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• 1 2022-09-28T14:24:02-07:00 Introduction 39 plain 2022-10-03T20:40:54-07:00 Throughout the Middle Ages, witchcraft and the belief in witches was widespread in Europe, despite the Church’s condemnation of it as pagan superstition. Convictions for witchcraft (commonly viewed as a folk belief) were relatively rare, and those convicted of it received light sentences. Some historians argue that the shift in belief in witchcraft as superstition to witchcraft as heresy can be dated to the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), whose work would become instrumental in the later development of Church doctrine that included belief in magic and the power of the Devil. While other theologians in the 13th century, such as Albertus Magnus (c. 1200-1280) and Roger Bacon (c. 1219-c. 1292), wrote about magic, none were as critical of it as Aquinas.
  
  
  
  During the 15th century, fears about witchcraft escalated to a startling degree, and often led to wide-scale witch hunts. Prosecutions reached a high point by the late 16th century, during which period historians have estimated that 50,000 people, mostly women, were executed. Much of this new mania was the result of the publication in the mid-15th century of new theological treatises that rejected the centuries-old canon Episcopi (a passage in canon law that was skeptical of the reality of witchcraft). Many subsequent publications, some of which are included in this exhibit, seized on these once-heretical views, elevating the hunting of witches to a mania that engulfed Western Europe, finally coming to an end in the late 18th century.