Up to 40,000 people died during the early modern witch craze.[1] Throughout this time, peoples’ understanding of witches frequently changed, in relation to ‘maleficia’ and the nature of witches, their gender, the law, the Reformation and the scepticism that emerged during the Enlightenment. It was originally believed that witches practised magic, or ‘maleficia,’ on theirContinue reading “The Changing Nature of Witchcraft in the 16th and 17th Centuries”