I've come across 2 different theories behind the witch hunts of Europe. One blames it on capitalism, the other on the weather! --- The first theory is Silvia Federici's [[Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women]], which links witch hunting to the enclosure movement that kicked peasants off the land. The witches were women who vocally challenged the enclosures, and so had to be eliminated. By attacking witches, the burgeoning capitalist class was punishing: - Challenges to the institutions of private property. - Social insubordination. - Propagation of magical beliefs (because they implied that there were powers the authorities could not control). - Challenges to state control of sexual behaviour and procreation. --- The other theory comes from Oster, Emily. “Witchcraft, Weather and Economic Growth in Renaissance Europe.” _Journal of Economic Perspectives_ 18, no. 1 (February 1, 2004): 215–28. Emily Oster states that between the 13th and 19th centuries, as many as 1 million individuals in Europe were executed for the crime of witchcraft. Most of these executions took place during the 16th and 17th centuries. In one German town, as many as 400 people were killed in a single day. The trials were conducted by both ecclesiastical and secular courts, by both Catholics and Protestants. The victims were mostly women, especially those who were poor or widowed. She suggests that witches were scapegoats during a time of economic stress, caused by a drop in temperatures and resultant food shortages. Climatologists have called this period the "little ice age." The cold weather caused many crop failures and prevented cod and other fish from migrating to the waters of Northern Europe, which depended on them for sustenance. Witches were thought to control weather, and so were blamed for the cold spell. Belief in witches goes back at least as far as the Old Testament. Exodus (22:18) says "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Pre-Christian cultures in Greece, Rome and Iceland also believed in witches, but witch hunting was mainly associated with the Christian church. The first trials of witchcraft emerged as offshoots of heresy under the Catholic Inquisition. A manual for the proper treatment of witches called the Malleus Malleficarum was published in 1484. It helped to codify existing beliefs about witches, and offered specific guidelines about how witches should be questioned and made to confess. It also contained numerous descriptions of the powers of witches in relation to weather. Temperatures began to drop around the beginning of the 14th century (after a 400-year medieval warm period) and the world was warming again by the early 1800s. The coldest periods of the little ice age were in the 1590s and between 1680 and 1730. The temperature was 2 degrees Fahrenheit lower than previous centuries, and was enough to leave Iceland surrounded by ice and to freeze the Thames in England and the canals in Holland. The little ice age may have been worsened by a series of volcanic eruptions: Huaynaputina in southern Peru in 1600, Mount Parker in the Philippines in 1641 and smaller volcanic episodes in 1666–1669, 1675 and 1698–1699. The intensity of the witch hunts correlates well with the changes in temperature. One of the sharpest drops in temperature was in 1560, which saw a reinvigoration of witch trials after a 70-year lull. Edward Miguel showed the same pattern connecting witch trials and weather in modern Tanzania. (Miguel, Edward. 2003. “Poverty and Witch Killing.” BREAD Working Paper No. 41.)