utbreaks of witchcraft hysteria, with subsequent mass
executions, began to appear in the early 1500s. Authorities in Geneva,
Switzerland burned 500 accused witches at the stake in 1515. Nine years
later in Como, Italy, a spreading spiral of witchcraft charges led to as many
as 1000 executions.
The Reformation divided Europe between Protestant regions and those loyal to
the Pope, but Protestants took the crime of witchcraft no less seriously--and
arguably even more so--than Catholics. Germany, rife with sectarian
strife, saw Europe's greatest execution rates of witches--higher than those in
the rest of the Continent combined. Witch hysteria swept France in 1571
after Trois-Echelles, a defendant accused of witchcraft from the court of
Charles IX, announced to the court that he had over 100,000 fellow witches
roaming the country. Judges responding to the ensuing panic by
eliminating for those accused of witchcraft most of the protections that other
defendants enjoyed. Jean Bodin in his 1580 book, On the Demon-Mania of
Sorcerers, opened the door to use of testimony by children against parents,
entrapment, and instruments of torture.
Over the 160 years from 1500 to 1660, Europe saw between 50,000 and
80,000 suspected witches executed. About 80% of those killed were
women. Execution rates varied greatly by country, from a high of about
26,000 in Germany to about 10,000 in France, 1,000 in England, and only four in
Ireland. The lower death tolls in England and Ireland owe in part to
better procedural safeguards in those countries for defendants.