In medieval Europe, those who were believed to have been involved with witches or demons were put on a religious trial and executed.
Such trials were unreasonable and harsh.
Sometimes they were tied hand and foot and thrown into the water. If they sank to the bottom and died, they were human; if they floated to the surface, they were executed as witches.
In other cases, needles were inserted into the body, and if the victim suffered and died, she was human; if any part of her body remained painless, she was a witch and was executed by fire.
Simply put, once a person was zeroed in as a witch, they were doomed to perish.
Many of those considered and tried as witches at the time were private doctors who lived deep in the mountains and assisted in childbirth.
Many of them were women well-versed in ancient folk remedies as well as in spells designed to bring love to fruition.
However, the authorities of the time considered such ancient customs to be a kind of false superstition that remained strongly rooted in folk beliefs, and tried to ostracize them as an obstacle to modernization and as those involved in the devil's arts.
In other words, behind the witch hunts, there was an aspect of suppression of such ancient religions.
In particular, a book called "Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches)", published in the late 15th century, spread throughout Europe as a textbook on witchcraft trials, aided by the subsequent invention of the letterpress printing technique.
Witch trials and witch hunts were most active in the 16th and 17th centuries, although the exact number of victims remains unknown.
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