Witch-hunt
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A witch-hunt was traditionally a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft > , which could lead to a witchcraft trial <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchcraft_trial> involving the accused person. Today such events are recognised as a type of moral panic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic> . Witchhunts still occur in the modern era, in the sense that ignorant or uneducated people, isolated peoples, or people living a traditional lifestyle may persecute people that they believe are witches. The term is now widely used in a modern sense to refer to any search for a perceived or hidden enemy, with the same connotations of hysteria , prejudice and injustice that accompanied historical witchhunts.
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Early modern Europe
For several centuries, dominantly Christian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian> societies believed that Satan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan> was acting through human and animal servants. These beliefs can be seen as a reaction to emerging alternatives to the Christian hierarchical order, such as the worldly knowledge and cultural practices brought into a relatively backward Europe from the Middle East <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East> by those returning from the Crusades <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades> .
It had been proposed that the witch-hunt developed in Europe after the Cathars <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathar> and the Templar Knights <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templar_Knights> were exterminated and the Inquisition had to turn to persecution of witches to remain active. In the middle of 1970s <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s> , this hypothesis was independently disproved by two historians (Cohn 1975; Yieckhefer 1976). It was shown that the pursuit originated amongst common people in Switzerland and in Croatia that pressed on the civil courts to support them. The Inquisition gets involved in the witch-hunt only in the 15th century . This proves also the case of Madonna Oriente <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_Oriente> where the Inquisition of Milan was not sure what to do with two ladies, who in 1384 < and in 1390 confessed to have participated in a type of white magic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_magic> .
Over the centuries, there were extensive efforts to root out the supposed influence of Satan by various measures aimed at the people that were accused of being servants of Satan. To a lesser degree, animals were also targeted for prosecution, as described in the article animal trial . People suspected of being "possessed " by Satan were put on trial.
As shown by the scholar Max Dashu <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Max_Dashu&action=edit> , the medieval concept of a witch began to develop already in pre-Christian times, as its elements can be found in the Roman cult of Bacchanalias , especially when led by Paculla Annia , and in the Roman mythological creature of strix . Many suspects were women who lived in towns, villages or rural areas and who may have been practitioners of herbalism, natural healing or midwifery <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwife> ; but often it was simply poor, uneducated women who did not have influential friends. Early Modern Christian authorities in Europe (both Catholic and Protestant) regarded any such expression of non-Christian spirituality with intense paranoia and hatred. This was in accord with literal readings of the Old Testament , which contains fierce attacks against the polytheism of non-Hebrew peoples.
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Evidence
The most important form of evidence in many of the witch trials was attained by "ordeal <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_ordeal> ". These efforts included torture of the most horrific nature including hot pincers, the thumbscrew , and many other such methods. Torture methods varied by region and the person carrying out the ordeal.
The East Anglia region of England at one point during the chaos of the Civil War had a self-proclaimed "Witchfinder General", one Matthew Hopkins <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Hopkins> , who led searches, and who claimed to be able to identify a witch using techniques such as witches' marks <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witches_mark> . Today it is not believed that most of the accused ever regarded themselves as witches. Research into the laws and records of the time show that the witchfinders often used peine forte et dure <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peine_forte_et_dure> and other torture to extract confessions and condemnations of friends, relatives and neighbors.
"At the height of the Great Hunt (1567–1640) one half of all witchcraft cases brought before church courts were dismissed for lack of evidence. No torture was used, and the accused could clear himself by providing four to eight "compurgators", people who were willing to swear that he wasn't a witch. Only 21% of the cases ended with convictions, and the Church did not impose any kind of corporal or capital punishment."
However, most witch trials were held before secular courts, not church courts, and the secular courts were decidedly less scrupulous in their methods.
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Execution
Common forms of execution included burning , hanging and drowning . Historically, the majority of such trials have been conducted within "Christian /European /American cultures ; they were justified in those contexts with reference to the Bible 's prescription: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (Exodus 22:18)
The measures employed against alleged witches were some of the worst ever practiced in the Western world. In A History of Torture , George Ryley Scott says:
"The peculiar beliefs and superstitions attached to or associated with witchcraft caused those who were suspected of practising the craft to be extremely likely to be subjected to tortures of greater degree than any ordinary heretic or criminal. More, certain specific torments were invented for use against them."
Part of a larger culture which was very religiously and socially intolerant, it is believed that the witch-hunts resulted in the loss of much traditional knowledge and folklore among Europeans when the practitioners were "lawfully" killed.
The Burning Times
"The Burning Times" is an English term referring to the time of the Great European Witchhunts (1450 -1750 ). Its first recorded use is by Gerald Gardner <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Gardner> in the 1950s and was probably created by him according to Ronald Hutton <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Hutton> (344). Gardner used the phrase in reference to his claim that Wicca <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca> was an ancient persecuted religion, relying in turn heavily on the work of Margaret Murray <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Murray> . Gardner believed Wiccans should remember their forebears who were burned by the Church. In fact, witches in England were never burnt, but were hanged; burning of heretics and witches was practiced on the European continent. Modern historians agree the witchhunts had nothing to do with persecuting a pagan cult, but is the result of an interplay of a series of complex historical and societal factors. The actual religion of those killed in the witchhunts, if they had any, was Christianity . [Keith Thomas> 514-7, Hutton passim]
The term was adopted by various American feminist historians and popularised in the 1970s for all historical persecution of witches and pagans, often citing a figure of nine million casualties, drawn from nineteenth century campaigner for women's rights , Matilda Joslyn Gage . They also referred to it as the Women's Holocaust (see Hutton chapter 18 for his exploration of their ideas). Modern historians have shown that the victims of the witchhunt were not always female (in Iceland, for example, 80% of those accused were men), though they were in the majority and misogyny was an important part of the forces behind it. Generally accepted figures amongst historians today range from Levack at around 60,000 to Hutton at around 40,000.
Sociology
Sociology has attributed the occurrence of witchhunts to the human necessity to blame problems on someone. For example, Europe during the periods in which witchhunts prevail relied upon agriculture; if this failed one year, the consequences would very likely be disastrous. Crop failures often correlated with the occurrence of witchhunts, leading sociologists to state that communities often took out their anger of a lack of food on supposed 'witches'. This can be paralleled in more recent examples such as the Nazi use of anti-semitism to apportion blame for economic problems. A perception of moral righteousness, by the community, is a necessary psychological element that enables rationalization.
The modern notion of a "witchhunt" has little to do with gender <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender> , the historical notion often did. In general, supposed "witches" were female . Noted Judge Nicholas Rémy (c.1595 ), "[It is] not unreasonable that this scum of humanity, [witches], should be drawn chiefly from the feminine sex ." Concurred another judge, "The Devil uses them so, because he knows that women love carnal pleasures, and he means to bind them to his allegiance by such agreeable provocations." (Joseph Klaits )
It is often written that many accused witches were women who were practitioners of herbalism, natural healing or midwifery, yet none of these have ever been considered "witchcraft". Midwifery, folk healing and herblore were common features of rural areas into the twentieth century. "Folkways" are not necessarily "witchcraft".
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