
Contents
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10.1 The German Lands 10.1 The German Lands
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10.2 Chronology of Trials 10.2 Chronology of Trials
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10.3 Chain-reaction Hunts 10.3 Chain-reaction Hunts
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10.4 Climate of Fear 10.4 Climate of Fear
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10.4.1 Community Dynamics 10.4.1 Community Dynamics
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10.5 Legal Procedures 10.5 Legal Procedures
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10.6 Questions and Research Directions 10.6 Questions and Research Directions
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Further Reading Further Reading
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10 The German Witch Trials
Get accessThomas Robisheaux, is the Fred W. Schaffer Professor of History at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He is author of Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early Modern Germany (1989) and The Last Witch of Langenburg: Murder in a German Village (2009). His research interests include the social and cultural history of early modern Germany, the history of magic, religion, and science in the Western world to the present day and micro-historical approaches to history.
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Published:01 May 2013
Cite
Abstract
The German lands have long been known as the ‘heartland of the witch craze’. Of the estimated 90,000 individuals prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe, at least 30,000 and possibly as many as 45,000 came from the Germanies, roughly encompassed at the time by the Holy Roman Empire and nearby territories. The large body of scholarship that treats German witchcraft since the 1970s – scholarship which rests on exceptionally rich archival records of trials – lies at the centre of witchcraft studies in general. This article begins with a description of the German lands. It then discusses the chronology of German witch trials, witch hunts, the climate of fear, community dynamics, and laws against maleficium or ‘harmful magic’.
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