Historical story

In the Middle Ages (Not) Witches burned

Burning of witches

In the Middle Ages witches were burning.

Everyone takes it for granted, but the truth is different.

In reality, there are many clichés, beliefs and myths to dispel about the Middle Ages (and not only) and this is just one of the most widespread.

How are things really, then?

The terrible fires in which women judged guilty of witchcraft were burned, concerned the period following the medieval period, that is the 16th and 17th centuries ; the documents in our possession attest as many as 3,000 executions in Northern Italy at the beginning of the 16th century and over 10,000 in Poland alone in the 17th century.

The Court of the Inquisition , actually created in the Middle Ages (see https://www.pilloledistoria.it/9080/medioevo/quando-nacque-linquisizione), had the task of finding and punishing any heretics (almost always with methods and means that are anything but orthodox), but it had to do with the so-called witches much less than is commonly believed.