Research Paper on:
The Rise and Fall of the Witch Hunts in Europe

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
against others who were innocent, One of these period in history was that when the rise of witch-hunts took place. There are many estimate of how many were put to  death in Europe during this dark period, however many figures which quote millions are over estimates and at most the figure appears to be several hundred thousand (Briggs, 2002). The  majority of these took place between the fourteenth and the seventeenth century, with the rise and fall of this persecution being a symptom of political control fear.  The rise of the witch hunts in European may be traced back much further than the fourteenth century. The Witch Hunting and craze began as  early as 1245 in the Cathar region of France and in 1275 a woman aged 60 confessed to having sexual intercourse with the devil, as a result of her  confession she was burnt at the stake for being a witch (Cawthorne, 2003). These small cases may appear isolated, but they were able to start a pattern that would be  replicated on a larger scale. The victimised were usually less powerful than the accusers, this may be in social status, and was often in gender (Davis, 1999). It is widely  recognised today the majority of those tried for witchcraft were innocent of all charges. The trigger for the increased spread if the  witch hunts may be seen as the fear by the Roman Catholic church and a series of papal bulls, resulting form the fear of loss of political power by the  church. The first attacks on witches was not because of devilry or maleifcia but through Heresy. This can be seen by the attacks on the Waldenisians in the late