How can one explain the witch-hunts that swept through Europe in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Who were the victims? Why were so many of the accused women?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER:
The minds of most Europeans were shaped by a mixture of Christian and folk traditions. Europeans believed in supernatural and magical causes for events. Disasters such as crop failures could be construed as punishment for sin or as evil magic. In the seventeenth century, authorities tried over a hundred thousand people, three-fourths of them women, for practicing witchcraft. Many were tortured until they confessed to casting spells and using evil magic, and many were executed. The Christian belief that women were morally inferior to men led accusers to assume that women, especially widows and single women, were more susceptible to the Devil's temptations. Women were also likely to be accused because they were often midwives and healers and so influenced life and death. Explanations for these witch-hunts vary. Some believe that women who were outside male authority, such as widows, were accused because of their potential independence and power in society. It is also posited that the witch-hunts were a violent reaction to the social tensions, rural poverty, and environmental strains of these centuries. Finally, historians also consider that some of the accused were actually practicing witchcraft against their enemies.