Witchcraft was an imaginary crime and 80% of women have suffered and died from this
infringement. This fictitious misdemeanor had occurred during the 15th, 16th and 17th century in
Western Europe and the new world. In European history, the most frequent torture was in
defense of the Roman Catholic Church versus strong religious beliefs or heresies. Witchcraft had
soon become a heresy when Pope Innocent VIII published a bull in 1484 known as the Summis
Desidrantes Affectibus, desiring with deepest anxiety. Subsequently, within two years after the
publication of the bull, an additional decree or book would follow it, titled Malleus Maleficarum,
Hammer of the Witches. This was an enchiridion to all witch hunters, also to expose this new
heresy and bring unity within the classes and religion. The witch hunt craze was a mechanism to
conceal the actual situation of the country. These hunts were achieved by accusing women and
being scapegoats. Since religion had aided in these expeditions of the bloodbath. These hunts
were obvious that women were easy victims because of females being inferior to men. According
to the old Catholic religion, a woman was evil. Furthermore, the increasing number of people
involved in the witch hunts were caused by a mental illness. Thus, women were brutally tortured
during those three centuries.

Firstly, the reformation was a long term cause of the witch hunts. The religious conflicts
assisted in the witch hunts. Protestants and Catholics were taught that any magic was sinful since
it indicated a belief in divine assistance in the physical world. The only supernatural energy in the
physical world was to be of the devil. Without magic to counter evil or misfortune, people were
left with no form of protection other than to kill the “devil’s agent” (Innes: 2003 ,57), the witch.
This increased perception of the Devil’s work in the world, tempting Christians to at every step,
would combine with the increased consciousness of religion. During the Reformation witches
were becoming a scapegoat for the general ills of society during their rapid time of change. The
church’s belief was witches were a serious danger, but this was at the same time when the church
“broke” apart because of the Reformation. A cause of the witch hunts in Europe was the
Reformation. It created a social turmoil that intensified witch hunts. The Reformation diminished
the important role of community and placed a greater demand for personal moral perfection. On
October thirty-first fifteen-seventeen, Martin Luther had nailed his 95 theses on the cathedral
door at Wittenberg, Germany. This triggered the Protestant Reformation, or the Catholic counter
reformation. When the Church was at the height of its power, eleventh to fourteenth century, very
few witches died. Persecutions did not reach epidemic levels until after the Reformation, when
the Catholic Church had lost its position as Europe’s absolute moral authority. The Roman
Catholic countries courts continued to burn witches. While Protestant lands were more lenient, at
first, the witches were mainly hung and some Protestant countries did not allow torture. The
developing countries in Europe had a more virulent witch craze, also a weak religious system.
For example, Germany, France and Switzerland had a weak Catholic church. However, countries
with a strong Catholic church, did not experience any craze, such as: Spain, Italy and Portugal.
When the Protestant religion became more endangered, Protestants started the persecuted witches
with almost the same zeal as the Catholics. During this time the church was losing its power, and
needed to formally unify the Christian church because it was shattered into Catholic and
Protestant sects. The worst panics took place in areas like Switzerland and Germany, where rival
Christians sects fought to impose their religious views on each other. Furthermore, most of the
extermination of witches was done by secular courts. Church courts judged many witches but
they usually imposed non-lethal penalties. A witch might be isolated, given penance, or
imprisoned, but she was rarely killed. The Inquisition almost constantly excused any witch who
confessed and repented. The believers of one branch of Christianity scarcely ever used the
accusation of witchcraft specifically to persecute someone of another branch. Many Witch Hunts
were carried out by people of the same type of Christianity as the victims. Also, the civil courts
handled black witchcraft cases, trials involving charges of magical murder, arson, and other
violent crimes. Civil courts “protected” society by punishing and killing convicted criminals.
Church courts concentrated on white witchcraft: Cases of magical healing, and soothsaying. The
evidence from the trials established that courts always treated healing more leniently than
cursing. Furthermore, secular and religious courts served two different purposes. According to
the Church’s court system, it was designed to “save” the criminal, by forcing him or her to be
good Christian. The sinners who had no remorse were to be executed by the Church’s courts.
There were many sects of within Christianity created at this time period and created many
conflicts towards society.

Secondly, The witch hunts incorporated a social hostility towards women. “Estimates of
the death toll, during the Inquisition, worldwide range from six hundred thousand to as high as
nine million during a two-hundred-fifty year long course; either is a chilling number when one
realizes that nearly all of the accused were women, and consisted primarily of outcasts and other
suspicious persons: Old women, Midwives, Jews, Poets, Gypsies, and anyone who did not fit
within the contemporary view of pious Christians were suspects, and easily branded ‘Witch’.”
(Lovelace:2006, para.3) The elderly wise woman of the village was often persecuted on account
of that she was to educated and was more knowledgeable than the males in the village. The
midwives were persecuted, because they have the ability to control a human’s life, since not only
they can help in birth but help in abortion as well, this act created a conflict against religious
values. The accusers, of witches, came from a high class or a slightly higher class than the victim,
the witch, the women were accused by: their husbands who wanted to be rid of them, relatives
who wanted to inherit their property, vengeful neighbors, and the judges. This witch hunt had led
women to distrust other women, especially when another woman was under the influence of
torture she would accuse other women of being witches. The main targets were women who were
widowed and refused to marry, or women who were in spinsterhood. This posed a problem to the
Renaissance society, the government and church would try to impose their Christian values
towards these troublesome women, by accusing them as witches then torturing them and finally
death. The popular view of women was the source of this mass hysteria, where people became
very paranoid about a witch burning their crops, stealing their children and being promiscuous.
Not only women were inferior to men during this time but in religious context, women were seen
as inherently evil and sexual, and therefore possible targets for the devil. There were strong ties
between the idea of witchcraft and sexuality. If a woman did not have purity and innocence of a
virgin, she denounced her association with evil. According to this statement, witchcraft in Europe
was some how seen as a sexual crime. Furthermore, the book Malleus Maleficarum, Hammer of
the Witches, became the guidebook for prosecuting witches in Europe in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. This book emphasized the sexual and evil nature of witchcraft. This work,
by Pope Innocent VIII, told stories of ” men losing their genitalia and consulting with female
witches for treatment.” (Nigg,1990: 277) An additional reason for women being condemned as
witches. King James I of England 1590 had found a devils mark on a young servant girl, then
confessed to “wicked allurements and enticement of the Devil.” (Innes: 2003 ,59) The young
servant girl named Agnes Samspon. Sampson admitted she and many others sailed down east
coast of Scotland to cause a great storm to sink the King’s ships. Later on, King James I would
reign over England as the new sovereign of the country. King James I had rewritten the bible and
written a book called Demonology. Demonology was about witches making pacts with the devil
and witches going to the Sabbaths. Apparently, these Sabbaths were used for eating infants and
small children also embracing Satan. The witch’s mark, also included in the book, was this
practice came from the belief that all witches and sorcerers had a mark and when pricked the
witch would not feel pain or bleed. The mark alone was not enough to convict a person, but it did
add to the evidence. Pricking was common practice throughout Europe, but was most prevalent in
England and Scotland. Pricking was a theory that a witch could be identified by a special mark, a
“bodily blemish representing the seal which Satan had set upon his followers, the mark was made
by Satan’s teeth, tongue, or claw. These marks were found on a person’s ‘secret parts’.”(Marwick:
1995, 2815-2818) In England where there were no inquisitional courts and where witch-hunting
offered no financial reward, many women were killed for witchcraft by mobs. Instead of following
any judicial procedure, these mobs used methods to ascertain guilt of witchcraft such as
“swimming a witch,” where a woman would be where a woman’s right thumb be tied to her left
toe, and thrown into water. If she floated she was a witch, if the woman drowned she was not a
witch, but most likely the witch had innocently drowned. The water torture was one of the most
fiendish and simplest methods of torture. It involved force feeding women large amounts of water
until their stomachs became hideously swollen. This form of torture was not only physically
harming to the individual, but it was also a way to mock female power by creating a morbid
parody of pregnancy. Furthermore, the thumbscrews were simply a squeezing device like a nut
cracker, this instrument was used to get a confession of the accused witches. Lastly, the most
common of tortures done by the inquisitors was the “burned at the stake” or “hanged”. This was
done after the accused were brutally tortured and confessed to the inquisitors of their crime. They
were burned alive so their body and mind, which was tainted by heresy, would be destroyed.
Women have been minorities for many centuries and a merged aggression from society.

Lastly, mental illness and diseases were causes of the witch hunts during this era. The phenomena
of the witch hunts were a great tragedy not only because the thousands of lives were taken away,
but the irrational belief behind these hunts. The belief of mental illness, at this time, was
suppressed by theologians, philosophers, physicians and lawyers alike. A reason for not in the
belief in mental illness was a combination of natural and supernatural phenomena. Also, a disease
was spreading quickly throughout Europe called the Bubonic plague, Black Death. From this
disease witches were also known as plague-spreaders which made them more of a target. Syphilis,
a disease caused by bacterium which affects any organ or tissue of a body, Puritanism, extreme
strictness in moral or religious matters similar to Calvinists, and the Witch hunts manifests an
effective representation of many issues leading to mass hysteria. Syphilis and other incurable
diseases prevalent at that time were thought by some to be the work of witches who gained power
through devils. According to a mass hysteria theory, the peasants were eccentric, becoming
clinically neurotic and even psychotic, then in a group of panic and desperation they went after
witches. The delusion theory, acceptances to children’s fantasies and psychosomatic illnesses are
some sources for the panic. Furthermore, the disease theory suggests syphilis or ergotism, caused
by mold on rotten bread, are cause for mental instability. Similarly, the drug theory suggests that
the effects of consuming bad mushrooms, herbs like deadly nightshade or henbane, or bufotenine,
from the skin of some toads, a possible chance of affecting people’s minds. Thus mental illness
and diseases were the rational reason for people hunting witches.

In conclusion witchcraft was a dangerous heresy to the Church. The pope had established a
bull which stated that all witches should be persecuted. The Reformation built up the craze of the
witch-hunts. Witch hunts became more popular with the Malleus Maleficarum, a guide book for
the witch hunters. Witches were known as the servants of the devil and collected children and ate
them. Many women were persecuted in torture devices and eventually killed. All the women who
were accused of being a witch were from the age of 30 to 50. The Witch hunts ended when King
James I died, at the end of the 17th century. There were about 9 million women were executed
from the witch trials in America and Western Europe. Therefore, witch hunts have greatly affected
our society.