Witch Hunts

History of the Witch Hunts
AP Euro Project

Have you ever wondered why the witch hunts started? Or ever even wonder where the word witch emerged from? Why only certain people were hunted? Why did the church support such radical ideas and grotesque murders? Did the church ever apologize for being wrong? These are the questions that drove to me toward the research of WitchHunts. It was the only time in history in which the church was wrong and that made me want to start the research of these hunts that flourished in Europe. The churches support for these witch hunts was great and their belief in the actual existences of witches lead to many murders. In the end, it would take the church almost 300 years for them to admit that they were wrong and apologize. Witch Hunthistorians study the history of the witches for years and years and reveal the repetition that has occurred with these hunts over the years. For three centuries of early modern European history, diverse societies were consumed by a panic over alleged witches in their midst.1 Well, the word witch emerged from the Celtic word "Wicca." The Wicca, as a witch was called back in the day, was also referredto as a sorcerer. The difference between the old “Wicca's” and the “ New Wicca's” happens to be that the old Wicca's had a possibility of being saved from the burning at the stake because if they were considered a “good” witch (a witch who doesn't practice black magic), Wicca, or sorcerer they were spared. Witch hunts have always been around, from the A.D.'s to the B.C.'s and now to modern times.The notorious book called the “Malleus Maleficarum” started it back up, many books like the Malleus had been written before but none had as much impact on the hunting of witches as this book did. The Malleus Maleficarum ( English Translation: The Hammer of Witches) was written by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, Inquisitors of the Catholic Church, and it was published at Strasbourg (Germany) in1486.
The Witch hunts were usually recorded and discovered from old journals and diaries that people had left behind. The “witches” first appeared in Europe but as time went on the concept diffused throughout places, along with the “Malleus Maleficarum,” as a guide. The Malleus Maleficarum was looked upon as the bible of witch hunting. The Malleus was a book written for one reason, to answerquestions. It answers every question that could be asked about witches and analyzes all of witch-related phenomena. The book has three part, of in which the concept of witches is doubted, witchcraft is established, and legal steps of taking when encountering
witches. The Malleus is, from first to last, a compendium of stories.2 The Church did not support such bombastic ideas. Kramer, the author ofthe Malleus, firstly was thrown out in 1484 for trying to hold a trial for the persecutions of “witches” and was called a “senile old man” by the bishop and the accused were released. The church would not support Kramer or the belief of witchcraft or witches but as the Malleus was slowly being diffused throughout all Europe in the 15th century, belief re-emerged in people and the church.
WitchHunts in Europe did not just occur to women, yes witch hunts are widely known to just have had happened to women but that isn't true, they occurred to men as well. Men were also targeted during the witch hunt era of 1450-1750 in Europe because of their view of women. They were uncommon though, only about 20 to 25 percent of the torturing and grotesque hunts occurred to men and the rest to women.Many “witches” were commonly known to being creepy, old, outcasts, and usually widowed. Trials began as being simply humiliation but it raged up to torture and murder as individuals, such as Kramer came about and raised doubt in people's belief. And as the Black Death emerged in the 14th century, people began to freak about the situation that they could not control and decided to find a...