Witch Hunts and Trials

ABSALON, ANNA PEDERSDOTTER (?–1590). The victim of perhaps the single most famous witchcraft accusation made in Scandinavia, Anna was the ...

Colas, Antide (d. 1599) was a woman accused of Witchcraft and having sex with Satan. Arrested and tried at Dole, ...

Arras witches (1459-1460) A mass witch hunt in Arras, northern France. The accused were brutally tortured and promised their lives, ...

Bamberg Witches : At the center of the worst witch tortures and trials in Germany was Bamberg, a small state ...

Bargarran Witches (1696-1697) Scottish witchcraft hysteria started by a girl. The case bears similarities to the Warboys Witches and to ...

Bury St. Edmonds Witches Of the various witch trials of Suffolk, England, conducted in Bury St. Edmonds during the 17th ...

Mary Butters (late 18th-early 19th centuries) : An attempt to cure a cow of bewitchment with white Magic ended in ...

Chelmsford witches Four major witch trails in the 16th-17th centuries that resulted in numerous convictions and executions. The first trial ...

EuniceCole (17th century) was a New Hampshire woman accused repeatedly of witchcraft, who was staked like a vampire when she ...

Amy Duny (17th century) A Connecticut nanny accused of cursing the infant under her care. Amy Duny was an old ...

JohnFian (?— 1591 ) A young schoolmaster in Saltpans, Scotland, in the late 16th century, Dr. John Fian was the ...

Dietrich Flade (?–1589). Probably the highest-ranking victim of any witch-hunt in European history, Flade was a prominent citizen of Trier, ...

WilliamGraves (17th century) Connecticut man accused of witchcraft over a dispute with his daughter and son-in-law. Though no legal action ...

Rebecca Greensmith (17th century) Hartford, Connecticut, woman accused of witchcraft, who confessed and was executed. Rebecca Greensmith and her third ...

BernardoGruber (17th century) German trader accused of sorcery by Pueblo Indians in northern New Mexico. Bernardo Gruber was imprisoned. He ...

JaneHawkins (17th century) Massachusetts midwife and healer expelled on suspicions of witchcraft in the delivery of a deformed, stillborn fetus ...

Hertford Witches (d. 1606) Two women executed for crimes committed by witchcraft in royston, England. Joan Harrison and her daughter ...

Ann Hibbins (d. 1656) was a prominent Boston woman convicted of witchcraft and executed. Her chief crime as a witch ...

Inquisition The Catholic Church’s persecution of heretics, lasting several centuries and spreading throughout Europe and even into the New World ...

Isaac de Aueiran (d. 1609) was a young Frenchman executed for Witchcraft and having a Pact with the Devil. Isaac ...

Island Magee Witches The last witch trial to occur in Ireland took place in 1711 and involved the mysterious death ...

MargaretJones (?–1648) The first witch to be executed in Massachusetts Bay Colony, on June 15, 1648, in Boston. Margaret Jones ...

Junius, Johannes (1573?–1628) Burgomaster, or mayor, of Bamberg, Germany, caught with other local leading citizens in one of the most ...

Kempe, Ursula (d. 1582) English witch brought to trial and executed for harming others. Her CORPSE was staked like a ...

Lady Alice Kyteler (?–ca. 1324) Lady Alice kyteler was a wealthy and respected woman and the first person to be ...

Lancaster (also Lancashire) Witches Two notable witch trials of England took place in the Pendle Forest area of Lancaster County, ...

RebeccaLemp (d. 1590) was one of 32 women convicted of witchcraft and burned in a witch hunt in Nordlingen, Swabia, ...

Lincoln Witches (d. 1618) Three women accused of deadly witchcraft against an earl and his family in rutland, England. mother ...

Mora Witches (1669) Witch hunts in Mora, in central Sweden, in which 85 people were executed for allegedly seducing some ...

Newbury Witch (?–1763) An old woman, probably harmless, who was executed as a witch in 1763 by Cromwell’s soldiers, near ...

Newton, Florence (ca. mid-17th century) One of the most important witch trials of Ireland was that of Florence Newton, the ...

North Berwick Witches An alleged Coven of wItches exposed in 1590–91, providing Scotland with its most celebrated witch trials and ...

Northampton Witches (d. 1612) Five men and women who were arraigned and tried on charges of witchcraft and who were ...

Hug Parsons h (mid-17th century) One of the few trials in the early American colonies of a man accused of ...

Aupetit, Pierre (d. 1598) French priest executed on charges of sorcery and trafficking with the Devil. Pierre Aupetit, who lived ...

Margaret Read (d. 1590) was one of three women ever to be executed by burning in England on charges of ...

Luis deRivera (17th century) was a mule drover accused of bewitching cattle and mules to stampede. The case of Luis ...

Trials and executions of accused witches in Salem, Massachusetts, from 1692 to 1693. In all, 141 people were arrested as ...

Salem Witches : One of the last outbreaks of Witchcraft hysteria, and certainly the largest in the New World, occurred ...

Santa Fe Witches (17th century) Two women accused of murder by bewitchment who were tried by the Inquisition. The charges ...

Sawyer, Elisabeth (?–1621) A poor Englishwoman framed and executed for witchcraft. Elisabeth Sawyer, the “Witch of Edmonton,” was accused of ...

St. Osyth Witches : A witch hunt that swept through a remote coastal area of Essex, England, in 1582 brought ...

Stamford Witches (1692) Witch trials in Stamford, Connecticut, in which a servant girl accused six women of afflicting her with ...

trials by ordeal methods used in trials, including witchcraft trials, to determine guilt or innocence. Trials by ordeal involve a ...

Urbain Grandier (d. 1634) was a priest framed and executed in the Loudun Possessions of Ursuline nuns in France. Urbain ...

Warboys Witches : The story of the Throckmorton (also Throgmorton) children in Huntington, Essex, England, in 1589, is the first ...

Webster, Mary (d. 1696) Massachusetts woman accused of bewitching a man to cause him ill health. Mary Webster was indicted ...

Many human cultures have imposed legal penalties on people practicing unpopular ritual practices, and inevitably these have now and then ...

Zugarramurdi Witches As part of their efforts to stem public hysteria over witches and sorcerers (see sorcery), Spanish inquisitors conducted ...