ABSTRACT

Even allowing for the fact that the horrified chancellor may have exaggerated the situation, the surviving material is ample testimony to the brutality and extensive nature of child witchcraft proseclltions in Wiirzburg. These particular trials fell into a distinct category of prosecutions, that is to say, those types of panics which occur in institutional settings. Group dynamics were clearly important in sustaining the trials, for accused schoolchildren such as Hans Philipp Schuh invariably c1aim\!d that they had initiated classmates and consequently the number or slispeds escalated.