Related Research Articles
The North Berwick witch trials were the trials in 1590 of a number of people from East Lothian, Scotland, accused of witchcraft in the St Andrew's Auld Kirk in North Berwick on Halloween night. They ran for two years, and implicated over 70 people. These included Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell, on charges of high treason.
Agnes Sampson was a Scottish healer and purported witch. Also known as the "Wise Wife of Keith", Sampson was involved in the North Berwick witch trials in the later part of the sixteenth century.
Ane Koldings was an alleged Danish witch. She was a main defendant in the Copenhagen witch trials held during the summer of 1590, which were held as a parallel to the famous North Berwick Witch trials in Edinburgh in Scotland.
The Vardø witch trials, which took place in Vardø in Finnmark in Northern Norway in 1621, was the first major witch trial of Northern Norway and one of the biggest witch trials in Scandinavia. It was the first of the three big mass trials of Northern Norway, followed by the Vardø witch trials (1651–1653) and the Vardø witch trials (1662-1663), and one of the biggest witch trials in Norway.
The Pappenheimer Case centered around a family who were tried and executed for witchcraft in 1600 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. The family were executed, along with accomplices they were forced to name under torture, after a show trial as scapegoats for a number of unsolved crimes committed years back in a display of extreme torture intended to deter the public from crime. The witch trial resulted in the death of twelve people: four of the Pappenheimer family and two of their accused accomplices in the first trial, followed by the remaining member of the family and five other accomplices in the second trial. The trial was of one of the most well-publicized witch trials in German history.
The witch trials of Vardø were held in Vardø in Finnmark in Northern Norway in the winter of 1662–1663 and were one of the biggest in Scandinavia. Thirty women were put on trial, accused of sorcery and making pacts with the Devil. One was sentenced to a work house, two tortured to death, and eighteen were burned alive at the stake.
Christence (Christenze) Akselsdatter Kruckow was a Danish noblewoman who was executed for witchcraft after having been accused twice. She is one of the most well known victims of the witch hunt in Denmark, and one of few members of the nobility to have been executed for sorcery in Scandinavia, and the only one in Denmark.
Køge Huskors was the name for a witch trial in the city of Køge in Denmark, which took place in 1608–1615. It is one of the best known witch trials in Denmark. It led to the execution of between fifteen and twenty women by burning at the stake.
Anne Palles was an alleged Danish witch. She was the last woman to be legally executed for sorcery in Denmark.
The Zaubererjackl trials or Salzburg witch trials, also known in history as the Magician Jackls process, which took place in the city of Salzburg in 1675–1690, was one of the largest and most famous witch trials in Austria. It led to the execution of 139 people. It was an unusual witch trial, as the majority of its victims were of male gender.
The Finspång witch trial was a witch trial which took place in Finspång Östergötland in Sweden in 1617. Between seven and nine women died as a result. It has a special place in Sweden's history as one of the very few larger witch trials in Sweden outside the period of 1668–1676, which was otherwise the time of the real witch hunt in Sweden. Also because it seems that the condemned were executed by burning, which was not the common way of execution for witch craft in Sweden. It was the biggest witch trial in Sweden before 1668, and resulted in the biggest execution for sorcery in Sweden outside of the 1668–76 witch hunt.
The Rugård witch trials took place at Rugård manor, and the community of Ebeltoft close to it, on Jylland in Denmark in 1685–1686. It was the most significant witch trial in Denmark since the Rosborg witch trials of 1639, and caused a wave of new witch trials on Jylland after a period of diminishing witch hunts. The case led to the issue of a new law banning local courts from handing down and enacting death sentences without confirmation of the national high court, a law which interrupted the local witch hunt and eventually stopped it nationwide.
The Channel Islands Witch Trials were a series of witch trials in the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey between 1562 and 1661.
Witch trials and witch related accusations were at a high during the early modern period in Britain, a time that spanned from the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 18th century.
Peder Munk of Estvadgård (1534–1623), was a Danish navigator, politician, and ambassador, who was in charge of the fleet carrying Anne of Denmark to Scotland. The events of the voyage led to witch trials and executions in Denmark and Scotland.
The Witch trials in Denmark are poorly documented, with the exception of the region of Jylland in the 1609–1687 period. The most intense period in the Danish witchcraft persecutions was the great witch hunt of 1617–1625, when most executions took place, which was affected by a new witchcraft act introduced in 1617.
The witch trials in Norway were the most intense among the Nordic countries. There seems to be around an estimated 277 to 350 executions between 1561 and 1760. Norway was in a union with Denmark during this period, and the witch trials were conducted by instructions from Copenhagen. The authorities and the clergy conducted the trials using demonology handbooks and used interrogation techniques and sometimes torture. After a guilty verdict, the condemned was forced to expose accomplices and commonly deaths occurred due to torture or prison. Witch trials were in decline by the 1670s as judicial and investigative methods were improved. A Norwegian law from 1687 maintained the death penalty for witchcraft, and the last person to be sentenced guilty of witchcraft in Norway was Birgitte Haldorsdatter in 1715. The Witchcraft Act was formally in place until 1842.
The Copenhagen witch trials of 1590 was the first major witch trial in Denmark. It resulted in the execution of seventeen people by burning. It was closely connected to the North Berwick witch trials in Scotland.
Anne of Denmark (1574–1619) was the wife of King James VI and I, and as such Queen of Scotland from their marriage by proxy on 20 August 1589 and Queen of England and Ireland from 24 March 1603 until her death in 1619. When Anne intended to sail to Scotland in 1589 her ship was delayed by adverse weather. Contemporary superstition blamed the delays to her voyage and other misfortunes on "contrary winds" summoned by witchcraft. There were witchcraft trials in Denmark and in Scotland. The King's kinsman, Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell came into suspicion. The Chancellor of Scotland John Maitland of Thirlestane, thought to be Bothwell's enemy, was lampooned in a poem Rob Stene's Dream, and Anne of Denmark made Maitland her enemy. Historians continue to investigate these events.
The Katarina witch trials took place in the Katarina Parish in the capital of Stockholm in Sweden in 1676. It was a part of the big witch hunt known as the Great noise, which took place in Sweden between the years 1668 and 1676, and it also illustrated the end of it.
References
- Hans Anckarstjerna: Djævle og trolddom [Devils and magic]
- https://web.archive.org/web/20110717103618/http://sten25.tripod.com/stortorget_radhuset.htm
- Dagligt Liv i Norden i det sekstende Aarhundrede [Daily life in Scandinavia in the 16th century] Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, Copenhagen (1914)
- Peter Andreas Harteg: Heksebål på Bornholm [Witch trials at Bornholm], Bornholms Tidende (1992)
- Möller, Peter von: Halländska herregårdar [Halland manors], 1871 (Swedish)