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Our records of witches in the Middle Ages are a bit different from what one might imagine.

Witches were people who practiced sorcery of various types, including anything from speaking to departed spirits, prophesying, or healing, to actually worshiping some spirit other than God. They were punished according to prevailing laws of different times and places. For most of the medieval time, witch burnings were not widely practiced.

During the Early Middle Ages (476-1000), the old laws, derived from Germanic laws, punished people who practiced witchcraft with fines. Those derived from Roman law punished with fines, or, if it could be proven a witch had actually killed someone with a curse, with death.

Charlemagne's law, actually protecting witches to some extent, prescribed death for anyone who punished witches by burning them, and so did Lombardic law.

During the High Middle Ages (1000-1300), the numbers of witches executed was rather low, because Christians were more focused on heretics within their own ranks.

During the Late Middle Ages (1300-1500), the Christians began to focus on the problem of witches, burning people, particularly women, who were suspect at the stake. Things got really bad in some places where men claimed to be experts on the subject and convinced local lords to pay them for each person they killed. The witch burnings, however, increased during the Renaissance.

See the link to a Wikipedia article below.

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15y ago

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Related Questions

Why did people in the middle ages consider witchcraft a crime?

Because one of witches done something to one of the people so that's when they started hating witches


How were witches killed in the Middle Ages?

Early historians estimated that 9-10 million died as witches, but modern historians now think that it is more like 50,000 to 200, 000 died.


What are the crimes for people that was in the chair of torture in middle ages?

Different world views, "wrong" religion, witches - mostly everything that didn't fit the current worldview


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What was the role of the people in the middle ages?

I think it was to follow the rules and show respect to the King


Is it true historians believe that witches grew rye contaminated with fungal ergots during the middle ages?

NO


Why were people in the Middle Ages clever?

The Enlightenment gave people a reason to believe in their own thoughts and not have the king or monarchy tell them what to think. The began to use their own reason. The Enlightenment however was after the middle ages.


What was the float sink method in the dark ages?

A belief held widely in England in the middle ages was that a witch would not sink in water but people who weren't witches would sink. It was supposed to be a test to see who was a witch and who wasn't.


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The Renaissance means "rebirth" because learning, reading, thinking and growth was taking place after a 1000 years of the middle ages or "dark ages" where people didn't read, write, or think about the world.


What elements of the Christian faith in the Middle Ages incorporated magic?

None. They were against magic. That's why they went after witches.


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Did people have dogs in the middle ages?

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