Die Zürcher Hexenprozesse und die Reformatoren

Abstract

In the archives in Zurich, there are 230 sorcery trials during 1570 and 1630, among which 80 trials are death sentences. During 1521 and 1531, when Zwingli’s opinion was of dominant importance, only one witch was sentenced under a particular circumstance. Zwingli never addressed contemporary magic, sorcery, or the pact with the devil, which were the main accusations that the witches were blamed for. He even avoided speaking of witches in his exegesis of Exodus 22:17 (18). Bullinger was less reserved. He certainly believed in witchcraft, blamed witches of the pact with the devil, and called for death sentences. However, though he had already discussed sorcery in his Decades in the middle of the sixteenth century, only twenty years later, the number of sorcery trials increased in Zurich, while the fear of demonic attacks caused many witch hunts in the Little Ice Age all over Europe.