Oh, I found this story. It’s case of some Albert Wiroziemski. He was monk who committed some forgery and other crimes, was caught in 1641 in Lviv. Scared (forgery itself was capital offense at the time), he wrote using his own blood contract on the wall of his cell, promising to give his soul to devil in exchange for freedom and next 12 years of life. Next morning guards found evident material proof of heresy in plain sight. Apparently devil wasn’t interested in this contract and Wiroziemski was burned at the stake - for both forgery AND heresy.
Hell, John Edward has/had a show on TV where he openly practiced what would be called witchcraft. And personally, I’d like to see him in prison for it.
And there is a “Psychic” in every town who will pretend to tell your fortune, put a spell on you or even on your foes, and scam you. Even today this isillgeal in some juristictions, although of course it’s generally just a minor crime with a fine. So, there must have been such scamsters in the past. Thus, some of those accused must have been pretending, at least. Admittedly it carried the Death Penalty in the past but so did petty theft in some times and places. So, if they hung pickpockets, why not scamsters?
The Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 made it illegal upon pain of death to not only practice witchcraft, sorcery, and necromancy but to even avail yourself of the services of those who practice those vile arts. We tend to just lump it all into one category called witchcraft but back then they didn’t mind separating magical practices into different categories.
From 1450 to 1750 nearly 90,000 people, mainly women, were tried for the crime of witchcraft with roughly 45,000 of them being executed. So about half of them were never convicted or received lesser punishments such as banishment, corporal punishment, or perhaps fines. Of course I don’t believe these numbers count those who might have died in prison or committed suicide. They did have standards of evidence back then but they varied from place to place and from time to time. Scotland of 1563 was not the same as Bavaria of 1600 so it’s difficulty to sum up a phenomenon that occurred throughout Europe over a period of nearly 300 years. What is applicable in one place and time may not be applicable in another.
To keep things brief here’s a quick and dirty example of their evidence.
Testimony of Witches Victims & others: The victims of the witch’s maleficium (harmful magic) or other witnesses would testify in court. For example in the trial of Margaret Barclay in Scotland 1618 she was accused of sinking the ship Gift of God. A witness testified that she had prayed for the ship to sink. Margaret Taylor was an 8 year old servant girl and who cared for Barclay’s children testified that her employer used magic to sink the ship.
Testimony of Witches themselves: A vagabond named John Stewart who delivered the news of the ship’s sinking testified that Barclay came to him and asked him for instructions on how to use magic to sink the ship. His testimony included accounts of the devil appearing to them as a “handsome” lapdog whereupon they all went to the sea and threw in clay figures in the shape of two people and the ship as part of their magical rites to sink the Gift of God
Physical Evidence: It was believed that the Devil often marked his followers in some way. The mark was supposed to be immune to pain so witch prickers would look for marks upon the body, stab it, and if the victim felt no pain they had their evidence.
Now obviously there’s all sorts of problems with this kind of evidence but that’s what they had in a nut shell.
Marc