Witch trials in the Netherlands

The witch trials in the Netherlands were among the smallest in Europe. The Netherlands are known for having discontinued their witchcraft executions earlier than any other European country. The provinces began to phase out capital punishment for witchcraft beginning in 1593. The last trial in the Northern Netherlands took place in 1610.

164 to about 200 people were killed in Dutch witch trials, rising to potentially 300 victims including casualties from regions that were under Spanish jurisdiction but eventually became part of the Netherlands. The victims were overwhelmingly women.

Belief in witches persisted in some areas into the nineteenth century and in 1823 one woman underwent the water ordeal on her own request with the support of the authorities to prove her innocence to her superstitious neighbours.

## History

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### Northern Netherlands prior to independence

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Despite significant losses of archival material, it seems that the Northern Netherlands saw most of their trials for sorcery and witchcraft between 1550 and 1575, when prosecutions in the Southern Netherlands were only just beginning. The province of Groningen's first trials were in 1457, leading to the executions of twenty women and a man.[citation needed] In the 1550s the area between Rhine and Meuse was hit hard, while in the 1560s, and particularly in 1564, prosecutions peaked in the County of Holland.[1]

Early in the sixteenth centuries when witch trials were still in the initial stages in the Low Countries, authorities often sought advice and "expertise" from abroad, such a Cologne and Cleves. An executioner from Cleves, master Symon, was contracted for several trials for his skill in breaking victims and extracting a confession from them.[2]

### Northern Netherlands after independence

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The Netherlands became an independent country after the Dutch War of Independence in 1579. During the late 16th century, the Netherlands did experience a couple of high-profile witch trials.

The provincial courts in Zeeland and Frisia maintained strict central control, were staffed by trained jurists and insisted on due process. Their academic jurists observed the procedural rules for a high standard of evidence before torture was allowed.[3]

In June 1593, the High Court (Hoge Raad) repealed a death sentence for witchcraft from Schiedam in the Province of Holland. This became a case of precedence which was henceforth followed as common practice in Holland, thereby de facto abolished the death penalty for witchcraft in the province.[4] This case of precedence was followed by the Province of Utrecht from 1596, by Groningen from 1597 and by Gelderland from 1603 onward.[4]

The total number of victims from witch trials in the Northern Netherlands is estimated at 164 (minimum figure of documented victims but almost certainly an undercount) to about 200 people killed in the Northern Netherlands; this figure includes executed victims, victims who died of torture before execution and victims who died in prison. The figure rises to at least 200 to potentially 300 victims if one includes casualties from parts of the Spanish Netherlands that the Republic conquered later (such as Staats-Overmaas and Staats-Brabant). Out of 164 documented victims, 155 were women. In the western provinces only women were accused and killed.[3] About half of the accused in the eastern provinces were men, chiefly accused of being werewolves, but very few men were executed.[5]

The number of casualties and the period in which witch trials peaked varied considerably per province. Victims numbered 50 in Groningen (peaks in 1540s and around 1590), 46 in Guelders (peak in 1540s and 1550s), 39 in Holland (peaks in mid 1560s, 1585 and 1591), 23 in Utrecht (peak in 1520s and 1530s), 4 in Zeeland, 1 each in Drenthe and Oversticht and none in Frisia.[3] The mid-1560s peak in Holland, the most populous province, home to roughly a third of the population of the Northern Netherlands, was a relatively urban phenomenon inspired by an economic crisis due to a drop in Baltic grain imports (the most important facet of foreign trade for Holland during the entire early modern period).[6] A few other witch trials were linked to plague outbreaks and the accused in these cases were often people who nursed plague victims, although pestilence never became a significant cause for trials. In the province of Groningen witch trials proliferated in outlying regions where local official had a free rein, but they were by contrast very rare in the jurisdiction of city of Groningen. Record keeping in Guelders was especially poor. The total number of victims was therefore quite probably higher than 164.[3]

Cunning folk were not commonly among the accused or victims of witch trials, there are only very few examples known.[7] There are no known cases of midwives being tried.

The last person executed for witchcraft in the Northern Netherlands has often been referred to as Anna Muggen of Gorinchem in 1608.[8] She had repeatedly declared herself to be a witch. In reality, however, the Bredevoort witch trials resulted in the execution of ten people as late as 1610, two years after the execution of Anna Muggen. The famous Roermond witch trial of 1613, resulting in 64 executions, took place in a part of present-day Netherlands which belonged to present-day Belgium (then the Spanish Netherlands) at the time, and thus does not actually belong to the history of witch trials on the Netherlands.

The fact that the common practice of repealing death sentences ended witchcraft executions in the Netherlands, however, did not mean that there were no witch trials. Witch trials still occurred in the Netherlands the entire first half of the 17th century, though they were relatively few and no longer resulted in executions. Aagt Germonts was judged guilty of witchcraft in 1660, but her sentence was commuted to pillorying.[9][8]

#### End of the witch trials

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The lack of witchcraft executions in the Netherlands attracted attention in contemporary Europe. It was also a cause of misplaced national pride as well as political propaganda, as the Dutch pointed to the severe Witch trials in the Spanish Netherlands and stated that in contrast to the case of their Catholic neighbor, there was no need of witch trials in the Netherlands as no one had been proven guilty of sorcery and claimed sorcery had been proven to be illusions.[4]

The common belief in witchcraft among the public did however persist despite the lack of interest from the authorities to conduct such trials. Witchcraft accusations as part of defamation cases occurred during the entire 18th century, and as late as in the 19th century there were lynchings of people pointed out as witches.[8] Some women would continue to seek ordeals to clear their names, which could however have negative consequences. Aaltje Brouwer from Eibergen underwent a water ordeal in 1694 and subsequently a weighing ordeal in Oudewater (where there was a weigh house) when her accusers were unpersuaded. The classis of the Reformed church, which never regarded her as a witch, decided then to deny her the Lord's Supper for tarnishing the name of the Reformed religion and indulging in "superstitious popery".[10]

In 1823 a woman, Hendrika Hofhuis famously demanded that the authorities allowed her to be subjected to the ordeal of water to clear her name in her community after she had been accused of being a witch. The authorities agreed in order to solve this defamation dispute, and she passed the test and cleared her name in the eyes of her neighbors. While not actually a witch trial, as the authorities merely allowed her this to end the harassment from her neighbors, this can nevertheless be regarded as the last time that something resembling a witch trial took place in the Netherlands.[10]

## Areas of the Netherlands under Spanish control after 1581

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For witch trials in the Southern Low Countries, see Witch trials in the Spanish Netherlands

The last witch trials on the territory of the modernday Netherlands took place near Roermond in 1613, a region that was controlled by Spain at the time.[6]

## See also

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* Witch trials in the early modern period

## References

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1. ^ Dries Vanysacker, "Prosecutions for Sorcery and Witchcraft in Europe" in: Renilde Vervoort, "Bruegel's Witches. Witchcraft Images in the Low Countries between 1450 and 1700" Bruges 2016, pp. 11–17.
2. ^ Hans de Waardt, "Witchcraft and Wealth: The Netherlands", The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, pp. 237–238.
3. ^ a b c d Hans de Waardt, "Witchcraft and Wealth: The Netherlands", The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, pp. 239–242.
4. ^ a b c Ankarloo, Bengt, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe; Vol. 4: The period of the witch trials, London: Athlone Press, 2002
5. ^ Dries Vanysacker, "Witch Hunts in the Low Countries", The Routledge History of Witchcraft.
6. ^ a b Joris van Eijnatten, F. A. van Lieburg, Nederlandse religiegeschiedenis, p. 157.
7. ^ Owen Davies, Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History, p. 167.
8. ^ a b c Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra; Brian Levack & Roy Porter. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe; Volume 5
9. ^ Monika Saelemaekers, Germonts, Aagt, in: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. URL: https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/Germonts [13/01/2014]
10. ^ a b Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Volume 5, pp. 112–113.

* v
* t
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Witch trials

In the British Isles|

* Witchcraft in early modern Britain
* Channel Islands Witch Trials
* Witch trials in England
* Witchcraft in Orkney
* Witch trials in early modern Scotland
* Witchcraft in early modern Wales
* Windsor Witches (1579)
* St Osyth Witches (1582)
* Witches of Warboys (1589–1593)
* North Berwick witch trials (1590)
* Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1597
* Pendle witches (1612)
* Northamptonshire witch trials (1612)
* Samlesbury witches (1612)
* Witches of Belvoir (1619)
* Bury St Edmunds witch trials (1645, 1662, 1655, 1694)
* Great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50
* Alloa witch trials (1658)
* Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661–62
* Bute witches (1662)
* Bideford witch trial (1682)
* Paisley witches (1696)
* Pittenweem witches (1704)
* Islandmagee witch trial (1711)

In Eastern Europe|

* Witch trials in Hungary
* Witch trials in Poland
* Kasina Wielka witch trial (1634)
* Northern Moravia witch trials (1678)
* Szeged witch trials (1728–29)
* Doruchowo witch trial (1783)

In France|

* Witch trials in France
* Labourd witch-hunt of 1609
* Aix-en-Provence possessions (1611)
* Loudun possessions (1633–34)
* Louviers possessions (1647)
* Normandy witch trials (1669–70)
* Affair of the Poisons (1679–1682)
* Trial of the Wizards of Lyon (1742–1745)

In Germany|

* Witch trials in the Holy Roman Empire
* Rottweil Witch Trials
* Derenburg witch trials (1555)
* Wiesensteig witch trial (1562–1563)
* Rottenburg witch trials (1578–1613)
* Trier witch trials (1581–1593)
* Pappenheimer family witch trial (1600)
* Fulda witch trials (1603–1606)
* Ellwangen witch trial (1611–1618)
* Eichstätt witch trials (1617–1630)
* Würzburg witch trials (1626–1631)
* Bamberg witch trials (1626–1631)
* Baden-Baden witch trials (1627–1631)
* Mergentheim witch trials (1628–1631)
* Esslingen witch trials (1662–1666)
* Witch trial of Fuersteneck (1703)

In Northern Europe|

* Witch trials in Denmark
* Witch trials in Estonia and Latvia
* Witch trials in Finland
* Witch trials in Iceland
* Witch trials in Norway
* Witch trials in Sweden
* Põlula witch trials (1542)
* Copenhagen witch trials (1590)
* Gyldenstierne-sagen (1596)
* Køge Huskors (1608–1615)
* Finspång witch trial (1617)
* Vardø witch trials (1621)
* Akershus witch trials (1624)
* Ramsele witch trial (1634)
* Rosborg witch trials (1639–1642)
* Vardø witch trials (1651–1653)
* Kirkjuból witch trial (1656)
* Vardø witch trials (1662–63)
* Kastelholm witch trials (1665–1668)
* Mora witch trial (1669)
* Torsåker witch trials (1675)
* Katarina witch trials (1676)
* Rugård witch trials (1685–86)
* Thisted witch trial (1696–1698)

In Southern Europe|

* Witch trials in Italy
* Witch trials in Catalonia
* Witch trials in Portugal
* Witch trials in Sicily
* Witch trials in Spain
* Val Camonica witch trials (1505, 1518)
* Mirandola witch trials (1522–1525)
* Navarre witch trials (1525–26)
* Lisbon witch trial (1559–60)
* Benandanti (1575–1650)
* Witches of Laspaúles (1593)
* Basque witch trials (1609)
* Terrassa witch trials (1615–1619)
* Witch trial of Nogaredo (1646–47)

Elsewhere
in Europe|

* Witch trials in the Netherlands
* Witch trials in the Spanish Netherlands
* Stedelen witch trial (1397–1407)
* Valais witch trials (1428–1447)
* Geneva witch trials (1571)
* Amersfoort and Utrecht witch trials (1591–1595)
* Bredevoort witch trials (1610)
* Roermond witch trial (1613)
* Spa witch trial (1616)
* Lukh witch trials (1656–1660)
* Salzburg witch trials (1675–1681)
* Liechtenstein witch trials (1679–1682)

Outside of Europe|

* Witch trials in Virginia (1626–1730)
* Connecticut Witch Trials (1647–1663)
* Maryland Witch Trials (1654–1712)
* Witch trials in New York (1642–1790)
* Salem witch trials (1692–1693)

Texts|

* Witchcraft and divination in the Old Testament (8th–2nd centuries BC)
* Directorium Inquisitorum (1376)
* De maleficis mulieribus (1440)
* Formicarius (1475)
* Summis desiderantes affectibus (1484)
* Malleus Maleficarum (1487)
* De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus (1489)
* Laienspiegel (1509)
* De praestigiis daemonum (1563)
* The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584)
* Newes from Scotland (1591)
* A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcrafts (1593)
* Daemonolatreiae libri tres (1595)
* Daemonologie (1597)
* Magical Investigations (1599)
* Compendium Maleficarum (1608)
* A Guide to Grand-Jury Men (1627)
* The Discovery of Witches (1647)
* Treatises on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants (1751)

Related|

* Witch hunt
* accusations against children
* Drudenhaus
* Werewolf witch trials
* Witchcraft Acts
* Witchcraft Act 1735 (Great Britain)

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Witch trials in Europe

Sovereign states|

* Albania
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States with limited
recognition|

* Abkhazia
* Kosovo
* Northern Cyprus
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Dependencies and
other entities|

* Åland
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