13. Were the Middle Ages Full of Witch Hunts?
Were witches getting burned left, right, and center, during the Middle Ages? Compared to the present, medieval people were extremely superstitious. However, their superstitions were not expressed in witch hunts. While there were some witch trials in medieval Europe, they were relatively rare, and were usually done by the secular authorities, not directed by the church.
Indeed, throughout most of the Middle Ages, the standard message disseminated by churchmen regarding magic was that it was silly nonsense that did not work. The European witch craze was more of a sixteenth and seventeenth-century phenomenon. It took off after Heinrich Kramer wrote the infamous Malleus Mallificarum in the late fifteenth century, in an attempt to convince a then-disbelieving public that witches were real. When it first came out, the church actually condemned the book and warned inquisitors not to believe what it says.