Why Did Witch Trials Cease?

Abstract

With the advent of the eighteenth century, the days of witch trials in Western Europe were drawing to a close, though many years were to elapse before the last convicted witch further east went to the stake. Indicative of changing attitudes was Louis xiv’s royal ordinance of 1682 which brought prosecution for sorcellerie to an end in France, and substituted new offences of pretending to have magical powers, to deal with demons or to divine the future. In 1600 most educated Western Europeans believed that witches existed in considerable numbers and formed a dangerous, Devil-led sect. By 1700 many could have been found in agreement with Thomas Hobbes’ opinion that, ‘as for Witches, I think not that their witchcraft is any reall power’. Even those whose scepticism did not lead them as far as denying that witchcraft might, in principle, be a ‘reall power’ often doubted whether it was, in practice, very common. A true witch deserves death, wrote the philosopher Malebranche in 1674, but most folk who fancy themselves witches are simply deluded by their imaginations, and are best treated as insane.