Salem Witch Trials
Witches are hated figures to Christian circles.Even in the present time pagans and wiccans remain targeted by Chirstians especially in America.The witches took on a bad history by Christians and a symbol of Satan. This search of witches might give some hints.
As this Inquisition kept going through the fourteen hundreds, its focus switched from Heritics and Jews to so called witches. Even though Pope Gregory the IX had authorized the slaughter of witches in the 12 hundreds, in 1484 Pope Innocent VIII issued a bill stating witches do live, thus becoming a heresy to think otherwise. This was quite a switch because in 906 the Canon Episcopi, a church law declared that belief in the life and use of withcrafts were heresy.
As a result of this,authorities from churches executed thousands of women and not but a few men in a try to get them to confess they soared through the sky,transformed into animals, and engaged in different sorts of Black Magic.
The making of the concept of satanic beliefs followed by persecution allowed the church to more easily take people to authoritarian control and openly denigrate females. Most of what was seen as witchcraft were simple creations of the church, but some was real or almost real practice with pagans and wiccans. In fact the word witch from the Old English word Wicca which was used for the definement of male and female members of ancient pagan tradition which reveres muscular,feminine and earthly aspects of God. The traditions of Wiccans involve both heaven and earth, both the this world and the next. Also involving a tradition which was not quite as heiacrhical and aurthoritarian, and this symbolized a straight challenge to the Christian Chruch.
Plus the execution of anything that represented feminine religiosity went to interesting lengths in the devotion to Mary becoming a suspect. Today the shape of Mary is both popular and important to the Catholic church, but to the Inquisition it was a probable sign of overemphasizing the feminine aspect of Christianity. In the Canary Islands, Aldonca de Vargas was reported to the Inquisition for nothing more than smiling and hearing mention of Mary.