The Pros And Cons Of The Witch Trials

From the late fifteenth to the early eighteenth century, a massive number of prosecutions of alleged witches washed across parts of Europe. The courts targeted women and children rather than adult males. Tens of thousands of innocent women and children were wrongly convicted of being participants of witchcraft and were convicted through heinous trials. The number of executions increased drastically on a daily basis. In most executions, prosecutors used these methods: “burned by the stake,” “drowning”, and “hangings.” In modern-day European society, the methods that the courts used are considered to be cruel and unusual punishment because innocent people were killed, the methods they used harmed women and children, and there was not any valid evidence obtained before the convictions.
The fundamental question …show more content…
There were four common methods of torturing accused witches to confess to their crimes: burning, drowning, pressing, or hangings. Execution by burning at the state was when the accused was bound to a large stake surrounded by burning wood, and is also considered the least used. Another method was “swimming,” whereby the accused hands are tied and immersed into deep water. If the accused witch floated, the water would reject them and was deemed guilty to being a witch, if they sank they were innocent. Leading to accused victims to die because they were not going to be able to survive either way. The courts would kill the alleged witch if they floated so they can show the citizens that they were in fact a “witch.” The two most common methods that were mostly used were pressings and hangings. Items like stones were pressed onto the chest of the accused until they confessed they were witches or died. Some people didn’t have the option of confessing, so they were sentenced to death by