Witches

Although stories of witches and witchcraft had circulated in Europe for centuries before the early modern period, most witch trials and executions took place in the 16th and 17th centuries, in contrast to Africa and the Americas, where accusations of witchcraft did not lead to widespread public hysteria.

In medieval and early modern Europe belief in magic and witchcraft was almost universal. Local magicians were thought to be able to heal the sick, find lost or stolen property, cast love spells, and otherwise influence things and events by magical means. Popular opinion often regarded these magicians, known in England as “wise women” and “cunning men,” as helpful. Witches, on the other hand, were those who used magic to harm others. The ability to use magic was neutral; the difference between cunning folk and witches was thus one of intent.

While popular culture recognized a difference between beneficial and harmful magicians, Catholic and Protestant authorities condemned both the beneficial magic of the cunning folk and the harmful magic of the witches. They argued that any form of supernatural power that did not

Protestants and Jews accused of heresy and witchcraft: woodcut, German, 1493 derive from God must derive from the devil. Both witches and cunning folk deserved punishment for their activities, because their work implied at least a tacit compact with the devil. Witchcraft, therefore, was often prosecuted as a heresy. The witch was hunted because she (or, less often, he) had made a pact with the devil and was thereby a traitor to God. Because of her heresy she deserved to die, whether or not she had used her power to commit evil deeds. This view was expressed by the influential witch-hunting manual of 1486, the Malleus malificarum (Hammer of the Witches), which was reprinted 14 times from 1487 to 1520.

The extent of witch hunting varied from place to place. The most devastating trials took place in the Holy Roman Empire, where there were probably at least 20,000 executions for witchcraft between 1560 and 1660. One historian estimated that at least 3,229 people were executed for witchcraft in southwestern Germany between 1561 and 1670. German trials were often large, resulting in many executions in one area in a single year. In Ellwangen, for example, about 260 people were executed in 1611-12, while in Wiesensteig 63 people were executed in 1562, and 25 more were killed in 1583. In the Swiss cantons 5,417 people are known to have been executed between 1400 and 1700. Although the largest number of trials took place in the Holy Roman Empire, witches were executed almost everywhere in Europe, from Hungary and Iceland to France, Scotland, and Italy. In England European ideas of witchcraft as heresy rarely found a receptive audience. When English witches were prosecuted, they were usually accused of causing harm to people, not merely of practicing magic. England seems to have had relatively few witch trials. One historian suggested that fewer than 1,000 people were executed in England for witchcraft in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Certain types of people were more likely to be accused of witchcraft than were others. Approximately 80 percent of accused witches were female. It is not easy to determine why accusations of witchcraft were so commonly levied against women. Contemporaries attributed the great number of female witches to the inherent weakness and foolishness of women, which made them more prone to fall prey to evil. Modern scholars have offered a variety of theories to explain the predominance of women in witch trials. One has suggested that women were often the most dependent people in any community and that their dependence on others made them targets of resentment. Another has argued that the female world of pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing was poorly understood by men of the era, who acted out their suspicions of women’s bodies through witch trials. Witch trials often betrayed ongoing social tensions, although why witch hunts sprang up in some areas but not in others remains hard to determine.

Among the most important problems in the study of witchcraft is the difficulty of determining what the accused witches believed they were doing. Some suspects denied their involvement in any kind of magic or claimed that they practiced magic only to help people. Confessions exist, but because they were sometimes extracted by torture, they are unreliable evidence. Some contemporaries of the witch trials maintained that supposed witches often were simply deluded or senile.

The incidence of witchcraft trials declined at different rates across Europe. In general, witch scares developed later but lasted longer in eastern Europe. Trials in western Europe declined in the 17th century. In Hungary and Poland executions for witchcraft continued well into the 18th century. The reasons for the decline of witch hunting remain as mysterious as the earlier causes of widespread accusations and trials.

In other parts of the Atlantic world, accusations of witchcraft were also common. However, in the Americas and Africa there was no similarly documented period when witchcraft was more prominent or when trials and executions took place in large numbers. In these societies individuals in communities feared those they believed were witches, but such fears remained constant and left no major traces in the historical record.

Further reading: Norman Cohn, Europe s Inner Demons (London: Sussex University Press, 1975); Christina Larner, Enemies of God (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981); Brian P Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1994); Alan Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (London: Routledge, 1970); H. C. Erik Midlefort, Witch-Hunting in Southwestern Germany, 1562-1684 (Stanford Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1972).

—Martha K. Robinson

Xicotencatl the Elder (late 15th-early 16th century) statesman

One of the four leaders of the Tlaxcala at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, Xicotencatl the Elder was a staunch opponent of the foreigners.

Xicotencatl the Elder was one of the four leaders of the Tlaxcala in the early 16th century. He was quite old at the time of the arrival of Hernan CoRTES and was reported to have had some 90 wives and numerous children, among whom was Xicotencatl the Younger. The elder Xicotencatl was the only one of the Tlaxcalan corulers to oppose the idea of welcoming the Spaniards, for which the others forced him to resign his office. He died shortly thereafter.

Further reading: Jose Rogelio Alvarez, Enciclopedia de Mexico, 4th ed. (Mexico City: Enciclopedia de Mexico, 1998); Stuart B. Schwartz, ed., Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2000).

—Marie A. Kelleher

Xicotencatl the Younger (also called Axayacatzin) was the son of Xicotencatl the Elder and was charged with the defense of the frontiers. Like his father, he opposed the admission of the Spanish newcomers to the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley and led his troops in battle against them beginning in September 1519, until his superiors, who wanted to forge an alliance with the Spaniards against the AzTEcs, forced him to withdraw. He deserted with his troops on May 21, 1521, when the Spaniards and their Tlaxcalan allies began the attack on Tenochtitlan. Hernan Cortes ordered his capture, and he was eventually taken prisoner by Capitan Ojeda in Texcoco and executed by hanging.

Further reading: Jose Rogelio Alvarez, Enciclopedia de Mexico, 4th ed. (Mexico City: Enciclopedia de Mexico, 1998); Stuart B. Schwartz, Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2000).

—Marie A. Kelleher

Xicotencatl the Younger (ca. 1484-1521) soldier A Tlaxcalan general, Xicotencatl the Younger led his troops against the Spaniards and their Tlaxcalan allies.