All language subtitles for Witches.Truth.Behind.the.Trials.S01E02.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH[EZTVx.to]

♪ ♪

[narrator] The Salem witch
trials remain the most
notorious in history,

but more than a century
before New England

tore itself apart, a panic
gripped the Western world,

and the era of the
witch hunt began.

- People believe in God,
but that means they

believe in the devil
too, so they're on the

lookout for witchcraft.

♪ ♪

[indistinct shouting]

[narrator] Over two centuries,
nearly 60,000 people, mostly

women, were put to death for
the crime of witchcraft

in a series of hunts and
trials that spread across

Europe and the Americas.

- And suddenly you're
on trial for your life.

That's a terrifying thing.

[narrator] Neighbor turned
against neighbor

in a desperate attempt to
root out malevolent witches.

Those found guilty were
hanged, beheaded, or burnt.

- We cannot underestimate
the impression

this must have left on
people seeing a person being

burned to death.

[narrator] These are the true
stories of the people

pursued and executed as witches,

and the men who made it their
mission to hunt them down.

♪ ♪

[crow squawking]

- The idea of a witch
is prehistoric.

It's there right at
the beginning of

recorded human time.

- In ancient times,
a witch was somebody

who did harm in a community
by magical means.

They might do it through all
sorts of different routes,

do with herbs or stones, or
anything that you might find

in the natural environment.

But you wouldn't necessarily
put them on trial.

You might think that person
who you thought was a witch

was also an asset
to your community

because they could
also do good magic.

They could heal people.

They could change the weather.

Magic could be good and bad,
and it was a very flexible

force in the ancient world.

[narrator] As the 13th and
14th centuries pass,

perceptions shift, and the
world becomes dangerous

for anyone identified
as a witch.

[Marion Gibson] The Middle Ages
isn't an easy time to be alive.

There is widespread
war across Europe,

much of which is religious
war between Catholics,

Protestants, and
other emerging sects.

There are also a whole
range of other dangers,

wide-scale epidemics,
particularly the bubonic plague,

which kills people in very
large numbers indeed.

- People are so desperate
for advice and help,

where sickness is scarily
common in comparison with

the modern world, in
which your children

and your elderly relatives
are both very likely prey

to infectious diseases,
the origins of which you

don't understand at all.

[indistinct shouting]

[Marion Gibson] The witch is an
ideal scapegoat

for a lot of these different
challenges that people face.

- And so the belief
in witchcraft

was just offering
an explanation,

and not only an explanation,
it was also offering suspects

and people who were thought
to be guilty of it.

So you could give these
catastrophes a face.

You could say, "This woman
or this man is doing it."

[Ronald Hutton] The surge to
accuse is driven by ordinary

people who really do believe
that the suspects

have ruined their lives, killed
their children and livestock,

set their houses on fire,
destroyed their crops.

And people with no
knowledge of meteorology,

no knowledge of biology,
no knowledge of pathology,

no way of explaining disease,
no way of explaining

bad weather,
witchcraft becomes a

rational explanation for
all sorts of things.

[crows squawking]

- The end of the 15th century,
you start to get a sense of

witchcraft in European
society growing out of the

fear of heresy.

- A heretic is someone
who is defined

by the church authorities
as not following the rules,

the regulations, the beliefs
of Christian orthodoxy.

Because in this period of
the 15th to 18th centuries,

we're really dealing with
nations which are theocracies,

they're really godly states.

[Malcolm Gaskill] People aren't
comfortable embracing these

different divergent views.

There can only be one right one.

[Marion Gibson] The church
decides that witches and

heretics are very
much like each other.

All of the things that people
have been thinking about

before, magic of various
good kinds, medicinal magic,

manipulating the weather,
get swept up into this new

definition of what a witch is.

The witch becomes somebody
who not only does harm

in your community,
but does it by the

help of the devil.

They might agree a pact
with the devil to do that,

they would be given
power in exchange

for handing over their body
and soul to the devil,

in exchange for
worshiping the devil.

And it became more
and more likely too

that witches would be women.

[Malcolm Gaskill] Underlying
the concept of witchcraft in

all countries was the idea that
women were the weaker vessels,

the Bible taught.

Women might be more susceptible
to the devil's temptation.

Cause I think that's
always hardwired

to every witchcraft accusation.

And that's why one
finds that 80%

of accused witches are women.

[Marion Gibson] The Catholic
church decides that actually,

there really are witches,
and it's the church's

job to root them out.

[Ronald Hutton] When you get a
combination of intense

religious temptation, warfare,
persecution, bad weather,

and a new idea of a satanic
crusade using witches,

that's the perfect storm
you're looking for

to create intense witch hunts.

[Marion Gibson] During the mid
15th century, there were

sporadic witch trials, and lots
of people started

writing demonologies.

[Ronald Hutton] A
demonologist is an expert in
the way that demons work.

After 1400 in Europe
increasingly,

if you're a demonologist,
you're out to explain

how witches work as well.

[Marion Gibson] A particularly
important demonologist

was Heinrich Kramer.

He was a Dominican monk
looking for witches.

Kramer seems to
have been a maverick.

He had a very bad reputation
for being a drunk.

His fight against the
witches really begins as

a one-man crusade.

He goes to Rome and receives
an official writ by the Pope

that declares Kramer
to be responsible

for eradicating witches
in Southern Germany.

[Marion Gibson] Kramer
conducts a witch trial in

Innsbruck in Austria in 1485.

[Johannes Dillinger] He
encouraged people to denounce

others to him, persons they
regarded as witches.

[Marion Gibson] And he gets the
names of seven women

brought to him in particular.

The leading one of these
women is the one called

Helena Schäuberin,
and he's particularly

interested in Helena.

So he decides to
hold a witch trial,

and Helena will be
the first accused

to be brought into court.

♪ ♪

Some of the officials
of the local bishop

actually stand up and
intervene in the trial.

And it becomes apparent
that while Kramer

thinks he is absolutely
in the right

and he has the Pope's authority,
the local clergy really

don't share that opinion.

They are not sure about his
witchcraft accusations.

[Johannes Dillinger] And
finally, the trial ended

as a total fiasco.

[Marion Gibson] He thought he
had the power of the Pope,

but it turned out that
at the first test,

local Clergy don't believe him.

[Johannes Dillinger] He had to
leave Innsbruck very hastily.

He had lost his
entire reputation.

He had made been the
laughing stock, essentially.

[Marion Gibson] And he comes
across as a very creepy,

very strange, very
obsessive individual.

The people who throw
him out of Innsbruck

go as far as to say they
think he is demented.

They think he is mad.

[Johannes Dillinger] Kramer was
obsessed with the idea

that women are weak,
weak in every respect.

Their bodies are weak,
their minds are weak,

and their souls are weak.

[Marion Gibson] He's so upset
about this failure

that he sits down
and writes a book

called Malleus Maleficarum -
"The Hammer of Witches."

This sets forth his
demonological ideas.

[Johannes Dillinger] It is the
one-stop shop for all

witch hunters for the next
couple of decades.

Everything you need
to know about witches

and witch hunts is in this book.

Malleus Maleficarum means,
when we translate it literally,

"The Hammer of the
Female Evil-Doers."

[creepy giggling]

We sin because we are weak,
and we do not understand that

the devil tries to seduce them.

The devil deceives them.

[Alison Rowlands] He says
witchcraft isn't just harmful

magic because that idea has been
around for centuries.

What Kramer is saying
is witchcraft is now

a heretical act of making
pacts with the devil.

So he's really
shifting the emphasis

for elite, educated men
about what witchcraft was.

♪ ♪

Kramer's experience of an
unsuccessful trial in Innsbruck

mean that he says in
Malleus Maleficarum

that there's no need
for what he calls

the screeching and
posturing of lawyers.

He thinks lawyers are
obsessed with small details,

things like whether their
client is guilty or not.

What's required, he says,
and he says it quite flatly

and bluntly and openly,
is that witchcraft

suspects should be tortured
as soon as possible.

They can be tortured
very lightly, he says.

For example, you might
just hang them up

a little bit by their arms,
and you might just break

their joints a little bit
and just put them to a

little bit of terrible pain.

And he thinks this is
absolutely reasonable.

When you look at it now,
this is a recipe for people

to confess to things
they haven't done

and to be executed as witches
when, in fact, they're

nothing of the sort.

Malleus Maleficarum
is particularly popular

across the German-speaking
lands of what is now Germany

and what is now Austria
and Switzerland.

And he's very pleased to report
in Malleus Maleficarum

that other inquisitors
are taking up

the demonological work, too.

He reports that many of them
have had tens of people

executed in those
jurisdictions, and he sees this

as a big success.

[narrator] With witches now a
serious threat to the

Christian world, panic sweeps
into the German lands,

where one of the first-ever
mass witch trial begins.

Hundreds of innocent
people will be executed.

As the hunts spiral
out of control,

no one is safe
from the merciless

and vengeful witch-finders.

♪ ♪

[Marion Gibson] Germany is a
real hotspot of religious

conflict in the 15th, 16th
and 17th centuries,

and I think that makes
German people think more

about the role that
they think the devil is

playing in their world,
the sort of temptations

to believe in the wrong
kind of religion,

temptations to sin, the
role of women within

religious communities, and
I think that makes them

particularly prone, I think,
to want to hold witch trials.

[Alison Rowlands] Modern-day
Germany doesn't exist.

There's a much, much
bigger political entity

in Central Europe
that's called the

Holy Roman Empire.

It's very, very, very
fragmented politically,

and what that means
is that political

and, very importantly,
legal authority

is really devolved to regional
or territorial rulers.

[Ronald Hutton] Trier is an
independent state ruled by

Johann von Schoenenberg...

..who is a counter-Reformation
Roman Catholic fanatic.

In other words, he's no
ordinary archbishop.

He's somebody who's had
his consciousness raised

to believe that Satan is
out to destroy the one

true Catholic Church,
using witches as

Satan's instruments.

He's out to make sure that
Trier is kept clear of the lot.

[thunder]

Trier is in an exceptionally
bad way in the 1580s.

Hailstorms and frosts
hit the territory

in what's supposed to be the
summers and early autumns.

[Alison Rowland] These
communities genuinely
think that witches,

in league with the devil,
in league with each other,

are damaging their crops,
ruining their livelihoods,

causing them and their
families to fall ill.

[Johnnes Dillinger] If you
believe in witchcraft,

you are likely to think that

the witch might be responsible
for your negative experience,

and you begin to look around
who could be a witch?

[Ronald Hutton] Trier and some
of the areas around it are

rather unusual in that justice
is often in the hands of

self-appointed committees
with a special remit to

find and try witches.

[Alison Rowlands] What are
called Hexenausschusse

in German, and it translates as
"witch committees".

♪ ♪

[Ronald Hutton] The idea
of Frankenstein-style
villagers running around

with flaming torches and
pitchforks is completely wrong.

The idea of impanelled
amateurs who are out

for blood is far closer.

[Johannes Dillinger] They are
really village committees

that are here for
just one purpose -

to identify witches, and
that's precisely what we do.

If you find a person you
think is likely to have

a pact with the devil,
you would inform the

witch-hunting committee.

They would begin to collect
evidence, to hear witnesses.

You would pay a clerk, and
you would submit that to

the official of the prince,
arrest this person, and

bring him or her to court.

[narrator] Witch-hunting
committees continue to spring

up in villages across the
region, each with an insatiable

appetite to eradicate the
ever-growing number of witches

they believe are harming
their communities.

[Ronald Hutton] The village
witch-hunting committees of the

Trier countryside have
no power over the city,

and therefore they have
no political impact.

What they have is an
emotional impact.

They get the citizens of
Trier thinking about witches.

[Rita Voltmer] There are lots
of rumours in the city of Trier

that alleged witches
had fled into the city

to avoid getting
arrested as witches.

There is a great wave going on.

More and more people
have been arrested.

Some prisons are filled up with
suspected so-called witches.

[narrator] The trials spread
from village to village,

creating a wave of terror
so powerful it soon

engulfs the city of Trier.

And here, no-one is safe.

Not even the wealthiest
members of the elite.

[Alison Rowlands] Witchcraft is
seen as such a threat

that they decide to treat
witchcraft as what was

called an exceptional crime.

[Rita Volmer] An accepted
crime can be treated in a

very short procedure.

[Johannes Dillinger] A week from
the arrest to the execution.

In many cases, they wouldn't
even hear witnesses,

just interrogate the accused.

♪ ♪

[Ronald Hutton] With most
crimes, you prove through

witnesses and physical means
that somebody has committed it.

But because magic is
supposed to be invisible,

you cannot actually
employ those rules.

[Alison Rowlands] That's when
the really abusive treatment of

suspects comes in, simply
to force people to confess.

They're doing what Heinrich
Kramer wanted them to do,

which is to say, witchcraft
is so bad, it's so terrifying,

we will just ignore the rules.

[muffled screaming]

[narrator] Even for the strange
and magical crime of witchcraft,

trials take place in
an established court,

overseen by an
all-powerful judge.

Presiding over the
witch trials in Trier

is the wealthy, ruthless and
unforgiving Dietrich Flade.

[Ronald Hutton] Dietrich Flade
is probably the most important

citizen of the city of Trier
in the early 1580s.

He's been building his
career there for decades.

He's served as various
city officials.

He is very much the
prince-elect as hitman.

He takes on the city on
behalf of the archbishop

and he beats it down to
increase the archbishop's

power over the city.

♪ ♪

[Rita Voltmer] He was also a
moneylender to the city,

but also to the peasants
in the rural area

and to citizens in Trier.

[Johannes Dillinger] He
didn't treat the people who
owed him money very well.

Flade was, for a time, the main
judge at the city of Trier.

In this function, he
absolutely believed

in the concept of
witchcraft himself.

[Rita Voltmer] He was present at
the questioning, at the torture.

He looked for better measures
to bring witches to confession.

[Johannes Dillinger] The
judges were, at least in
Germany, mostly lay judges.

Most of them had never
been to university.

Most of them had
never studied law.

Flade was an exception.

He had studied law,
he had a doctorate.

So Flade could have been more
critical of the witch trials.

So few trial records survived.

The remaining records tell us
that a number of trials happened

in the villages, but we know
fairly little about them.

Among the victims of the
witch hunts at Trier

was Margaretha Braun.

[Rita Voltmer] She was
a poor washing woman.

[Johannes Dillinger] She was
called a witch in public,

on the marketplace,
for everybody to hear.

If you do that, you
are very, very certain

that the person that you call
a witch cannot defend herself.

♪ ♪

[Rita Voltmer] After she was
arrested, she was tortured

7 times, very, very harshly,
but they could not gain

any confession out of her.

And this is when Flade steps
in to put more pressure on her.

- Torture is often used
as a tool of terror.

It becomes extremely effective
because what you're doing

is you're instilling terror
in the entire community,

in the entire families, in
villages, in wider society.

And by doing that, you
create this sense of

I have to tell on others.

Also, when there are
grudges against people,

that they will create
stories or create evidence

that actually implicates
people, even when they haven't

actually done anything.

But the purpose is
to instill fear.

[woman screaming]

[narrator] Flade subjects
Margaretha Braun to

merciless rounds of brutal
and intense torture.

She searches for a
confession to end the agony.

[Ronald Hutton] She admits to
committing a venial sin,

which is eating meat in a
broth, which is all she can

afford, on a fast day.

[Johannes Dillinger] Of
course, it's not directly
connected to witchcraft.

There's nothing magical
about that broth.

It is about the witches
being bad persons.

They might break
the fast by eating

a meat-based type of
food on a fast day.

[distorted screaming]

[Rita Voltmer] Margaretha
Braun is the first case

where we do have trial
records, but only fragments.

So we do not know if
she was executed,

but I think she was because
Flade tried very hard

to bring her to confession.

[narrator] Accusations and
trials continue to spread

ferociously across Trier.

Hundreds are interrogated,
confessions grow wilder,

and a terrifying
conspiracy emerges.

[Ronald Hutton] Unfortunately,
in many cases in Germany,

it's assumed that witches
can't do the damage they do

without there being a
whole bunch of them,

and so it's quite regular
for people under torture,

once they've confessed to
being a devil-worshipping

witch themselves, to
name other people with

whom they travelled to
the Witches' Sabbath.

[distorted, evil laughing]

[Alison Rowlands] They
believe that witches are
gathering in large numbers.

They have to try and
explain how witches could

get to these Sabbaths in
large numbers at night,

cos they happen at night,
so that's where the belief

in magical flying comes
in, so they're flying

to the Sabbaths.

They're worshipping
the devil, not God.

They're kissing the
devil on the backside.

Importantly, they're
plotting their acts of harm

against the communities
around them,

sacrificing children,
eating babies.

[Rita Voltmer] The seduction by
the devil, the sexual

intercourse with the devil,
the evil deeds they did

at the Witches' Sabbath.

[Alison Rowlands] This is all
your worst fantasy nightmare of

what a heresy, a witches'
heresy might be,

because it suggests there's a
big group of witches out there,

and what that encourages the
courts to do is, they say,

"Who else did you see at
the Witches' Sabbath?"

If you're torturing someone
and asking them those

sorts of leading questions,
what happens is that

the suspects begin
denouncing other people.

[Ronald Hutton] Increasingly
accused witches are claiming to

have seen prominent members
of the city council at

Witches' Sabbaths.

[Alison Rowlands] They rely on
children's testimony,

and the idea is that these
boys have been taken

to the Witches' Sabbath,
and they're used as a way

into this hidden world, and
it's their denunciations

that help speed up
the trial processes.

[Ronald Hutton] A 16-year-old
boy from the countryside near

Trier, who's been giving witness
against accused witches,

mentions that he was taken along
to the Witches' Sabbath...

..and he saw Flade there.

[narrator] The accusation that
a powerful member of the

elite, like Dietrich
Flade, has taken part in

the Witches' Sabbath,
sends shockwaves

through the city.

Other witnesses emerge,
each telling a story of

Flade's diabolical deeds.

A picture is forming.

[Rita Voltmer] Denunciations
against Flade, accelerated.

[Johannes Dillinger] Witches
said that Flade was the
master of the Sabbath.

[Rita Voltmer] More and more
named him personally and said

it was Dietrich Flade,
he was there, he came

there in a golden carriage
drawn by black horses.

[Alison Rowlands] They
say that he is profiting
from the weather magic,

in other words, the bad weather
that the witches are causing

is making the harvest fail, and
that works to the advantage

of Flade and other men like him.

They've got stocks
and stores of grain.

They're believed to be
selling those stores of

grain for a high profit.

[Johannes Dillinger] Flade was
one of the most outspoken

supporters of the
Prince Archbishop.

The Prince Archbishop
looked the other way.

The Prince Archbishop
didn't allow a witch trial

against Flade to begin.

♪ ♪

[Rita Voltmer] In 1588, a
commission is established

to look for
circumstantial evidence

and to look for all
these denunciations

made against Flade.

So Flade is well aware that
something is going on.

He knows perfectly well
that after a certain

amount of denunciations,
it will get difficult for

him to avoid the trial.

[Ronald Hutton] Crowds in the
street are crying out for his

blood or his cinders.

[indistinct shouting]

He is already convicted in
the court of public opinion.

The key accusation
against Flade,

which makes his all-powerful
master, the Prince Elector,

abandon him,
is that Flade, on doing

his deal with the devil,
agreed to try and

murder his master.

Flade's unlucky in that the
health of the Prince Elector

actually has been bad lately,
and so it's quite easy to

persuade a man who is ill and
can't really work out why,

and over whom the medics
are scratching their head,

that the solution to
his problems is that an

attempt is being made
to kill him through a

mysterious and lingering
malady of bewitchment,

and in the end, he
comes to believe it.

Flade's downfall goes
through various stages.

He attempts to run.

He actually gets
out of the city,

but the guy who's
transporting him realises

that he's taking a
wanted criminal away

and pinions him and takes him
back again and hands him over.

After that, he's put
under house arrest,

he makes one more
escape attempt.

Finally, Prince-elect
gives way and allows

Flade to be put on trial,
and the moment that

happens, he's doomed.

[Johannes Dillinger] Flade
understood witch trials.

He had been a judge himself.

He knew that there was
very little he could do.

He knew that the court
would torture him

and that he would
eventually confess.

[Alison Rowlands] He would have
been psychologically in quite

a hopeless position, quite
a hopeless frame of mind.

He would probably have
been stripped, manhandled,

he'd probably
probed and pricked.

So the physical impact
of that humiliation

for a man of his standing
and a man of his wealth

would have been
pretty devastating,

and that's even before you get
to the actual physical torture.

♪ ♪

[Ronald Hutton] The standard
German and Swiss instrument of

torture at this period
is the strappado.

[Johannes Dillinger] You have
your hands tied behind your

back, a rope is tied
around your wrists,

and then you throw the rope
through a hook in the ceiling

and simply pull
on the other end.

[Flade moaning in pain]

[Nimisha Patel] Of course it's
intended to create maximum pain,

but what it also does is it
causes physical injuries,

so it can create tears in
the ligaments and tendons.

You may be beaten in
that position, you

may have fractures, you
may have broken bones,

you may be beaten on your
head at the same time.

Again, that can lead
to head injuries.

People can also start to
hallucinate with intense pain

and under those conditions.

You're left in that state,
and there's a sense of

creating humiliation and shame.

You can lose a sense
of where you are.

You literally lose
your sense of self,

and that's the purpose
of torture, right?

Because then you're malleable,
you can be told what to say,

you can be forced.

It creates this
internal conflict

for those that are
being tortured as to,

do I surrender to the
demands of the torturer,

even if it means I'm lying and
I know it's not the truth,

or do I hold on to
my sense of truth

and know that I will
be killed anyway?

[narrator] Months of torture
exact a brutal toll.

Flade finally breaks.

The interrogators have
forced a confession.

♪ ♪

[Johannes Dillinger] Flade
confessed to being a witch.

He had met the devil.

He had had intercourse
with the devil.

He made the pact.

The devil gave him the
ability to use magic

to his own advantage.

He admitted to having
planned to kill people,

to make people ill.

♪ ♪

He had gone to the Sabbath.

He accepted his role as
the master of the witches.

With every word he
sealed his fate,

but he knew already, I
suppose, when he faced his

judge, that it was over,
that there was no way

out of this anymore.

♪ ♪

[narrator] Flade
awaits his verdict.

His fate is sealed.

He is found guilty of witchcraft
and sentenced to death.

♪ ♪

[Ronald Hutton] People
convicted of witchcraft

are regarded as heretics
as well as criminals,

and it was believed that
the bodies of heretics

were actually unclean,
that they could blight a

community with ill fortune.

Alive or dead, their
corpses needed to be burned

to remove the contagion
from the community.

[fire crackling]

Most people sentenced
to burn for witchcraft

were dispatched by a much
more humane means beforehand.

The two usual choices
were strangling them

or beheading them,
and both of those are

relatively merciful,
relatively quick ways to go.

[Rita Voltmer] Flade
perhaps thought

until the last minute
that this ordeal would

not happen to him,
that he perhaps

could get out of it,
that he was spared the

fire, but he was not.

[Johannes Dilliinger] Justice
has to be public.

This is what the people of
the early modern period expect.

Numerous people came to
witness his execution.

Mean he was a celebrity.

This was a very prominent case.

[Alison Rowlands] We need to
remember as well that he would

have looked so
different from before.

You know, he would have
been a rich man before,

a beautifully dressed
man, a wealthy man.

You know, he's in prison
for weeks, he's tortured.

He would have looked
almost unrecognisable,

probably, by the time
of his execution

because of the treatment
that he's undergone.

[Rita Voltmer] He
made a last speech,

a very pious one,
and that he was

righteously treated and
that the people should

take an example by his fate.

♪ ♪

[Alison Rowlands] The only
thing he has left

is to die a good death.

That was believed to be
very important at the time,

that you go to meet your
maker in a sort of penitent

and kind of dignified way.

The idea was that if
you've confessed,

that would stand you
in good stead with God

when you go into the next life.

[narrator] Crowds gathered to
watch the once powerful judge

meet his terrible fate.

[fire crackling]

[Alison Rowlands] Flade's
execution does send a message

that nobody is really
absolutely safe from accusation.

[Johannes Dillinger] If you
can accuse Flade,

an affluent man,
from the city of witchcraft,

you can accuse everybody
of witchcraft.

[Ronald Huttdon] It
becomes possible to

take out other city leaders.

They tend to be
former city officials

who've lost power and are now
vulnerable to their rivals.

[Johannes Dillinger] Trier
becomes the example

for witch hunts done right,
witch hunts who do not

respect social status anymore.

Everybody could be a witch.

[fire crackling]

[narrator] Dietrich Flade may
be dead, but the hunt rages on.

What started as a
crusade against evil

and suspicious women in the
villages surrounding Drier

has now ensnared powerful
members of the city's elite.

[Alison Rowlands] In the
electorate of Trier,

probably between 800
and 1,000 people

are executed for witchcraft.

[Johannes Dillinger]
The wave of witch hunts

Flade fell victim to
continued for another ten

years, roughly, after his death.

[Alison Rowlands]
The prince elector,

Johann von Schoenenberg,
has become genuinely

concerned about the fact
that the witch trials

have gone on for so long,

the fact that the witch trials

have begun to incorporate,
you know, men and members of

the social and political elites.

[Johannes Dillinger] In 1591,
he issues his ordinance

concerning witch
hunting committees.

This ordinance is an attempt
to rein in the activities

of the committees.

The ordinance has never
tried to end the activities

just like that.

The point was merely to
bring them under the control

of the representatives
of the government.

[Rita Voltmer] However,
this ordinance

had not such a great success.

Because witch hunting committees
could still be established,

they were still
working together,

so its success was rather low.

[Alison Rowlands]
The fears about

witchcraft were kept
going, the knowledge about

who was a witch, who
might be a witch

was kept going, but
it was also spread.

You know, these are very
public events, the executions,

so it's actually quite
hard in one of these

smallish territories to
say no to your subjects

when they actually want
to keep hunting witches.

♪ ♪

[Ronald Hutton]
By the mid-1590s,

there are signs that
people think it's time

to wind witch hunting down.

[Alison Rowlands] Economic
conditions improved somewhat.

Some of those real pressures,
those really intense

pressures on the economy, they
died down to some extent.

But belief is
absolutely still there.

It's not that people
stopped believing.

[birds chirping]

[Johannes Dillinger]
Trier was an influence

on all later witch hunts simply
because it was so well-known.

So what do we know
about witches?

We know what we have learned
during the witch trials

from the confessions
of the witches,

and we get that
type of information

in demonological books
that refer to Trier.

♪ ♪

[Ronald Hutton]
Trier's witch hunt

is big European news, and
that's because this is

the age of the printing press,
and it generates a lot of print.

[Rita Voltmer]
Pamphlets were printed.

Some of these pamphlets
were also translated

in Dutch language, in English
language, in Danish language.

[Alison Rowlands] The
Trier Hexentanzplatz is

a very, very detailed
image from 1593,

which shows this
supposed Witch's Sabbath

in absolute immense detail.

So we've got everything from
the King of the Sabbath

sitting at a table feasting.

You've got Flade's supposed
golden coach approaching.

You've got witch
Clerics doing magic.

You've got witches flying.
It's incredibly detailed.

[Ronald Hutton] This is the best
means of spreading witch hunting

among ordinary people.

You only need to have one
literate person in a community

who can read out
the text to the pub

to get everybody in the
community up to speed

on how to have a witch hunt.

♪ ♪

[Johannes Dillinger] The
great German opponent of
the witch hunts,

Friedrich Spee, called Germany
the mother of the witches.

And he was right.

About half of all the people
executed for witchcraft

worldwide during the
early modern period

came from Germany.

♪ ♪

[Rita Voltmer] It was the first

Catholic witch hunt
gaining such a popularity

and such a media hype.

These witch trials
were recognized

all over the Holy Roman
Empire, but also in other

parts of Europe.

[Johannes Dillinger] Trier had
proven that the witches

were really about to take
over, that they could really

threaten the entire society.

[narrator] In just
over a decade,

hundreds of people have
been accused of witchcraft

and executed.

Although the panic
in Trier fades,

it marks the beginning
of the witch hunts.

Europe and North America
will soon be consumed

by the bloodthirsty
drive to kill witches.

Trier may have been the
first mass witch trial,

but it won't be the last.