Witchcraft Craze

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Witchcraft Craze by Saya Hayashi

Reasons
  • Wars and rebellions
  • Economic and social uncertainties (growing number of poor)
  • Church began to connect witches to devil
  • New economic ethic—each person should looks out for himself or herself
  • Black Death—search for scapegoats
  • Religious uncertainties; religious passions
  • Women’s moral weaknesses

Actions
  • Persecution of people accused of sorcery
  • Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer sent to Germany to root out witches…
  • …Malleus Maleficarum—standard handbook on practices of witchcraft and methods to discover and try witches
  • Increase in trials and executions
  • Spread to small towns and rural areas
  • Women of lower classes were likely to be accused: single or widowed, over 50
  • Confessions by torture

Reasons to end
  • Destruction of religious wars
  • Governments’ stabilization
  • Questioning of old attitudes