ABSTRACT
One of the most difficult tasks facing historians of European witchcraft isto account for the variations in the intensity of witch-hunting at different times and places. Why, for example, did more European prosecutions take place between 1560 and 1630 than between 1520 and 1560? And why was witch-hunting so much more intense in Germany than in Spain or in Scotland than in England? To answer such questions we must pursue two separate lines of enquiry. On the one hand, we must establish the general chronological patterns of witch-hunting throughout Europe, suggesting various reasons for the waxing and waning of prosecutions over the entire period. Then we must survey the history of witchcraft prosecutions in the various states and regions of Europe, an enterprise that will also take into account chronological patterns within those particular areas. Both investigations will provide further illustration of the complexity and the diversity of the general phenomenon with which we are concerned.
