Witchcraft
... Although belief in witches and witchcraft dates back to recorded history’s earliest days, the persecution of those accused reached its height in Europe’s early modern period. ... The origins of witchcraft in Europe are found in the pre-Christian, pagan cults such as the Teutonic nature cults, Roman religion, and the speculations of the Gnostics, the Zoroastrians, and the Manicheans. ... The conviction that the practice of witchcraft was closely associated with the female nature, and by extension, that every woman was potentially a witch. ... An average eighty- percent of those accused of witchcraft and eighty-five of those killed because of witchcraft were women. ... And in the twelfth century Kiev, when periodic fears of witchcraft arose, all the old women of the area were seized and subjected to the ordeal by cold water. ... The fact that overall about twenty percent of the accused were male is less an indication that men were associated with witchcraft than its appears. ... However, most of these men accused were related to women already convicted of sorcery, and they were not perceived as originators of witchcraft. ... For them witchcraft was not the original charge but was added on to make the initial accusation worse. Therefore witchcraft was seen primarily as a female offense. ... And In most places those accused of witchcraft were of lower economic standing than those who were the accusers.