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A group of pious and ascetic mystics who denied key tenets of Christianity were burned as witches in Orleans. Contemporary Christian writers branded them as Devil worshippers who indulged in sex orgies and the murder of children - standard accusations for all dissident groups at the time.
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Hugh of St. Victor wrote Didascalicon, which included a strong denunciation of using or studying magic:
Magic was not accepted as part of philosophy, but stands with a false claim outside it; the mistress of every form of iniquity and malice, lying about the truth and truly infecting men's minds, it seduces them from divine religion, prompts them from the cult of demons, fosters corruption of morals, and impels the minds of its devotees to every wicked and criminal indulgence. ... Sorcerers were -
Conrad of Marburg was appointed as the first Inquisitor of Germany, setting a pattern of persecution. In his reign of terror, he claimed to have uncovered many nests of "Devil worshippers" and adopted the motto of:
We would gladly burn a hundred if just one of them was guilty. -
Pope Gregory IX proclaimed Conrad of Marburg a champion of Christendom and promoted his findings in the Papal Bull Vox in Rama.
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Pope Alexander IV declared that Inquisitors should not concern themselves with divination, but only those which "manifestly savored of heresy."
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First appearance of images of a witch riding a broom.
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Pope John XXII authorized the Inquisition to began persecuting sorcery and witchcraft.
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Lady Alice Kyteler, her son and associates in Kilkenny, Ireland, were tried for witchcraft. For the first time, stories of mating with demons were linked with stories of pacts with Satan. Lady Alice escaped to England, but others were burned.
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The theology faculty at the University of Paris declared that all forms of magic or divination involved some sort of pact with the devil and were thus heresy, justifying the persecution of every possible sort of witchcraft.
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Witch trials of Brianqon took place in the Dauphine. About 167 local people were burned as witches between 1428 and 1450.
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Trial of Joan of Arc took place and included allegations of witchcraft.
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Notorious trial of Gilles de Rais, who was accused of witchcraft and debaucheries.
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Papal Bull Summis desiderantes was issued by Pope Innocent VIII, authorizing Jakob Sprenger, Dean of Cologne University, and Prior Heinrich Kramer, both Dominican monks, to systematize and categorize the persecution of witches.
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Publication of Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches) by Sprenger and Kramer. Based upon their experiences in Germany, this manual for witch hunters ran to 40 editions. In their opinion, witchcraft was based upon sexual lust:
All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which was in women insatiable.
In an interesting twist, it was now declared that not believing in witches was heresy:
A belief that there were such things as witches was so essential a part of Catholic faith that obstinately to main -
Papal Bull was issued, calling upon European nations to rescue the church because it was "imperiled by the arts of Satan."
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King Charles VIII issued an edict against fortunetellers, enchanters, necromancers and others engaging in any sort of witchcraft.
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Mass witch trials in Biarn occurred.
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Inquisitorial witchcraft trials took place at Luxeuil.
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Declaration of the Carolina Code in Germany which imposed the penalties of torture and death for witchcraft. This code was technically adopted by the 300-odd small independent states which comprise the Holy Roman Empire.
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Henry VIII issued a statute against witchcraft.
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Repeal of statute of 1542 during the reign of Edward VI.
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Toulouse witch trials took place, during which forty witches were condemned and burned.
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Queen Elizabeth issued a statute against witchcraft. Johan Weyer wrote De Praestigiis Daemonum. This book described his belief that witches were just mentally disturbed old women and that it was the belief in witches which was caused by Satan. He was forced to leave the Netherlands and his book was denounced by Jean Bodin
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Council of Trent resolved to win back Germany from Protestantism to the Catholic Church; intensification of religious struggles and persecutions results.
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The first Chelmsford witch trials. This trial was the first to appear in a secular court in England and resulted in the first woman being hanged for witchcraft, Agnes Waterhouse. This trial also produced the first chapbook, or tabloid newspaper, relating to witchcraft.
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The Windsor witch trials; also the second Chelmsford trials.
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Jean Bodin, a French judge, published Daemonomanie des Sorciers condemning witches. According to Bodin, those denying the existence of witches were actually witches themselves.
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St. Osyth Witches of Essex (case tried at Chelmsford).
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Publication of Discovery of Witchcraft by the skeptic Reginald Scot who argued that witches might not exist after all.
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Third Chelmsford witch trials.
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Fourteen convicted witches at Tours appealed to King Henry III, who was in turn accused of protecting witches.
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William V began a witch hunt in Bavaria. The North Berwick witch trials began when an alleged coven of witches was exposed in 1590-91, resulting in Scotland's most celebrated witch trials and executions. King James VI (who became James I of England), a devout believer in witches, even took part in the proceedings. The torture applied to the victims was among the most brutal in Scotland's entire history of witchcraft prosecution.
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Father Cornelius Loos wrote of those arrested and accused of witchcraft:
Wretched creatures were compelled by the severity of the torture to confess things they have never done... and so by the cruel butchery innocent lives were taken; and, by a new alchemy, gold and silver are coined from human blood. -
Warboys witches of Huntingdon were put on trial.
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Publication of Demonology by James VI of Scotland (later James I of England).
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Case of the Burton Boy (Thomas Darling) in Staffordshire.
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James I released his statute against witchcraft, in which he wrote that they were "loathe to confess without torture."
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Case of the Northwich Boy.
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Abingdon witches and Anne Gunter
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Lancashire witch trials.
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Case of the Leicester Boy (John Smith).
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Start of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) during which the witch hunt throughout Germany was at its height.
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Case of the Bilson Boy (William Perry).
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Start of general decline of witch trials in France.
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Trial of Johannes Junius, mayor of Bamberg, for witchcraft.
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Publication of Cautio Criminalis by Friedrich von Spee, opposing the witch hunt.
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Death of the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg marked the end of the persecutions in this principality (1609-1632).
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Case of the Faversham witches, Kent Witchfinder-general Matthew Hopkins and the Chelmsford (or Manningtree) witch trials.
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Death of Matthew Hopkins from tuberculosis.
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XIV's star chamber investigated poison plots and heared evidence of widespread corruption and witchcraft. More than 300 people were arrested and 36 executed. The affair ended with a royal edict which denied the reality of witchcraft and sorcery.
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Repeal of Statute of James 1 (1604).
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Last execution for witchcraft in France (of Father Louis Debaraz at Lyons).
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Last execution for witchcraft in Scotland.
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Last official execution for witchcraft in Germany (of Anna Maria Schwiigel at Kempten in Bavaria).
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All witchcraft laws in Austria were repealed.
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A family of Hungarian peasants were acquitted of beating an old woman to death whom they thought was a witch. The court used as an excuse the argument that the family acted out of "irresistible compulsion."
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A poor woman in Germany was suspect of keeping dogs as familiars (devil's agents). Neighbors ostracized her, threw rocks at her, threatened to beat her to death, and finally burned down her house, badly burning her and killing all the animals.
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In France, a mob killed an old man suspected of sorcery.
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A mob in Mexico stoned to death a woman suspected of witchcraft.
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Priscillian of Avila was executed. He was accused of Manichaeism, but the official reason for burning him was witchcraft.
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Canon Eposcopi, a collection of church laws, appeared. It declared that belief in witchcraft was heretical.
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