The Witch Trials in Salem
Nine-hundred witches were put to
deathh in a day. In the Bishopric of Trier, in 1585, two villages were left with only one female
inhabitant each. Many writers have estimated the total number killed to have been in the millions.
Women made up some 85 percent of Athose executed old women, young women and children.
In locale and timing, the most virulent witch hunts were associated with periods of great
social upheaval shaking feodalism at its roots mass peasent uprising and conspiracies, the beginnings
of capitalism, and the rise of Protestantism. There is fragmentary evidence which feminists ought to
follorw up suggesting that in some areas witchcraft represented a female-led peasant rebellion. The
history of the witches was recorded by the elite, so that today we know the witch only through the
eyes of her persecutor.
Two of the most common theories of the witch hunts are basically medical interpretations,
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