Witch Craze in Europe

Between 1520 and 1650, the Reformation had a huge impact on European countries and the way the people perceived religion. Due to increasing disagreements within the community and the Catholic Church, there became a need for the Church to reform; this Reformation became a catalyst for the witch-hunt by increasing society’s fear of the devil and social anxiety. These witch-hunts mainly targeted women, seeing as they were considered to be midwives and healers, they became legally more vulnerable to these hunts. It can be seen that witchcraft was the embodiment of a fear of instability, so in countries where the Catholic Church had much more stability, there are evidently less witch-hunts. The witch-hunts died out as the religious situation across Europe settled down and stabilized.
Beginning in the early fourteenth century until about 1650, early modern Europeans were in the process of a religious reformation. The Reformation heightened awareness of evil within European culture and caused more harm than good to society. As fears arose, new beliefs emerged and in an attempt to understand these fears, people began to look for other ways to combat this new presence evil. Ironically, the very means people sought to protect themselves was what increased the paranoia of witchcraft leading to the death of many. By combining the reformation within the church and the already rooted ideas of witch craft and magic, Europeans soon began to use witch hunts as a scapegoat for their socially anxieties.
Because the Catholic Church was much weaker in places like the Holy Roman Empire, France, and Italy than in Spain and Portugal, there was a much more malicious witch craze in northern Europe. In Spain and Portugal, there were actually relatively few witch trials and even less executions. They were countries that had an established and enforced