Witch trials
The legal prosecutions for witchcraft in Europe and its colonies, mainly from about 1450 to 1750.
Also: early modern witch trials, Salem witch trials, the burning times
Historians estimate that around 40,000 to 60,000 people were executed for witchcraft in Europe in this period, about three quarters of them women, with the heaviest numbers in the Holy Roman Empire, which included parts of Germany. The Malleus Maleficarum, a manual printed in 1486, helped spread the idea of a demonic pact. In Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 and 1693, nineteen people were hanged and others died in custody. Scholars link trials to religious conflict, climate stress and local quarrels. The popular claim of nine million burned is not supported by records, and the figure of the so-called burning times has been revised downwards since the 1970s. Many places now hold memorials.