Talk:Witch trials in the early modern period

Protests

I have added to this section a number of references containing the information cited in the list of protests which follows. --Taiwan boi (talk) 01:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Germany: Weather and Panic

I added this section after I conducted research and discovered that it had been a consistent topic among noted scholars on early modern Europe (i.e. Midelfort, Monter and Behringer). It is ment to only be brief and historiographical in a nature and feel it fills in a small gap in the rest of the article. - HChundak —Preceding unsigned comment added by HChundak (talk • contribs) 07:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Edit needed: "The assertions that early modern European witch hunts, at least where Germany is concerned, is the product of a number of events falling in line with each other is one clear a well developed view of the nature of these witch hunts."?????172.166.231.78 (talk) 06:28, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nachman Ben-Yehuda

Cut from the article:

Nachman Ben-Yehuda in 1980 claimed that "From the early decades of the 14th century until 1650, continental Eurpeans executed between 200,000 and 500,000 witches" [The European Witch Craze of the 14th to 17th Centuries: A Sociologist's Perspective Nachman Ben-Yehuda The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 86, No. 1 (Jul., 1980), pp. 1-31 Publisher: The University of Chicago Press]

the sentence cited is part of the abstract given right at the start of the article. No source whatsoever is provided, nor is any mention made of estimates of the number executed in the article body. Judging from his Wikipedia article, Ben-Yehuda also seems to be somewhat on the lunatic fringe. This is not a good source for a scholarly estimate of the number executed (1980. No source. Conspiracy theorist). dab (𒁳) 18:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661-1662

Why not give the section of The Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661-1662 it's own article? Judging by it's content, it seems to deserve one! --85.226.235.160 (talk) 11:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Country-specific data

If the table listing executions is referring to modern territories and countries, this should be explicitly stated. Currently it is confusing, as it includes some historical territories. Is "Austria" referring to contemporary Austria or the Habsburg hereditary lands, which e.g. would include most of modern Slovenia? Does "Bohemia" include Moravia? Compiling data for contemporary countries doesn't make sense in a historical article such as this and inevitably leads to confusion. For example, the "End of the witch-trials" section states that "[i]n Austria, Maria Theresa outlawed witch-burning and torture in the late 18th century; the last capital trial took place in Salzburg in 1750." There's something wrong here: Maria Theresa did not rule the Archbishopric of Salzburg, which only became a Habsburg territory in 1805. Martg76 (talk) 17:44, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]