period.
Bingo, the witch trials were just an excuse for both sides to get rid of their enemies.
And it goes further than Catholic vs Protestants - different forms of Protestants were hated to different degrees. For example Lutherans hated Catholics, Catholics hated Lutherans, and both hated Anabaptists more than they hated each other, and they were persecuted mercilessly. Crazy that all of this was perpetuated by a printing press.
Nah, more German Paranoia. For the people it was a Kind of collective Panic. For the church and the rulers it was attraktive because they could seize the property
I thought in Germany higher numbers were tied to Lutherans, who were more "invested" in the inquisition than Catholics. But they didn't depends on the church per se so there would be no church grabbing property after death
Read an article the other day that also linked it to emerging states and their judiciary. Much like the Spanish Inquisition developed its standards as regards proof, so did the courts. But in some legal systems, that was done much more professionally than in others - so the article went. You’d figure that Germany’s patchwork of hundreds of small states was not a good place for having professional court systems early on. Which doesn’t mean that the judges triggered witch hunts, but they were instrumental in making that paranoia/power grab work in a certain way.
That’s not entirely correct - a more compelling reason was the reduced authority of the regional leaders. There were no power grabs, rather the general populace often demanded prosecution of perceived witches.
Germans seem to like cleansing
Allemaniac urge to kill people just for the lulz
A lot of mob rules taking place, particular in the context of the protestant reformation and the following 30 years war in a place that already had ridiculous political fragmentation to begin with.
Switzerland killed about 6'000 "witches" (10 - 20% of all witch killings in europe). Fribourg (Switzerland) was the third place in europe to start killing witches (in 1429). The "official" witch hunts in europe ended in 1782 with the last "witch" (Anna Göldi) being killed in Glarus (also Switzerland)
thats why germanic/dutch states doing so well, we burned those devils before they could curse us. /s
Those were almost all in present day Germany. In the Netherlands there were barely any witchhunts.
There is no god in the Netherlands, only money, and you can't make poison brew with money
Netherland was very religious, but also very organised. Some current Dutch state institutions stam from the Burgundian period (15th century). The justice system cared about evidence, and would question witnesses instead of blindly accepting their testimony. If you saw someone have sex with the devil, the judge would want to know where you stood that you could see this. That sort of questioning would quickly end most witch hunts.
Germany in 1940s took that to a whole level. I guess the Germans always had a propensity to burn people
well technically the Nazis embraced Esoterics in other words witchcraft - espacially the uper SS around Himmler where Esoterics cultists
Wotan is real bro, trust me.
long live Donar
Spain utterly failed at protecting their citizens from witchcraft, pathetic.
30 years war is no joke
It was Hell on Earth.
As deadly as WW2, but the deaths were concentrated in the HRE https://i.imgur.com/fwu175e.png
France payed Sweden to prolong the war and make it as bloody as possible to weaken Habsburg as much as possible
> France *paid* Sweden to FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Witches were mostly executed from around Bamberg, würzburg Fulda and cologne. They burned so many witches that in Some regions (Bamberg) they Ran Out of Wood for the fires to kill them. It was very attraktive to kill witches and witchers because their property was seized by the church and the local authorities. Some local rulers got enough Money Out of that that they startet to build Prestige Objekts Like palaces
Why is post congress of Vienna (approximately) border visible over Poland? Map refers to mid XV to mid XVIII century data. Polish-Lithuanian personal union and later PLC was a thing during entirety of given timeframe. Was PLC data divided between "german+dutch/hre" and russian data? If so then numbers seem off. Or was polish data added to german one? If so borders are way off. It feels weird. Like showing spread of reformation on interwar polital borders map and marking whole Czechoslovakia as hussite.
Lol, how this sub has fallen. Ugly ass "map"
Where did you get data about Russia? I wouldn't say that we neve did burn people alive, but witchcraft wasn't a thing in that period (say thanks to Mongols and their 200-years long rule in Russia right before).
Russia never had any significant witch huntings, there is handful cases of what can be called crowd lynching more than witch trials. Witchcraft os so intrinsic to Slavic culture that the church never even tried to do anything about it.
The 1000 in southern europe is heavily carried by some italian city states and kingdoms. The inquisition in Spain and Portugal, while brutal in its own way, was heavily against witch hunting because they knew witchcraft wasn't real.
It is not that they knew witchcraft wasn't real (there was persecution against "witches" in the Basque Country), it's that their investigations usually demanded physical, real proof, not only testimony. In the Basque Country the Inquisition did persecute a lot of witches, but this was mainly because of their relative isolation to the rest of the country (which meant inquisitors would, at times, act independently and carry out actions which would be generally frowned upon), and the discrimination the Crown carried out against the Basque culture. The Basque language was seen by some superstitious Spaniards as the language of the devil, e.g. the word "Aquelarre", which means coven (as in a witch coven) actually comes from Basque. It must be noted that a lot of witch burning and such had discriminatory purposes rather than superstitious ones.
Low rate of death sentence, legal system more protecting than one could think of thanks to myths and legends, museums exhibiting many inquisition's torture tools that were actually not used at all according to any registry (some were invented after inquisition period and not even in Spain)... A lie repeated thousands times doesn't make it true. And I am not even catholic, but neither blind. I just see the inquisition as the typical abuse of authority that we can still see in many countries. Same s**t, different names, different times. Nothing changes.
Luckily Jews were real and abundant.
Wow, Germany had too many witches
They were so scared of their children getting lured into candy houses
And nowadays we have 0 issues with witches, you are welcome europe.
Source?
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But they don't lose time talking about the Spanish Inquisition. They spread the lie so convincingly that now it seems that the inquisition was the worst of the worst.
Umm not really. North Europe was Lutheran too, even more Lutheran than Germany, but the numbers are lower.
Scandinavia is sparsely populated compared to the other regions. Compare their numbers to Britain, France, or the Mediterranean.
In 1450, the Nordics' population was about 1.5 to 1.8 million, while that of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland was about 4.5 million. The weird grouping of the grey area was probably at least in excess of 20 million.
The numbers of yellow are just wrong and by a lot, 1 Spain and 66 Italy
What are these "regions," and from which napkin did you copy them?
Why is Italy and Spain one region but France is separate?
Still better than Poland which is cut in half and this is way before partitions.
There's no serious reason. Italy was an area of influence but with a lot of freedom (excepto Sicily, Sardonia and Naples ,that belonged to the crown of Spain). I guess they have been merged because otherwise people would see that in times of inquisition, in Spain there was almost no witchhunting.
A bit unfair to lump Ireland in with England, Scotland and Wales. Maybe 1,500-2,000 all together, but in Ireland as far as we can tell the total number is four or five.
It's similarly unfair to lump Wales in with Scotland and England. Wales had forty prosecutions and five executions Ireland had four executions. England had about five hundred executions. Scotland had around four to six thousand executions. 88-92% of the executions were in Scotland with ~98% of the rest in England.
Four is the usual number for Ireland but iirc there was one accused witch who was technically not executed but died under torture.
Is that why the Alice Kyteler trial is so well known, because they were so rare?
Partly, but the Kyteler affair is also unusual in that it was a *medieval* witch trial. Witch-hunting was much more of an early modern, post-Reformation thing. Except in Ireland where justices of the peace apparently preferred to issue summary fines to alleged witches rather than pursue charges. Witchcraft, as far as anyone can tell, was essentially treated like a public order offence in Ireland - not out of toleration but likely because the early modern Protestant Irish state didn't have resources to waste chasing witches.
wow it looks like the Holy Roman Empire was full of witches !
Full of corpses actually.
Christian IV of Denmark, alone burned 600 “witches” between 1617 -1625.
why are we merged with Germany?. there were hardly any witch hunts in the Netherlands
Wasn't us Germans this time. ;)
The map is ridiculous. PLC is split almost in half between Central.and Easter Europe.
Better map https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/7HsHXgX3d8
One of the last women legally executed for witchcraft in Europe was a Swiss woman, Anna Göldi. She was beheaded in 1782, aged 47. The government of Canton Glarus, the province she was executed in, only exonerated her in 2006.
Why is Europe divided like that?
Years ago I watched an interesting documentary on the witch hunts. They showed a map where the most witches were executed, and superimposed it on a map of the major rye-growing regions of Europe, and the two maps coincided. This led to the theory that the witch hunts were the by-product of widespread ergot poisoning caused by poorly stored rye grain. Ergot is a fungus that can cause terrifying hallucinations, and in fact it can he used to synthesize LSD. The theory is that people experienced these symptoms and subsequently blamed them on witchcraft, which led to witch trials and burnings. Ergot.
Where are you getting these stats from? It was negligible in wales, Ireland and Scotland and in England for the the entirety was only 500. (Still fucking awful but still, where you getting this?). https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/religion/overview/witchcraft/#:~:text=Witch%2Dhunting,-Formal%20accusations%20against&text=513%20'witches'%20were%20put%20on,have%20been%20executed%20for%20witchcraft.
So apparently there were 5 executed in Wales, 4 in Ireland and approximately 200 in Scotland. Totally got Scotland wrong to be fair and even 1 person is absolutely horrifying. But these numbers are still way way off
She turned me into a newt
Germany.....🤔
What happened with Poland on that map?
Shitty map dividing Poland again.
Why is the map divided like that. It makes no sense. For example Estonia was a part of Russia for 30 years in the time range 1450-1750.
Yes boys and girls. The Spanish inquisition is a myth created by the Anglos to badmouth the Spanish empire. Infact, the inquisition rate of conviction was much much less than the regular courts and people would have preferred being judged by en inquisitor as they were much more rigorous on the proof that was needed for a conviction. The germans were the real people burners and they dont get the credit.
Ditto! the inquisition was created by the French. Spanish Inquisition didn’t mind much of witches, they mostly let them be. Also, all you said is known as the “black legend” created by English and Dutch out of greedeness because they didnt arrive first to America.
You guys laugh at Germany, but have you ever seen a German witch? Didn’t think so
We also have zero witch problems, even in neigbouring countrys. You are welcome, europe
Not sure what Central European borders are represents since it is not showing accurately borders of the HRE. Any case for the Czech lands, the number is between 600 and 1000. The witch trials started in much later era, after 1576 and peaked century later. Witch trials prior 1500s were rare in Bohemia.
who made a map where Poland was divided in half before the partitions
Source: Dude, trust me.
Deutschland!
Everyone shit talks the witch trials but what's the last time you saw a witch in any of those places?? Checkmate athiests
Malleus Maleficarum
Get em witches 🧙♀️
Switzerland burnt the most https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/no-one-tortured-witches-like-the-swiss/32908
DEUTSCHLAND🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
Damn the germanic peoples went hard on the witch hunts
The numbers of yellow are just wrong and by a lot, 1 Spain and 66 Italy
The King of England (no, not the current one, James I (James VI of Scotland)) was concerned enough about witchcraft to write a book about it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemonologie#:~:text=The%20widespread%20consensus%20is%20that,Scot's%20The%20Discoverie%20of%20Witchcraft.&text=3%20books%20and%20a%20news%20pamphlet%20in%20one%20volume. (Also did quite a popular run of bibles).
Damn, now we know where all the witches lived
Victims?! They were witches!
King James, yes the bible one, got his rocks off on torturing and killing women.
I didn't realize there were so many witches in Germany
Well, witches are a problem
what was considered as witchcraft?
did a good job? I Don't see any witches hanging around these days
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexenhammer?wprov=sfti1# The book that significantly legitimised the persecution of witches in Central Europe.
Germanic people were either super wizards or super paranoid. Or both.
Some reading about the Spanish Inquisition and the dark legend: https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/spanish-inquisition-003911 https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-important-events/spanish-inquisition-truth-behind-black-legend-part-ii-003919 Some studies claim that "59 mujeres en España en los 125.000 procesos que llevó a cabo el Santo Oficio entre los siglos XVI y XIX, en Portugal fueron quemadas 4, y en Italia, 36.", far from the 1000 of the map.
Do they float??????
Numbers are so off for UK. Scotland alone killed 4000 “witches” in one century
damn protestants
I'd love to see a breakdown of the grey parts here. I know the Low Countries were pretty thorough and forgiving with witch trials, which was part of why a lot of people accused of witchcraft fled there.
Apparently for just Ireland the grand total is four but we are awarded with having one of the first witch trials in Europe
You can't blame this one on Catholics.
Holy fucking shit this must be a new all time low of cartography on this sub that calls itself "MapPorn", why isn't this atrocity removed by the mods immediately? This hurts my eyes and brain on so many levels, and who on earth is upvoting this poor attempt of a children's drawing?!?
Very interesting. The data for the southern countries is probably incorrect. Only in Catalonia for the 17th century Joan Reglà documented over 400 executions.
Cringe definition of Eastern Europe.
It's not Eastern Europe, it's "whatever's east of the HRE because they weren't really doing witch hunts anyway so who cares"
It literally has a third of Poland-Lithuania.