The Witch trials in the Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium and Luxembourg minus the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the Duchy of Bouillon and the Princely Abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy) belonged to the more intense, along with those of the Holy Roman Empire and France. In an area recently affected by a religious war, the Spanish Inquisition encouraged witch trials as a method to ensure religious conformity. In this, it was similar to the Witch trials in Latvia and Estonia. The Spanish Netherlands is still regarded as a region with a tremendously large number of organised witch hunts. At the same time, emphasis is placed on the total contrast between the Southern Netherlands on the one hand, and the Dutch Republic or the Northern Netherlands (now the Kingdom of the Netherlands) on the other, with witchcraft prosecution being comparatively rare in the North. Archival evidence and the number of people executed as witches at first sight seem to support this contrast. The current state of historical research shows that between 1450 and 1685 at least 1,150 to 1,250 individuals were executed as witches in the South – a number that is a great deal higher than the 160 to 200 persons put to death as witches in the Northern Netherlands between 1450 and 1608. However, within the Southern Netherlands, a clear distinction should be made between prosecutions in Dutch-speaking and in French- and German-speaking areas. (en)
The Witch trials in the Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium and Luxembourg minus the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the Duchy of Bouillon and the Princely Abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy) belonged to the more intense, along with those of the Holy Roman Empire and France. In an area recently affected by a religious war, the Spanish Inquisition encouraged witch trials as a method to ensure religious conformity. In this, it was similar to the Witch trials in Latvia and Estonia. (en)