cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/4071009
this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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Atheism
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Except when you were in Northern Europe, where more men were tried than women. Even in Central Europe, where 75% tried were women, had 25% of trials against men. While a funny meme is not the primary location for armchair historian lectures, I can't let the opportunity slide.
Most trials did in fact not end in executions. There were 40.000 to 60.000 executions in about three million trials. Entirely too many, but being accused of sorcery was not a done deal death sentence.
The same goes for the Inquisition. Their targets were in fact not primarily witches, but heretics. They even had orders to not proactively pursue any witches and ditch witch trials in order to pursue heresy charges when they had time constraints.
If the Inquisition did a witch trial, they usually were more oriented towards rehabilitation than towards punishment, so people with pending witchcraft accusations actively tried to get the Inquisition involved. The Inquisition dropped numerous trials and intervened against local law enforcement because the accused could demonstrate that they were not witches, but just really disliked in their local area, leading to mobbing-motivated charges.
The Inquisition was even famous for some very decisive interventions in areas where the psychological mob-effect that usually led to witch hunts was about to kick off, stopping the hysteria in it's tracks.