Witch Hunts During Renaissance

The Renaissance period and onward often creates the image of human civilization in one's mind: Religious dogmatism has been replaced by logic and reason, arts and sciences are on a rise like never before, and humanist thinking appear to be becoming mainstream. Contrastingly,  the time period before the Renaissance, called the Middle Ages or the "Dark" Ages, are closely associated with disease, ignorance and religion dominating all parts of the society, and of course, witch hunts.

Witch hunts were more popular during the Early Modern Period than they were in the Middle Ages and had also become a legal proceeding. The classical period of witch hunts in Europe is between 15th - 18th centuries (the last witch hunt case was in 1811 in Prussia, ending with execution), which is roughly the same period as the Renaissance. Numbers of deaths vary between 50,000 to 100,000, with trials likely being twice the number. Most of the accused witches were women, although there were men as well. There were cases where the entire female population of a village would be executed. Many European countries during this period, including England, Ireland and Scotland passed "witchcraft" acts and laws, making witchcraft an offense punishable with death (sometimes by burning). During the peak of witch hunts, roughly between 1600 to 1700, "witch detecting" methods such as throwing people into the water to see if they could swim (they were usually considered witches if they could), and pricking the skin on a "witches' mark" (which could be anything ranging from moles to scars and was considered the irrefutable proof of devil worship) were added to actual legal procedures. The most popular witch detection book was written by Matthew Hopkins, who called himself the "Witch Finder General" and was responsible for over 300 executions despite not having any legal nor religious authority (pictured is a page from his book, The Discovery of Witches, where he explains how one may tell witches apart from normal people). Many scholars believe that witch hunts were not motivated by misogyny or pressure from the Church as much as completely sincere hysteria of witchcraft and the devil.



In other words, while Descartes was writing Discourse, and Newton was working on his telescope and Torricelli had just invented the barometer, Hopkins alone was getting people executed left and right on the account of having scars and birthmarks.


Sources: http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/witch/werror.html
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/davincicode/witches.html
http://witchhunts.academic.wlu.edu/the-renaissance-an-explanation-for-the-cautious-italian-witch-trials/