Name: Dimitriou Ourania

Student's number: 1500679

Seminar (FS): Hexenprozesse als Ausdrucksform einer gesamtgesellschaftlichen Krise an den Wende
von 16. zum 17. Jahrhundert
Prof. E. Landsteiner
Institut für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte, Universität Wien

Anabaptists, witches and their persecution in 16th- century Europe

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Contents

1. Introduction (3)
2.1. Anabaptism: a threat for the Christendom? (4)
2.2. Anabaptists as the Devil's minions (10)
3. Persecutions of the Anabaptists and the witch-hunts of the 16th century (15)
Holy Roman Empire and Wiesensteig (16)
Northern Netherlands (18)
Southern Netherlands (20)
Austrian Tirol (23)
4. Conclusion (25)
Literature (27)

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1. Introduction

Early modern society (as well as every society through the centuries) was a society where
witchcraft was prominent. It existed and took various forms and helped people to face the everyday
challenges of their lives. Together with religious came always superstitious practices, not always easily
distinguished from each other. Common folk worshiped God but, in the same time, they might perform
rituals to influence the weather or to protect themselves or their livestock from harmful magic, the
maleficium. Witchcraft was an inseparable part of their everyday effort to conform with reality and
defend themselves from undesirable phenomena. Consequently, for them, witchcraft was a matter of
survival. But how did this common everyday practice, inherent to people's cosmos, develop in order to
include accusations of heresy and pact with the devil? In order to answer this question we have to keep
in mind the role that different scholars played and the influence of the religious reformations of the 16 th
century. In this context, popular and intellectual forms of witchcraft were blended together and they
contributed to the creation of the idea of the diabolical conspiracy that threated the Christian world.
The theory of diabolical conspiracy contained over the centuries groups of people easily
persecuted because of their distinct way of life or because they refused to conform with normality.
Jews, lepers, homosexuals, heretics and witches have suffered some of the worst persecutions in
European history. The search of scapegoats and their stigmatization, especially in periods of social or
political turmoil, was a common strategy, as Moore argues describing his persecuting society.1 The
heretical group of Anabaptists and the devil-worshiping witches were two of the main persecuting
groups in 16th- century Europe. Their persecution occurred in a turbulent period of European history,
when each state was trying to validate its sovereignty, establishing and imposing an official religious
dogma and declaring that their authority derived from God's will. In this frame, anyone who opposed
the official version of the religion was denounced as enemy of the state and a threat for the peace of the
Christian society. But was there any connection between the two groups apart from the fact that they
were the main target of the authorities during the 16th century?
Anabaptists, with their radical views on church and state organization and their revolutionary
tendencies confronted the absolute hostility of the authorities and, apart from the accusations of
blasphemy and heresy, they were denounced also as rebels. But was this minor heretical group truly a
serious threat for the civic society? On the other hand, tens of thousands women (and less men) were

1 R. Moore, The Formation f the Persecuting Society: Power and deviance in Europe, 950-1250, Blackwell, Oxford
1995.

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persecuted as devil- worshiping witches and sorcerers who conspired for the corruption of Christendom
with the assistance of their master, the devil.
It is observed that the persecution of the witches began when the persecution of the Anabaptists
had ceased and they were altered throughout the 16 th century. The aim of this essay is to examine the
relation, if any, between the radical group of the Anabaptists and the witches, stressing the
characteristics that made the former susceptible to accusations of conspiracy with the Satan. In the first
part of the essay, the theology and the beliefs of the pious group will be discussed, with emphasis on
the revolutionary or not character of the sect in comparison to the status of witches. Issues of anti-
clericalism, devil-worshiping and pact, nocturnal gatherings and ritual murder will be discussed,
focusing on the scholar's discourse on (medieval) heresy and the construction of witches' sabbath. In
the second part, I will proceed to the heresy and witchcraft persecution in Catholic and Protestant
territories, such as the Holy Roman Empire and the Low Countries. But, first of all, I will begin with
the explanation of the general social and religious status of the Anabaptists in early modern society.

2.1 Anabaptists: a threat for the Christendom?

Anabaptists was a radical religious group first appeared in Zürich in 1525, during the
culmination of the Reformation crisis in Europe and spread their beliefs through martyrdom and
missionaries.2 The religious and political background of the city with the conflicts between the new
evangelical doctrines and the Catholic church fostered groups with radical tendencies which challenged
the authority of the official church and criticized it as a corrupt and sinful institution. Their views on
the role of the priests, the infant baptism and the presence of the devil were considered as incompatible
with the official church and, for this reason, they could not be accepted. Furthermore, in the
Reformation era, when every state tried to establish its own official version of the dogma and,
legitimize its sovereignty through God's Word, every person or group with different version was
persecuted in order to be excluded from the civic body. Although Anabaptists were nothing but a minor
group in early modern society, it could not be tolerated by the authorities and began fierce anti-
Anabaptist campaigns in order to eliminate them. Bellow I will discuss the main characteristics of the
Anabaptist movement that made them so dangerous for the stability of the state.

2 Claus- Peter Clausen, Anabaptist. A Social History, 1525-1618. Switzerland, Austria, Moravia, South and Central
Germany, Cornela University Press, London 1972, 1.

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 From the very beginning of the movement, radical individuals, who were separated from
Zwinglian circles in Zürich, started gathering in conventicles or “schools”, reading the Scriptures and
developing their own ideas about the establishment of the real Church as it existed in the age of the
apostles. Their radical views on infant baptism had as a result the failure in coming in consent with
Zwingli. They got in contact with other radical groups in Germany that rejected Luther's doctrines as
incomplete and insufficient.3 They had also relations with the theologian Thomas Müntzer from whom
it is considered that they adopted their “communistic” revolutionary views. According to the Marxist
interpretation of the Anabaptist., Müntzer is considered the father of the Anabaptism, influenced by
Heinrich Bullinger's treatise, and his followers attempted to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth
where the Church and the government would be unnecessary as long as man would be governed by
God Himself.4 He also rejected the infant baptism declaring that in the era of the apostles only adults
accepted baptism and strictly after instructions.5
The radical character of the movement can be found in their views on the organization of the
church, the infant baptism and the presence or not of the devil in human affairs. Aim of the Anabaptists
was to establish a congregation of the saints so, consequently, they rejected every ritual of the official
church as idolatry. In many cases, their radical character was expressed with attacks against the formal
church hierarchy and violent iconoclastic acts inside the churches. 6 They used new forms of
organization, replacing the traditional absolute state church with voluntary, independent congregations
with elected ministers.7 They also refused to participate in the rituals and they rejected the validity of
the sacraments. This fierce criticism towards the official church derived from their view that faithful
believers should worship God on their own and they did not need educated pastors to guide them but
their faith should be acquired by sermons and the reading of the Scripture and, especially the new
Testament, the main source of the Christian doctrine. They saw Catholic but also Protestant church as a
congregation of sinners, fornicators and blasphemous spirits and they strongly opposed to the
intervention of the secular authorities to ecclesiastical matters. But their tendency to reject every form
of leadership led to the questioning even of their own leaders, so after the first years of the movement
many different separate groups derived from them.8 The Anabaptists' anti-clericalism had a great appeal

3 Ibid., 5.
4 Abraham Friesen, The Marxist Interpretation of Anabaptism, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies 1 (1970), 17-34.
5 Clausen, Anabaptist., 6.
6 Ibid., 87.
7 Ibid., 89.
8 Ibid., 425.

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on the new evangelical doctrine regarding the cleric marriage and the rejection of the monastic life. 9
But the attack of the Anabaptists on clerical morality, as well as on the tithe were considered as a threat
and they faced the hostility of the evangelical and Catholic church.
Another element of the Anabaptist theology that caused great hostility towards them was their
rejection of infant baptism (literally, their name means “one who has been rebaptised”). Like Luther
and Zwingli, Anabaptists rejected the Catholic doctrine of the seven sacraments and they recognized
only two “signs”: baptism and the breaking of the bread.10 But the radicalism of this view can only be
understood in the context of how significant baptism was for Christian society. Baptism allows a person
to enter the Christian realm and also removes the Original Sin. Infants, from the day that they were
born, were considered carriers of the original sin and, for this reason, susceptible to demonic
possession. Moreover, if an infant died early and unbaptized, it could not join the heaven's realm and it
would remain on earth suffering. From this point of view, we realise the reason why infant baptism was
so important for common faithful people and the terror caused by the existence of unbaptized children.
On the other hand, church authorities by infant baptism, in the turbulent Reformation era, were trying
to keep all Christians under the protection of their own dogma.
All the above views were rejected by Anabaptists as idolatrous and erroneous beliefs. They saw
baptism as an act of regeneration and renewal of spirit and soul. For this reason, only adults and
carefully instructed persons should be baptized, in an age when they were able to make their own
choices of faith. In order to validate their thesis, Anabaptists referred to the Bible where there is no
mention to infant baptism. Besides, Christ himself was baptized in older age. 11 Furthermore, they
objected to the view that infants were carriers of the Original Sin and therefore, they should not be
baptized. Apart from the fact that infants were not able to understand the real meaning of the baptism
and Christian faith, Anabaptists had an objection on their sinful nature. They maintained that no human
was born with the Original Sin as everybody was made pure and blessed. They were also not able to
distinguish between good or bad so they were totally free of sins and responsibilities. 12 Therefore,
infant baptism was unnecessary and they accused the exorcism before the baptism as “relics of papal
poison” and superstition.13

9 J. Grieser, Anabaptism, Anticlericalism and the creation of the Protestant clergy, The Mennonite Quarterly Review 71
(1994), 517.
10 Clasen, Anabaptism., 114.
11 Ibid., 96.
12 Ibid., 97.
13 Bodo Nischan, The Exorcism Controversy and Baptism in the Late Reformation, The Sixteenth Century Journal 10
(1987), 37.

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 It is true that among Anabaptist groups there were those with radical revolutionary tendencies
and some of their followers participated in the German Peasants' War. But can we claim that
Anabaptists played a significant role in the peasants' uprisings, or, furthermore, had leadership
positions in them?
Marxist historians clearly tried to find a relation between them, connecting the followers of the
movement with the proletarian classes of the early modern cities, in the context of their connection
with the frühbürgerliche Revolution.14 According to them, Anabaptists recruited followers from the
lower strata of society. The theology of the movement expressed also the oppressed classes who lived
under bad economic conditions.15 Moreover, the Anabaptist ideas regarding the rejection of the absolute
role of the clergy and the institution of the state church may have had an appeal in the lower classes but
the connection between the demands of the peasants in Germany and the Anabaptist doctrine remains
questionable.
According to Clasen's research, at least thirty-two Anabaptists participated in the peasants'
uprisings in Germany and twenty-two former revolutionaries converted to Anabaptism in Francony,
east Hesse and Thuringen.16 Despite that, however, it seems that there was nothing in common between
the peasants' demands and the Anabaptist movement. Both gave emphasis on social and political
innovations but the Peasants' Twelve Articles had nothing to do with religion. The revolutionary
tendencies of the Anabaptists were connected with their eschatological expectations of some of their
groups and they appealed to the divine law.17 For example, in the city of Erfurt, some of the Anabaptists
who had participated in peasants' uprisings, preached that, because of the imminent end of the world,
they had plans to occupy the city, to exterminate the governors and the rich would share their property
with the poor.18 Hans Hut, who adopted his eschatology from Thomas Müntzer, through his sermons in
1527 incited peasants to rebel against their rulers as the Last Days would come forty months after the
Peasants' War.19 Moreover, there was a radical minority which rejected the ruling class adopting the
peasants' view “When Adam delved and Eva span, who was then the gentleman?” but there is no clue
that Anabaptists saw the end of the world as a social revolution. 20 On the contrary, peasants had never
thought of rejecting all forms of government, courts, weapons and vows. Political authority was just on

14 Friesen, The Marxist Interpretation of Anabaptism., 31.

15 Ibid., 29.
16 Clasen, Anabaptism, 154.
17 Ibid., 158.
18 Ibid. 159.
19 Ibid. 163.
20 Ibid., 175.

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the wrong hands but it was not non- Christian. Furthermore, they did not seek to establish Paradise on
earth.21 According again with Marxist historians, peasants joined the Anabaptist movement because of
their dissatisfaction after their defeat in Germany and the failure of the Kingdom of Munster and they
lost their revolutionary character because of the fierce persecution by the authorities. 22 But, it seems
that the peasants who participated in the Anabaptist movement were only exceptions and the
connection between the peasants' war and Anabaptism is still unclear.
The radical ideology of the Anabaptists was expressed in 1534 with their attempt to establish
the Kingdom of God on earth and, especially, in Münster, in a form of theocracy. 23 Anabaptism was
introduced in the Netherlands by Melchior Hoffman in 1530/31. The formation of its radical wing was
seen as a result of the social and economic crisis of the 1530s and 1540s. Soon Anabaptist radicalism
took an apocalyptic and revolutionary form which provided the biblical rationale for popular revolt
which was turned against the Church and imperial authority.24
In 1534 Münster, a city in Westphalia, experienced a revolt which was different from what the
region had experienced before with the Peasants' War. In April the existing government of the Lutheran
magistrate was abolished and a type of theocracy, influenced by the melchiorite ideas was introduced in
the city. Münsterites tried to establish the image of God's Kingdom on earth, a New Jerusalem, and the
charismatic preacher Jan van Leyden would rule until the actual Second Coming.25 Unlike the Swiss
and South German Anabaptists who declared a separation of church from the state, in Münster's
theocracy, church and state would be one institute.
The daily life in Münster was an implementation of the true heavenly Jerusalem and its citizens
adopted an early Christian way of life with communal property rights. As the first Christians shared
their goods in common congregations and there was no individual property, Anabaptists in Münster
abolished all forms of property, because of their belief that individual property was the result of the
greedy and vicious nature of humans.26 Community of goods was the expression of love, the
fundamental element on which society should be based.
Eschatological views were not absent from the “New Jerusalem” as the notion of the imminent
and inevitable end of the world was prominent. Apocalyptic sermons called believers for repentance
21 Ibid., 155.
22 Friesen, The Marxist Interpretation of Anabaptist., 33.
23 Claus Bernet, The Concept of the New Jerusalem among Early Anabaptists in Münster, 1534/35. An Interpretation of
Political, Social and Religious Rule, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 102 (2013), 177.
24 Gary Waite, From Apocalyptic crusaders to Anabaptist terrorists: Anabaptist. Radicalism after Münster, 1535-44, Archiv
für Reformationsgeschichte 80 (1989), 173.
25 Claus Bernet, The concept of the New Jerusalem, 177.
26 Clasen, Anabaptism, 192.

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and warning leaflets were sent from Münster to other cities to invite people seek refuge there and also
gather supporters in their preparation for the millennial reign of Christ on earth. 27 Münster was believed
to be the location of Christ's appearance.
The fall of the New Jerusalem came when the troops of Bishop Franz von Waldeck took the city
in June 1536. Around 650 citizens were executed, among them their leader, Jan van Leiden. 28 That
meant the end of Münster experiment and the division of the Anabaptist movement in three groups:
One group from Münster sought refuge with the duke of Oldenbourg, an enemy of Bishop Franz,
another group under Jan van Batenburg fled to the Netherlands and a third, the Dutch Anabaptist
movement, adopted a more pacifistic direction. 29 The authorities used the chiliastic views to warn that
no such experiment should be repeated whereas van Leyden maintained his views that the Kingdom of
Münster was the sign of the imminent Last Judgment.30

In conclusion, it is clear that, according to secular and ecclesiastical authorities, Anabaptism

could be a potential threat for Christian society. It condemned the existing political system as non-
Christian and criticized the traditional right of the spiritual authorities to intervene and decide on
secular matters. This potential threat became real with the establishment of the “New Jerusalem” in
Münster projecting the dangers of their presence in society. Their unclear connection with the German
Peasants' war shows also the revolutionary tendencies that they could not be tolerated by the official
state.
Nevertheless, despite their religious zeal and the great impatience in spreading their beliefs in
the first years of the movement, it has been noticed that Anabaptism was a minor movement with little
appeal to the masses.31 The number of followers they attracted was small in comparison to the
population of the cities. That can be explained from the fact that Anabaptists were not interested in
attracting great numbers of followers than they aimed at small groups of pious believers. In spite of
that, Anabaptists faced the fierce persecution by governmental authorities because they considered not
only heretics but also rebels and danger for the civic peace. In the age of Reformation crisis and the
process of the state building, where rulers wanted to establish their authority through God's will, any
form of opposition to the official version of the dogma had to be suppressed and punished. Bellow I

27 Bernet, The concept of the New Jerusalem, 193.

28 R. Po-chia Hsia, Society and Religion in Münster, 1535-1618, Yale University Press 1984, 6.
29 Ibid., 7.
30 Bernet, The concept of the New Jerusalem, 192.
31 Clasen, Anabaptism, 425.

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will look at the characteristics of the Anabaptist doctrine that encouraged the attempt of their
demonization and their almost identification with the sectarian witches.

2.2 Anabaptists as the Devil's minions

In the 16th century and, especially during the Reformation crisis, heresy and magic were
considered to be two sides to the same coin. Already since the 15 th century, the notion of the existence
of a diabolical conspiracy between Satan and his minions had been developed among learned circles.
Throughout the 16th century and when these beliefs were intensified, the heretical group of the
Anabaptists and witches were the main victims of stigmatization as “enemies of the state” and
followers of the Satan and sometimes faced fierce persecution motivated by mass panics. The pinnacle
of the persecutions resulted from the re-discovery and publishing of the notorious 15th demonology,
Malleus Maleficarum by the Dominican Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer, which described the night flights
to the nocturnal witches' gatherings, the sabbaths, the deliberate pact with the devil and their ability to
bewitch people, crops and animals.
After the fall of Münster in 1535, Anabaptists were considered serious threat for the social
order, although they had adopted a more pacifist way of action. Even so, the war of propaganda against
them from Catholic and Protestant polemicists was intensified and was dedicated in depicting them as
diabolic agents. In the course of the centuries, the target of accusation was transfered from one
dissident group to another, from Jews, to heretics, to homosexuals, to Anabaptists and finally, to
demonic witches of the 16th century.32
The Reformation crisis had contributed in the creation of an apocalyptical context all over
Europe where the fear of the existence of a diabolical conspiracy was prominent and the need of their
elimination became more urgent than ever. Catholic propagandists, and, especially, Jesuites, the most
enthusiasts of the Counter- Reformation, saw Luther's evangelical preach as diabolic heresy and Luther
himself as the Antichrist. Catholic church was the only authority who could claim that it performed true
magic, validating its absolute access in the supernatural realm.33 Protestants, with their refusal of the
effectiveness of the traditional rites, were spreading atheism and heresy among the Christian world.
According to the demonologist Juan de Maldonado, or Maldonat (1534-83), professor in the Jesuit

32 G. Waite, Heresy, Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe, Palgrave Macmillan 2003, 101.
33 Ibid., 105.

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College of Paris and one of the most fierce polemicists of Protestantism, maintained that witches and
heretics were the devil's agents on Earth and they were spreading into France because “magical arts
follow heresy”.34 In this context, Anabaptists and witches became an easily accused target by both
Catholics and Protestants.
In the apocalyptic and pessimistic mood created by the religious conflicts, the idea of the
diabolical conspiracy by heretics and witches provoked fears for the survival of Christendom.
Anabaptists' secret nocturnal meetings, their rejection of the worship of the saints and of the infant
baptism were some of the elements of the effort of their demonization and connection with the broader
demonic plot. Wolfgang Behringer argued how some of these elements, present in the medieval heresy
of Waldensians, were transformed in order to fit in the witch stereotype.35
For most early modern Europeans, the presence and the actions of a powerful devil, as well as,
his cooperation with heretics in order to provoke insurrection against the Christian religion were
unquestionable. Anabaptists, with their rejection of the real presence of the devil in human affairs, were
accused of atheism and sorcery by their persecutors, because, in their view, whoever refused the reality
of the demons and the witchcraft was atheist and dangerous for the social order. The irony in this view
is that Anabaptists were depreciating the fear of the devil and, especially, the Anabaptists in the
Netherlands adopted skeptical tendencies against the demonic witchcraft. 36 The skeptical tradition in
the northern Netherlands allowed scholars to reject the reality of the witches' sabbath and to develop a
more tolerant attitude towards witches. Dutch humanists, like Erasmus of Rotterdam, regarded
witchcraft as mere superstition and paved the way for the most famous skeptical treatise against the
witch trials, Johan Weyer's De praestigiis daemonum (1563).37 Weyer, a Dutch physician at the court of
Duke of Cleves, argued that the belief in witchcraft was the result of melancholy and the alleged
witches were just old women suffering from mental illnesses.
This intellectual context together with the bloody persecutions of heretics led the Anabaptists to
a more spiritualist turn with emphasis on the superiority of the spirit against the literal acceptance of
the Scriptures.38 The most prominent representative of spiritualism was a glass painter and lay reformer,

34 Ibid., 106.

35 Wolfgang Behringer, How Waldensians became witches: Heretics and their journey to the other world, Demons, Spirits
and Witches. Communicating with the spirits, ed. Gabor Klaniczay and Eva Pocs, CEU Press 2005, 155-192.
36 G. Waite, “Man is a devil to himself”. David Joris and the rise of sceptical tradition towards the Devil in the Early
Modern Netherlands, 1540-1600, Dutch Review of Church History 75 (1995), 3.
37 Waite, 4.
38 Friedmann, Robert. "Spiritualism."Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1959.
ttp://gameo.org/index.php?title=Spirituahlism [accessed οn 15.02.2016]

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David Joris (1501-1556) from Delft, Holland. He was a dynamic Anabaptist leader who, after his
persecution, found refuge with his family first in Antwerp, in 1539 and later in Basel, in 1544 under the
name Jan van Brugge.39 His ideas on the reality of the devil were expressed in his 240 published works
and challenged the rationale for the persecutions of both heresy and diabolical witchcraft. 40 One of the
most remarkable elements of his teachings was his ideas about the devil. Starting from the story of
Adam, Eva and the devil in Paradise, he argues that humans were created pure and innocent until Adam
listened to his wife or his flesh. Here, Eva is used as a metaphor for Adam's originally pure flesh and
his fall is parallel with the fall of the “angel of light”, as Lucifer conceived after he became the “evil
angel of the abyss”.41 Extending his argument, Joris claimed that the devil was nothing more than an
“inner spirit of evil” and the fallen nature of humanity.42 In this way, human was the only responsible
for every evil in the world, because God did not create the devil and, therefore, he was not responsible
for it.43 His view was to be expressed some years later by Reginald Scot in his Discoverie of Witchcraft
(1584), where the English gentleman argues that “the devil is a feeling or physical substance”.44
It is clear that the above views of the Anabaptist movement caused great preoccupation in the
realms of the church. The greatest opponent of the Anabaptism in the Netherlands was the inquisitor
William Verlinde who accused Joris of deceiving many people with his refusal of the reality of the
devil.45 Joris had also the reputation of performing miracles such as transforming water into wine,
becoming invisible or levitating a few meters from the ground. 46 These acts were explained as plain
sorcery and alleged connection with Satan. Similarly, the attribution of extraordinary abilities to the
Anabaptists was, according to their persecutors, proof of their demonic and flawed nature. They used
sorcery in order to lure innocent people in the diabolical plot. So, the rhetoric that the devil used heresy
and witches in order to harm the true faith was common among the demonologists of the 16th century.

39 Waite, “Man is a devil to himself”, 6.

40 Ibid., 7.
41 Ibid., 8.
42 Ibid., 12.
43 Ibid., 17.
44 Ibid., 12-13.
45 Waite, Heresy, 109.
46 Ibid., 110.

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 Sabbath
An important element in the campaign of demonization of the Anabaptists and defining the
enemy of the Christendom was the sabbath and the willing pact with the Devil. But was there an
attempt to fit the Anabaptists in this demonic stereotype as it happened with the witches? The first
description of these nocturnal heretical gatherings appeared in the treatise Errores Gazariorum, by an
anonymous inquisitor from the Duchy of Savoy (c. 1435). 47 With the term Gazzari was described the
heretical group of Waldensians who were forced into confessions of secret gatherings (synagogues),
devil- worship and sorcery. Later, a new characteristic is added in this demonic image of the heretics:
the ability to fly through the air.48 Moreover, the members of these sects were portrayed as women.
According to W.. Behringer, these sects were a more modern version of the heretical gatherings of
Waldensians or Gazzari, and he argues that the connection between heretics and witches had been made
since the late middle ages.49
Similarly, Anabaptists were also connected with the demonic nocturnal meetings, especially in
the popular mind. The fear of the existence of secret sects plotting the destruction of the Christian
society had created the impression of that Anabaptists were member of one of these sects which have
the following elements of a sabbath: gatherings with a leader, ecstatic religious experiences and a
communal meal.50 In a source from France of the mid- 16th century, we read that the is a sect whose
members are completely devoted to devil, that they practiced incest, sorcery and enchantment, and that
they were meeting “in conventicles as much to indulge in lewd behaviour and do other execrable
things as to conduct their Sabbath.51 So, we observe that the nocturnal gatherings of the radical group,
sometimes in forests and away from the city center and the elaboration of the demonic sabbath image
in ordinary people's minds had attributed to the fusion between witches' gatherings and Anabaptists.
According to G. Waite, the discovery of secret nocturnal meetings of Anabaptists were coincided with
the first prosecutions against sectarian magic in German countries.52
According to learned demonologists and priests of the 16 th century and, especially, the greatest
witches' polemicist of the late 15th century, Heinrich Kramer, in his Malleus Maleficarum, sabbath was
conceived as an inversion of the Christian rites. Moreover, the Jesuit Martin del Rio (1551-1608), in his
47 W. Behringer, Waldensians, 158.
48 Behringer, Waldensians, 160.
49 Ibid., 157- 158.
50 Waite, Eradicating, 139
51 Anonymous, Histoire memorable de la persecution et saccagement du peuple de Merindol et Cabrieres (1555), as cited
in: Waite, Eradicating the Devil's minions. Anabaptists and Witches in Reformation Europe, 1525-1600, University of
Toronto Press 2007, 34.
52 Ibid., 164.

13
treatise Disquisitiones magicae (1599/1600), where he turns against Calvinists and Anabaptists, claims
that rebaptism was an essential element of the sabbath.53 Witches denounced the Christian faith and
they were re- baptised in the name of their new master, the devil. The reputation that they used and
consumed unbaptised children provoked fears of infanticide and it was an element closely related to the
Anabaptists.54 The rebaptism of these heretics was perceived as rebaptism in the name of the devil and
it increased the fears for the presence of alleged witches, the cases of demonic possession or diabolical
infanticide. In this way and because of the spread of the above fears in many countries, re- baptism
became a capital offense in Holland in 1529.55

The role of women

Another element that could be common between Anabaptists and witches is the status of women
in their sects. The anti-Anabaptist polemics and the impact of the Reformation helped to the
maintenance of the misogynistic views and reinforced the creation of the stereotype of female witches.
In Anabaptist movement women had different active roles, trying to escape from the traditional gender
hierarchy but always in coordination with their general social position. They were messengers,
informal teachers, prophets and martyrs.56 In Münster a system of polygamy was also declared 57
Literacy on Anabaptist women was seen with suspicion by the authorities because of possible
assistance by the devil and their activism was frequently blended with the unruly character of the
witches.58 It has been observed that only few Anabaptist women were persecuted and the authorities
faced them with relevant leniency. In Holland thirty six out of sixty eight Anabaptist women (53%)
were punished with non- capital offense.59 On the other hand, women were the main target of the
inquisitors in comparison with the number of men (c. 80% of the witchcraft victims was women) 60.
This attitude towards women is explained by the politics of the Reformation era with the effort to
maintain the patriarchal system of society and the great misogynistic views.
The religious reformations of the 16 th and the 17th centuries maintained the traditional negative
views of women in contrast to the positive and prominent status of men in their effort to strengthen the
53 Ibid., 100.
54 Ibid., 58.
55 J. Geraerts, The prosecution of Anabaptists in Holland, 1530-66, The Mennonite Quarterly Review 86 (2012), 24.
56 Geraertis, 30.
57 Bernet, The concept of the New Jerusalem, 178.
58 Waite, Eradicating, 194.
59 Geraertis, The prosecution of Anabaptists in Holland, 29.
60 Lyndal Roper, Witch craze. Terror and fantasy in Baroque Germany, Yale University Press 2004, 18.

14
patriarchal society and traditional gender hierarchy. But there is a difference between the gender
perspective on the heresy and witchcraft persecutions. As mentioned above, women in the Anabaptist
sect asserted a greater level of religious leadership. Nevertheless, they faced milder punishments
because of the dominant beliefs that women were mentally incapable of taking over action and of
independent thinking. Therefore, men were those who deceived them, while they had the main leading
role. On the contrary, women were more easily tempted by the Devil and made willingly pact with him
for their own pleasure. The latter was considered much more dangerous for the society and deserved no
leniency.61

3. Persecutions of the Anabaptists and the witch- hunts of the 16th century

In this eschatological context described above and because of the fear of the diabolical
conspiracy with heretics and witches as the Devil's agents, authorities were convinced that it was
essential to eliminate them. So, since the 1520s- 1530s a systematic persecution of Anabaptists began
in the south and northern Netherlands, in Austria and in Hapsburgs' territories. Between 1525 and 1540
at least two thousand Anabaptists were executed, number which in comparison to that of the witches
seems very small. However, both persecutions aimed at the extermination of people who had conspired
with Satan and were corrupting the Christian society, in accordance with the apocalyptical climate of
the Reformation era.62
In the numerous heresy and witchcraft trials, through the specific questions to the accused, the
inquisitors were trying to reveal any form of demonic possession or other satanic activity. 63 Besides, it
was a common strategy the effort of demonizing the dogmatic enemy in order to proof the superiority
of their own dogma. Heresy and sorcery, according to Protestant and Catholic theologians were both
part of the demonic conspiracy, an idea that led to the “panics” of the 16 th century against the witches.
The work which elaborates this concept of a demonic sect is the famous Malleus Maleficarum (1486)
by the Dominican Heinrich Kramer but it was not reprinted between 1520-1585. What is however the
motive that made authorities to turn to witches only after the second half of the 16 th century while the
idea about them was fully developed since the end of the 15 th century? A series of factors like the

61 Waite, Sixteenth- century religious reform and the witch-hunts, The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern
Europe and Colonial America, (ed. Brian P. Levack), Oxford University Press 2013, 498.
62 Waite, Sixteenth- Century religious reform and the witch-hunts, 497.
63 Waite, Eradicating, 50.

15
secularization of the heresy trials and the mixture of popular and learned ideas on witchcraft and the
diabolical conspiracy were responsible for the persecuting waves against pious heretical groups and
numerous women accused of demonic witchcraft.

Anabaptists in the Holy Roman Empire and the witch panic in Wiesensteig, 1562

The start of the Anabaptists' persecutions coincided with the start of the German Peasants' War.
The Catholic territories of the Holy Roman Empire had the most Anabaptist executions in the 16 th
century, whereas, in the Protestant areas, only eight out of fifty-six governments, fewer Anabaptists
were trialled, especially, for reasons of rebellion rather than heresy.64 Propagandists, exploiting the
popular panic and social turbulence, presented Anabaptists as unbaptized agents of the devil and they
were severe threat that might provoke God's wrath. It was the period when the massive heresy
persecutions started and continued until 1560, in order to follow the great witch-hunt in Germany. It is
noted that the first large-scale witch trial in Germany happened in 1562-3 which started as
governmental concern for the existence sectarian, diabolical gatherings and finally, ended up to
persecutions against demonic witches. The context of this witch- hunt was in accordance with the
general pessimistic, apocalyptic feeling of the second half of the 16th century, as well as the effort of
demonizing the “other”.65 This effort was reinforced by the strong anti-clerical feeling expressed by the
Anabaptists during the interrogations and the fear that they were gaining influence amongst the
common folk.
The above mentioned witch-hunt in German territory was that of Wiesensteig, a small town in
the northwest of the province of Helfenstein. The significance of this first large- scale witch- hunt lies
on the idea that the witches did not work alone but they were part of a broader diabolical sect. 66 The
turn of the persecutions from the “real” heretical sect, the Anabaptists to the alleged witches is a proof
of the religious confusion and the doctrinal conflict of the period. The causation of the witch-hunt was
given when a terrible hailstorm in the region of Wüttemberg led to the discovery and extermination of a
witches' sect consisting from around sixty- three persons. Previously, in 1560, two witches had been
accused of causing weather magic and having made pact with the devil. The appearance of the

64 Ibid., 130.
65 Ibid., 165.
66 G. Waite, “The witch- hunt of Wiesensteig”,
https://www.historicum.net/themen/hexenforschung/lexikon/alphabetisch/p-z/artikel/Hexenverfolgung_in_Wiesensteig/
[accessed οn 17.02.2016].

16
hailstorm is probably connected with the general climatic deterioration of the period, known as the
“Little Ice Age”, and is connected with the rise of the witch-hunts in central Europe during that
period.67 Soon, the discovery of a group of Anabaptists who had gathered in a forest near Esslingen
resulted in the imprisonment of at least twenty-eight people, among them seven women who were set
free without interrogation.68
The main sources of this witch-hunt are pamphlets and testimonies by chronicles, like
Dreytwein, as the judicial records have not been saved. The Lutheran chronicle Dionysious Dreytwein,
as a person who ignored the learned demonology of the 16th century, described the arrests of the
Anabaptists as unfair oppression of pious people up until August 1562 and the worsening of the
weather is not perceived as weather magic but as wrath of God against “godless and unfair
persecution”.69 Nevertheless, he did not refer to sectarian activity or magic sabbath of heretics. On the
other hand, on August 1562, the Catholic duke Ulrich, in the middle of confessional conflicts in the
region and debates regarding the right doctrine, accepted the rumors for weather magic and proceeded
to the arrest of witches in a neighbor region of Wiesensteig. He executed more than sixty women, fully
adopting the stereotype of the demonic plot leading to the shift from individual trials to witch panic.
Under pressure and use of tortures, the accused confessed pact with the devil, denouncement of God
and baptism, affairs with diabolical lovers, participation in magic sabbaths and dances, maleficia, such
us ritual infanticide, weather magic, as well as murder of twenty- nine people. Dreytwein provides
details on the supposed lovers and the performance of maleficium, showing, unsurprisingly, a full
acceptance of the stereotype of the diabolical witch.
The result of the witch-hunt of Wiesensteig was the exertion of pressure on the governments to
deal with the danger of witchcraft and the implementation of new law declaring that all forms of
witchcraft was diabolical and, therefore, was a capital offense. The secularization of heresy and,
consequently, of the witch trials helped the campaign of the authorities to eradicate the godless agents
of the devil and reveal the conspiracy, rather than to deal with individuals. What is more, from the case
described above, the discovery of Anabaptist meetings coincided with the discovery of witches'
gatherings and the popular ideas for Anabaptists were transferred on witches. The idea for secret
gatherings derived from testimonies by curious citizens who had heard of or seen secret Anabaptists

67 W. Behringer, Hexen und Hexenprozesse in Deutschland, (ed. Wolfgang Behringer) Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag
1988, 129- 135.
68 Waite, Eradicating, 144.
69 Ibid., 147.

17
meetings during the nights and it was enough to fit in the popular ideology for the magic sabbath. 70
While the witch-hunts reached their calamity, the attention was distracted from the Anabaptists and
their persecution declined. The authorities had found a different enemy to persecute and eradicate in the
form of the witch, an enemy far more insidious and terrifying than the heretics.
The most crucial element in the notorious heresy and witch trials was their secularization and
Charles' V decree, Constitutio Criminalis Carolina which was first publish in 1529 and was renewed in
1544 and 1551.71 This law gave the officials the right to arrest and try heretics without former
denunciation, a measure implemented also in witchcraft cases. The penalty imposed for the Anabaptist
leaders was death on stake, their followers were to be decapitated and the Anabaptist women to be
buried alive.72 In the course of the years, many edicts were published in order to regularize the heresy
persecutions. In 1550 another law, the Perpertual Edict or, otherwise, known as the “blood edict”,
demanded the persecution of any heretical and penance only changed the way of execution:
decapitation for men and burying alive for women.73 The secularization of the heresy and witchcraft
trials meant also that the crime was not considered only an attack against the Christian realm but also it
was a secular offense and the heretics and witches were considered rebels and dangers for the civic
peace.

Persecutions in the northern Netherlands

The secular character of the trials was adopted also by governments of other countries and
contributed to the expansion of the persecutions. Despite the introduction of the imperial edict since
1529, Anabaptists in Holland did not suffer immediate persecution, until 1534-35 and the incidents in
Munster and the uprisings in Amsterdam. 74 Authorities sought to uncover the diabolical conspiracy and
the witch-hunts followed the heresy persecutions when there were no Anabaptists left to persecute. But
the skeptical erasmian tradition in the territory and the economic prosperity of the period led to limited
persecutions and no panics (only in periods of economic crisis: 1540, 1564, 1585, 1591). Only five
witch trials occurred during the period 1528-30, and because of the great Anabaptist activity in 1530-
37, the authorities focused on the suppression of this dissident group which was considered a serious

70 G. Waite, Eradicating, 139.

71 Ibid., 132.
72 Geraertis, The prosecution of Anabaptists in Holland, 8.
73 Ibid., 9.
74 Geraertis, The persecution of Anabaptists in Holland, 8.

18
threat, trying to extract confessions of diabolism from Anabaptist leaders who claimed to have
communicated with spirits and visited the “Otherworld”.75
The French- speaking Duchy of Namur followed a different pattern of heresy and witchcraft
persecution adopting the late medieval form of the “Waldensian witch”. 76 Already in the 15th century
the demonological treatise Errores Gazzariorum describes the secret nocturnal gatherings of heretics.
The term Gazzari probably refers to the medieval heresy of Cathars or Waldensians and is connected
with the worship of the devil in the form of an animal, usually cat (besides, the term for heretics in
several languages is connected with the cat, such as Ketzer<Katze in German and Gazzari< gato in
Italian)77 So, in Namur, the fusion between the heresy and witchcraft remained in the 16 th century with
the authorities to trial around 366 individuals, described as valdoise, for maleficia between 1509 and
1649.78 Most of them were poor and old women and some of the accused were also servants and
concubines of priests. Although the confessions of participation to sabbath were rare, there were
references in rebaptism in the name of the Devil and denunciation of the Christian faith. However, the
individuals, who were executed, were referred to the records as heretics or “Lutherans” and no
Anabaptist is to be found there.79 The judges were busy eliminating the demonic conspirators and they
ignored the Anabaptist threat.
Holland was the center of the radical Anabaptism and the most extreme expression of the
movement was with the group of the “naked runners” (naaktloopers) in Amsterdam. In 1535, a group
of eleven Anabaptists, led by their prophet, took off and burnt their clothes, running in the streets and
declaring the “naked truth”.80 Their prophet had declared that the had talked to God and visited the
“Otherworld”, a statement that is similar to those of the Waldensians. 81 During the interrogation, the
inquisitors attributed their extraordinary confessions to demonic possession and there was no effort to
connect them with magic activity.82 On the contrary, the strange Anabaptist behaviour was the result of
ignorance, illusions and poverty. In another case, we see the conviction of a woman who had the rumor
of witch and Anabaptist and also of a wayward person and was executed in 1537, the oldest death
penalty in Holland.83 In her case, a fusion between the two crimes can be observed but in the case of an

75 Waite, Eradicating, 79.

76 Behringer, How Waldensians became witches, 155-192.
77 Ibid., 157.
78 Waite, Eradicating,75.
79 Ibid., 76.
80 Ibid., 69.
81 Behringer, How Waldensians became witches, 173-4.
82 Waite, Eradicating, 70.
83 Ibid., 77.

19
Anabaptist minister in 1539, the judges failed to extract confessions of pact with the devil or other
demonic activity so the two crimes were not connected.
In Amsterdam, there were no known witch trials up until 1541 because the inquisitors were
busy with the “real” threat of the Anabaptist rebels who were inciting uprisings in the city. Even so,
they were dealt with relevant leniency (thirteen people were executed and eleven more were expelled in
1534).84 The cease on Anabaptist trials may also have been the result of the prohibition of rebaptism for
a period of two years, as was declared by Melchior Hoffman in late 1531. 85 Moreover, between 1500-
30, there were only nine witch trials but non of them was led to execution. However, when the
moderate authorities were replaced by Catholic Hapsburg authorities, Anabaptists were executed
almost every year (137 executions which are equal to 3.3 deaths per year). 86 When Amsterdam joined
the Dutch Republic in 1576, the heresy trials ended and the city adopted a more tolerant attitude
towards Anabaptists and witches. The reformed authorities established Calvinism as the official
doctrine but they did not impose it to all citizens. Consequently, according to Garry Waite, “the result
was the creation of a society with one official church and a host of smaller confessional subcultures”.87
But the climate of tolerance in the northern Netherlands did not mean that there were no public
expressions of hatred among the religious groups. Maybe the portrayal of the sectarian heretics
belonged to the “Catholic superstitious world” and it was not accepted by the Reformed authorities,
however, they were still part of the popular mentalities. But the official religion could not be alone a
reason for the tolerant attitude of the authorities because other Calvinist territories proceeded to major
witch persecutions, such as Scotland or regions in the New World. The intellectual climate of the
country, as it was described in chapter 2, helped the development of the public debate in Dutch
Republic that influenced also the posture towards witchcraft.

84 Ibid., 81.
85 Gerartis, The prosecution of Anabaptists in Holland, 10.
86 Waite, Eradicating, 82.
87 Ibid., 92.

20
Southern Netherlands

If the persecutions of Anabaptists and witches in the northern Netherlands were relatively mild,
in the southern Netherlands under Phillip II and his strict policy, they were more intense. The influence
of the Spanish Catholic Hapsburg government with their Counter- Reformation campaign and the
demonology of the Flemish Jesuit Martin del Rio (1551-1608) caused a great anxiety over the demonic
threat of witches and the demonic plot which ended to some panics in the Spanish Low Countries
during the 1590s. The appeal of the idea of the demonic sect was limited before 1500 and the number
of executions was small. One of the reasons of this is that the Contitutio Criminalis Carolina, which
defined heresy and sorcery as crimen exeptum and was valid in the Holy Roman Empire since 1532,
was introduced in the Netherlands not earlier as 1570 and was revised by Phillip in 1595 and 1601. 88
So, the witchcraft trials revived in the French- speaking areas in 1570 and in the Flemish- speaking in
1589 and led to two or three thousand executions.
The persecutions of witches were triggered by a series of crop failures because of bad weather
conditions in the summer of 1535 and 1540. 89 The collapse of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Munster in
1535 helped the creation of a safety feeling that the heretical threat was over. So, the attention was then
turned to the danger of the demonic witches who caused God's wrath because of the blasphemy against
religion and were considered responsible for the devastation. It seems that the crimes of heresy and
sorcery were distinct in this case and the excessive heat and crop illnesses were result of weather magic
which encouraged the search for scapegoats. The next years there was a relatively pause on witch
persecution (1543-44) which was coincided with the discovery of the Loyists of Antwerp, a group of
spiritualists who rejected the existence of the hell, the eternal punishment and the resurrection. 90 When
the authorities were busy hunting heretics, a “real” threat for the Christendom, the witches'
persecutions ceased.
The Hapsburg officials were fiercely trying suppress reformed heresies in many provinces.
Anabaptists were the majority of the martyrs in the heresy persecutions in Flandres, Brabant, Ghent and
Brugges.91 Especially the Mennonite part of the Anabaptists was brutally persecuted and their
communities were wiped out from the southern Netherlands. The general climate of devastation and
disobedience of the heretics with the expressions of iconoclasm and the apocalyptic mood on the eve of
88 Ibid., 98.
89 Ibid., 103-4.
90 Ibid., 105.
91 Ibid., 106-26.

21
the arrival of the occupation army of Duke of Alva in the southern Netherlands provoked fears of
conspiracy by foreigners and vagabonds who had moved there and Anabaptist immigrants whose social
status was lower than that of the locals.92
Again in the southern Netherlands no witch trial coincided with heresy trial. In Bruges a
moderate witch panic occurred in 1596, with twenty- three accused witches and eight executions. 93
Before that year, only three witches were burned in 1468, accused for maleficia and two in 1532.
Between 1532 and 1596, there were denunciations of thirty people for love magic, ritual magic or
soothsaying but none of them was executed.94 On the contrary, during this period, the attention was
focused on religious dissidents with multiple victims convicted in death (almost seventy between 1527-
73).95 More of the half of them were Anabaptists and Mennonites, whereas the rest were Lutherans,
iconoclasts and Calvinists. When the last Anabaptists were executed in 1573, they gave their position to
the witches, the persecution of whom motivated by the anti- witchcraft law by Philip II of Spain in
1592.
Similar pattern is followed for the heresy persecutions in the city of Ghent. The first heretic
convicted in 1530 (a Lutheran knight) and the persecutions continued until 1592. The total number of
the persecuted was 252 heretics, 146 of them Anabaptists and Mennonites. 96 Also, many Calvinists and
religious dissenters were arrested in the aftermath of the iconoclastic riots of 1566. Of all the arrested
heretics, Anabaptists and Mennonites received the strictest punishments (70% burned at the state).
Between 1577, when the Calvinist forces took control of the city, and 1584, after the Catholic
restoration, the heresy and witchcraft persecutions ceased. In 1584, only one Calvinist was executed,
whereas, five Mennonites.
The period between the 1550s and 1570s was a period of fierce persecution of heretics and,
especially, Mennonites. The bloodiest of them occurred in 1567-9 and coincided with the crush of the
iconoclastic riots and the need to burn some diabolical agents. 97 The unusual confessions of Anabaptists
were attributed to demonic possession and their presence caused fears for the existence of other
insidious diabolical agents, the witches. The first recorded witch execution occurred on December 1595
but the next years only individual victims were burned, as the authorities had exhausted their
campaigns with the Anabaptists the previous years. However, there might be a connection between the
92 Ibid., 106.
93 Ibid., 106-7 and Table 4.1, 108.
94 Ibid.
95 Ibid.
96 Ibid., 109.
97 Ibid., 113.

22
major uprising of the artisanal and labouring groups of the town against the privileged elites and
Charles V, in 1539.98 During the rebellion, four individuals were accused of witchcraft, while the
former guild deacon was arrested and searched for the devil's mark on his body because of the
suspicion that he had made a pact his the devil.99
But why was it relatively rare for the heresy trials to coincide with the witch trials? During the
16th century, there was an intense attempt by the authorities to persecute dissident groups who were
considered possible threat for the Christian state and searched for people who could fit to their
stereotypical diabolical agent image and become scapegoats. When the enemy in the form of
Anabaptists were exterminated but the danger continued being present, they turned to the witches
because the devil could then work with underground sects corrupting the Christian society. The Dutch
War of Independence (1568-1648), the secession of the northern provinces from the Spanish Hapsburg
Crown and the religious conflicts between the Catholic and the reformed church created an
apocalyptical context which encouraged scapegoating. Philip II tried to revive the religious zeal of his
citizens with the attacks against witches.

Austrian Tirol

In the territories of the Hapsburg ruler Ferdinand I (1521-64), there was a significant number of
Anabaptists which triggered the anti-Anabaptist campaign of this group, parallel to that of the southern
Netherlands. But even before the rise of Anabaptism in Tirol in the 1520s, there was the need of
defense the Real presence of host against its desecrators, usually Waldensians.100 During the 14th and
15th centuries, Jews, in their stereotypical image, were presented as blasphemous desecrators who
performed inversed Christian rituals and “blood miracles”, using consecrated wine, images of Christ
and saints and crosses. The authorities convicted around two hundred Jews in 1420, whereas
theologians from the University of Vienna declared that there was “a confederation of Jews, Hussites
and Waldensians”.101 The fear of this confederation raised fears for a secret conspiracy of Jews and
heretics that plotted rebellion and sedition in the middle of the 15th century. Moreover, the authorities
projected their anti- semitic feelings on Anabaptists.
98 Ibid., 114.
99 Ibid.
100 Ibid., 166.
101 Ibid., 168.

23
 In the 16th century the imperial law of Charles V, Carolina (1532), defined heresy and maleficia
as capital offense and imposed the death penalty even to those who offended the consecrated Host. The
fear of the Catholic ruler about the threat of the Real Presence by the Protestant polemicists created the
need of defense of the supernatural realism and attacked to anyone had different opinion. Anabaptists,
with their fierce anticlericalism and the rebellious tendencies, as they were described in previous
chapter, provided the most convincing reason of the ruler's determination to hunt them down.
Anabaptists' confessions included rebaptism, with the assertion that “everything taught by Luther
Zwingli and pope was of the devil”, and the rejection of the Eucharist because “it was nothing but
bread”.102 Acts of desecration of the Host could be compared with the accusations against the Jews who
reversed Christian rituals and committed infanticide. Besides, Anabaptist but also witches' meetings
were called synagogues. Anti-semitic feelings were blended with beliefs of underground plot and
witchcraft.103 So, the governmental fears of the existence of a secret underground plot led to the
persecution of Anabaptists who were supposed to be incited by Jews. 104 Anyone who criticized the
sacraments should be eradicated, as a solution of diverting God's wrath. The different is that
Anabaptists truly committed acts of desecration and rejected the Catholic sacraments, whereas Jews, as
well as, witches were forced to confess such fantasies, usually under the use of torture.
It is estimated that more than four hundred Anabaptists were executed by Ferdinand I up until
1533, while only between 1527 and 1533 fifty- seven executions took place.105 He saw the Anabaptist
beliefs as mere “superstitions” but his campaign did not have a great appeal to his citizens as the
common folk remained indifferent by the the alleged threat of the Anabaptism but they exerted pressure
for the eradication of the witches who were considered real danger for their survival. However, the
laws of Ferdinand for Tirol (1526 and 1532) did not refer to sorcery and even the police ordinances of
1544 and 1552 described sorcery only as deceit and superstition. 106 The witch persecutions were only
scattered in Tirol during the period of the Anabaptist persecution and there was no extended witch
panic or trials of groups of accused of demonic pact. The theory of the diabolical conspiracy was seen
with criticism and the existence of alleged witches were attributed to the ignorance and superstitious
beliefs of peasants.107 So, between 1527 and 1539, the worst period of the Anabaptists' persecution with

102 Ibid., 174.

103 Lyndal Roper, Witch craze. Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany, Yale University Press 2004, 40.
104 Waite, Eradicating, 176.
105 Ibid., 171.
106 Ibid., 186.
107 Ibid., 188.

24
four hundred executions, no witch- hunt occurred and only in 1540 there were three witch trials.108
In Austrian territories too, the authorities tried to keep the two crimes distinct and Anabaptist
trials did not coincided with witchcraft ones. Only rarely were Anabaptists linked with witchcraft
because the accusations of heresy and potential rebellion were enough to create a dangerous image of
them. The judges were intolerant to accepted the full demonic witch stereotype, because they consider
it popular superstition, unless they yielded in popular pressure.

4. Conclusion

The 16th- century Europe seemed indeed to be a “persecuting society” where the search and
conviction of scapegoats was a central strategy by secular and ecclesiastical authorities. It is clear that,
in the procedure of defining the “enemies of the state”, the authorities but the local communities as well
proceeded to a strategy of demonizing and stigmatizing groups of people whose way of life just
differed from their own and acceptable one. From the persecution of lepers, Jews, mentally ill persons
or vagabonds, the 16th century is defined by the hunting of Anabaptists who were later replaced by
witches. The supernatural abilities that Anabaptists claimed to possess, as well as, their fierce rejection
of infant baptism, the most crucial sacrament of the official church, caused fears of demonic possession
which was evolved in Devil worship and diabolical plot by witches. Although there was not concrete
effort by the inquisitors to connect Anabaptism with the devilish conspiracy, religious polemicists
related the act of rebaptism to the inversion of the Christian sacrament in the witches' sabbath. Fears
that heretics and witches were the Devil's minions became the major cause of the “witchcraft panics”
of the 1560s. The fusion between the demonologists' views on devilish conspiracies and the popular
beliefs on witchcraft led to the witch- hunting and the suppression of religious dissidents in order to
impose religious conformity.
However, Anabaptists were not tried as sorcerers rather than as heretics and rebels. For the
ruling classes, religious innovations were seen as rebellion. In the interrogation room, their confessions
about communication with spirits and visits to the “otherworld” connected them with demoniacs who
needed the treatment of exorcism. The period between the bloody persecutions of Anabaptists until the
revival of the major witch-hunts (1525-1560s) is considered as a period of transition from the fear of

108 Ibid., 190.

25
the “real” heretical threat to the fear of the fantastic diabolical threat by sectarian sorcery. When there
were no heretics to execute, the authorities started trying to reveal the diabolical plot by sorcerers,
because the devil found alternative, underground ways to corrupt the society. This fear was risen with
the virtual disappearance of the visible threat, as most Anabaptists had been either executed, exiled or
fled to more tolerant regions (such as Moravia). So the need of the society for search of scapegoats to
blame for their everyday misfortunes turned to the more easily accused victims, the witches. However,
the judges transferred the same accusations to the witches and they used similar stereotypical images of
devil-worshiping and pact with the devil, reflecting the beliefs of the inquisitors. 109 The religious
propaganda played also an important role in the spread of the idea of the demonic plot and beliefs and
practices of a real heretical group could be easily transferred to another.
The religious and socio-political crisis of the Reformation period was the suitable environment
that reinforced scapegoating. Polemicists used the image of the diabolical witch in order to denounce
their enemies as allies of the Devil. However, the scholars still debate on the creation and development
of the devil- worshiping witch. The confessional identity or the conflicts triggered by the Reformation
crisis are not enough for the explanation of the attribution of demonic powers to witches. The
apocalyptic atmosphere during the religious wars, the political insecurity, the process of state building
during the 15th and 17th centuries together with the attempt of definition of the enemy of the state
created the preconditions of the prevalence of the witch stereotype using features from heretical groups
and superstitious ideology since the Middle Ages. Anti-heretic and anti- witchcraft rhetorics were
blended together.

109 See: Carlo Ginzburg, The Inquisitor as anthropologist, Myth, Clues and the Historical Method, Baltimore, The John
Hopkins University Press 1990, 156-164. Also, for the impact of inquisitorial beliefs on the group of the Friulian
benandanti in the 17th century, see also: Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian cults in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth century, Baltimore, The John Hopkins University Press 1983. The inquisitors, through their
fixed questions in the interrogation room, managed to transform the agrarian cult of the benandanti into witches who
had made a pact with the devil. The benandanti, while in the first decades of the interrogations denied any relation with
th witches, in a period of fifty years, in the 1640s, accepted the accusations of sorcery. Nevertheless, none of them was
executed.

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 Literature

 Behringer Wolfgang, Hexen und Hexenprozesse in Deutschland, (ed. Wolfgang Behringer)

Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1988.
 ______, How Waldensians became witches: Heretics and their journey to the other world,
Communicating with the spirits, (ed. by G. Klanczay, E. Pocs), CEU Press, Budapest
2005, 155-192.
 Bernet Claus, The Concept of the New Jerusalem among Early Anabaptists in Münster,
1534/35. An Interpretation of Political, Social and Religious Rule, Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte 102 (2013), 175-194.
 Clasen Claus- Peter, Anabaptism, A Social History, 1525-1618, Switzerland, Austria, Moravia,
South and Central Germany, London, Cornel University Press 1972.
 Friesen Abraham, The Marxist Interpretation of Anabaptism, Sixteenth Century Essays and
Studies 1 (1970), 17-34.
 Geraertis Jaap, The prosecution of Anabaptists in Holland, 1530-1566, The Mennonite
Quarterly Review 86 (2012), 5-47.
 Ginzburg Carlo, The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian cults in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Century, Baltimore, The John Hopkins University Press 1983.
 _____, The Inquisitor as Anthropologist, Clues, Myths and the Historical Method, Baltimore,
The John Hopkins University Press 1990, 156-164.
 Moore Robert, The formation of the persecuting society: power and deviance in Western
Europe, 950- 1250, Oxford, Blackwell 1995.
 Nischan Bodo, The Exorcism Controversy and Baptism in the Late Reformation, The Sixteenth
Century Journal 10:1 (1987), 31-52.
 Po- chia Hsia Ronnie, Society and Religion in Münster, 1535-1618, Yale University Press 1984.
 Roper Lyndal, Witch craze. Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany, Yale University Press
2004.
 Waite Gary, From Apocalyptic crusaders to Anabaptist terrorists: Anabaptist. Radicalism after
Münster, 1535-44, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 80 (1989), 173-193.
 _____, Heresy, Magic and Witchcraft in early modern Europe, Houndmills, Palgrave 2003.

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  ____, Eradicating the Devil's Minions: Αnabaptists and witches in reformation Europe, 1525-
1600, University of Toronto Press 2007.
 ____, Sixteenth- Century Religious Reform and the witch-hunts, The Oxford Handbook of
Witchcraft in early modern Europe and Colonial America, (ed. Brian P. Levack), Oxford UP 2013, 485-
506.

Internet sites

Friedmann, Robert, "Spiritualism", Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1959,

http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Spiritualism [accessed on 15.02.2016].

Waite Gary, “Witch-hunts in Wiesesteig”,

https://www.historicum.net/themen/hexenforschung/lexikon/alphabetisch/p-
z/artikel/Hexenverfolgung_in_Wiesensteig/ [accessed on 17.02.2016].

Image on the cover: Albrecht Dürer, Witch riding backwards on a goat, 1500, private collection.

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