Why Europe’s wars of religion put 40,000 ‘witches’ to a terrible death

The persecution of witches came down to a battle for the ‘market share’ of post-Reformation Christians, according to a paper by two economists.
It was a terrifying phenomenon that continues to cast a shadow over certain parts of Europe even today. The great age of witch trials, which ran between 1550 and 1700, fascinates and repels in equal measure. Over the course of a century and a half, 80,000 people were tried for witchcraft and half of them were executed, often burned alive. More...