![]() ![]() In the Bishopric of Trier, in 1585, two villages were left with only one female inhabitant each. At Toulouse, four-hundred were put to death in a day. Nine-hundred witches were destroyed in a single year in the Wertzberg area, and 1000 in and around Como. One writer has estimated the number of executions at an average of 600 a year for certain German cities – or two a day, “leaving out Sundays. ![]() In the mid-sixteenth century the terror spread to France, and finally to England. ![]() The extent of the witch-craze is startling: In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries there were thousands upon thousands of executions – usually live burnings at the stake – in Germany, Italy and other countries. Witches represented a political, religious and sexual threat to the Protestant and Catholic churches alike, as well as to the state. It was born in feudalism and lasted – gaining in virulence – well into the “age of reason.” The witch-craze took different forms at different times and places, but never lost its essential character: that of a ruling class campaign of terror directed against the female peasant population. “The age of witch-hunting spanned more than four centuries (from the 14th to the 17th century) in its sweep from Germany to England. ![]()
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