Category
Historical violence
Inquisitions, crusades, witch trials, persecutions.
Filed
5 entriesThe Salem Witch Trials
A nine-month panic in colonial Massachusetts produced more than 200 accusations of witchcraft and the executions of twenty people — nineteen by hanging and one pressed to death — before the colonial governor halted the proceedings.
FILED · 1626–1631 · CATHOLIC · HISTORICALThe Würzburg and Bamberg Witch Trials
Two adjacent Catholic prince-bishoprics in Franconia executed approximately 900 people for witchcraft between 1626 and 1631 — Würzburg under Prince-Bishop Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg and Bamberg under Prince-Bishop Johann Georg II Fuchs von Dornheim — in the most concentrated witch-prosecution episode of the European witch hunts.
FILED · 1572 · CATHOLIC · HISTORICALThe St Bartholomew's Day Massacre
Beginning before dawn on 24 August 1572, an organised killing of French Huguenot Protestants by Catholic mobs and royal troops in Paris spread over six weeks to provincial cities, killing an estimated 5,000 to 30,000. Pope Gregory XIII struck a commemorative medal of celebration.
FILED · 1478–1834 · CATHOLIC · HISTORICALThe Spanish Inquisition
A 356-year ecclesiastical tribunal system established by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain in 1478, with papal authorisation, to enforce religious orthodoxy. Approximately 150,000 cases survive in the tribunal records; estimates of executions range from 3,000 to 5,000.
FILED · 1209 · CATHOLIC · HISTORICALThe Sack of Béziers
On 22 July 1209, crusader forces under papal legate Arnaud Amalric massacred the entire population of the Languedocian city of Béziers — Catholic and Cathar alike — as the opening atrocity of the Albigensian Crusade authorised by Pope Innocent III.
