48 Fun Facts About Witchcraft History

Roughly how many people were executed for witchcraft in Europe and its colonies, 1400–1775?

Modern scholarship puts executions at 40,000 to 60,000 out of roughly 100,000 trials; the nine-million figure traces to Gottfried Christian Voigt's 1784 guess, later popularised by propagandists.

Roughly what share of those convicted of witchcraft in early modern Europe were women?

About 80% of those convicted were women, though the pattern reversed in Iceland, Estonia and Russia, where most of the accused were men.

Witch prosecutions in Europe peaked during which period?

Prosecutions peaked between 1560 and 1630, the era of the Counter-Reformation and the wars of religion; the Holy Roman Empire saw the most trials.

The Malleus Maleficarum was first printed in 1486 in which city?

The Malleus Maleficarum was first printed at Speyer by Peter Drach in 1486 and was reprinted more than two dozen times over the next two centuries.

Who wrote the Malleus Maleficarum?

Heinrich Kramer, a German Dominican inquisitor writing as Henricus Institoris, compiled the Malleus Maleficarum in 1486; Jakob Sprenger's name was added as co-author on later title pages.

Which body condemned the Malleus Maleficarum for recommending illegal procedures?

The theology faculty of the University of Cologne condemned the book in 1490 for recommending unethical and illegal procedures, yet Kramer kept his post and his prestige.

Which pope issued the 1484 bull Summis desiderantes affectibus at Kramer's request?

Innocent VIII issued Summis desiderantes affectibus on 5 December 1484, confirming Kramer and Sprenger's inquisitorial powers in the church provinces of Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg and Bremen.

The 10th-century Canon Episcopi dismissed night rides with which pagan goddess as delusion?

The Canon Episcopi, first recorded by Regino of Prüm around 906, called the belief that women ride at night with the pagan goddess Diana a delusion; Gratian later copied it into canon law.

Who was the first recorded person condemned for witchcraft in Ireland, in 1324?

Dame Alice fled; her servant Petronilla de Meath was flogged and burned at the stake in Kilkenny.

Joan of Arc was executed at Rouen in 1431 after a trial on what charge?

Joan was convicted of heresy in 1431, the counts including wearing men's clothes and acting on visions she called divine; a 1456 retrial annulled the verdict.

The Trier witch trials of 1581–1593 were held in which present-day country?

Some 368 people were burned in 22 villages, possibly Europe's largest peacetime mass execution.

Which Trier university rector and chief judge was executed for opposing the persecutions?

Dietrich Flade, rector of the University of Trier and its chief judge, had treated the accused leniently; he was himself tortured into confessing and was strangled and burned in September 1589.

Around how many people were executed in the Bamberg witch trials of 1626–1632?

About 900 people were executed at Bamberg, where the prince-bishop built a dedicated witch prison, the Drudenhaus; a May 1626 frost that ruined Franconia's vines helped trigger the panic.

Johannes Junius, who wrote to his daughter from jail before his 1628 execution, held what office?

Junius, a Bürgermeister (mayor) of Bamberg, confessed under thumbscrews and leg vices and was burned in August 1628; his smuggled letter told his daughter Veronica the confession was sheer lies.

Which prince-bishop was particularly active in the Würzburg witch trials?

Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg, prince-bishop from 1623 to 1631, presided over trials in which an estimated 900 people in the bishopric were executed or died in custody, children among them.

Which Jesuit's 1631 Cautio Criminalis argued that torture creates witches where none exist?

Friedrich Spee, a Jesuit who had served as confessor to the condemned in the Rhineland, published Cautio Criminalis anonymously at Rinteln in 1631.

The Basque witch trials, which examined some 7,000 cases, began in 1609 in which town?

The Inquisition tribunal at Logroño opened the case in 1609 and burned six people at its 1610 auto-da-fé; the junior inquisitor Alonso de Salazar Frías later concluded the whole affair rested on fantasy.

Which Scottish king attended the North Berwick witch trials of 1590?

James VI attended the North Berwick trials in person after storms on his voyage home from marrying Anne of Denmark were blamed on witchcraft; he published Daemonologie in 1597.

James VI's Daemonologie is believed to be a main source for which Shakespeare play?

Macbeth, written around 1606 after James took the English throne, draws its Weird Sisters' rituals and lore from Daemonologie and the North Berwick pamphlet Newes from Scotland.

James VI wrote Daemonologie largely in response to which sceptical 1584 book?

Reginald Scot's The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) argued that witchcraft prosecutions rested on delusion, and its chapter on legerdemain is the earliest English account of conjuring tricks.

In which year were the Pendle witches tried at Lancaster Assizes?

The trials were held at Lancaster Assizes in August 1612; nine of the accused were hanged at Lancaster and Jennet Preston at York, and the clerk Thomas Potts published the account in 1613.

Which nine-year-old's testimony helped convict her own family among the Pendle witches?

Nine-year-old Jennet Device gave evidence against her own mother, brother and sister at Lancaster in 1612; in 1633 she was herself accused of witchcraft on a ten-year-old boy's testimony.

Matthew Hopkins claimed which title, never actually granted by Parliament?

Hopkins styled himself Witchfinder General from 1644, though Parliament never granted the title; he and John Stearne sent more people to the gallows than all English witch-hunters of the previous 160 years.

Matthew Hopkins was mainly active in which region of England?

Hopkins worked across East Anglia — Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and neighbouring counties — from March 1644 until his death in 1647.

In the water ordeal used in witch-hunts, what did it mean if the accused floated?

Floating meant guilt, the water being said to reject a witch's body, while sinking meant innocence; a river ordeal for sorcery already appears in the Code of Ur-Nammu, c. 2100 BCE.

A 'witch's teat' was believed to be used to feed what?

The teat was said to suckle a witch's familiars or imps with her blood; searchers stripped suspects and looked for insensitive marks by pricking them with pins.

Convicted witches in England were usually executed how?

English witches were hanged, since witchcraft was tried as a felony; burning was reserved for petty treason, such as a wife killing her husband.

About how many people are estimated to have been executed for witchcraft in England?

Roughly 500 people were executed for witchcraft in England, about 90 per cent of them women; Scotland, with a far smaller population, executed well over 1,500.

In Scotland, convicted witches were usually strangled at the stake and then what?

Modern estimates put Scottish executions above 1,500 under the Witchcraft Act 1563.

Who was the last person executed for witchcraft in Great Britain, in 1727?

Janet Horne was burned at Dornoch in 1727 after a trial of questionable legality; the Witchcraft Act 1735 then repealed the Scottish act, ending capital trials.

The Witchcraft Act 1735 made it a crime to do what?

The 1735 Act abolished witchcraft as a capital crime and instead punished anyone claiming magical powers or pretending to conjure spirits, treating it as fraud with up to a year's imprisonment.

Which Scottish medium was the last person imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act 1735?

Helen Duncan, a Scottish medium, was jailed for nine months in 1944; her 'ectoplasm' was shown to be cheesecloth, and Churchill called the prosecution obsolete tomfoolery.

The medium jailed in 1944 drew naval attention by claiming to reveal the sinking of which warship?

At a Portsmouth séance in late 1941 Duncan reported the spirit of a sailor from HMS Barham, torpedoed on 25 November 1941, a loss the Admiralty had not yet announced.

The Salem witch trials took place between February 1692 and May of which year?

They began in Salem Village, now Danvers, and spread to Andover, Topsfield and beyond.

How many people were executed on the gallows at Salem?

Nineteen people were hanged at Salem — fourteen women and five men — between June and September 1692; at least five more of the accused died in jail.

Giles Corey died at Salem after refusing to enter a plea; what was done to him?

Corey, about 80, was pressed to death under heavy stones over two days in September 1692 after refusing to plead; he had already deeded his land to his sons-in-law, keeping it from seizure.

Tituba, one of the first accused at Salem, was enslaved by which minister?

Tituba was enslaved in the household of Salem Village's minister Samuel Parris, whose daughter Betty was among the first afflicted; her confession gave the accusations credence, and a grand jury dismissed her case in May 1693.

What kind of testimony did doubting clergymen finally discredit, ending the Salem trials?

Spectral evidence — testimony that a victim had seen the accused's spirit — underpinned many convictions until Governor Phips barred it in October 1692 and the court was dissolved.

Which Boston minister defended the Salem trials in Wonders of the Invisible World?

Cotton Mather published The Wonders of the Invisible World in 1693 to justify the trials; he later championed smallpox inoculation after learning of it from Onesimus, an enslaved African in his household.

In which year was the last convicted Salem witch, Elizabeth Johnson Jr., officially exonerated?

Massachusetts formally exonerated Elizabeth Johnson Jr. in 2022, 329 years after her 1693 conviction; earlier acts in 1957 and 2001 had cleared other Salem defendants.

In 1675, 71 people were beheaded in a single day in which Swedish parish?

At Torsåker in Ångermanland 65 women and six men were beheaded and burned on one day in 1675, about a fifth of the parish's women; 'wise boys' posted at the church door picked them out.

The Steilneset Memorial commemorates the victims of witch trials in which Norwegian region?

The memorial stands at Vardø in Finnmark, Norway's far north, where 91 people were executed in 17th-century witch trials; designed by Peter Zumthor and Louise Bourgeois, it opened in 2011.

Anna Göldi, called Switzerland's last witch, was executed in 1782 in which canton?

Göldi, a maidservant accused of bewitching her employer's daughter, who vomited needles, was beheaded at Glarus in June 1782; the Glarus cantonal parliament exonerated her in 2008.

Who is widely considered the last person condemned to death for witchcraft in England, in 1712?

Jane Wenham of Walkern, Hertfordshire, was convicted in 1712 but reprieved by the judge and pardoned by Queen Anne; the Bideford women hanged in 1682 are generally reckoned the last executed.

Which ancient law code let an accused sorcerer prove his innocence by plunging into the river?

The Code of Hammurabi, c. 1750 BCE, ordered an accused sorcerer to leap into the river: if he drowned the accuser took his house, if he survived the accuser was put to death.

In 331 BCE, at least 170 women were executed in which city for causing an epidemic by poison-magic?

A later Italian epidemic in 184–180 BCE saw about 5,000 executed for veneficium.

Who was the first person recorded as executed for witchcraft in England's American colonies, in 1647?

Alse Young was hanged at Hartford, Connecticut, on 26 May 1647, the first recorded witchcraft execution in the American colonies; Connecticut's legislature exonerated her and others in 2023.

Which country's northern 'witch camps' have long sheltered women accused of witchcraft?

Ghana's Northern Region has held camps such as Gambaga, Kukuo and Gnani for more than a century; hundreds of women, mostly elderly, were sent to them after accusations of witchcraft in their villages.