In the dead of night, under a moonless sky, a coven gathers deep in the woods. Women and men dance wildly around a bonfire, chanting forbidden prayers. A horned figure presides over the revelry, receiving their oath of fealty. A newborn is brought forth; with cruel precision they sacrifice the infant, smearing its blood on an altar. By the flickering firelight, the witches feast on unholy concoctions and blaspheme the cross, sealing their pact with the Devil himself.
This lurid tableau never truly happened – it is a nightmare born from medieval imaginations. Yet such visions of diabolical witchcraft felt dangerously real to the people of the Middle Ages and early modern period. Across Europe, tens of thousands were accused of witchcraft – a crime entailing maleficent magic and devil-worship – and many met a fiery fate at the stake. This article explores the dark history of how witches became entwined with the Devil in European thought, and how Church and secular authorities fueled a hysterical persecution. We journey from early medieval folk beliefs and Church doctrine through the harsh inquisitions, trials, and punishments that erupted in the late Middle Ages, weaving in theological debates, popular folklore, and vivid episodes from France, Germany, England, Italy, Switzerland and beyond. It’s a story of fear and fantasy, power and punishment – a narrative blending storytelling with historical analysis to illuminate Europe’s centuries-long obsession with witches in league with Satan.
Early Medieval Beliefs: Magic, Superstition, and Church Doctrine
During the early Middle Ages, belief in witchcraft and magic simmered quietly in European folk culture. Peasants whispered of wise-women who knew healing charms, or maleficent neighbors who cursed cattle and crops. Yet the Church in this era largely dismissed such beliefs as pagan superstition, not an urgent spiritual threat . In fact, an influential church text known as the Canon Episcopi (c. 906 AD) took a skeptical stance on witches. It described certain “wicked women” who claimed they flew by night with the pagan goddess Diana, but insisted this was mere delusion – “phantasms inspired by an evil spirit,” dreams rather than reality . According to the Canon Episcopi, it was heretical and foolish to believe that such transformations or night-journeys happened in the flesh. Church authorities in the early medieval period thus taught their flocks that witches’ alleged feats – riding on beasts through the night, shape-shifting, consorting with demons – were illusory tricks of the Devil rather than real occurrences . The official position was that the Devil could tempt and deceive, but he lacked the power to truly transform reality through witches. For centuries, this view helped curb extreme reactions: convictions for witchcraft were relatively rare and typically resulted in light penances for superstition, not death .
However, the line between magic and heresy began to blur as the Middle Ages progressed. From around the 11th and 12th centuries, Christian authorities grew less tolerant of any practices smelling of paganism or devilry. By the 13th century, the Church started to recast witchcraft as not just superstition, but a form of heresy – essentially, devil-worship in disguise . Several developments drove this shift. One was the rise of scholastic theology and a renewed focus on the Devil’s role in the world. Great theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) wrote extensively about the hierarchy of demons and the reality of demonic intervention. Aquinas argued that what we call magic could indeed occur through demonic power (with God’s permission), and that attempting to summon or bind demons was a grave sin. His influential writings in the Summa Theologica helped lay a doctrinal basis for believing in effective witchcraft** – if a person summoned a demon or made a pact, real harm could result, by demonic agency. While earlier Church fathers had often downplayed the efficacy of magic, Aquinas and some 13th-century contemporaries (like Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon) treated it as a genuine threat to souls .
Crucially, the Church’s definition of heresy expanded to include not only doctrinal errors but also any covenant with Satan. In 1258, Pope Alexander IV issued a mandate explicitly authorizing the Inquisition to prosecute sorcery if it “savoured of heresy” – in other words, if magic was practiced in a context of devilish invocation or erroneous belief . This papal decree acknowledged that the sorcerer’s craft could intersect with heresy, bringing it under church jurisdiction. A few decades later, the stakes rose higher. Pope John XXII, ruling from Avignon in the early 14th century, was notoriously fearful that enemies might kill him through sorcery . In 1326 he issued the bull Super illius specula, which declared witchcraft and sorcery to be outright heresy . By officially classifying witchcraft as heresy, Pope John opened the door for full Inquisitorial prosecution of suspected witches. He warned that anyone “not only learning magic or teaching it but… performing it” would face excommunication . As one historian notes, John XXII’s bull ensured that henceforth “witchcraft could be tried under the Inquisition” just like any other heresy . In fact, even before this bull, John had authorized inquisitors in 1320 to investigate alleged witches “by whatever means available… as if witches were any other heretic,” urging no leniency in extirpating the threat .
Thus, by the early 14th century, the official attitude of the Church had evolved dramatically. What had been dismissed as rural superstition was now a potential crime against God. Still, actual witch trials remained sporadic in the 1300s. The Church was preoccupied with other heresies – the Cathars, Waldensians, and spiritual dissidents – and only occasionally ensnared alleged witches in its net. But the conceptual groundwork was laid: a witch was increasingly seen not just as a village charlatan but as a heretic, someone who had renounced the Christian faith and made a pact with Satan. This reframing would prove fateful in the centuries to come.
Heresy, Demonology, and the Church’s Changing Narrative
By labeling witchcraft as heresy, Church authorities began to mythologize witches as agents of the Devil. This process accelerated in the 14th and 15th centuries, when Europe’s religious and intellectual climate grew more intense and at times, paranoid. The medieval Church had long fought heretical sects that challenged its teachings – groups like the Waldensians and Cathars. In doing so, it developed an image of heretics as secret conspiracy: gathering in clandestine meetings, rejecting Christ, even engaging in depraved rites (charges of orgies or infanticide were sometimes leveled at heretical sects with little evidence ). These lurid accusations would soon be transferred wholesale onto supposed witches.
Indeed, by the mid-15th century, learned writers often described witches by analogy to famous heresies. Some texts explicitly called witches “Waldensians” (Vaudois) or “Cathars”, treating the witch cult as a continuation of those earlier devilish movements . In one circa 1450 treatise pointedly titled Errores Gazariorum (“Errors of the Cathars”), the “errors” in question were those of witches . The implication was clear: witches were viewed as members of an organized, clandestine sect worshipping Satan, much as the Cathars were (inquisitorial imagination) worshipping dualist false gods, or as the Templars (in Philip IV’s charges) had allegedly worshipped a demonic idol. By casting witchcraft as a demonic cult, the Church created a powerful myth: that witches formed a vast underground conspiracy against Christendom.
This mythologizing was aided by new writings in demonology – the learned discourse on devils and magic that blossomed in late medieval scholastic circles. Theologians and inquisitors debated questions that might have seemed bizarre a century earlier: Do witches really fly bodily to the Sabbath, or is it only in spirit? Can the Devil make illusory images, or real physical transformations? What sort of pact do witches swear to Satan, and what benefits (if any) do they gain? In university halls and inquisitors’ manuals, these questions were hashed out with grave concern. Not all churchmen agreed. Some remained skeptical, holding to the old Canon Episcopi line that the more outlandish claims (like flying through the air) must be illusions of the Devil, not literal events. For example, the theologian Johannes Nider, a Dominican writing around the 1430s, affirmed witches’ gatherings and crimes but personally doubted whether witches could really fly on their own – he suspected such flight was a demonic trick of the senses . Nonetheless, Nider did much to popularize the concept of the witches’ sabbath. In his book Formicarius (c. 1437), he described witches assembling at night to dance, feast, and have sexual orgies, even cannibalizing infants – all under the Devil’s auspices . Nider’s account helped solidify key elements of the witch stereotype: nocturnal gatherings (a “synagogue” or “sabbat” – tellingly using terms evocative of Jewish or heretical meetings ), infant sacrifice, and sexual deviancy.
By the 1450s, the notion of a witches’ sabbath – an inverted parody of Christian mass – was firmly taking hold in elite discourse. Even the highest authorities began to lend credence to terrifying rumors of demonic sects. A chilling example came in 1484, when Pope Innocent VIII issued the bull Summis Desiderantes. This papal proclamation acknowledged that “many persons of both sexes” in Germany and surrounding areas “had abandoned themselves to devils (incubi and succubi), and by their sorceries and enchantments… ruined the fruits of the earth, the dairy, the animals, and the lives of their neighbors” (paraphrasing the bull). Innocent VIII lamented that these witches had infested parts of Germany, especially in the alpine regions, and crucially, he empowered two Dominican friars – Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger – as special inquisitors to root out this heresy . He ordered that secular authorities must cooperate and not impede the inquisitors’ mission . This bull gave the Church’s highest sanction to the reality of a widespread witch threat. It marks a turning point: the first papal document explicitly addressing witchcraft. No longer was there doubt – the Pope himself declared that a grave new heresy of witchcraft was afoot, essentially demonizing witches as minions of Satan preying on the world.
Inquisitors and the Hammer of Witches
Armed with Innocent VIII’s mandate, the Dominican inquisitors Heinrich Kramer (Latinized as Henricus Institor) and Jacob Sprenger set to work in the late 1480s. Their experiences – particularly Kramer’s – led to one of the most infamous books in history: the Malleus Maleficarum or “Hammer of Witches,” published in 1486–1487. This tome combined vivid demonological theory with a guide to prosecuting witches, and it cemented many of the medieval Church’s witch myths into a single, influential text.
The Malleus Maleficarum opens by asserting the reality of witchcraft against any skeptics. It leans heavily on the authority of the recent papal bull (even printing Innocent VIII’s Summis Desiderantes in full at the start) to insist that hunting witches is endorsed at the highest levels . Kramer – the primary author – then proceeds to describe witchcraft as the ultimate heresy. He portrays a terrifying picture of a satanic conspiracy undermining all of Europe. Witches, he says, are everywhere, hiding in plain sight . They are mostly women – lustful, deceitful, and weak in faith – whom the Devil seduces into his service. In one notorious passage, the Malleus declares: “All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable.” For, Kramer argues, women are by nature more credulous and carnal, “and for the sake of fulfilling their lusts they consort even with devils” . It is no wonder, he concludes, that far more women are found to be witches than men – indeed he says the witch heresy should be called “the heresy of witches rather than wizards, since the name is taken from the more powerful party”, i.e. women . Misogyny thus found a pseudo-theological justification in the Malleus: women’s purported moral weakness made them especially susceptible to Satan.
The Malleus Maleficarum did more than just vilify female witches. It catalogued the alleged powers and crimes of witches in gruesome detail. According to Kramer, a witch’s capabilities (all granted by the Devil) included raising storms and hail to devastate crops, inflicting illness or death on humans and livestock, blighting marriages by causing impotence, and even killing infants or devouring them . The Malleus repeats earlier claims that witches often murder newborns or offer them in unbaptized form to demons. It chillingly notes that no one harms the faith more than midwives, because “when they do not kill children [in the womb], then they take them out of the room and… offer them to devils” – a startling accusation against women who assisted in births . Witches were said to fly, either in body or in spirit, to secret nocturnal assemblies where they met the Devil. There, they supposedly prostrated themselves before Satan, kissing his foul backside in an act of homage (the infamous osculum infame), and engaged in group sex and orgies under his direction. The Malleus insisted that every witch must perform a formal pact, renouncing God and the Virgin in favor of Lucifer . Some might sign this pact in blood; all would receive a demonic familiar or spirit to serve them. In return, the Devil granted them magical powers to work harms (maleficia). These ideas weren’t entirely new, but the Malleus wove them into a comprehensive demonological theory. It presented witchcraft as a structured conspiracy: witches were soldiers in Satan’s army, coordinated through their sabbaths to wage spiritual war on Christian society.
Just as important as its lurid content was the Malleus’s prescription for prosecution. The manual gives detailed advice to inquisitors and judges on how to arrest, interrogate, and convict witches. It infamously recommends the use of torture to elicit confessions, arguing that witches, aided by the Devil, will rarely confess without extreme pressure . Kramer declares that because of the horrible nature of the crime, normal legal standards can be relaxed: suspicion is as good as proof, witnesses could be secret, and even the testimony of known criminals or accomplices may be taken against the accused. The Malleus deems the death penalty the only adequate punishment, and specifically proposes burning at the stake as the proper way to execute a convicted witch . Burning had long been the Church’s penalty for obstinate heretics – an “exemplary” punishment meant to purify through fire and prevent post-mortem misuse of the body. Now this fiery death was extended to witches. “With one fell swoop,” notes historian Jon Crabb, “the persecution of witches was begun and an entire methodology was established.” Indeed, the Malleus Maleficarum helped standardize the stereotype of the witch and the procedures to destroy her. It became a bestseller of its age, circulating widely through the early 16th century and beyond .
It must be noted that not all authorities embraced the Malleus uncritically. In fact, Heinrich Kramer himself encountered resistance from some local churchmen when he tried to prosecute witches in the 1480s. Before writing the Malleus, Kramer had staged witch trials in Innsbruck, Austria, but the Bishop of Brixen, Georg Golser, grew appalled by Kramer’s conduct – his relentless torture and wild charges – and banished him from the city in 1485, declaring Kramer “credulous… unethical, and perhaps crazy” in his witch-hunting zeal . Such pushback illustrates that even within the Church there were those who doubted the new “witch panic.” The old skepticism of the Canon Episcopi hadn’t died quietly; some clergy and judges continued to view peasant witchcraft claims as superstition or fraud. Nonetheless, the broader trend in the late 15th century was toward acceptance of the full diabolical witch theory. The University of Cologne’s theologians endorsed the Malleus (helping give it a sheen of authority). Many other inquisitors and demonologists sprang up, elaborating on Kramer’s foundation. By 1500, the essential narrative was set in stone: witches were heretics who made pacts with Satan, gathered in secret sabbaths, worked malicious magic on their communities, and deserved extermination.
Trials and Torture: The Inquisition in Action
Once the Church officially marked witchcraft as a devilish heresy, the machinery of persecution began turning. In the late medieval and early modern period, Europe saw waves of witch trials – some relatively small and local, others spiraling into mass hysteria. These trials were often joint ventures between ecclesiastical inquisitors and secular courts, blurring the lines of authority. Formally, the Church tried the spiritual crime of heresy, while the State punished the corporeal crime (often executing the sentence). In reality, they collaborated closely. As one account notes, “in theory the state claimed control over the material life of subjects and the church over the spiritual life… but the dividing line was often disputed,” with each side zealously guarding its jurisdiction . When it came to witchcraft, both Church and secular officials found common cause. Bishops or inquisitors would examine suspects for heretical devil-worship, extracting confessions of pact and apostasy; then the convicted witch would be handed to the secular arm to be burned, since the Church claimed it could not shed blood.
Some early witch trials in the 14th–15th centuries reveal this Church-State interplay and set precedents for the horrors to come. One of the first prominent cases was that of Alice Kyteler in Ireland, 1324. Alice was a wealthy moneylender in Kilkenny who had survived four husbands, arousing the enmity of her stepchildren. They accused her of practicing sorcery to kill or bewitch her spouses. The local bishop, Richard de Ledrede, eagerly took up the case, declaring his diocese infested with devil-worshippers . Ledrede brought seven charges against Kyteler and her associates, charges unprecedented at the time: that Alice denied Christ and the Church, sacrificed animals at crossroads to a demon, stole a key from a church to hold coven meetings at night, and brewed potions from revolting ingredients like the intestines of cocks, worms, and the hair of unbaptized boys . Most shocking was the allegation that Alice had a demonic incubus as a lover – a spirit who appeared to her as a black dog or black man and from whom she obtained her riches . This is the first recorded instance of a woman being accused of gaining sorcerous power through sexual intercourse with a demon , a theme that would become common in later witch trials. Ledrede treated Kyteler’s case as outright heresy. He invoked canon law (a 1298 decree Ut inquisitionis) compelling secular authorities to arrest heretics on a bishop’s order . However, this led to fierce conflict: Ireland’s secular officials balked at the bishop’s demands, some being friends or relatives of Alice. The civil authorities even jailed Bishop Ledrede for a time to impede his prosecution . In the end, Alice Kyteler escaped – likely fleeing to England – but her less fortunate associates were tortured and punished. Her servant Petronilla de Meath became the first person in Ireland burned at the stake for witchcraft (or rather for heresy) in 1324 . The Kyteler case encapsulated many features of future trials: family grudges fueling accusations, sensational claims of demonic sex, Church insistence on heresy, and the need for secular muscle to enforce death sentences.
Through the 15th century, more such trials dotted Europe. Often they were linked to local fears and power struggles, but the Inquisition provided a ready framework. In 15th-century France, for example, the case of the Vauderie d’Arras (1459–1460) stands out. The city of Arras in Burgundy was seized by witch hunt hysteria after a renegade Franciscan friar denounced several people as witches. The local inquisitor and clergy proceeded to arrest a number of suspects – including a well-known poet and entertainer – and under torture elicited a list of names “of all estates – nobles, clerics, men and women” who allegedly attended sabbaths . The frightened victims, seeking to save themselves, confirmed the inquisitors’ worst fantasies: they spoke of a “nocturnal assembly where a great black goat presided, of obscene rituals and the renunciation of God” (as chronicler Jacques du Clercq recorded it). The Dean of the Arras Cathedral, Jacques du Bois, was so zealous that he declared “the very accusation of witchcraft should be enough to prove guilt; and those who protested [the trials] should themselves be suspected of witchery” . This chilling statement shows how due process vaporized in the heat of witch panic – mere accusation could condemn. Ultimately, around twelve persons were burned in the Arras affair, but many more lives were upended. Interestingly, when political winds changed (a new duke came to power), some of the convictions were later overturned and the judges punished, as it became evident that the affair had grown from mass torture and false confessions. Nevertheless, the Arras trials were hugely influential across Europe; they were one of the first large-scale witch panics and helped spread the template of the witch sect conspiracy.
In Italy, an early notorious case was the trial of Matteuccia di Francesco in Todi (Umbria) in 1428, where a woman was executed for witchcraft after confessing (under torture) to flying on a demon and concocting love potions – a case that established precedents in Italian inquisitorial procedure . Italian inquisitors authored their own treatises – for instance, Nicolau Eymeric’s Directorium Inquisitorum (1376) included guidance on sorcery, and later Nicolas Jacquier’s Flagellum haereticorum fascinariorum (1458) clearly articulated that witchcraft was a heresy to be scourged*. The Spanish Inquisition**, established in 1478, initially focused on Jews and conversos, but it too would encounter witchcraft cases (albeit with greater skepticism, as we’ll see).
By the early 16th century, witch trials had become a terrifyingly common occurrence in many regions. A pattern emerged: typically, a few local people (often marginalized women or those with a reputation for quarrels) would be accused by neighbors of bringing misfortune through magic. Under questioning – and almost inevitably, torture – the accused would “confess” to incredible deeds and name accomplices, causing the hunt to widen. In some instances, this snowballed into mass trials with dozens or hundreds accused. Particularly prone to such explosions were the decentralized polities of German-speaking Europe. The Holy Roman Empire’s legal code (Constitutio Criminalis Carolina of 1532 under Emperor Charles V) formally criminalized witchcraft but with an interesting emphasis: it defined witchcraft chiefly as maleficium – causing harm by magic – and mandated death by fire only if such harm was proven . The Carolina notably did not emphasize devil worship or pacts; it focused on tangible harm (and even suggested lesser penalties if no one was hurt) . Despite this relatively cautious approach, German territories experienced some of the fiercest witch persecutions. Local judges in various prince-bishoprics and counties aggressively pursued witches, often in waves.
For example, in the Rhineland city of Trier in the 1580s, under the authority of the prince-archbishop, a series of witch trials led to perhaps 100 or more executions, including even a few monks, priests, and a university chancellor who fell under suspicion . In the 17th century, the Catholic prince-bishoprics of Bamberg and Würzburg in Germany saw notorious panics (1626–1631) in which hundreds of people were burned, among them teenagers and children, and in Würzburg even the bishop’s own 9-year-old nephew was executed as a sorcerer – demonstrating how insane the fever had become. These were Church-led territories, and the prince-bishops (Johann Georg II Fuchs von Dornheim in Bamberg, Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg in Würzburg) were themselves driving forces behind the trials, showing the Church’s direct role in some of the most draconian campaigns.
In Switzerland as well, early large hunts occurred – one of the first massive witch purges took place in the Swiss Valais (Wallis) between 1428 and 1447, where records speak of as many as hundreds of alleged witches burned as an organized sect . Such early Swiss/French Alps trials were among the incubators of the sabbath myth, since multiple people corroborated (under torture) the idea of group gatherings. The Malleus even cites an “Inquisitor of Como” (the Italian Alps) recounting how in one year he burned 41 witches, some of whom confessed to cannibalizing children and flying, confirming to Kramer that “such things are not incredible” .
It is important to highlight the role of torture in these trials. Torture was legal in most European jurisdictions for procuring evidence in capital cases, albeit under regulated conditions (in theory). In witch trials, however, those regulations were often ignored or stretched. Devices like the strappado (hoisting by ropes), thumbscrews, leg crushers, and scourging were employed to break the will of the accused. Many confessed only to end the pain. Once a confession was given – typically a concoction of what interrogators wanted to hear – it was very difficult for the accused to retract it. Under inquisitorial rules, a confessed heretic who relapsed (i.e. recanted a confession) could be executed as impenitent. Thus, even if some realized too late that confessing meant death, they were trapped. Torture also encouraged elaborate confessions that matched the prevailing lore. This is why so many trial records from different times and places strangely echo each other with details of flying goats, black sabbaths, incubi, and baby-eating – the questions posed and the expectations of the interrogators shaped the answers. In a tragic feedback loop, these forced confessions then “proved” to authorities that the devilish conspiracy was real, justifying yet more fervent hunts.
By the late 16th century, the combination of theological fervor, demonological literature, and judicial torture created what historians call the European Witch Craze. It was as much a social and legal phenomenon as a religious one. The Church’s earlier actions – the bulls, treatises, and inquisitions – had lit the fuse, but now secular courts often carried the torch. In fact, after 1500, most witch trials in Northern Europe were conducted by secular judges under secular law (as noted, for instance, by the Carolina code and English statutes) . The irony is that the Roman Church’s own courts (especially in Rome and Spain) grew more restrained in witch cases by the late 1500s, requiring stricter proof of diabolism. The Spanish Inquisition in 1610 famously looked into a mass panic in the Basque region and found most of the testimony dubious. The inquisitor Alonso de Salazar Frías, after taking statements from hundreds of villagers (including many children) who claimed wild sabbath adventures, concluded skeptically: “There were no witches until we began to speak of them.” He and his colleagues ultimately released most of the accused and imposed relatively mild penances on a few, “correspondingly scarce” executions . The Spanish Inquisition thereafter virtually ceased witch prosecutions, believing education would better curb superstition . Likewise in Italy, while some witches were executed by secular courts, the Roman Inquisition often preferred penance or acquittal unless clear proof of devil-worship emerged. Thus, paradoxically, some areas under strong Church control (Spain, Italy) saw fewer witch deaths, whereas parts of Germany, France, Switzerland, Scotland, and England – where local secular courts had freer rein – saw greater bloodshed . Still, the ideology driving those secular magistrates had been cultivated by churchmen’s writings and the long association of witchcraft with Satan.
Folklore, Fear, and Popular Culture
While theologians and judges constructed an elaborate demonological theory of witchcraft, the beliefs of common people were never so systematic. In the villages and towns of Europe, ideas about witches varied, often rooted in folklore and everyday fears. Understanding this popular culture is essential to grasp why witch accusations arose in the first place.
In medieval folklore, a “witch” was often simply a person (frequently an older woman) who could work magic – for good or ill. Many communities had local wise women or cunning men who provided healing remedies, love potions, or charms to ward off evil. Such practitioners of “white” magic were tolerated or even valued, though the Church frowned on any sort of sorcery or divination. On the flip side, when misfortune struck – a sudden illness, a cow’s milk drying up, a hailstorm destroying crops – villagers sometimes looked for a scapegoat. Human nature sought someone to blame, and suspicion might fall on a neighbor known for quarreling or someone “with the evil eye.” The idea of the “bad neighbor” witch was widespread. Often these were people on the margins of society: impoverished widows, social misfits, or those with abrasive personalities. As historian Robin Briggs noted, many accused witches were “quarrelsome or dangerous, isolated and suspected of harboring vengeful feelings” toward their fellow villagers . In other words, the accused often had some prior reputation or conflict that made allegations stick.
These local witch figures were initially not necessarily seen as devil-worshippers. They were believed to cast the evil eye, spoil butter, blight crops, or sicken children through some innate or learned maleficium – essentially magic on a village scale. Folklore in different regions had its own twists: in Scandinavia, witches were thought to steal milk by magical means; in Russia, the concept of “spoiling” with the evil eye was common; in England and Scotland, familiars (spirits in the shape of animals) featured in many tales – a witch might have a black cat, a hare, or a toad that did her bidding in exchange for a bit of her blood.
However, once the learned concept of the Devil’s pact permeated down to the populace (via sermons, pamphlets, and hearsay), even village-level accusations began to include satanic elements. For example, in Scotland after King James VI’s involvement in witch-hunting around 1590, charges of covenanting with “the Devil, whom thou callest Christsonday” appear in trial records, and ordinary folk incorporated ideas of sabbath gatherings on the Witches’ Night (Walpurgisnacht) or other occasions. Walpurgis Night, the eve of May 1st, was an old German folkloric night when witches were said to meet on the Brocken mountain. This legend became popular – Goethe later immortalized it in Faust. People truly believed that on certain nights (like Walpurgis or Saint John’s Eve), witches flew out of their chimneys, smeared with flying ointment, to meet the Devil in wild nocturnal feasts. The flying ointment itself was a folklore item: witches were thought to brew a salve from baby fat, poisonous herbs (like belladonna, henbane), and other foul components, anoint themselves and their broomsticks or animals, and then soar through the night sky. Interestingly, some scholars have pointed out that such ointments could have hallucinogenic effects, possibly giving users vivid visions of flying – which might explain why some accused witches sincerely believed they had flown to a sabbath when under the influence or duress.
Folklore also brimmed with tales of familiars and shapeshifting. In France, the loup-garou (werewolf) legend sometimes merged with witchcraft – certain witches could turn into wolves to prey on infants. In one 16th-century French trial, a man named Gilles Garnier was executed after allegedly confessing (under torture) to using an ointment to become a wolf and kill children (a case of overlapping witch and werewolf lore). In Hungary and Eastern Europe, witch figures overlapped with strigoi or vampires in folklore – night creatures that suck life. Even the word “striga” (witch) in Latin, used in some church documents, harked back to the Roman strix, a night bird that sucked infants’ blood. Thus, cultural motifs of night-flying female demons who kill babies predated Christianity (Lamia, Lilith, etc.), and medieval people wove these into the witch image.
The Devil, of course, had always loomed in Christian imagination as the tempter and deceiver. But for ordinary people, Satan was often thought of in more tangible, localized forms – the mysterious stranger offering a deal, the black animal lurking at the edge of the woods, the “Black Man” who might appear at a gathering. When interrogators asked suspects, “When the Devil appeared, was he in the form of a man or an animal?”, villagers might genuinely recall folklore of a big black goat or dog and incorporate that into their confession. The classic sabbath image included the Devil appearing as a great goat or ram, seated on a throne, speaking with a human voice. Witches would renounce Christ and swear loyalty to this goat-devil, then engage in sexual intercourse with him (the Devil was thought to assume male or female form – incubus or succubus – to copulate with witches). Such grotesque scenes, repeated in trial after trial, formed a shared imaginary of horror.
Meanwhile, popular reactions to witch trials ran the gamut from fear and panic to skepticism and sympathy. In some village outbreaks, the mass hysteria was truly bottom-up: a child falls ill and blames a neighbor witch in genuine terror; soon the whole community is echoing and amplifying the charge. Other times, accusations were malicious or calculated – a way to eliminate a personal enemy or rival by painting them as a witch. There are cases where midwives or healers who were once respected were suddenly scapegoated when a baby died under their care, or when a cow they treated still perished. In such instances, a thin line separated a “cunning woman” from an “evil witch” – often the outcome (good harvest or bad, healthy child or sick) decided how the person was labeled.
Not everyone in the populace blindly believed every witch tale. There was often a dose of skepticism on the ground, especially when authorities pushed too hard. For instance, when witch-hunters demanded that people denounce their neighbors, some communities grew uneasy – today they accuse someone else, but tomorrow it could be them. In places like the Netherlands, relatively few witch executions happened because a skeptical view took root earlier (the Dutch courts ceased prosecutions around 1600, ahead of others) . Even in the witch-craze heartlands, one finds critics: Reginald Scot, an English country gentleman, wrote The Discoverie of Witchcraft in 1584 precisely because he had witnessed villagers wrongfully accusing innocent poor women. Scot painstakingly argued that witches did not have supernatural powers and that it was “one of the rarest things that any woman should be a witch”. Though his book was scorned by witch-hunters (King James I of England refuted it in his own Daemonologie), Scot’s skepticism likely influenced later thinking. In Catholic lands, we have the case of Friedrich Spee, a German Jesuit who served as a confessor to accused witches. In 1631, horrified by what he witnessed, Spee anonymously published Cautio Criminalis (“A Warning in Criminal Cases”), condemning the use of torture and the impossibility of an accused witch to prove her innocence under such conditions . Spee observed that once a person was accused, they were virtually doomed – torture would force a confession, and any protestations of innocence were interpreted as devil’s tricks. Such voices of doubt grew louder in the 17th century, signaling the eventual waning of the witch panic.
Iconic Witch Panics and Notable Cases Across Europe
To truly appreciate the scope of Europe’s witch persecutions, we should visit a few key regions and episodes, each with its own infamy or significance. These cases illustrate how the general themes already discussed played out under different circumstances.
Germany (Holy Roman Empire): As mentioned, German lands saw some of the worst witch holocausts. The Witch Trials of Würzburg (1626–1631) are often cited as an epitome of the craze. Under Prince-Bishop Philipp Adolf, at least 157 people were executed in the city of Würzburg, including children as young as 9, and a majority of them women. One haunting account from Würzburg comes in a letter from a councillor: “There are children of 7, promising little persons, and of ten, twelve, fourteen, all of whom are said to have had intercourse with the Devil… The executioner claimed that he has not seen so terrible a sight”. The trials expanded until anyone who spoke against them fell under suspicion. Similarly, the Bamberg Witch Trials, led by Prince-Bishop Johann Georg II, claimed around 300 lives, and the zeal was such that a special Drudenhaus (witch prison) was built, equipped with torture chambers. One notable victim was Bamberg’s own mayor, Johannes Junius, who wrote a heartbreaking letter from prison professing his innocence but admitting he confessed only after being tortured brutally – including the strappado and thumbscrews – and seeing no other escape. These German prince-bishop trials show the Church’s heavy direct hand (since prince-bishops wielded both spiritual and temporal power) and demonstrate how witch-fear could reach even the elite.
France: In France, witchcraft prosecutions tended to be more sporadic and were eventually curbed earlier (the Parlement of Paris, the highest court, made convictions harder to get by demanding higher standards of proof by the 1620s ). But one remarkable series occurred in the Basque regions of France and Spain (Labourd and Navarre) around 1609–1613. In French Labourd, a judge named Pierre de Lancre was commissioned to investigate witchcraft. De Lancre, armed with demonological books and a dangerous confidence, conducted a witch hunt that he claimed netted a huge satanic conspiracy among the Basque peasantry. He believed the entire Basque population was tainted and alleged that witches could assemble in the thousands at a meadow known as Akelarre (giving us that term, Basque for “the Devil’s meadow”). Over a few months, de Lancre’s tribunal executed perhaps 70 supposed witches, until authorities, concerned he was exceeding his mandate, recalled him. Across the border in Spanish Navarre, at the same time, a wave of accusations (mostly by children and teenagers) led the Spanish Inquisition to intervene. This became the largest single investigation in Inquisitional history: over 1,800 people were questioned . Yet remarkably, as noted earlier, the Spanish inquisitors (Salazar Frías and colleagues) found almost all of the testimony false or fanciful, and they ended up burning only 11 people at an auto-da-fé in Logroño in 1610 (six alive, five in effigy for those who had died in custody) . Salazar’s rational approach essentially defused what could have been a massacre. He insisted that fear and suggestion had created witches where none existed, famously writing, “I have not found a single proof… that any act of witchcraft has actually occurred.” The Basque trials thus show both extremes: in France, a secular judge’s zealotry; in Spain, a more cautious clerical skepticism.
England and Scotland: The British Isles had a somewhat later but still significant witch-hunting history. In Scotland, witch trials were severe; the deeply Calvinist Kirk viewed witches as servants of Satan with no mercy. One of the first major Scottish trials was the North Berwick Witch Trials (1590–1592), which ensnared around 70 people and notably involved King James VI of Scotland (later James I of England) in person. These witches were accused of raising storms to imperil James’s ship as he returned with his bride from Denmark – storms did strike the voyage, which James readily attributed to witchcraft . Under torture, a woman named Agnes Sampson allegedly recounted to the king how witches convened on Halloween night at North Berwick church, with the Devil preaching to them, and how they collectively tried to sink the royal ship. James, fascinated and convinced, took a direct role in questioning suspects. This experience influenced him to write his own treatise Daemonologie and to encourage witch-hunting. Subsequently, Scottish law led to many burns; notable later cases include the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661–62 (an intense nationwide outbreak) and tragically, the execution of an entire family (the Devil’s Mark family of 1677). Scotland’s total executions likely ran into the low thousands over a century – very high per capita.
In England, the legal approach was different: witches were tried in common courts, under secular statute (the first Witchcraft Act was 1542 under Henry VIII, repealed, then a new Act in 1563 under Elizabeth I, strengthened in 1604 under James I). England (and its colonies later) generally hung witches rather than burned them, as witchcraft was considered a felony, not heresy. English witch trials often revolved around “maleficium” against neighbors, and evidence of a witch’s “familiar spirit” (e.g. the Essex and Suffolk trials of the 1640s detail imps sucking witches’ blood). A famous English case was the Pendle Witches of 1612 in Lancashire, where a feud between two families of wise women led to multiple accusations and a well-documented trial that resulted in 10 executions. England’s most notorious witch-hunter was Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled “Witchfinder General,” who during the chaos of the Civil War (1644–1647) went around East Anglia with his partner John Stearne, applying brutal tests (such as pricking for witch’s marks and forced waking for days) to extract confessions. Hopkins’s rampage sent perhaps 100 women to the gallows in a couple of years, until other authorities questioned his methods and motives (he charged hefty fees). By 1660, the English fervor had waned, and the last execution in England was in 1682. A century later in 1736 the witchcraft laws were repealed, marking an official end – those accused of sorcery would thereafter be prosecuted, if at all, as frauds.
Northern and Eastern Europe: In Scandinavia, one particularly dramatic episode was the Torsåker witch trials in Sweden in 1675, where in one day 71 people (65 of them women) were beheaded and burned – a grim climax of a Swedish panic where children’s testimonies (claiming they were abducted by witches to a satanic realm called Blockula) were a driving force. Poland, too, saw many trials, often in local courts; the last known “legal” execution for witchcraft in Europe happened in Poland in 1793 (though an unofficial lynching in Germany occurred as late as 1811).
Each region added its cultural flavor: Finnish and Saami “witches” were often male shamans accused by Lutheran authorities of conjuring spirits; in Russia, the Orthodox Church decried witchcraft but there were fewer mass trials, with most accused treated as sorcerers and usually flogged or exiled rather than executed.
Across all these locales, the through-line was the idea of a diabolical threat within, fueled by fear in times of crisis. Notably, peaks of witch-hunting often coincided with periods of stress: religious wars, plague outbreaks, famine, climate hardship (the “Little Ice Age” of the 17th century led to many bad harvests), and social upheaval. Scapegoating thrives under such conditions. For instance, Germany’s vicious hunts around 1580–1630 correlate with the Wars of Religion and the lead-up to the Thirty Years’ War; communities under strain found witches to blame.
The End of the Witch Hunts and the Legacy of Fear
By the late 17th and early 18th century, the great European witch craze was winding down. A combination of factors brought relief from what one might call this collective nightmare. Judicial skepticism had grown – courts increasingly demanded actual proof of maleficium or pact, which was seldom obtainable once torture was curtailed. Intellectual shifts from the Age of Reason played a part: the scientific revolution and Enlightenment philosophy promoted natural explanations over supernatural ones. It gradually became disreputable for educated elites to believe that old women could summon storms or copulate with demons to kill babies.
We see milestones of this change: In France, Louis XIV in 1682 issued an edict effectively outlawing witchcraft prosecutions (he was more concerned with charlatans and poisoners in the wake of the Affair of the Poisons, a scandal that involved alleged black masses at the royal court). In that 1682 decree, the King declared that magic and witchcraft were imaginary crimes and that cases should be treated as fraud or poisoning . In Scotland, the last execution was in 1727 (an unfortunate woman named Janet Horne). England formally repealed its Witchcraft Act in 1736, replacing it with a law against fraud – essentially saying witches do not exist, only pretenders . In the Holy Roman Empire, witch trials had ceased in most areas by the eighteenth century; Maria Theresa outlawed them in Austria in 1755 . The Age of Enlightenment writers like Voltaire and Montesquieu held the witch hunts up as examples of human barbarism and irrationality – a dark folly of the past.
Of course, belief in witches did not vanish overnight among the populace. Folk beliefs in magic persisted (indeed, in some form to the present day). But no longer would large-scale burnings happen under the authority of Church or state. Europe’s obsession with Satan’s hordes lurking in villages faded, leaving behind a sobering legacy. Scholars estimate that between the 15th and eighteenth centuries, around 40,000 to 60,000 people were executed for witchcraft across Europe – the vast majority of them women, often the most vulnerable. Many more thousands were imprisoned, tortured, or had their lives disrupted by accusations. The witch hunts stand as an example of how fear and superstition, when married to power, can spiral into devastating violence.
From a modern view, the witch persecutions have been interpreted through various lenses. Some see them as a manifestation of misogyny – a war against women, especially those who did not fit the submissive ideal (the “crone” stereotype, independent widows, midwives, healers). Certainly the language of the Malleus and many trial records is ferociously misogynistic, blaming women’s sexuality and allegedly weaker intellect for witchcraft. Others emphasize the sociological aspect: village tensions, envy, and the scapegoating of the marginalized (“bad neighbors” syndrome). Marxist historians once viewed witch hunts as class conflict (rich vs. poor), though the picture is more complex than that. There’s also a school of thought exploring psychological causes – mass hysteria, or the way suggestion and fear especially affected children (since many child witnesses in trials genuinely seemed to believe their fantastical stories, perhaps products of nightmares or coaching).
And what of the Devil in all this? One of the great ironies is that the more the Church and witch hunters obsessed over Satan, the more power they inadvertently gave him in the public imagination. The medieval Church’s intent may have been to root out heresy and uphold orthodoxy, but by propagating these frightening images of a Devil-worshiping witch sect, they made the Devil a near-tangible presence in daily life. Every misfortune could be attributed to “the Devil’s work” via a witch, leading to paranoia and betrayal of neighborly trust. In a way, the witch craze was a dark reflection of the era’s spiritual anxieties: the Devil was believed to be literally at work in Christendom, recruiting the weak to overthrow the godly.
When the witch trials ended, the Devil retreated from the legal stage, but he remained a potent symbol. Over time, enlightened Europeans came to regard the witch hunts with shame or denial – how could our forefathers have done this? The answer lies in understanding their world: a world where the supernatural was interwoven with the natural, where the Church wielded immense authority, and where fear of Hell and the Devil was deeply instilled in every believer. In such a context, the idea of witches in league with Satan was horrifying but plausible, and eliminating them seemed a painful necessity to protect society’s soul.
Conclusion: From Hysteria to History
The story of witchcraft and the Devil in medieval Europe is ultimately a human tragedy – a cautionary tale of how myth and fear can build upon each other to deadly effect. It began with age-old folk beliefs and legitimate religious concern over souls, but it escalated through a series of choices: the Church chose to brand witchcraft as heresy and invoke Satan’s name; inquisitors chose to interpret misfortune as maleficium; communities chose to surrender reason to panic. The witches that burned were, in reality, innocents sacrificed on the altar of collective terror.
Yet, in exploring this dark history, we also gain insight into medieval and early modern minds. The witch hunts were not mere insanity; they followed a certain logic rooted in the worldview of the time. Sin and evil were palpably real to them. The Devil lurked behind every temptation, and a witch was the Devil’s pawn – what could be more threatening? By blending narrative storytelling with historical analysis, we’ve tried to place ourselves in that world: to feel the dread of a peasant who truly believes a witch hexed his child, or the righteous anger of a friar convinced that Satan’s minions plot to corrupt Christendom from within. Understanding does not mean excusing; it means recognizing how ordinary people, otherwise pious and loving, came to commit extraordinary cruelties under the spell of an idea.
Today, the term “witch hunt” is a metaphor for persecuting innocents in the frenzy of false accusations. That legacy comes straight from the experiences detailed above. The European witch craze, spanning roughly from the 1400s to 1700s, stands as one of history’s most extensive and grievous episodes of wrongful persecution. It reminds us that fear can be more destructive than that which it fears. It also shows the double-edged power of faith: the Church, which provided moral unity and learning, also propagated a demonological vision that caused untold suffering.
In the end, European society did wake up from the nightmare. Skeptics, scientists, and more rational clergy prevailed in convincing the public that the Devil was not lurking in every old crone and that the witch hunts were doing the Devil’s work by sowing misery and hatred. By the eighteenth century, educated Europeans could scarcely believe the atrocities committed in the name of eradicating witchcraft. Witchcraft and devilry receded to the realm of folklore and literature – where they live on in fairy tales and gothic novels, rather than courtrooms.
But even as we relegate witches and devils to Halloween costumes and fantasy fiction, the history we’ve explored carries a sobering lesson. It urges vigilance against any trend – whether fueled by religious zeal, political ideology, or social mania – that dehumanizes a group of people through a paranoid narrative. In medieval Europe, that narrative was “witches are among us, doing the Devil’s bidding.” What might its counterpart be today or tomorrow? The witch trials implore us to be guided by reason, justice, and compassion, lest we repeat a similar tragedy under different guises.
The fires have long since died out; the Devil’s shadow over Europe lifted as the witch hunts ceased. What remains is a rich yet haunting chapter of history – a dark chronicle of witchcraft and the Devil that, ironically, teaches us much about the human capacity for both belief and cruelty. In confronting that past, we illuminate the progress made and the dangers that persist whenever fear conquers truth.
Sources:
- Bernadette Williams, “The Sorcery Trial of Alice Kyteler, 1324,” History Ireland – on the Kyteler case as the first heresy trial for witchcraft .
- Canon law text Canon Episcopi (c. 906) as discussed in Jeffrey Burton Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages – Church rejection of the reality of witchcraft as mere dreams (illusion by the Devil) .
- Pope John XXII’s bull Super illius specula (1326) – declared witchcraft a form of heresy triable by the Inquisition .
- Alan C. Kors and Edward Peters (eds.), Witchcraft in Europe: A Documentary History – documents like the Summis Desiderantes bull of 1484, the Malleus Maleficarum excerpts .
- H.C. Erik Midelfort, Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany – context on German witch trials and Carolina law’s focus on harmful magic .
- Encyclopedia of Witchcraft (Richard M. Golden, ed.) – entries on sabbath, Waldensians, demonology (noting witches often called “Vaudois”) .
- Jon Crabb, “Woodcuts and Witches” – Public Domain Review essay on the witch craze and the influence of the Malleus, including use of torture and execution by fire .
- Robin Briggs, Witches and Neighbors – analysis of social context (accused being “bad neighbors” rather than strangers) .
- Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) and Johann Weyer’s De Praestigiis Daemonum (1563) – early skeptical works (Weyer saw accused witches as melancholy women needing care, not execution) .
- Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld, Cautio Criminalis (1631) – critique of witch trial procedures and abuses .
- Cases: Vauderie d’Arras (Jacques du Clercq’s chronicle) ; Basque trials (Gustav Henningsen’s research) ; North Berwick trials (Newes from Scotland pamphlet) ; Bamberg/Würzburg (letters and contemporary accounts).
- Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe – comprehensive statistics and legal overview, noting roughly 50,000 executions over the period .
- Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic – insight into changing attitudes that ended the witch hunts.
- [Additional citations inline] to specific lines from connected historical sources have been provided throughout this article to substantiate key facts and quotations, ensuring the narrative remains anchored in documented evidence from both primary sources and modern scholarship. For instance, the changing Church doctrine on witchcraft as heresy is evidenced by the papal actions of Alexander IV and John XXII , while the extreme claims of the Malleus Maleficarum are quoted directly , and the contrasting skepticism of later courts is noted with legal reforms in France and England . These citations point the reader to the rich body of historical records and analyses that underpin our understanding of this dark chapter in European history.
