Salem witch trials in 1692. Faulkner admitted she was “angry at what folk said,” and the Devil may have temporarily overtaken her, causing harm to her neighbors. Women who did not conform to the norms of Puritan society were more likely to be the target of an accusation, especially those who were unmarried or did not have children. General: Salem witch trials The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused, nineteen of whom were found guilty and executed by hanging
Witch trials in the early modern period Witch trials in the early modern period Witch-phobia and prosecutions for the crime of witchcraft reached a highpoint from 1580 to 1630 during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion, when an estimated 50,000 persons were burned at the stake, of which roughly 80% were women, and most often over the age of 40. Throughout the medieval era mainstream Christian doctrine had denied the existence of witches and witchcraft, condemning it as pagan superstition. The work of Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century helped lay the groundwork for a shift in Christian doctrine by which certain Christian theologians eventually