Although witches are known to be fiction in our present day they weren’t thought the same back 500 or so years ago. Witches were considered actually a vast majority of people in certain communities almost making 50%. The existence of witches were so serious in fact that the mass population of them were being executed. This begun in 1572 where though torture a woman was forced to confess that she had killed a child with witchcraft. About 20 years later ¼ of the population of St. Maximin in Germany were burned due to accusations of witchcraft.
The churches would conduct these mass hunting, financially wise it was good because these hunts would be time consuming and very expensive. After the witches have all been caught they were thrown into a bonfire to be burned or if found individually they would be burned at the stake.
Although before all the fear of witches they were mutually accepted in society as they were known just to make potions etc. but this dramatically changed when Lutheranism was created. During this time people were very weary. There was always some sort of conflict arising in different areas. There were about 104 religious battles throughout Germany ( Like the battle of Rocroi, 1643) as well as the fears of witches. A conventional thinking from the community was that the killings of these witches caused disastrous weather. Small villages would freeze, flood and hailstorms.
Another major conflict was that plagues were starting to break out. So the average citizen would be trying to shielded from about 3 conflicts at once. Learning about this makes me wonder what everyone could possibly be thinking at the time. It also shows how much the church influenced everyone, when people thought having witchcraft was normal and suddenly turn their backs against it enough to murder.
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