The Burning Times

The period of witch trials in early modern Europe were a widespread moral panic, suggesting that malevolent Satanic witches were operating as an organized threat to Christianity during the 15th to 18th centuries. Those accused of witchcraft were portrayed as being worshipers of the Devil, who engaged in such acts as malevolent sorcery at meetings known as witch's sabbats. Many people were subsequently accused of being witches, and were put on trial for the crime, with varying punishments being applicable in different regions and at different times. While early trials fall still within the late medieval period, the peak of the witch hunt was during the period of the European wars of religion, peaking between about 1580 c.e. and 1630 c.e. The witch hunts declined in the early 18th century. In Great Britain, their end is marked by the witchcraft act of 1735 c.e. But sporadic witch trials continued to be held during the second half of the 18th century, the last known, dating to 1782 c.e. though a prosecution was condemned in Tennessee as recently as 1833 c.e. Over the entire duration of the phenomenon of some three centuries, an estimated total of between 40,000 and 60,000 people were executed. Among the best known of these trials were the Scottish North Berwick witch trials, Swedish Torsaker witch trials, and the American Salem witch trials. Among the largest and most notable were the Trier witch trials (1581 c.e. - 1593 c.e.), the Fulda witch trials (1603 c.e. - 1606 c.e.), the Wurzburg witch trial (1626 c.e. - 1631 c.e.), and the Bamberg witch trials (1626 c.e. - 1631 c.e.) The sociological causes of the witch hunts have long been debated in scholarship, mainstream historiography sees the reason for the witch craze in a complex interplay of various factors that mark the early modern period, including the religious sectarianism in the wake of the reformation, besides other religious, societal, economic, and climatic factors. The witch trials emerge in the 15th century out of the practices surrounding the persecution of heresy in the medieval period, although they reach their peak only during the wars of religion following the Protestant Reformation. While belief in witches and preternatural evil were widespread in Pre-Christian Europe, the influence of the church in the early medieval era resulted in the revocation of these laws in many places, bringing an end to traditional Pagan witch hunts. Throughout the medieval era, mainstream Christian teaching had denied the existence of witches and witchcraft , condemning it as Pagan superstition. However, Christian influence on popular beliefs in witches and maleficium (harm committed by magick) failed to entirely eradicate folk belief in witches. The work of Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century was instrumental in developing the new theology which would give rise to the witch hunts, but because sorcery was judged by secular courts it was not until maleficium was identified with heresy that theological trials for witchcraft could commence. The resurgence of witch hunts at the end of the medieval period, taking place with at least partial support or at least tolerance on the part of the church, was accompanied with a number of developments in Christian doctrine. Example: The recognition of the existence of witchcraft as a form of Satanic influence, and its classification as a heresy. As Renaissance occultism gained traction among the educated classes, the belief in witchcraft, which in the medieval period had been part of the folk religion, of the uneducated rural population at best, was incorporated into an increasingly comprehensive theology of Satan as the ultimate source of all maleficium. These changes, the doctrinal shift, were completed in the mid 15th century, specifically in the wake of the Council of Basel and centered on the Duchy of Savory in the Western Alps, leading to an early series of witch trials by both secular and ecclesiastical courts in the second half of the 15th century. Malleus Maleficarum, the 1485 c.e. treatise by Henricus Institoris met initial resistance in some areas, and some areas of Europe only experienced the first wave of the new witch trials in the latter half of the 16th century. Early modern Europe and its North American colonies were replete with a belief in the reality of magick and witchcraft. Belief in the witch, an individual who practiced malevolent magick, was not new to early modern Europe. Witches had appeared both in literature - most prominently with the character of Circe in Homer's Odyssey - and in reality, with many individuals writing curses on leaden tablets across the Roman Empire. In parts of early medieval Europe there was a widespread and long-lasting belief in witches who rode out with a Goddess, varyingly known as Diana, Herodias, Holda, or Perchta in the "Canon Episcopi." The Roman Catholic Church maintained that the cavalcade did not really happen, and that instead it was an erroneous superstition by the Devil. Many early modern communities contained professional or semi-professional practitioners of folk magick, in England they were known as "cunning folk" although other terms were used elsewhere. They were believed to be able to cure disease, counter malevolent sorcery, identify enemies, foretell the future, and locate treasure and lost property, and would offer their services in these areas for a fee. In contrast to this low magick was the high magick practiced by learned men of the Renaissance. Advocated by the likes of Marsilio Ficino and Pico Della Mirandola. This Renaissance high magick was influenced by ancient philosophies like Neoplatonism and Hermeticism and was theoretically complex, seeing the practice of magick as part of a wider spiritual system. Historians like Carlo Ginzburg and Eva Pocs have suggested that various beliefs pertaining to magick and witchcraft in early modern Europe represented a survival of shamanistic, Pre-Christian beliefs about visionary journeys. For instance, Emma Wilby has argued that the early modern accounts of familiar spirits represent a survival of Pre-Christian animism, and has drawn comparisons between alleged witches sabbat journeys and the spirit visions found in ethnographically-recorded shamanic societies in Siberia and North America. It was also during the medieval period that the concept of Satan, the biblical Devil, began to develop into a more threatening form. Around the year 1000 c.e. when there were increasing fears that the end of the world would soon come in Christianity, the idea of the Devil had become prominent, with many believing that his activities on Earth would soon begin appearing. Whilst in earlier centuries there had been no set depiction of the Devil, it was also around this time that he began to develop the stereotypical image of being animal-like, or even in some cases an animal himself. In particular, he was often viewed as a goat, or as a human with goat like features, such as horns, hooves, and a tail. Equally, the concepts of demons began to become more prominent, in particular, the idea that male demons known as Incubi, and female ones known as Succubi, would roam the Earth and have sexual intercourse with humans. As Thurston noted: "By about 1200 c.e. it wold have been difficult to be a Christian and not frequently hear of the Devil... and by 1500 c.e. scenes of the Devil were commonplace in the new cathedrals and small parish churches that had sprung up in many religions." The field of Demonology had emerged in medieval Christianity as certain members of the clergy began to focus in particular on the actions of demons in the world. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the concept of the witch in Christianity under went a relatively radical change. No longer were they viewed as sorcerers who had been deceived by the Devil into practicing magick that went against the powers of God, as earlier church leaders like Saint Augustine of Hippo had stated. Instead they became the all out malevolent Devil-Worshiper, who had made a pact with him in which they had to renounce Christianity and devote themselves to Satanism. As a part of this, they gained, new, supernatural powers that enabled them to work magick, which they would use against Christians. It was believed that they would fly to their nocturnal meetings, known as the witch's sabbats, where they would have sexual intercourse with demons. On their death, the witches souls, which then belonged to the Devil, subsequently went to Hell. For many educated Christians in the 16th and 17th centuries, including theologians and judges, there was a great concern about the idea that witches were in league with the Devil. Conversely, it appears that the idea of the witch as Satanist was far less prevalent among the peasantry and popular classes, who were far more concerned about the potential harm that they could receive from witches than from where the witches gained their magickal power. While the witch trials only really began in the 15th century, with the start of the early modern period, many of their causes had been developing during the previous centuries, with the persecution of heresy by the medieval inquisition during the late 12th and 13th centuries, and during the late medieval period, during which the idea of witchcraft or sorcery gradually changed and adapted. The inquisition had the office of protecting Christian orthodoxy against the "internal" threat of heresy (as opposed to "external" military threats such as those of the Vikings, the Mongols, the Saracens, or the Turks.) During the high middle ages a number of heretical Christian groups such as the Cathars and the Knights Templar had been accused of performing such Anti-Christian activities as Satanism, sodomy, and malevolent sorcery in France. While the nucleus of the early modern "witch craze" would turn out to be popular superstition in the Western Alps, reinforced by theological rationale developed at or following the Council of Basel of the 1430's c.e. what had been called "the first real witch trial in Europe." The accusation of Alice Kyteler in 1324 c.e. occurred in 14th century Ireland during the turmoils associated with the decline of Norman control. Thurston (2001 c.e.) speaks of a shift in Christian society from a "relatively open and tolerant" attitude to that of a "persecuting society" taking an aggressive stance towards minorities characterized as Jews, heretics, (such as the Cathars and Waldensians) lepers or homosexuals, often associated with conspiracy theories assuming a concerted effort on the part of diabolical forces to weaken and destroy Christianity, indeed "the idea became popular that one or more vast conspiracies were trying to destroy Christianity from within." An important turning point was the black death of 1348 - 1350 c.e. which killed a large percentage of the European population, and which many Christians believed had been caused by their enemies. The catalog of typical charges that would later be leveled at witches, of spreading diseases, committing orgies, (sometimes incestuous) cannibalizing children, and following Satanism, emerged during the 14th century as crimes attributed to heretics and Jews. Witchcraft had not been considered a heresy during the high medieval period. Indeed, since the Council of Paderborn of 785 c.e. the belief in the possibility of witchcraft itself was considered heretical. While witch hunts only became common after 1400 c.e. an important legal step that would make this development possible occurred in 1326 c.e. when Pope John XXII authorized the inquisition to persecute witchcraft as a type of heresy. The anti-Semitic sentiment prevalent in the medieval period would also influence the later witch trials, with the alleged witches meetings being termed "Sabbaths" and "Synagogues." As historian, Geoffrey Scarre and John Callow, highlighted, the trials of demonic witches was: "an early modern and not a medieval phenomenon." By the late 14th century, a number of "witch hunters" began to publish books on the topic, including Nicholas Eymeric, the inquisitor in Aragon and Avignon, who published the "Directorium Inquisitorum" in 1376 c.e. The earliest known witch trials in which the accused were associated with the fully developed stereotype of the demonic witch was in the Valais witch trials of 1428 c.e. which took place in communities of the Western Alps, in what was at the time, Burgundy and Savoy. Here, the cause of eliminating the supposed Satanic witches from society was taken up by a number of individuals: Claude Tholoson, for instance, had tried over two hundred people accusing them of witchcraft in Briancon, Dauphine by 1420 c.e. Soon the idea of identifying and prosecuting witches spread throughout the neighboring areas of Northern Italy, Switzerland and Southern Germany, and it was at Basel that the Council of Basel assembled from 1431 - 1437 c.e. This church council, which had been attended by such anti-witchcraft figures as Johann Nider and Martin Le Franc, helped to standardize the stereotype of the Satanic witch that would be propagated throughout the rest of the trials. Men who had been at the Council of Basel went on to spread the ideas regarding demonic witchcraft throughout other parts of Europe in the ensuing years. The development of the printing press allowed for a number of books to be published which outlined the existence of demonic witchcraft and how to deal with it, circulating throughout the literate sectors of Western Europe, they stimulated increased interest in the subject and advocated a coherent intellectual response to it. Works published in this vein included: Johannes Nider's "Formicarius" (1435 c.e.), The "Errores Gazariorum" (1450 c.e.), Nicholas Jacquier's "Flagellum Haereticorum Fascinariorum" (1450's c.e.), Ulrich Molitor's "De Lamiis" (1489 c.e.) and most famously, Heinrich Kramer's "Malleus Maleficarum" (The Hammer of the Witches.) At the same time, printing allowed fictional stories about witches and magicians to be spread throughout the continent, such as tales of Dr. Faustus, thereby reinforcing the belief in malevolent practitioners of magick who interacted with the Devil and his demons. On December 5, 1484 c.e. Pope Innocent VIII issued the "Summis desiderantes affectibus," a papal bull in which he recognized the existence of witches and gave full papal approval for the inquisition to move against witches, including the permission to do whatever necessary to get rid of them.In the bull, which is sometimes referred to as the "witch bull of 1484 c.e." the witches were explicitly accused of having "slain infants yet in the mother's womb" (abortion) and of "hindering men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving." The height of the European trials was between 1560 - 1630 c.e. with the large hunts first beginning in 1609 c.e. During this period, the biggest witch trials were held in Europe, notably the Trier witch trials (1581 - 1593 c.e.), the Fulda witch trials (1603 - 1606 c.e.), the Basque witch trials (1609 - 1611 c.e.), the Wurzburg witch trial (1626 - 1631 c.e.), and the Bamberg witch trials (1626 -1631 c.e.) In 1590 c.e. the North Berwick witch trials occurred in Scotland, and were of particular note as King James VI became involved himself. James had developed a fear that witches planned to kill him after he suffered from storms while travelling to Denmark in order to claim his bride, Anne, earlier that year. Returning to Scotland, the King hear of trials that were occurring in North Berwick and ordered the suspects to be brought to him. He subsequently believed that a nobleman, Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell, was a witch, and after, the latter fled in fear of his life, he was outlawed as a traitor. The King set up royal commissions to hunt down witches in his realm, recommending torture in dealing with suspects, and in 1597 c.e. he wrote a book about the menace that witches posed to society entitled: "Daemonologie." Even throughout the 16th century, there had been isolated expressions of skepticism regarding the trials. Such objections became more widespread in the 17th century. In 1635 c.e. the Roman inquisition itself acknowledged that it had "found scarcely one trial conducted legally." In the middle of the 17th century, the difficulty in proving witchcraft according to legal process contributed to the Councilors of Rothenburg (German), following advice to treat witchcraft cases with caution. While the witch trials had begun to fade out across much of Europe by the mid 17th century, they continued to a greater extent on the fringes of Europe (and to a limited extent in the American colonies.) In the Nordic countries, the late 17th century saw the peak of the trials in a number of areas, for instance in 1675 c.e. the Torsaker witch trials took place in Sweden, where 71 people were executed for witchcraft in a single day. In Finland, then under Swedish rule, the hunts peaked in that same decade. During the same period, the Salzburg witch trials in Austria led to the death of 139 people. (1675 - 1690 c.e.) The 1692 c.e. Salem witch trials were a brief outburst of witch hysteria in the new world at a time when the practice was already waning in Europe. In the 1690's c.e. Winifred King and her daughter Winifred were thrice tried for witchcraft in Wallingford, Connecticut, the last of such trials in New England. While found innocent, they were compelled to leave Wallingford to settle in Staten Island, New York. In 1706 c.e. in Virginia, Grace Sherwood was tried by "ducking" and jailed for allegedly being a witch. The 18th century witnessed increased urbanization and technological development in Europe, which gave early modern society an increased belief in its own abilities to fashion the world; this led to a decreasing belief in the existence of invisible forces affecting humanity. Belief that Satan interfered in human affairs directly had also begun to wane. Belief in demons became rare among the educated elites, and thus a belief in demonic witchcraft eroded with it. Rationalist skeptics of the trials came to the opinion that the use of torture had resulted in erroneous testimony. During the early 18th century, the practice subsided. Jane Wenham was among the last subjects of a typical witch trial in England in 1712 c.e. but was pardoned after her conviction and set free. The last execution for witchcraft in England took place in 1716 c.e. when Mary Hicks and her daughter Elizabeth were hanged. Janet Horne was executed for witchcraft in Scotland in 1727 c.e. The witchcraft act of 1735 c.e. saw the end of the traditional form of witchcraft as a legal offense in Britain; those accused under the new act were restricted to people who falsely pretended to be able to procure spirits, generally being the most dubious professional fortune tellers and mediums, and punishment was light. Helena Curtens and Agnes Olmanns were the last women to be executed as witches in Germany in 1738 c.e. In Austria, Maria Theresa outlawed witch burning and torture in the late 18th century. The last capital trial took place in Salzburg in 1750 c.e. While the educated elites had largely abandoned their belief in the reality of witchcraft, this belief remained widespread in popular culture. From this point on, it was very rare for an accused witch to undergo a judicial process and be threatened with execution, but there was still a danger from popular justice and lynch mobs. The death of Ruth Osborne is an example of one such case that occurred in 1751 c.e. In the later 18th century, witchcraft had ceased to be considered a criminal offense throughout Europe, but there are a number of cases which were not technically witch trials which were suspected to have involved belief in witches, at least behind the scenes. In 1782 c.e. Anna Goldi was executed in Glarus, Switzerland, officially, for the killing of her infant, a ruling, at the time, widely denounced throughout Switzerland and Germany as judicial murder. Like Anna Goldi, Barbara Zdunk, was executed in 1811 c.e. in Prussia, not technically for witchcraft, but for arson. In Poland, the Doruchow witch trial occurred in 1783 c.e. and the execution of additionally two women for sorcery in 1793 c.e. trialed by a legal court but with dubious legitimacy. Despite the official ending of the trials for Satanic witchcraft, there would still be occasional, unofficial killings of those accused in parts of Europe, such as was seen in the cases of Anna Klemens in Denmark (1800 c.e.), Krystyna Ceynowa in Poland (1836 c.e.), and Dunny, the witch of Sible Hedingham in England (1863 c.e.) In France, there were sporadic violence and even murder in the 1830's with one woman reportedly burnt in a village square in Nord. In the 1830's c.e. a prosecution for witchcraft was commenced against a man in Fentress County, Tennessee, named either Joseph or William Stout, based upon his alleged influence over the health of a young woman. The case against the supposed witch was dismissed upon the failure of the alleged victim, who had sworn out a warrant against him, to appear for the trial. However, some of his other accusers were convicted on criminal charges for their part in the matter, and various libel actions were brought in 1895 c.e. Bridget Cleary was beaten and burned to death by her husband in Ireland because he suspected that fairies had taken the real Bridget and replaced her with a witch. The persecution of those believed to perform malevolent sorcery against their neighbors continued right into the 20th century. For instance in 1997 c.e. two Russian farmers killed a woman and injured five other members of her family after believing that they had used folk magick against them. It has been reported that more than 3,000 people were killed by lynch mobs in Tanzania between 2005 - 2011 c.e. for allegedly being witches, as well as 300 witches killed in South Africa from 1986 - 1996 c.e. And in 1998 c.e. at least 100 witches killed in Indonesia. There were extensive efforts to root out the supposed influence of Satan by various measures aimed at the people who were accused of being servants of Satan. To a lesser degree, animals were also targeted for prosecution. People suspected of being "possessed by Satan" were put on trial. On the other hand, the church also attempted to extirpate the superstitious belief in witchcraft and sorcery, considering it as fraud in most cases. Geoffrey Scarre and John Callow thought it "without doubt" that some of those accused in the trials had been guilty of employing magick in an attempt to harm their enemies, and were thus genuinely guilty of witchcraft. Most of the trials were not motivated by stupidity or a love of violence, but of a belief that it was the morally appropriate course of action for people to take, while some of those carrying out the trials appeared to exhibit sadism, most appeared to have acted "from a spirit of duty and concern for the public welfare." Scarre and Callow described the trials as a "frightening example of how morally motivated action can lead to massive suffering." Lecky argues there was a large amount of impartial evidence demonstrating the existence of witchcraft and that views only changed when the concept of evil spirits came under skepticism in general. There are many regional differences in the manner in which the witch trials occurred. The trials themselves emerged sporadically, flaring up in some areas while neighboring areas remained largely unaffected. In general, homogeneous Catholic states, such as Spain and Italy, remained largely unaffected, while religiously divided countries like the Holy Roman Empire or France were more affected. One of the areas that witnessed the largest number of panics, trials and executions was in the German language states that comprised the Holy Roman Empire. Nevertheless, there were regional variations here, with relatively few executions in Southern Bavaria and the Lower Rhine area. On the whole, the trials were less severe in neighboring France, although again there was regional variation domestically, with the Pyrenees, Languedoc, the Alps and the North East being particularly heavily affected by the trials. There were also large trials in Lorraine and Franche-Comte, although these regions would only be permanently annexed by France after 1660 c.e. The situation differed in Southern Europe, with few trials taking place in either Spain or Italy . When they did occur in these nations, it was in the Northern Regions such as Spain's Basque Country; being close to neighboring countries, these areas were more open to foreign influences and had a weaker central authority. There was much regional variation within the British Isles. In Ireland, there were few trials, and those that did take place lacked the demonic elements present elsewhere in the continent. Similarly, the trials in England were a-typical of Europe as a whole, for the emphasis of the charges was normally on the practice of malevolent magick rather than contact with the Devil, while the concept of witches' familiars played a key role, which was conversely largely absent from the continental trial accounts. North of the border, in Scotland, witch trials were far more numerous and resulted in far more executions than in England, having far more in common with the trials of France and Germany. Among the British settlements in New England, witch trials were very rare and not a feature of typical early modern life. A country's government and legal system often made a major difference. England, for instance, had and has a long history of strong judicial centralization and therefore regulations prevented easy convictions, except for periods such as the English Civil War and the periods of witch hunting; Scotland, on the other hand, lacked the strong central government that England had and authorities had greater trouble controlling local justice or even contributed to the problem. During the time of the witch hunts, Germany was a patchwork of more than 300 autonomous territories and was highly decentralized politically, therefore making Germany highly vulnerable to massive witch hunts in the absence of judicial regulations. There are particularly important differences between the English and continental witch hunting traditions. The checks and balances inherent in the English jury system, which required a 23 strong body (The Grand Jury) to indict, and a 12 strong body (The Petit Jury) to convict, always had a restraining effect on prosecutions. Another restraining influence was it's relatively rare use of torture: the country formally permitted it only when authorized by the monarch, and no more than 81 torture warrants were issued (for all offenses) through out English history. Continental European courts, while varying from region to region, tended to concentrate power in individual judges and place far more reliance on torture. The significance of the institutional difference is most clearly established by a comparison of the witch hunts of England and Scotland, for the death toll inflicted by the courts North of the border always dwarfed that of England. It is also apparent from an episode of English history during the early 1640's c.e. when the civil war resulted in the suspension of jury courts for three years. Several free-lance witch hunters emerged during this period, the most notorious of whom was Matthew Hopkins, who emerged from East Anglia and proclaimed himself "Witch Finder General." The majority of those accused were from the lower economic classes in European society, although in times of severe panic, wealthier and high ranking individuals were accused as well, including priests, judges and in very rare cases members of the nobility. On the basis of this evidence, Scarre and Callow asserted that the "typical witch was the wife or widow of an agricultural laborer or small tenant farmer, and she was well known for a quarrelsome and aggressive nature." In various instances, it was men, rather than women, who constituted the majority of the accused. For instance, in Iceland, 92% of the accused were men, and in Estonia, 60% of the accused victims were male, mainly middle-aged or elderly married peasants and known healers or sorcerers. In the witch trials of Moscow in Russia, two-thirds of those accused were male. Although it was far more common for them to be the accusers rather than the accused, in certain rare cases, children were put on trial for witchcraft. For instance, at one point during the Wurzburg trials of 1629 c.e. children made up 60% of those accused, although this had reduced to 17% by the end of the year. Several decades later, in the late 1600's c.e. children in Mora, Sweden publicly claimed that adults had taken them to the witch's sabbats. As a result, fifteen boys over the age of sixteen were executed while forty younger children were whipped. Various acts of torture were used against accused witches to coerce confessions and perhaps cause them to name their co-conspirators. The torture of witches began to increase in frequency after 1468 c.e. when the pope declared witchcraft to be "crimen exceptum" and thereby removed all legal limits on the application of torture in cases where evidence was difficult to find. In Italy, an accused witch was deprived of sleep for periods of up to forty hours. This technique was also used in England, but without a limitation on time. Sexual humiliation torture was used, such as forced sitting on red-hot stools with the claim that the accused woman would not perform sexual acts with the Devil. In most cases, those who endured the torture without confessing were released. The use of torture has been identified as a key factor in converting the trial of one accused witch into a wider social panic, as those being tortured were more likely to accuse a wide array of other local individuals of also being witches. A variety of different punishments were employed for those found guilty of witchcraft, including: imprisonment, flogging, fines or exile. In the Old Testament's Exodus 22:18 it states that "Thou shalt not permit a sorceress to live." Many faced capital punishment for witchcraft in the period, either by being burned at the stake, hanged on the gallows, or beheaded. Similarly, in New England, people convicted of witchcraft were hanged. The scholarly consensus on the total number of executions for witchcraft ranges between 40,000 - 60,000. This figure does not include unofficial lynchings of accused witches, which went unrecorded but which are nevertheless believed to have been somewhat rare in the early modern period. It would also have been the case that various individuals would have died as a result of the unsanitary conditions of their imprisonment, but again this is not recorded within the number of executions. Attempts at estimating the total number of executions for witchcraft have a history going back to even to the end of the period of witch hunts in the 18th century. A scholarly consensus only emerges in the second half of the 20th century and historical estimates vary wildly depending on the method used. Early estimates tend to be highly exaggerated, as they were still part of rhetorical arguments against the persecution of witches rather than purely historical scholarship. Notably, a figure of nine million victims was given by: Gottfried Christian Voigt in 1784 c.e. in an argument criticizing Voltaire's estimate of several hundred thousand as too low. Voigt's number has shown remarkably resilient as an influential popular myth, surviving well into the 20th century, especially in feminist and Neo-Pagan literature. In the 19th century, some scholars were Agnostic, for instance, Jacob Grimm (1844 c.e.) talked of "countless" victims and Charles Mackay (1841 c.e.) named "thousands upon thousands." By contrast, a popular news report of 1832 c.e. cited a number of 392,000 victims in Great Britain alone. In the early 20th century, some scholarly estimates on the number of executions still ranged in the hundreds of thousands. The estimate was only reliably placed below 100,000 in scholarship of the 1970's c.e. Various suggestions have been made that the witch trials emerged as a response to socio-political turmoil in the early modern world. One form of this is that the prosecution of witches was a reaction to a disaster that had befallen the community, such as crop failure, war or disease. For instance, Midelfort suggested that in Southwestern Germany, war and famine destabilized local communities, resulting in the witch prosecutions of the 1620's c.e. Problematically for this theory, it has been highlighted that in that region, the witch hunts declined during the 1630's c.e. as a time when the communities living there were facing increased disaster as a result of plague, famine, economic collapse and a thirty-years war. Furthermore, this scenario would clearly not offer a universal explanation, for trials also taking place in areas which were free from war, famine or pestilence. The English historian, Hugh Trevor Roper advocated the idea that the witch trials emerged as part of the conflicts between Roman Catholics and Protestants in early modern Europe. This theory has however received little support from other experts on the subject. This is because there is little evidence that either Roman Catholics were accusing Protestants of witchcraft, or that Protestants were accusing Roman Catholics. Furthermore, the witch trials regularly occurred in regions with little or no inter-denominational strife, and which were largely religiously homogeneous, such as Essex, Lowland, Scotland, Geneva, Venice, and the Spanish Basque Country. There is also some evidence, particularly from the Holy Roman Empire, in which adjacent Roman Catholic and Protestant territories were exchanging information on alleged local witches, viewing them as a common threat to both. Additionally, many prosecutions were instigated not by the religious or secular authorities, but by popular demands from within the population, thus making it less likely that there were specific inter-denominational reasons behind the accusations. In Southwestern Germany between 1561-1670 c.e. there were 480 witch trials. Of the 480 trials that took place in Southwestern Germany, 317 occurred in Catholic areas, while Protestant territories accounted for 163 of them. During the period from 1561-1670 c.e. at least 3,229 people were executed for witchcraft in the German Southwest. Of this number 702 were tried and executed in Protestant territories, while 2,527 were tried and executed in Catholic territories. Inspired by the ethnographically recorded witch trials that anthropologists observed happening in non-European parts of the world, various historians have sought a functional explanation for the early modern witch trials, thereby suggesting the social functions that the trials played within their communities. These studies have illustrated how accusations of witchcraft have played a role in releasing social tensions or in facilitating the termination of personal relationships that have become undesirable to one party. Undertaking in-depth analysis of the social and cultural context of the English witch trials, Keith Thomas and Alan Macfarlene showed that the accused were unpopular, anti-social, and often aggressive. Known for begging from their neighbors and verbally cursing those who turned them away. In this they provided an explicitly functionalist explanation of the trials, in that they were used to eliminate anti-social members of the community. Another theory is that the witch trials represented a method whereby the socio-economic elites used it as a form of social control to consolidate their dominance over the poor sections of the population. Another theory, proposed by the prominent American anthropologist, Marvin Harris, in his work: "Cows, Pigs, Wars & Witches." (1973 c.e.) is that witches were scapegoats, victimized by the church and secular Lords to focus and divert public furor at a time of economic dislocation; "The practical significance of the witch mania therefore was that it shifted responsibility for the crisis of late Medieval society from both church and state to imaginary demons in human form." (Harris 1973). Religious and secular authorities argues Harris, in leading the witch hunts, not only exonerated themselves but made themselves indispensable, cementing their power. An estimated 75 to 85% of those accused in the early modern witch trials were women and there is certainly evidence of misogyny on the part of those persecuting witches, evident from quotes such as: "It is not unreasonable that this scum of humanity, (witches) should be drawn chiefly from the feminine sex." (Nicholas Remy, 1595 c.e.) or "The Devil uses them so, because he knows that women love carnal pleasures, and he means to bind them to his allegiance by such agreeable provocations." Nevertheless, it has been argued that the supposedly misogynistic agenda of works on witchcraft has been greatly exaggerated based on the selective repetition of a few relevant passages of the "Malleus Maleficarum." There are various reasons as to why this was the case. In early modern Europe, it was widely believed that women were less intelligent than men and more susceptible to sin. Many modern scholars argue that the witch hunts can not be explained simplistically as an expression of male misogyny, as indeed women were frequently accused by other women to the point that witch hunts, at least at the local level of villages, have been described as having been driven primarily by "women's quarrels." Especially at the margins of: Europe, Iceland, Finland, Estonia, and Russia where the majority of those accused were male. Barstow (1994 c.e.) claimed that a combination of factors, including the greater value placed on men as workers in the increasingly wage oriented economy, and a greater fear of women as identical to those against men. Thurston (2001 c.e.) saw this as a part of the general misogyny of the late medieval and early modern periods, which had increased during what he described as "the persecuting culture" from that which it had been in the early medieval. Gunnar Heinsohn and Otto Steiger in a 1982 c.e. publication, speculated that witch hunts targeted women skilled in midwifery specifically in an attempt to extinguish knowledge about birth control in an effort to re-populate Europe after the population catastrophe of the black death. Early rationalist historians interpreted the witch trials as an example of mass superstition, and thus their end in the 18th century was seen as a revival of common sense among the population. This idea did not take into account that the existence of malevolent witches fit within the worldview of the early modern, with it's strong divide between good and evil, and that a belief in witches was therefore "common sense" to early modern people. From the 1970's c.e. onward, there was a "massive explosion of scholarly enthusiasm" for the study of the early modern witch trials. This was partly because scholars from a variety of different disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, philosophy, philosophy of science, criminology, literary theory, and feminist theory all began to investigate the phenomenon and brought their different insights to bear on the subject. This was accompanied by in-depth analysis of the trial records and the socio-cultural contexts on which they emerged, allowing for a far more sophisticated understanding of the trials than had previously been available. During this process, Britain and Germany established themselves as the main centers for the research of the subject. They have nevertheless been regional differences in how this has been undertaken: Scholars in Britain and the United States, have for instance, largely neglected questions regarding how ancient ideas influenced and informed the identities of early modern witchcraft, something which conversely has been of great interest to a number of continental European scholars. In the 20th century Western society, the witch trials were used as "a synonym for pointless prosecution," such as the "Red Scare" and "McCarthyism" in the 1950's c.e. in the United States. Through out the 18th and 19th centuries, the common belief among educated sectors of the European populace was that there had never been any genuine cult of witches and that all those persecuted and executed as such had been innocent of the crime. However, at this time various scholars suggested that there had been a real cult that had been persecuted by the Christian authorities, and that it had pre-Christian origins. The first to advance this theory was the German professor of criminal law, Karl Ernst Jarcke of the University of Berlin, who put forth the idea in 1828 c.e. He suggested that witchcraft had been a pre-Christian, German, religion that had degenerated into Satanism. Jarcke's ideas were picked up by the German historian, Franz Josef Mone in 1839 c.e. although he argued that the cult's origins were Greek rather than Germanic. In 1862 c.e. the Frenchman Jules Michelet published "La Sorciere" in which he put forth the idea that the witches had been following a Pagan religion. The theory achieved greater attention when it was taken up by the Egyptologist, Margaret Murray, who published both "The Witch Cult In Western Europe." (1921 c.e.) and "The God Of The Witches." (1931 c.e.) in which she claimed that the witches had been following a Pre-Christian religion which she termed "The Witch Cult" and "Ritual Witchcraft." She claimed that this faith was devoted to a Pagan Horned God and involved the celebration of four witch's sabbats each year: Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnassadh. However, the majority of scholarly review's of Murray's work produced, at the time, were largely critical, and her books never receiving supports from the experts in the early modern witch trials. Instead, from her early publications onward, many of her ideas were challenged by those who highlighted her "factual errors and methodological failings." However, the publication of the Murray thesis in the "Encyclopedia Britannica" made it accessible to "journalists, film-makers, popular novelists and thriller writers," who adopted it "enthusiastically." Influencing works of literature, it inspired writings by Aldous Huxley and Robert Graves. Subsequently, in 1939 c.e. an English occultist named Gerald Gardner claimed to have been initiated into a surviving group of the Pagan Witch Cult known as the New Forest Coven, although modern historical investigation has led scholars to believe that this coven was not as ancient as Gardner believed, but was instead founded in the 1920's or 1930's by occultists wishing to fashion a revived witch cult based upon Murray's theories. Taking this New Forest Coven's beliefs and practices as a basis, Gardner went on to found Gardnerian Wicca, one of the most prominent traditions in the contemporary Pagan religion now known as Wicca, which revolved around the worship of a Horned God and a Goddess, the celebration of festivals known as sabbats, and the practice of ritual magick. He also went on to write several books about the historical witch cult titled: "Witchcraft Today" (1954 c.e) and "The Meaning of Witchcraft" (1959 c.e.) and in these books, Gardner used the phrase "The Burning Times" in reference to the European and North American witch trials. In the early 20th century, a number of individuals and groups emerged in Europe, primarily Britain, and subsequently the United States as well, claiming to be the surviving remnants of the Pagan witch cult described in the works of Margaret Murray. The first of these actually appeared in the last few years of the 19th century, being a manuscript that American Folklorist Charles Leland claimed he had been given by a woman who was a member of a group of witches worshiping the God Lucifer and Goddess Diana in Tuscany, Italy. He published the work in 1899 c.e. titled "Aradia, or The Gospel of the Witches." While historians and folklorists have accepted that there are folkloric elements to the gospel, none have accepted it as being the text of a genuine Tuscan religious group, and believe it to be of late 19th century composition. Wiccans extended claims regarding the witch cult in various ways, for instance, by utilizing the British folklore associating witches with prehistoric sites to assert that the witch cult used to use such locations for religious rites, in doing so legitimizing contemporary Wiccan use of them. By the 1990's c.e. many Wiccans had come to recognize the inaccuracy of the witch cult theory and had accepted it as a mythological origin story. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, various feminist interpretations of the witch trials have been made and published. One of the earliest individuals to do so was the American, Matilda Joslyn Gage, a writer who was deeply involved in the first wave feminist movement for women's suffrage. In 1893 c.e. she published the book "Woman, Church and State." which was "written in a tearing hurry and in time snatched from a political activism which left no space for original research." Likely influenced by the works of Jules Michelet about the witch cult, she claimed that the witches persecuted in the early modern period were Pagan Priestesses adhering to an ancient religion venerating a great Goddess. She also repeated the erroneous statement, taken from the works of several German authors, that nine million people had been killed in the witch hunts. The United States has become the center of development for these feminist interpretations. In 1973 c.e. two American second wave feminists, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, published an extended pamphlet in which they put forward the idea that the women persecuted had been traditional healers and midwives of the community who were being deliberately eliminated by the male medical establishment. This theory disregarded the fact that the majority of those persecuted were neither healers nor midwives and that in various parts of Europe these individuals were commonly among those encouraging the persecutions. In 1994 c.e. Anne Llewellyn Barstow published her book "Witchcraze" which was later described by Scarre and Callow as "perhaps the most successful" attempt to portray the trials as a systematic male attack on women. Other feminist historians have rejected this interpretation of events: historian Diane Purkiss described it as "not politically helpful" because it constantly portrays women as "helpless victims of patriarchy" and thus does not aid them in contemporary feminist struggles. She also condemned it for factual inaccuracy by highlighting that radical feminists adhering to it ignore the historicity of their claims, instead promoting it because it is perceived as authorizing the continued struggle against patriarchal society. She asserted that many radical feminists nonetheless clung to it because of it's "mythic significance" and firmly delineated structure between the oppressor and the oppressed. The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in Colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 - May 1693 c.e. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, most of them women. Despite being generally known as the Salem witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 c.e. were conducted in several towns in the Province of Massachusetts Bay: Salem Village (now Danvers), Salem Town, Ipswich and Andover. The most infamous trials were conducted by the court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 c.e. in Salem Town. One contemporary writer summarized the results of the trials:

"And now nineteen people having been hanged, and one pressed to death, and eight more condemned, in all twenty and eight, of which above a third part were members of some of the churches of North England, and more than half of them of a good conversation in general, and not one cleared; about fifty having confessed themselves to be witches, of which not one executed; above a hundred and fifty in prison, and two hundred more accused; the special commission of Oyer and Terminer comes to a period." Written By: Robert Calef

Four others and an infant child died in prison.

"When I put an end to the court there were at least fifty persons in prison in great misery by reason of the extreme cold and their poverty, most of them having only specter evidence against them and their mittimusses being defective. I caused some of them to be let out upon bayle and put the judges upon consideration of a way to relief others and to prevent them from perishing in prison, upon which some of them were convinced and acknowledged that their former proceedings were too violent and not grounded upon a right foundation...The stop put to the first method of proceedings hath dissipated the black cloud that threatened this Province with destruction." Written By: Governor William Phips on February 21, 1693 c.e.

The episode is one of the nation's most notorious cases of mass hysteria, and has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of isolationism, religious extremism, false accusations, and lapses in due process. It was not unique, but simply an American example of the much broader phenomenon of witch trials in the early modern period. Many historians consider the lasting effects of the trials to have been highly influential in subsequent United States history. More than once it has been said, too, that the Salem witchcraft was the rock on which the theocracy shattered. In 17th century Colonial North America, the supernatural was considered part of everyday life: many people believed that Satan was present and active on Earth. This concept emerged in Europe during the 15th century and spread with the later colonization of North America. Peasants used a kind of witchcraft to invoke particular charms for farming and agriculture. Over time, the idea of white magick transformed into dark magick and became associated with demons and evil spirits. From 1560 c.e - to 1670 c.e. witchcraft persecutions became common as superstitions became associated with the Devil. In "Against Modern Sadducism," (1668 c.e.) Joseph Glanvill claimed that he could prove the existence of witches and ghosts of the supernatural realm. Glanvill wrote about the "denial of the bodily resurrection, and the supernatural spirits." In his treatise, he claimed that ingenious men should believe in witches and apparitions; if they doubted the reality of spirits, they not only denied demons, but also the almighty God. Glanvill wanted to prove that the supernatural could not be denied; those who did deny apparitions were considered heretics for it also disproved their beliefs in Angels. Works by men such as Glanvill and Cotton Mather tried to prove that "demons were alive." The executions at Salem were not the first of their kind in the American Colonies, nor even in New England. Historian, Clarence F. Jewett included a list of other people executed in New England in "The Memorial History of Boston: including Suffolk County, Massachusetts 1630-1880 c.e. (Ticknor and Company 1881 c.e.) He wrote:

"The following is the list of the twelve persons who were executed for witchcraft in New England before 1692, when 24 other persons were executed at Salem, whose names are well known. It is possible that the list is not complete; but I have included all of which I have any knowledge, and with such details as to names and dates as could be ascertained:"

1647 c.e. - "Woman of Windsor" / Connecticut

(real name unknown) - later identified as Alice Young at Hartford.

1648 c.e. - Margaret Jones of Charlestown at Boston.

1648 c.e. - Mary Johnson at Hartford

1650 c.e. - Henry Lake's wife of Dorchester

1650 c.e. - Mrs. Kendall of Cambridge

1651 c.e. - Mary Parsons of Springfield at Boston

1651 c.e. - Goodwife Bassett at Fairfield, Connecticut

1653 c.e. - Goodwife Knap, at Hartford.

1656 c.e. - Ann Hibbins at Boston.

1662 c.e. - Goodman Greensmith at Hartford.

1662 c.e. - Goodwife Greensmith at Hartford.

1688 c.e. - Goody Glover at Boston.

The original 1629 c.e. Royal Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was vacated in 1684 c.e. after which King James II installed Sir Edmund Andros as the Governor of the Dominion of New England. Andros was ousted in 1689 c.e. after the "Glorious Revolution" in England replaced the Catholic James II with the Protestant co-rulers William and Mary. Simon Bradstreet and Thomas Danforth, the colony's last leaders under the old charter, resumed their posts as Governor and Deputy Governor, but lacked constitutional authority to rule, because the old charter had been vacated. At the same time tensions erupted between English colonists settling in "the Eastward" (the present day Coast of Maine) and French supported Wabanaki Indians in what came to be known as King William's War. This was thirteen years after the devastating King Philip's War with the Wampanoag and other indigenous tribes in Southern and Western New England. In October 1690 c.e. Sir William Phips led an unsuccessful attack on French-held Quebec. Between 1689 ce and 1692 ce. Native Americans continued to attack many English settlements along the coast, leading to the abandonment of some of the settlements, and resulting in a flood of refugees into areas like Essex County. A new charter for the enlarged Province of Massachusetts Bay was given final approval in England on October 16, 1691 ce. News of the appointment of Phips as the new Governor reached Boston in late January, and a copy of the new charter arrived in Boston on February 8, 1692 ce. Phips arrived in Boston on May 14, and was sworn in as Governor two days later along with Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton. One of the first orders of business for the new Governor and Council on May 27, 1692 ce. was the formal nomination of County Justices Of The Peace, Sheriffs and the commission of a special court of Oyer and Terminer to handle the large numbers of people who were thronging the jails. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum have postulated that without a valid charter, the colony had no legitimate form of Government to try capital cases until Phips arrived with the new charter. This has been disputed by David Konig who points out that between charters, according to the "records of the Court of Assistants," the colony tried and condemned a group of fourteen pirates on January 27, 1690 ce. for acts of piracy and murder committed in August and October 1689 ce. Salem Village (present day Danvers Massachusetts) was known for it's many internal disputes, and for disputes between the village and Salem Town (present day Salem.) Arguments about property lines, grazing rights, and church privileges were rife, and neighbors considered the population as quarrelsome. In 1672 ce. the villagers had voted to hire a minister of their own apart from Salem Town. The first two ministers, James Bayley (1673 ce. - 1679 ce.) and George Burroughs (1680 - 1683 ce.) stayed on only a few years each, departing after the congregation failed to pay their full rate. Despite the minister's rights being upheld by the general court and the parish admonished, each of the ministers still chose to leave. The third minister, Deodat Lawson (1684 - 1688 ce.) stayed for a short time, leaving after the refusal of the church in Salem to ordain him and not over issues with the congregation. The parish disagreed about the choice of Samuel Parris as Salem Village's first ordained minister. On June 18, 1689 ce. the villagers agreed to hire Parris for 66 pounds annually, "one third part in money and the other two third parts in provisions," and use of the parsonage. On October 10, 1689 ce. however, they voted to grant him the deed to the parsonage and two acres of land. This conflicted with a 1681 ce. resolution which stated that "it shall not be lawful for the inhabitants of this village to convey the houses or lands or any other concerns belonging to the ministry to any particular persons or person: not for any cause by vote or other means." Though the prior ministers' fates and the level of contention in Salem Village were valid reasons for caution in accepting the position, Reverend Parris increased the village's divisions by delaying his acceptance. He did not seem to have any gift for settling his new parishioner's disputes: by deliberately seeking out "iniquitous behavior" in his congregation and making church members in good standing suffer public penance for small infractions, he contributed significantly to the tension within the village. It's bickering continued to grow unabated. Historian, Marion Starkey, suggests that in this atmosphere, serious conflict may have been inevitable. Prior to the constitutional turmoil of the 1680's ce. Massachusetts government had been dominated by conservative Puritan secular leaders. Influenced by Calvinism, Puritans had opposed many of the traditions of the Protestant Church of England, including use of the "Book of Common Prayer," the use of priestly vestments (cap and gown) during services, the use of the holy cross during baptism, and kneeling during the sacrament, all of which they believed constituted popery. King Charles I was hostile to this point of view, and Anglican Church officials tried to repress these dissenting views during the 1620's and 1630's ce. This resulted in some Puritans and other religious minorities seeking refuge in the Netherlands, but ultimately many made a major migration to North America. These immigrants established several of the earliest colonies in New England, of which the Massachusetts Bay Colony was the largest and most economically important. Self governance came naturally to them, since building a society based on their religious beliefs was one of their goals. Colonial leaders were elected by the freemen of the colony, those individuals who had religious experiences formally examined and had been admitted to one of the colony's Puritan congregations. The colonial leadership were prominent members of their congregations, and regularly consulted with the local ministers on issues facing the colony. In the early 1640's ce. England erupted in civil war. The Puritan dominated Parliamentarians emerged victorious, and the crown was supplanted by the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell in 1653 ce. Its failure led to restoration of the old order under Charles II. Emigration to New England slowed significantly in these years. In Massachusetts, a successful merchant class began to develop that was less religiously motivated than the colony's early settlers. In Salem Village, as in the colony at large, life was governed by the precepts of the church, which was Calvinist. Instrumental music, dancing, and celebration of holidays such as Christmas and Easter were absolutely forbidden. The only music allowed was the unaccompanied singing of hymns as the folk songs of the period were thought to glorify human love and nature, they were rejected as antithetical to God. Toys and especially dolls were forbidden as play was considered a frivolous waste of time. Children received an education that emphasized religion and the need for strict piety to prevent their eternal damnation. Villagers were expected to go to the meeting house for three hour sermons every Wednesday and Sunday. Village life revolved around the meeting house, and the few celebrations that were permitted, such as the celebration of the harvest, were centered there. Prior to 1692 ce. there had been rumors of witchcraft in villages neighboring Salem Village and other towns. Cotton Mather, a minister of Boston's North Church (not to be confused with the later Anglican North Church of Paul Revere fame) was a prolific publisher of pamphlets and a firm believer in witchcraft. In his book: "Memorable Providences Relating To Witchcrafts and Possessions." (1689 ce.) Mather describes his "oracular observations" and how "stupendous witchcraft" had affected the children of Boston Mason, John Goodwin. Mather illustrates how the Goodwin's eldest child had been tempted by the Devil and had stolen linen from the washer woman, Goody Glover. Glover was a disagreeable old woman described by her husband as a witch; this may have been why she was accused of casting spells on the Goodwin children. After the event, four out of six Goodwin children began to have strange fits, or what some people referred to as "the disease of astonishment." The manifestations attributed to the disease quickly became associated with witchcraft. Symptoms included neck and back pains, tongues being drawn from the throats and loud random outcries; other symptoms included having no control over their bodies, such as becoming limber, flapping their arms like birds, or trying to harm others as well as themselves. These symptoms would fuel the witch craze of 1692 ce. in Salem. Most accounts begin with the afflictions of the girls in the Parris household in January - February 1692 ce. and end with the last trials in May 1693 ce. Some historians begin with earlier events to place the trials in the wider context of other witch hunts, and some end later, to include information about restitution to victims and their families. In Salem Village, in February 1692 ce. Betty Parris, age 9, and her cousin Abigail Williams, age 11, the daughter and niece, respectively, of Reverend Samuel Parris, began to have fits described as "beyond the power of epileptic fits or natural disease to effect" by John Hale, the minister of the nearby town of Beverly. The girls screamed, threw things about the room, uttered strange sounds, crawled under furniture, and contorted themselves into peculiar positions, according to the eye witness account of Reverend Deodat Lawson, himself a former minister in Salem Village. The girls complained of being pinched and pricked with pins. A doctor, historically assumed to be William Griggs, could find no physical evidence of any ailment. Other young women in the village began to exhibit similar behaviors. When Lawson preached in the Salem Village Meeting House, he was interrupted several times by outbursts of the afflicted. The first three people accused and arrested for allegedly afflicting Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, twelve year old Ann Putnam Jr. and Elizabeth Hubbard were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba. The accusation by Ann Putnam Jr. is seen by some historians as evidence that a family feud may have been a major cause of the witch trials. At the time, a vicious rivalry was underway between the Putnam and Porter families, one which deeply polarized the people of Salem. Citizens would often have heated debates, which escalated into full fledged fighting, based solely on their opinion of the feud. Good was a homeless beggar, known to seek food and shelter from neighbors. She was accused of witchcraft because of her appalling reputation. At her trial, she was accused of rejecting Puritan ideas of self-control and discipline when she chose to torment and "scorn children instead of leading them towards the path of salvation." Sarah Osborne rarely attended church meetings. She was accused of witchcraft because the Puritans believed that Osborne had her own self-interests in mind following her re-marriage to an indentured servant. The citizens of the town disapproved of her trying to control her son's inheritance from her previous marriage. Tituba, a black or Indian slave, likely became a target because of her ethnic differences from most of the other villagers. She was accused of attracting girls like Abigail Williams and Betty Parris with stories of enchantment from the "Malleus Maleficarum." These tales about sexual encounters with demons, swaying the minds of men, and fortune-telling were said to stimulate the imaginations of girls and made Tituba an obvious target of accusations. Each of these women were outcasts of a sort, satisfying many of the character traits typical of the "usual suspects" for witchcraft accusations, and left to defend themselves. Brought before the local magistrates on the complaint of witchcraft, they were interrogated for several days, starting on March 1, 1692 ce. then sent to jail. In March, additional women were accused of witchcraft: Martha Corey, Dorothy Good, and Rebecca Nurse in Salem Village, and Rachel Clinton in nearby Ipswich. Martha Corey had voiced skepticism about the credibility of the girls accusations, and thus drawn attention. The charges against her and Rebecca Nurse deeply troubled the community because Martha Corey was a full covenanted member of the church in Salem Village, as was Rebecca Nurse in the church in Salem Town. If such upstanding people could be witches, the towns people conceived, then anybody could be a witch, and church membership was no protection from accusation. Dorothy Good, the daughter of Sarah Good, was only four years old, but not exempted from questioning by the magistrates; her answers were constructed as a confession that implicated her mother. In Ipswich, Rachael Clinton was arrested for witchcraft at the end of March on charges unrelated to the afflictions of the girls in Salem Village. When Sarah Cloyce (Nurse's Sister) and Elizabeth (Bassett) Proctor were arrested in April, they were brought before John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, not only in their capacity as local magistrates, but as members of the Governor's council, at a meeting in Salem Town. Present for the examination were Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth and assistants Samuel Sewall, Samuel Appleton, James Russell, and Isaac Addington. Objections by Elizabeth's husband, John Proctor, during the proceedings resulted in his arrest that day as well. Within a week, Giles Corey (Martha's husband and covenanted church member in Salem Town,) Abigail Hobbs, Bridget Bishop, Mary Warren (a servant in the Proctor household and sometimes accuser) and Deliverance Hobbs (Stepmother of Abigail Hobbs) were arrested and examined. Abigail Hobbs, Mary Warren and Deliverance Hobbs all confessed and began naming additional people as accomplices. More arrests followed: Sarah Wildes, William Hobbs (husband of Deliverance and father of Abigail) Nehemiah Abbott Jr. Mary Eastey (sister of Cloyce and Nurse,) Edward Bishop Jr. and his wife Sarah Bishop, and Mary English. On April 30, Reverend George Burroughs, Lydia Dustin, Susannah Martin, Dorcas Hoar, Sarah Morey and Phillip English (Mary's husband) were arrested. Nehemiah Abbott Jr. was released because the accusers agreed he was not the person whose specter had afflicted them. Mary Eastey was released for a few days after her initial arrest because the accusers failed to confirm that it was she who had afflicted them. She was arrested again when the accusers reconsidered. In May, accusations continued to pour in, but some of those suspects began to evade apprehension. Multiple warrants were issued before John Willard and Elizabeth Colson were apprehended. George Jacobs Jr. and Daniel Andrews were not caught. Until this point, all the proceedings were investigative, but on May 27, 1692 ce. William Phips ordered the establishment of a special court of Oyer and Terminer for Suffolk, Essex, and Middlesex counties to prosecute the cases of those in jail. Warrants were issued for more people. Sarah Osborne, one of the first three accused, died in jail on May 10, 1692 ce. Warrants were issued for 36 more people, with examinations continuing to take place in Salem Village: Sarah Dustin (daughter of Lydia Dustin) Ann Sears, Bethiah Carter Sr. and her daughter Bethiah Carter Jr. George Jacobs Sr, and his granddaughter Margaret Jacobs, John Willard, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Abigail Soames, George Jacobs Jr, (son of George Jacobs Sr, and father of Margaret Jacobs), Daniel Andrew, Rebecca Jacobs, (wife of George Jacobs Jr, and sister of Daniel Andrew), Sarah Buckley and her daughter Mary Witheridge. Also included were Elizabeth Colson, Elizabeth Hart, Thomas Farrar Sr, Roger Toothaker, Sarah Proctor (daughter of John and Elizabeth Proctor), Sarah Bassett (sister-in-law of Elizabeth Proctor), Susannah Roots, Mary DeRich (another sister-in-law of Elizabeth Proctor), Sarah Pease, Elizabeth Cary, Martha Carrier, Elizabeth Fosdick, Wilmot Redd, Sarah Rice, Elizabeth Howe, Captain John Alden (son of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins), William Proctor (son of John and Elizabeth Proctor), John Flood, Mary Toothaker (wife of Roger Toothaker and sister of Martha Carrier) and her daughter Margaret Toothaker, and Arthur Abbott. When the Court of Oyer and Terminer convened at the end of May, the total number of people in custody was 62. Cotton Mather wrote to one of the judges, John Richards, a member of his congregation, on May 31, 1692 ce. expressing his support of the prosecutions, but cautioning him, "do not lay more stress on pure spectral evidence than it will bear...It is very certain that the Devil's have sometimes represented the shapes of persons, not only innocent, but also very virtuous. Though I believe that the just God then ordinarily provides a way for the speedy vindication of the persons thus abused." The Court of Oyer and Terminer convened in Salem Town on June 2, 1692 ce. with William Stoughton, the new Lieutenant Governor, as Chief Magistrate, Thomas Newton as the Crown's Attorney prosecuting the cases, and Stephen Sewall as Clerk. Bridget Bishop's case was the first brought to the Grand Jury, who endorsed all the indictments against her. Bishop was described as not living a Puritan lifestyle, for she wore black clothing and odd costumes, which was against the Puritan code. When she was examined before her trial, Bishop was asked about her coat, which had been awkwardly "cut or torn in two ways." This, along with her "immoral" lifestyle, accused her of being a witch. She went to trial the same day and was convicted. On June 3, the Grand Jury endorsed indictments against Rebecca Nurse and John Willard, but it is unclear why they did not go to trial immediately as well. Bishop was executed by hanging on June 10, 1692 ce. Immediately following this execution, the court adjourned for 20 days (until June 30) while it sought advice from New England's most influential ministers "upon the state of things as they then stood." Their collective response came back dated June 15 and was composed by Cotton Mather:

"The afflicted state of our poor neighbors, that are now suffering by molestations from the invisible world, we apprehended so deplorable, that we think their condition calls for the utmost help of all persons in their several capacities. We cannot but, with all thankfulness, acknowledge the success which the merciful God has given unto the sedulous and assiduous endeavors of our honorable rulers, to detect the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country, humbly praying, that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected. We judge that, in the prosecution of these and all such witchcrafts, there is need of a very critical and exquisite caution, lest by too much credulity for things received, only upon the Devil's authority, there be a door opened for a long train of miserable consequences, and Satan get an advantage over us: for we should not be ignorant of his devices. As in complaints upon witchcrafts, there may be matters of inquiry which do not amount unto matters of presumption, and there may be matters of presumption which yet may not be matters of conviction, so it is necessary, that all proceedings thereabout be managed with an exceeding tenderness towards those that may be complained of, especially if they have been persons formerly of an unblemished reputation. When the first inquiry is made into the circumstances of such as may lie under the just suspicion of witchcrafts, we could wish that there may be admitted as little as is possible of such noise, company and openess as may too hastily expose them that are examined, and that there may no thing be used as a test for the trial of the suspected, the lawfulness whereof may be doubted among the people of God; but that the directions given by such judicious writers as Perkins and Bernard (be consulted in such a case). Presumptions where upon persons may be committed, and much more, convictions where upon persons may be condemned as guilty of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable than barely the accused persons being represented by a specter unto the afflicted; in as much as it is an undoubted and notorious thing, that a demon may , by God's permission, appear, even to ill purposes, in the shape of an innocent, yea, and a virtuous man. Nor can we esteem alterations made in the sufferers, by a look or touch of the accused, to be an infallible evidence of guilt, but frequently liable to be abused by the Devil's legerdemains. We know not whether some remarkable affronts given to the Devils by our disbelieving those testimonies whose whole force and strength is from them alone, may not put a period unto the progress of the dreadful calamity begun upon us, in the accusations of so many persons, whereof some, we hope, are yet clear from the great transgression laid unto their change. Nevertheless, we cannot but humbly recommend unto the government, the speedy and vigourous prosecution of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious, according to the direction given in the laws of God, and the wholesome statutes of the English nation, for the detection of witchcrafts."

Hutchinson sums the letter. "The two first and the last sections of this advice took away the force of all the others, and the prosecutions went on with more vigor than before." (Reprinting the letter years later in "Magnolia" Cotton Mather left out these "two first and the last" sections) Major Nathaniel Saltonstall Esq. resigned from the court on or about June 16 presumably dissatisfied with the letter and that it had not outright barred the admission of spectral evidence. According to Upham, Saltonstall deserves the credit for "being the only public man of his day who had the sense or courage to condemn the proceedings, at the start." More people were accused, arrested and examined, but now in Salem Town, by former local magistrates, John Hathorne, Jonathan Corwin, and Bartholomew Gedney, who had become judges of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Roger Toothaker died in prison on June 16, 1692 ce." From June 30 through early July, Grand Juries endorsed indictments against Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Proctor, John Proctor, Martha Carrier, Sarah Wildes, and Dorcas Hoar. Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin and Sarah Wildes, along with Rebecca Nurse, went to trial at this time, where they were found guilty. All five women were executed by hanging on July 19, 1692 ce. In mid-July, the constable in Andover invited the afflicted girls from Salem Village to visit with his wife to try to determine who was causing her afflictions. Ann Foster, her daughter, Mary Lacey Sr, and granddaughter Mary Lacey Jr, all confessed to being witches. Anthony Checkley was appointed by Governor Phips to replace Thomas Newton as the Crown's Attorney when Newton took appointment in New Hampshire. In August, Grand Juries indicted George Burroughs, Mary Eastey, Martha Corey, and George Jacobs Sr. Trial juries convicted Martha Carrier, George Jacobs Sr, George Burroughs, John Willard, Elizabeth Proctor, and John Proctor. Elizabeth Proctor was given a temporary stay of execution because she was pregnant. On August 19, 1692 ce. Martha Carrier, George Jacobs Sr, George Burroughs, John Willard and John Proctor were executed. Mr. Burroughs was carried in a cart with others, through the streets of Salem, to execution. When he was upon the ladder, he made a speech for the clearing of his innocence, with such solemn and serious expressions as were to the admiration of all present; his prayer (which he concluded by repeating the Lord's Prayer, which witches were not supposed to be able to recite) was so well worded and uttered with such composedness and fervency of spirit, that it was very affecting and drew tears from many, so much so that it seemed to some that the spectators would hinder the execution. The accusers said the black man (Devil) stood and dictated to him. As soon as he was turned off (hung), Mr. Cotton Mater, being mounted upon a horse, addressed himself to the people, partly to declare that he (Mr. Burroughs) was no ordained minister, partly to possess the people of his guilt, saying that the Devil often had been transformed into the Angel of Light, and this did somewhat appease the people, and the executions went on; when he (Mr. Burroughs) was cut down, he was dragged by a halter to a hole, or grave, between the rocks, about two feet deep: his shirt and breeches being pulled off, and an old pair of trousers of one of the executed put on his lower parts; he was so put in, together with Willard and Carrier, that one of his hands, and his chin and a foot of one of them, was left uncovered." In September, Grand Juries indicted 18 more people. The Grand Jury failed to indict William Proctor, who was re-arrested on new charges. On September 19, 1692 ce. Giles Corey refused to plead at arraignment, and was subjected to "peine forte et dure," a form of torture in which the subject is pressed beneath an increasingly heavy load of stones, in an attempt to make him enter a plea. Four pleaded guilty and eleven others were tried and found guilty. September 20, Cotton Mather wrote to Stephen Sewall, the Clerk of the Court. "That I may be the more capable to assist in lifting up a standard against the influential enemy..." requesting "a narrative of the evidence given in at the trials of half a dozen, or if you please, a dozen, of the principal witches that have been condemned." On September 22, 1692 ce. eight more were executed, " After execution, Mr. Noyes turning him to the bodies, said, what a sad thing it is to see, eight firebrands of Hell hanging there." One of the convicted, Dorcas Hoar, was given a temporary reprieve, with the support of several ministers, to make a confession of being a witch. Mary Bradbury (aged 77) escaped. Abigail Faulkner Sr. was pregnant and given a temporary reprieve (some reports from that era state that Abigail's reprieve later became a stay of charges.) Mather quickly completed his account of the trials titled: "Wonders of the Invisible World." and it was given to Phips when he returned from the fighting in Maine in early October. Burr says both the Phips letter and Mather's manuscript "must have gone to London by the same ship" in mid-October.

"I hereby declare that as soon as I came from fighting...and understood what danger some of their innocent subjects might be exposed to, if the evidence of the afflicted persons only did prevail either to the committing or trying any of them, I did before any application was made unto me about it put a stop to the proceedings of the court and they are now stopped till their majesties pleasure be known." (Written By: Governor Phips in Boston on October 12, 1692 ce.)

October 29, Judge Sewall writes: "the Court of Oyer and Terminer count themselves thereby dismissed...asked whether the Court of Oyer and Terminer should sit, expressing some fear of inconvenience by it's fall, the Governor said it must fall." (Sewall's diary 1 - 368) Governor Phip's wife, Lady Mary Phips, was among those "called out upon" by the afflicted. Spectral evidence was once again in question. There would be more trials after the new year, but not like before. In January 1693 ce. the new Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize and General Goal Delivery convened in Salem, Essex County, again headed by William Stoughton, as Chief Justice, with Attorney Checkley continuing as the Attorney General, and Jonathan Elatson as Clerk of the Court. The first five cases tried in January 1693 ce. were of the five people who had been indicted but not tried in September: Sarah Buckley, Margaret Jacobs, Rebecca Jacobs, Mary Whitredge, and Job Tookey. All were found not guilty. Grand Juries were held for many of those remaining in jail. Charges were dismissed against many, but 16 more people were indicted and tried, three of whom were found guilty: Elizabeth Johnson Jr, Sarah Wardwell, and Mary Post. When Stoughton wrote the warrants for the execution of these women and the others remaining from the previous court, Governor Phips pardoned them, sparing their lives. In late January, early February, the court sat again in Charleston, Middlesex County, and held Grand Juries and tried five people: Sarah Cole (of Lynn), Lydia Dustin, Sarah Dustin, Mary Taylor, and Mary Toothaker. All were found not guilty, but not released until they paid their jail fees. Lydia Dustin died in jail on March 10, 1693 ce. At the end of April, the court convened in Boston, Suffolk County and cleared Captain John Alden by proclamation, and heard charges against a servant girl, Mary Watkins, for falsely accusing her mistress of witchcraft. In May, the court convened in Ipswich, Essex County, held a variety of Grand Juries who dismissed charges against all but five people: Susannah Post, Eunice Frye, Mary Bridges Jr, Mary Barker and William Barker Jr. All were found not guilty at trial, putting an end to the episode. After someone concluded that a loss, illness or death had been caused by witchcraft, the accuser entered a complaint against the alleged witch with the local magistrates. If the complaint was deemed credible, the magistrates had the person arrested and brought in for a public examination, essentially an interrogation, where the magistrates pressed the accused to confess. If the magistrates at this local level were satisfied that the complaint was well founded, the prisoner was handed over to be dealt with by a Superior Court. In 1692 ce. the magistrates opted to wait for the arrival of a new charter and Governor, who would establish a Court of Oyer and Terminer to handle these cases. The next step, at the Superior Court level, was to summon witnesses before a Grand Jury. A person could be indicted on charges of afflicting with witchcraft, or for making an unlawful covenant with the Devil. Once indicted, the defendant went to trial, sometimes on the same day, as in the case of the first person indicted and tried on June 2, Bridget Bishop, who was executed on June 10, 1692 ce. There were four execution dates. With one person executed on June 10, 1692 ce, five executed on July 19, 1692 ce. (Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe and Sarah Wildes), another five executed on August 19, 1692 ce. (Martha Carrier, John Willard, George Burroughs, George Jacobs Sr, and John Proctor) and eight on September 22, 1692 ce. (Mary Eastey, Martha Corey, Ann Pudeator, Samuel Wardwell, Mary Parker, Alice Parker, Wilmot Redd, and Margaret Scott.) Several others, including Elizabeth (Bassett) Proctor and Abigail Faulkner, were convicted but given temporary reprieves because they were pregnant. Five other women were convicted in 1692 ce, but the sentence was never carried out: Ann Foster (who later died in prison), her daughter Mary Lacy Sr, Abigail Hobbs, Dorcas Hoar, and Mary Bradbury. Giles Corey, a 71 year old farmer from the Southeast end of Salem (called Salem Farms), refused to enter a plea when he came to trial in September. The judges applied an archaic form of punishment called "peine forte et dure," in which stones were piled on his chest until he could no longer breathe. After two days of this torture, Corey died without entering a plea. His refusal to plead is usually explained as a way of preventing his estate from being confiscated by the Crown, but, according to historian Chadwick Hanson, much of Corey's property had already been seized, and he had made a will in person: "His death was a protest...against the methods of the court." This echoes the perspective of a contemporary critic of the trials, Robert Calef, who claimed, "Giles Corey pleaded not guilty to his indictment, but would not put himself upon trial by the jury (they having cleared none upon trial) and knowing there would be the same witnesses against him, rather chose to undergo what death they would put him to." Not even in death were the accused witches granted peace or respect. As convicted witches, Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey had been excommunicated from their churches and denied proper burials. As soon as the bodies of the accused were cut down from the trees, they were thrown into a shallow grave and the crowd dispersed. Oral history claims that the families of the dead reclaimed their bodies after dark and buried them in unmarked graves on family property. The record books of the time do not mention the deaths of any of those executed. Much, but not all, of the evidence used against the accused was spectral evidence, or the testimony of the afflicted who claimed to see the apparition or the shape of the person who was allegedly afflicting them. The theological dispute that ensued about the use of this evidence centered on whether a person had to give permission to the Devil for his or her shape to be used to afflict. Opponents claimed that the Devil was able to use anyone's shape to afflict people, but the court contended that the Devil could not use a person's shape without that person's permission; therefore, when the afflicted claimed to see the apparition of a specific person, that was accepted as evidence that the accused had been complicit with the Devil. Increase Mather and other ministers sent a letter to the court, "The return of several ministers consulted," urging the magistrates not to convict on spectral evidence alone. (Spectral evidence was later ruled inadmissible, which caused a dramatic reduction in the rate of convictions and may have hastened the end of the trials.) A copy of this letter was printed in Increase Mather's "Cases of Conscious" published in 1693 ce. The publication " A Tryal of Witches," was used by the magistrates at Salem, when looking for a precedent in allowing spectral evidence. Finding that no lesser person than the jurist, Sir Matthew Hale had permitted this evidence, supported by the eminent philosopher, physician, and author, Thomas Browne, to be used in the Bury St. Edmunds witch trial and the accusations against two Lowestoft women, held in 1662 ce. in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England. They also accepted it's validity and the trials proceeded. At some point in February 1692 ce. likely after the afflictions began but before specific names were mentioned, a neighbor of Reverend Parris, Mary Sibly (Sibley: Aunt of the afflicted Mary Walcott), instructed John Indian, one of the minister's slaves, to make a "Witch Cake," using traditional English white magick to discover the identity of the witch who was afflicting the girls. The cake made from rye meal and urine from the afflicted girls, was fed to a dog. According to English folk understanding of how witches accomplished affliction, when the dog ate the cake, the witch herself would be hurt because invisible particles she had sent to afflict the girls remained in the girls' urine, and her cries of pain when the dog ate the cake would identify her as the witch. This superstition was based on the Cartesian "Doctrine of Effluvia," which stated that witches afflicted by the use of "venomous and malignant particles, that were ejected from the eye," according to the October 8, 1692 ce. letter of Thomas Brattle, a contemporary critic of the trials. According to the "records of the Salem Village Church, Parris spoke with Sibly privately on March 25, 1692 ce. about her "grand error" and accepted her "sorrowful confession." During his Sunday sermon on March 27, he addressed his congregation on the subject of the "calamities" that had begun in his own household, but stated "it never broke forth to any considerable light, until diabolical means were used, by the making of a cake by my Indian man, who had his direction from this our sister, Mary Sibly." Going on to admonish all against the use of any kind of magick, even white magick, because it was essentially "going to the Devil for help against the Devil." Mary Sibly publicly acknowledged the error of her actions before the congregation, who voted by a show of hands that they were satisfied with her admission of error. Other instances appear in the records of the episode that demonstrated a continued belief by members of the community in this effluvia as legitimate evidence, including accounts in two statements against Elizabeth Howe that people had suggested cutting off and burning an ear of two different animals. Howe was thought to have afflicted, to prove she was the one who had bewitched them to death. Traditionally, the allegedly afflicted girls are said to have been entertained by Parris' slave, Tituba, who supposedly taught them about Voodoo in the parsonage kitchen in early 1692 ce. although there is no contemporary evidence to support the story. A variety of secondary sources, starting with Charles W. Upham in the 19th century, typically relate that a circle of the girls, with Tituba's help, tried their hands at fortune-telling using the white of an egg in a glass of water to create a primitive crystal ball to divine the professions of their future spouses, and scared one another when one supposedly saw the shape of a coffin instead. The story is drawn from John Hale's book about the trials, but in his account, only one of the girls, not a group of them, had confessed to him afterwards that she had once tried this. Hale did not mention Tituba as having any part of it, nor when it had occurred. Yet the record of her pre-trial examination holds her giving an energetic confession, speaking before the court of "creatures who inhabit the invisible world," and "the dark rituals which bind them together in service of Satan," implicating both Good and Osborne while asserting that "many other people in the colony were engaged in the Devil's conspiracy against the Bay." Tituba's race is often cited as Caribbean-Indian or of African descent, but contemporary sources describe her only as an "Indian." Research by Elaine Breslaw has suggested that she may well have been captured in what is now Venezuela and brought to Barbados, and so may have been an Arawak Indian. Other slightly later descriptions of her by Governor Thomas Hutchinson, writing his history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 18th century, described her as a "Spanish Indian." In that day, that typically meant a Native American from the Carolinas, Georgia or Florida. The most infamous employment of the belief in effluvia and in direct opposition to what Parris had advised his own parishioners in Salem Village - was the "touch test" used in Andover during preliminary examinations in September 1692 ce. If the accused witch touched the victim while the victim was having a fit, and the fit then stopped, that meant the accused was the person who had afflicted the victim. As several of those accused later recounted. "We were blindfolded, and our hands were laid upon the afflicted persons, they being in their fits and falling into their fits at our coming into their presence, as they said. Some led us and laid our hands upon them, and then they said they were well and that we were guilty of afflicting them: where upon we were all seized, as prisoners, by a warrant from the Justice of the Peace and forthwith carried to Salem." Reverend John Hale explained how this supposedly worked: "the witch by the cast of her eye sends forth a "malefick venome" into the bewitched to cast him into a fit, and therefore the touch of the hand doth by sympathy cause that venome to return into the body of the witch again." Other evidence included the confessions of the accused, testimony by a confessed witch who identified others as witches, the discovery of poppits (poppets), books of palmistry and horoscopes, or pots of ointments in the possession or home of the accused, and observation of what were called "witch's teats" on the body of the accused. A witch's teat was said to be a mole or blemish somewhere on the body that was insensitive to touch, discovery of such insensitive areas was considered "de facto" evidence of witchcraft. Various accounts and opinions about the proceedings began to be published in 1692 ce. Deodat Lawson, a former minister in Salem Village, visited Salem Village in March and April 1692 ce. Later that year, he published, in Boston, an account of what he saw and heard, entitled: "A brief and true narrative of some remarkable passages relating to sundry persons afflicted by witchcraft at Salem Village; which happened from the 19th of March, to the 5th of April, 1692 ce." Reverend William Milbourne, a Baptist minister in Boston, publicly petitioned the general assembly in early June 1692 ce, challenging the use of spectral evidence by the court. Milbourne had to post 200 pounds bond (equal to 27,963 pounds or about 42,000 dollars U.S. today) or be arrested for "contriving, writing and publishing the said scandalous papers." On June 15, 1692 ce. twelve local ministers including: Increase Mather, and Samuel Willard - submitted "The Return of Several Ministers" to the Governor and Council in Boston, cautioning the authorities not to rely entirely on the use of spectral evidence, stating: "Presumptions where upon persons may be committed, and much more, convictions where upon persons may be condemned as guilty of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable than barely the accused persons being represented by a specter unto the afflicted." Sometime in 1692 ce, minister of the Third Church in Boston , Samuel Willard, anonymously published a short tract in Philadelphia entitled, "Some miscellany observations on our present debates respecting witchcrafts, in a dialogue between S and B." The authors were listed as "P.E. and J.A." (Philip English and John Alden), but the work is generally attributed to Willard. In it, two characters, S. (Salem) and B. (Boston) discuss the way the proceedings were being conducted, with B. urging caution about the use of testimony from the afflicted and the confessors, stating, "whatever comes from them is to be suspected, and it is dangerous using or crediting them too far." This is from the title page of "Wonders of the Invisible World." (London 1693 ce. by Cotton Mather). Sometime in September 1692 ce, at the request of Governor Phips, Cotton Mather wrote "Wonders of the Invisible World: being an account of the Tryals of several witches, lately executed in New England," as a defense of the trials, to "help very much flatten that fury which we now so much turn upon one another." It was published in Boston and London in 1692 ce. although dated 1693 ce. with an introductory letter of endorsement by William Stoughton, the Chief Magistrate. The book included accounts of five trials, with much of the material copied directly from the court records, which were supplied to Mather by Stephen Sewall, his friend and Clerk of the Court. Cotton Mather's father, Increase Mather, published "Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits." dated October 3, 1692 ce. after the last trials by the Court of Oyer and Terminer. (The title page mistakenly lists the publication year as 1693 ce.) In it, Mather repeated his caution about the reliance on spectral evidence, stating: "It were better that ten suspected witches should escape, than that one innocent person should be condemned." Second and third editions of this book were published in Boston and London in 1693 ce. the third of which also included Lawson's narrative and the anonymous: "A further account of the Tryals of the New England witches, sent in a letter from thence, to a gentleman in London." Although the last trial was held in May 1693 ce, public response to the events continued. In the decades following the trials, the issues primarily had to do with establishing the innocence of the individuals who were convicted and compensating the survivors and families. In the following centuries, the descendants of those unjustly accused and condemned have sought to honor their memories. The trials have figured in American culture and been explored in numerous works of art and literature. The first indication that public calls for justice were not over occurred in 1695 ce. when Thomas Maule, a noted Quaker, publicly criticized the handling of the trials by the Puritan leaders in chapter 29 of his book "Truth Held Forth and Maintained," expanding on Increase Mather by stating: "it were better that one hundred witches should live, than that one person be put to death for a witch, which is not a witch." For publishing this book, Maule was imprisoned twelve months before he was tried and found not guilty. On December 17, 1696 ce, the General Court ruled that there would be a fast day on January 14, 1697 ce, "referring to the late tragedy raised among us by Satan and his instruments." On that day, Samuel Sewall asked Reverend Samuel Willard to read aloud his apology to the congregation of Boston's South Church, "to take the blame and shame" of the "late commission of Oyer and Terminer at Salem." Thomas Fiske and eleven other trial jurors also asked forgiveness. From 1693-1697 ce, Robert Calef, a "weaver" and a cloth merchant in Boston, collected correspondence, court records and petitions, and other accounts of the trials, and placed them, for contrast, alongside portions of Cotton Mather's "Wonders of the Invisible World," under the title "More Wonders of the Invisible World." Calef could not get it published in Boston and he had to take it to London, where it was published in 1700 ce. Scholars of the trials - Hutchinson, Upham, Burr and even Poole - have relied on Calef's compilation of documents. John Hale, a minister in Beverly who was present at many of the proceedings, had completed his book. "A modest inquiry into the nature of witchcraft," in 1697 ce, which was not published until 1702 ce, after his death, and perhaps in response to Calef's book. Expressing regret over the actions taken, Hale admitted, "such was the darkness of that day, the tortures and lamentations of the afflicted, and the power of former presidents, that we walked in the clouds, and could not see our way." Various petitions were filed between 1700-1703 ce, with the Massachusetts government demanding that the convictions be formally reversed. Those tried and found guilty were considered dead in the eyes of the law, and with convictions still on the books, those not executed were vulnerable to further accusations. The General Court initially reversed the attainder only for those who had filed petitions, only three people who had been convicted but not executed: Abigail Faulkner Sr, Elizabeth Proctor, and Sarah Wardwell. In 1703 ce. another petition was filed, requesting a more equitable settlement for those wrongly accused, but it wasn't until 1709 ce, when the General Court received a further request, that it took action on this proposal. In May 1709 ce, 22 people who had been convicted of witchcraft, or whose relatives had been convicted of witchcraft, presented the government with a petition in which they demanded both a reversal of attainder and compensation for financial losses. Repentance was evident within the Salem Village Church. Reverend Joseph Green and the members of the church voted on February 14, 1703 ce, after nearly two months of consideration, to reverse the excommunication of Martha Corey. On August 25, 1706 ce, when Ann Putnam Jr, one of the most active accusers, joined the Salem Village Church, she publicly asked forgiveness. She claimed that she had not acted out of malice, but was being deluded by Satan into denouncing innocent people, and mentioned Rebecca Nurse in particular, and was accepted for full membership. On October 17, 1711 ce, the General Court passed a bill reversing the judgement against the 22 people listed in the 1709 ce. petition (there were seven additional people who had been convicted but had not signed the petition, but there was no reversal of attainder for them.) Two months later, on December 17, 1711 ce, Governor Joseph Dudley authorized monetary compensation to the 22 people in the 1709 ce. petition. The amount of 578 pounds, 12 shillings was authorized to be divided among the survivors and relatives of those accused, and most of the accounts were settled within a year, but Phillip English's extensive claims were not settled until 1718 ce. Finally, on March 6, 1712 ce, Reverend Nicholas Noyes, and members of the Salem Church reversed Noyes' earlier excommunications of Rebecca Nurse and Giles Corey. Rebecca Nurse's descendants erected an obelisk-shaped granite memorial in her memory in 1885 ce. on the grounds of the Nurse homestead in Danvers, with an inscription from John Greenleaf Whittier. In 1892 ce. an additional monument was erected in honor of 40 neighbors who signed a petition in support of Nurse. Not all the condemned had been exonerated in the early 18th century, and so in 1957 ce, descendants of the six people who had been wrongly convicted and executed, but who had not been included in the bill for a reversal of attainder in 1711 ce, or added to it in 1712 ce, demanded that the General Court formally clear the names of their ancestral family members. An act was passed pronouncing the innocence of those accused, although it listed only Ann Pudeator by name. The others were listed only as "certain other persons," phrasing which failed specifically to name Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Wilmot Redd, and Margaret Scott. The 300th anniversary of the trials was marked in Salem and Danvers by a variety of events in 1992 ce. A memorial park was dedicated in Salem with a stone bench for each of those executed in 1692 ce. Speakers at the ceremony in August included: Arthur Miller and Nobel Laureate, Elie Wiesel. Danvers erected it's own new memorial, and re-interred bones unearthed in the 1950's ce, assumed to be those of George Jacobs Sr, in a new resting place at the Rebecca Nurse homestead. In 1992 ce, the Danvers Tercentennial Committee also persuaded the Massachusetts House of Representatives to issue a resolution honoring those who had died, after much convincing and hard work by Salem school teacher, Paula Keene, Representatives J. Michael Ruane, and Paul Tirone and others, the names of all those not previously listed were added to this resolution. When it was finally signed on October 31, 2001 ce, by Governor Jane Swift, more than 300 years later, all were finally proclaimed innocent. The story of the witchcraft accusations, trials and executions has captured the imaginations of writers and artists in the centuries since the event took place, many of which interpretations have taken liberties with the facts of the historical episode in the name of literary and, or artistic license. Occurring at the intersection between a gradually disappearing medieval past and an emerging enlightenment and dealing with torture and confession, such interpretations draw attention to the boundaries between the medieval and the post-medieval as cultural constructions. The cause of the symptoms of those who claimed affliction continues to be a subject of interest. Various medical and psychological explanations for the observed symptoms have been explored by researchers, including psychological hysteria in response to Indian attacks, convulsive ergotism, caused by eating rye bread made from grain infected by the fungus "Claviceps purpurea" (a natural substance from which L.S.D. is derived) an epidemic of bird borne encephalitis lethargica and sleep paralysis to explain the nocturnal attacks alleged by some of the accusers. There are modern historians who are less inclined to focus on biological explanations, preferring instead to explore motivations such as jealousy, spite, and a need for attention to explain the behavior. Although things are a lot more accepted today in most places in the world, and the church can't run around killing people in public because they have been accused of heresy. You can see the persecution of witches is far from over and the need for secrecy should still very much be common practice for witches. There is such a great need for communities like the Order of Charmed Spirits, to give our fellow witches a safety net and a place to find their spiritual family. There is safety in numbers, and the Roman Catholic Church, for thousands of years has been trying to suppress all other beliefs, for they know knowledge is power and freedom.