Why Did Witch Trials Happen

What would you do if you fully believed that your neighbour was a witch? Well, that would depend on where (in terms of both location and time) you lived. During the period of 1450-1750 in Europe alone, conservative estimates put the number of witch trials to upwards of 80,000 people (mostly women) and the number of executions that occurred based on the charge of witchcraft at around 35,000 people (again, mostly women) with the vast majority of witch trials and executions in the Holy Roman Empire (Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, etc.). But, why did these witch hunts occur? Historians believe that the witch hunts occurred for a variety of reasons, ranging from deep-rooted misogyny all the way to religious tensions. However, the witch

During the 16th century Europe was changing from an accusatorial justice system to an inquisitorial legal system. In terms of charging and convicting people of practicing witchcraft, the inquisitorial system was much more effective. This is because in the accusatorial system the criminal charges could only be brought up by one person (generally the victim), the judges were generally impartial, receiving nothing regardless of the result of the trial, and if the accused was found innocent, the accuser could then be put to trial for what is essentially slander, by the previously accused. However, in the new inquisitorial legal system charges were able to be brought up by individuals or by officers of the court. This allowed for the creation of victimless crimes, since officers of the court could accuse the person of the crime without a victim ever have existing. This is in contrast to the accusatorial legal system where generally the victim was the person to report the crime. Further, all stages of the legal system were officiated by these officers, allowing a greater role for human judgement in the court systems. The accusatorial system implemented a new, higher, standard of proof. For the accused to be guilty the accuser had to have two witnesses that could swear to having seen the accused doing the crime, or had to have a confession from the accused. Perhaps the biggest and most important difference between the inquisitorial and accusatorial justice systems was is that in the inquisitorial justice system the accuser has no ramifications if the accused is found innocent. Therefore, if a person suspected another person of something there is no (legal) danger in accusing them of whatever the accuser suspects. These changes in the justice system made it a lot easier to charge and then convict women (and men) of witchcraft because on top of everything else,