The Demonic Witch and the Origins of the European Witch Hunts

The European witch hunts weren't simply the result of fear or superstition. They began with a new idea of the witch, a shift from people seen as practitioners of harmful magic to people viewed as servants of Satan. By the late 14th and early 15th centuries, this transformation shaped the laws and religious teachings that made mass persecution possible. Dr Debora Moretti explores how religious ideas, social anxiety and unequal power, especially directed at women, combined to create the figure of the demonic witch. She argues that belief, authority and law reinforced one another, culminating in one of Europe's darkest periods of fear and violence.