21. The Middle Ages Were Not Obsessed With Witch Hunts
A common stereotype about the medieval period revolves around the assumption that it was an era of widespread superstition, during which church authorities were burning witches left, right, and center. While it is true that people in the middle ages were extremely superstitious, especially when compared to the modern era, their superstitions did not find expression in witch hunts. To be sure, there were some witch trials in those days, but they were relatively rare. When they happened, they were usually done by the secular authorities, and were not directed by the church.
Indeed, throughout most of the medieval era, the standard message disseminated by churchmen regarding magic was that it was silly nonsense that did not work. The European witch craze was more of a sixteenth and seventeenth-century phenomenon. It kicked off after Heinrich Kramer wrote the infamous Malleus Maleficarum in the late fifteenth century, in an attempt to convince a then-disbelieving public that witches were real. When it first came out, the church actually condemned the book and warned inquisitors not to believe what it said.
Read More: 6 Superstitions from the Middle Ages.
