witchcraft

witchcraft. The alleged exercise of magical powers through the gift of supernatural beings other than God and His angels. The narrative of the witch of Endor (1 Sam. 28: 7–25) and the condemnations of witchcraft in the OT (Exod. 22:18) and NT (Gal. 5: 20) have sometimes been adduced as proofs of its existence.

Before 1100 witchcraft in W. Europe consisted chiefly in the performance of pagan rituals divorced from their religious context. In the 12th cent. learned, ritual magic, derived from Hellenistic and Arabic sources, reached the W.; the Church viewed this more seriously and condemned all rites involving the invocation of spirits. Nevertheless, witches and sorcerers were arrested only if accused of conspiring to cause criminal damage; they were then tried in the bishops' courts and, if found guilty, punished by the civil magistrates in accordance with secular law. From 1398 the Inquisition was given jurisdiction over such cases.

Although witchcraft trials increased from the late 14th cent., they did not reach their height until between 1580 and 1630, and in some countries not until the early 18th cent. Probably c.500,000 people were executed for the alleged crime, but the pattern of prosecutions varied. In the Mediterranean countries there were few prosecutions. In the Netherlands the death penalty ceased to be applied c.1600, and in France after 1624 acquittals were common. In England the worst persecutions occurred in 1645–6. Witch-hunting on any scale had ended everywhere by 1750 and legislation dealing with witchcraft was repealed in this period. The last legal execution for witchcraft took place in Switzerland in 1782.