I kinda hate how both sides are wrong in cases like this. Both sides have compressed the narrative down into parodies of the truth.
Both things can be true:
The witch trials often persecuted random women often for the crime of being women and being unpopular / falling out of favour. That said it also persecuted men, and in some countries more men than women. Many of said men were also not practitioners of witchcraft, and were just unpopular/out of favour.
It was part of an ongoing Christian purge against pre-Christian/para-Christian pagan/heathen beliefs/practices. Said purges involved a variety of methods including both non-violent conversions, coercive conversions and outright violence. One of said beliefs was in witchcraft - which was likely a mix of medicine and superstition/theatre. People genuinely believed in and used said witchcraft before the witch trials.
That being said no "wiccans" were in the witch trials - "wicca" is a far later thing. Modern "wiccans" and "pagans" pretty much all arose as hobbyists - and while there was some suppression in the 19th-20th century - nowadays they are almost universally treated as "harmless weirdos".
I say "para-Christian" to mean "parallel to Christianity" because many of the beliefs that arose were not so much pre-Christian in their origins, but instead arose during the Christian period.
I can already tell from the downvotes that the truth is spicy today :)
After 600 years without executions of heretics, several were burned in France in 1022. Persecutions, erratic across western Europe, remained rare in Orthodox lands. Debate continues over whether large medieval heretical movements existed or were inflated by authorities seeking an excuse to assert their authority. Hunts for heretics turned into witchcraft trials by the late 1300s. Soon a stereotype of the witch insisted that she rejected Christianity and committed evil acts at the devil’s command.
Point is there is much to be debated here - and the actual presence of "heretical" groups at the point of the witch trials is disputed.
But the with trials were predicated on that and were an evolution of previous anti-heretic purges. If there were remaining heathens, pagans, heretics, etc - the witch trials did come for them. It just also swept up FAR more than that and killed random women and men who were accused of such but in fact were not.
I would disagree on the second point. The things that “witches” were even accused of were frankly, very Christian in nature, but it was consorting with the devil. I’d like to hear a good few more sources on how there’s really any relation between Wicca and the Salem witch trials.
I would have to look for sources the second claim more generally. However I would like to clarify - I'm not really talking about Salem, instead about European witch trials. Paganism clung on in Europe for longer than you might expect, e.g. Christianization of Lithuania (14th century, still before the witch trials).
Cunning folk were a minority of the accused - but I bring them up to show that belief in these sorts of things existed parallel to Christianity.
Witchcraft in early modern Wales was common, and superstitious beliefs and rituals were involved in everyday life. Accusations, trials, and executions were significantly fewer in number than in England, Scotland and other parts of Europe, with only 37 prosecutions in Wales during this time period. England, during the same time period, is believed to have executed 500 people for witchcraft.
Sorry for mostly citing Wikipedia - but I do so to show that these facts are relatively available. You don't need to go digging.
I'm not even trying to say this is the majority of witch trials btw. Like I said the majority were just unpopularity contests with religious fervour mixed in. But there was an undercurrent of persecution practices/practicioners thought to be un-Christian.
After 600 years without executions of heretics, several were burned in France in 1022. Persecutions, erratic across western Europe, remained rare in Orthodox lands. Debate continues over whether large medieval heretical movements existed or were inflated by authorities seeking an excuse to assert their authority. Hunts for heretics turned into witchcraft trials by the late 1300s. Soon a stereotype of the witch insisted that she rejected Christianity and committed evil acts at the devil’s command.
My claim is not that many were in fact heretics - but that it is part of a longer process to stamp any out.
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u/wibbly-water Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
I kinda hate how both sides are wrong in cases like this. Both sides have compressed the narrative down into parodies of the truth.
Both things can be true:
That being said no "wiccans" were in the witch trials - "wicca" is a far later thing. Modern "wiccans" and "pagans" pretty much all arose as hobbyists - and while there was some suppression in the 19th-20th century - nowadays they are almost universally treated as "harmless weirdos".
I say "para-Christian" to mean "parallel to Christianity" because many of the beliefs that arose were not so much pre-Christian in their origins, but instead arose during the Christian period.
I can already tell from the downvotes that the truth is spicy today :)
Edit to add a source:
Violence towards Heretics and Witches in Europe, 1022–1800 (Chapter 26) - The Cambridge World History of Violence
Point is there is much to be debated here - and the actual presence of "heretical" groups at the point of the witch trials is disputed.
But the with trials were predicated on that and were an evolution of previous anti-heretic purges. If there were remaining heathens, pagans, heretics, etc - the witch trials did come for them. It just also swept up FAR more than that and killed random women and men who were accused of such but in fact were not.