The Witch Trials in Salem
of twelve days...that they should reveal it into us if anyone us if anyone know, see or have heard that
any person is reporter to be a herectic or a witch, or if any is suspected especially of such practices as
cause injury to men, cattle, or the frits ofthe earth, to the loss of the State.Anyone failing to report a
witch faced both excommunication and a long list of temporal punishments.
If this threatening notice exposed at least one witch, her treial could be used to unearth several
more. Kramer and Sprenger gave detailed instructions. Commonly, the accused was stripped naked
and shaved of all her body hair, then subjected to thumb-screws and the rack, spikes and bone-
crushing ,,boots," starvation and beatings. The point is obvious: The witch-craze did not arise
spontaneously in the peasantry. It was a calculated ruling class campaign of terrorization.
The Church and European society were not always so zealous in hunting witches or blaming
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