Trials
There were extensive efforts to root out the supposed influence of Satan by various measures aimed at the people who were accused of being servants of Satan. To a lesser degree, animals were also targeted for prosecution: see animal trial. People suspected of being "possessed by Satan" were put on trial. On the other hand, the church also attempted to extirpate the superstitious belief in witchcraft and sorcery, considering it as fraud in most cases.
Read more about this topic: Witch Trials In The Early Modern Period
Famous quotes containing the word trials:
“Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel’s face. Every man deems that he has precisely the trials and temptations which are the hardest of all others for him to bear; but they are so, simply because they are the very ones he most needs.”
—Lydia M. Child (1802–1880)
“All trials are trials for one’s life, just as all sentences are sentences of death.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Old age is not a disease—it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of vicissitudes and disappointments, trials and illnesses.”
—Maggie Kuhn (b. 1905)