Abstract

Religious anxieties about heresy, demonic activity, and social discipline intensified as extensive religious, judicial, and social changes unfolded in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Religious strife intensified in some confessional border regions, and those areas of more intensive religious conflict also witnessed the most significant concentration of witch hunts. This map highlights the overlap in locations of significant witch hunts and religious conflicts in early modern Europe.

Witch Trials and Confessional Conflicts (1300-1850)

Source

Source: Cartography (WCAG-compliant) by Gabriel Moss, 2025, in collaboration with Greta Kroeker. Data based on: Peter T. Leeson and Jacob W. Russ, "Witch Trials," The Economic Journal, vol. 128: 2066–2105, https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12498

Peter T. Leeson, Jacob W. Russ, "Witch Trials," The Economic Journal, Vol. 128, No. 613: 2066–2105, https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12498
Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. Fourth edition. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis, 2016.

Witch Trials and Confessional Conflicts (1300-1850), published in: German History in Documents and Images, <https://germanhistorydocs.org/en/from-the-reformations-to-the-thirty-years-war-1500-1648/ghdi:map-5009> [January 20, 2026].