What accounts for the surge and eventual decrease in witchcraft trials in the seventeenth century?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Accusations of witchcraft were not new, and the persecution of these had previously been followed by the Catholic Church, particularly under the auspices of the Inquisition. The targeting of scapegoats, someone on whom to blame bad things in times of trouble, was also not new to western Europe, and in fact a hunting of witches as well as others being persecuted took place at the time of the Black Death. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, cities and local governments were eager to maintain order. However, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were also in turmoil caused by political unrest, wars of religion and politics, inflation, overpopulation, food shortages, climate change, and other factors put people on edge. As a result, witchcraft accusations also rose as people looked for someone to blame. The typically accused was a single (or widowed) older woman. Regional differences also played a part in the trials; in England and Spain, for example, legal procedures were in place to exclude torture for extracting confessions. Three quarters of the cases tried in this time were in the Holy Roman Empire, which was under constant conflict from the Reformation and later the political wars, such as the Thirty Years' War.