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The word "witch" comes from the Old English verb wiccian meaning : to practise sorcery. By this definition there have been sorcerers in all times. Graeco-Roman law prescribed severe penalties for witches, and at the height of Roman Empire witchcraft was as feared on the frontiers as the marching legions themselves.
The coming of Christianity failed to erase the fear altogether, and it was probably during the 7th and 8th centuries that the belief in the witch´s ability to fly was established, though the Romans had thought that certain women had the power to turn themselves into owls and fly through the air to do mischief. In the 9th century the Church passed an edict declaring these beliefs to be an illusion and condemning those who mistakenly believed in the power of sorcerers. This rational confidence of the Church authorities lasted until the 13th century.
But at the popular level the belief seems to have grown rather than faded. In 1307 the Knights Templar, one of the most famous crusading orders of chivalry, were accused of heresy and the practice of magic and devil worship by Philip IV of France. Many of them were tortured and executed and their great wealth was confiscated. Thereafter in the belief that witches worshipped Satan at their Sabbaths, Pope Innocent VIII published his Bull: it claimed that no country was free from witchcraft, and charged that all responsible for ist practice should be put to death.
From the 14th century until the middle of the 17th century with-trials and their attendant torture, hangings, and burnings accounted for the deaths of over nine million people. In England and Scotland between 1643 and 1661 it is estimated that 4,000 alleged witches were executed, although in England hanging rather than burning was the prefered method, and figures show that continental Europe was more deeply disturbed by witches. The panic began seriously in the 14th century and was at ist height in Germany and France in the 15th an 16th centuries.
In 1664, during a later wave of persecution in Britian, the notorious Matthew Hopkins set himself up as "Witchfinder General" in England. He is said to have hanged 60 witches in one year.
After the Commonwealth period the witchhunting mania in England gradually died out, although as late as 1705, two women were hanged and burned for witchcraft at Northampton. In 1735, the persecutory Acts that came into force during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I were replaced by a law stating that witchcraft did not exist and only those pretending to practice it should be punished, usually by a fine or short period of imprisonment. But it was not until 1951 that this last Witchcraft Act was itself finally repealed.
The murdering hysteria and panic that infected Europe in the 13th to 17th centuries spread as a matter of course to North America. A group of young girls accused a slave, half-Negro and half-Indian, of having bewitched them. The accused incriminated others and by midsummer some 150 persons were awaiting trail as being witches. The governor of Massachusetts himself, arrived to set up a special court. By early autumn 14 women and 5 men had been hanged, while another man had been pressed to death for refusing to plead. It was only the fearless work of Increase Mather and Thomas Brattle that led to the dissolution of the special court and the release of the prisoners. Subsequently a resolution deprecated the action of the judges, the jurymen signed a statment of regret, and some restitution was made to the bereaved families. This virtually ended witchcraft trials in North America.
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