ABSTRACT
This book was not written to illustrate any particular theory. From the outset it appeared that so many executions of such different types of woman, from different periods of time, could not be expected to fit into a single concept, even considering the relatively few countries discussed. Nonetheless certain patterns have emerged. One is mankind's persistent tendency to split itself into two Manichean camps, in which Evil is always located on the side of the Other: Christian and pagan, Christian and Jew, Christian and heretic. Less noticeable in primitive religions, whose gods are permitted to be both good and bad, this grandiose projection had a significant effect upon the witch trials of the late Middle Ages, Renaissance and seventeenth century; it recurs in rationalist form in the executions of the Terror. While a more or less equal persecution of men and women characterised the early phases of the witch-hunts, the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum in 1489 signalled an increased tendency to view women as sexually in league with Satan; thereafter the execution of witches and female heretics assumes almost sexocidal proportions, especially in Germany, resulting in burnings, hangings and beheadings so numerous as to defy accurate calculation even today.
