Witches Be Bumming
Charts are really great!
You may know that back in Olde Times, witches were all over the place. They were doing crazy witch stuff and freaking people out.
The freaked out people responded by forming angry mobs and just going to town on witches (See chart).
Clearly, the mobs were fairly successful, if a little over-zealous. Despite the precipitous decline in the witch population, the burnings continued apace (though never again reaching the peek levels of 1670, the decline in burnings may have been more directly related to the great firewood shortage of 1672).
The number of angry mobs also steadily declined, possibly due to rampant burnings of future mob members.
4 comments:
Actually, the great European witch-hunt was essentially a judicial operation. Only occasionally did agitated villagers take justice into their own hands and execute witches vigilante style. The large majority of persons executed for witchcraft during this time were formally and legally tried and sentenced. The intensive prosecution of witches in early modern Europe was facilitated by a number of legal developments that occurred between the 13th and 16th centuries.
Holy crap, that chart is so funny.
CBAM, nobody's going to believe you unless you have some sort of chart.
I think you need another chart, come to think of it. Because in your intro, you say that witches were doing crazy stuff, and that angry mobs responded by going to town on witches. But your chart shows at its earliest point (1650) a large witch population and a small mob population; then the mob population grows a lot and the witch population falls. But, if there was a large witch population before 1650, why'd the mobs start in 1650? Did the witches start acting nuts and casting spells in 1650? Your intro doesn't say!
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