About the Witch Hunt
D.Anton

Triumphant Christianity, once persecuted, came to occupy the place of authority. As such, it gradually evolved into intolerant models adopting increasing arbitrary attitudes that led to state and ecclesiastical "witch-hunting" policies with an intensity unknown until that time.
About the end of the European Middle Ages and during the first two centuries of the so-called "Modern Age" this process was unleashed with extreme virulence.
The institution that was responsible for the persecution was the so-called Court of the Holy Office established by the papacy in the fifteenth century.
This court, usually called "the Inquisition", was dedicated to persecuting people who deviated from the Catholic faith, in particular Jews, Muslims, or simply those people who still carried out traditional medicinal practices, the "witches" .
According to Amador de los Ríos, from 360 to 1525, 36060 people were executed for Judaism in Spain, and 350,000 were confiscated during the same period, after spending time in inquisitorial dungeons.
Between the 15th and 18th centuries, under the charge of "witchcraft" around half a million people were killed, most of them women. In a study carried out in southwest Germany, from 1562 to 1604, on 1258 executions, 82% were of sex female, usually old and midwives of humble strata (Midlefort) 4.
The accusation system routinely included the use of torture. The systems were varied, including the "rope treatment" (in which the tortured was hung with a weight tied to the feet and then released to cause dislocations), the water test (by which he forced himself to swallow water to the detainee with his back resting on a transverse bar), and the "test of fire" (the feet were smeared on the detainee with combustible material and then approached the fire).
It was not considered an indication of innocence to endure the torture, since this could be due to "diabolical enchantment", and the accused was condemned in spite of his refusal to confess.
The papal bulls had created a very effective system of feedback for the persecution, since not only the defendant had to pay his own food while spending months or years in the dungeon, but the entirety of his property went to the Holy Office, and his relatives were left subject to exaction.
To justify this treatment of persons not yet condemned, it was said that "suspects" and impeccable persons could not be considered in the same way.
The relatives of the "witches" were obliged to pay the bill for the services of the torturers and executioners. Also, the family ran with the cost of the bundles of firewood and the banquet that the judges gave after the burning.
From the book "Peoples, Drugs and Serpents", D.Antón, Piriguazú Ediciones.