Protests against early modern witch trials

Forms of protest

Not everyone in early modern Europe accepted the legitimacy of witch hunts. Many critics focused on how the legal system was being twisted. As early as 1515, Andrea Alciato argued that torture could force innocent people to confess. Johann Weyer made the same point in 1563.

Johann Georg Gödelmann, writing in 1591, condemned improper trial methods and other legal abuses. Friedrich Spee went further in 1631, stating that there was no solid evidence for witchcraft accusations, even when the accused confessed. The Roman Inquisition itself admitted in 1635 that it had found almost no trials that followed proper legal procedures. This difficulty in proving witchcraft according to the law led the councilors of Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany to handle such cases with caution, following expert advice.

In 1652, the jurist Georg Christoph Walther advised that same council on a case involving two accused women: unless they could be proven guilty through correct legal process, they should be set free.

Other critics objected to the sheer cruelty of the hunts. Anton Praetorius in 1598 and Johann Matthäus Meyfart in 1635 both spoke out against the violence involved.

In Catalonia, opposition took a more organized form. In January 1619, the Jesuit Pere Gil gave a document to the Spanish viceroy, Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, arguing against the witch hunt. After Caterina Freixa was arrested on 8 November 1619, a major debate erupted between supporters and opponents of the hunts, lasting from 1619 to 1622. Fourteen prominent Catalan jurists, including Joan Pere Fontanella, signed a document defending Freixa’s innocence in an effort to prevent her execution. This event is seen as the turning point that began the end of witch hunting in Catalonia.