Witch Hunts in the Low Countries (1450–1685)

Abstract

The historiography of witchcraft has, to the present, depicted the Southern Netherlands (present-day Belgium, without the territories of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the Duchy of Bouillon and the Principality of Stavelot-Malmedy) as a region of terrible, organized witch-hunts, mainly by the Spanish Habsburg rulers during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At the same time it puts these so-called Spanish Netherlands in total contrast with its northern neighbour, the Northern Netherlands (present-day Netherlands), where mass witchcraft trials were very rare. Archival evidence and the number of people executed as witches seem, at first sight, to confirm this theory. However, we have to discern a clear internal difference -chronologically as well as in terms of the intensity of the prosecutions -between the Flemish-speaking part and the French-and German-speaking parts within present-day Belgium. The witch-hunts in the territory of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège -which belonged from 1500 until 1789 to the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle (Niederrheinisch-Westfälischer Reichskreis) and included most of present Belgian provinces of Liège and Limburg -and the Duchy of Bouillon and the Principality of Stavelot-Malmedy will be studied separately. Times and areas of the most intensive witch-hunting and the approximate number of victimsLike most European regions, the Low Countries experienced their real witch-hunts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At that time, the territory of the Southern Netherlands covered some major regions such as Flanders,