Witchcraft and witch hunts

In the German town of Nördlingen, in 1590, Rebecca Lemp is arrested while her husband is away on business. Her suspected crime? Being a witch. Rebecca is brought to jail. She writes to her husband from her cell: “They force you and make you confess.

They have tortured me so, but I am as innocent as God in Heaven…” Her husband writes to the courts, pleading Rebecca’s innocence and asking to confront her accusers. He is ignored, and under her fifth round of torture, Rebecca confesses. Her sentence is to be burned at the stake. Rebecca Lemp is the first victim of the Nördlingen witch hunt, in which 32 supposed witches are arrested and eventually killed. Why did this happen?

In 1487, with the support of the Pope, a churchman named Heinrich Kramer writes a book called Hammer of Witches — in Latin, Malleus Maleficarum. The book describes a witch as someone who gains magical powers by obeying Satan rather than God. Kramer singles out women as easier targets for the Devil’s influence, though men can also be witches. He suggests torture as an effective way to obtain confessions, and the death penalty as the only certain remedy for the evils of witchcraft. It’s not only Kramer’s book that leads to the witch hunts.

Others, too, write texts and give sermons on the dangers of witchcraft. Though there is no evidence to support any of their claims, belief in the existence of witches becomes widespread. From the late 1400s to the late 1700s, witch hunts occur across Europe and the American colonies. Witch hunts are not the same everywhere, but they often follow a similar pattern. A hunt begins with a failed harvest, a sick cow, or a stillborn child — some misfortune that makes people feel distressed and powerless.

People look around the community for someone to blame, to accuse. Maybe it was a witch who cursed the crops, the cows, the children. It is religious authorities who encourage witch hunts, but usually local government leaders who actually arrest the accused and put them in prison. Here, suspects are examined through questioning and torture. Under torture, thousands of innocent people confess to witchcraft.

These are forced confessions. Once a victim has confessed, they are no longer suspected of witchcraft. Now it is decided they are indeed a witch — they are convicted. Punishments for convicted witches range from small fines… to execution — they are burned at the stake, hanged, or drowned. One witch hunt could have anywhere from a few victims to several hundred.

Many of the witch hunters sincerely believe in witchcraft, and think they are doing good by rooting it out in their communities. It is then powerful groups — local government authorities, judges, church leaders — who use these beliefs to cause real harm, usually to the most vulnerable in society. The elderly, widowed, and poor are most often convicted of witchcraft. But not everyone agrees with witch hunting. Some scholars, physicians and church leaders challenge books like Hammer of Witches.

They write texts that object to the cruelty of the hunts and the use of forced confessions, and point to the lack of evidence for witchcraft. From the late 1600s through the mid-1700s, more and more people listen to their arguments. At the same time, the power of local leaders weakens as centralised governments become the norm and new legal rules change the process by which a person can be accused and convicted of a crime. Witch hunting gradually declines in the late 1700s. In some places, witch hunters are arrested, and suspected witches are released.