Nigel
Cawthorne.
Witch Hunt: History of a Persecution.
London:
Capella/Arcturus
Publishing, 2003.
239pp.
Paperback ISBN
1841931845.
Publisher's
recommended price £6.95
Between
1450 and
1750, more than 100,000 people - mainly women - in Europe and colonial
America were prosecuted for practising harmful magic and worshipping
the
devil. Tens of thousands were executed, often after being subjected to
bestial torture.
Witch
Hunt
examines this persecution and the religious hysteria which inspired it,
tracing its roots back to the savage suppression of the heretical
Waldensian
sect by the Catholic Church. With the creation of the Inquisition, and
the publication of the book Malleus Maleficarum, the
"Witchfinders'
Bible", the craze soon spread across Europe and reached as far as the
United
States where, despite the infamy of the Salem Witch Trials, it was soon
dismissed by a more rational population.
Although
witch
trials continued in Scotland until 1727, Norway until 1760 and Hungary
until 1777, the growth of scientific reason gradually gained ground
from
the witch hunters.
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