Witch trials in the Netherlands

The Witch trials in the Netherlands were among the fewest in Europe, second perhaps to Portugal. The Netherlands are famous for having discontinued their witch craft executions earlier than any other country in Europe.

History[]

Northern Netherlands prior to independence[]

Despite significant losses of archival material, it seems that the Northern Netherlands saw most of their trials for sorcery and witchcraft between 1550 and 1575, when prosecutions in the Southern Netherlands were only just beginning. The province of Groningen's first trials were in 1457, leading to the executions of twenty women and a man. In the 1550s the area between Rhine and Meuse was hit hard, while in the 1560s, and particularly in 1564, prosecutions peaked in the County of Holland.^[1]

Northern Netherlands after independence[]

The Netherlands became an independent country after the Dutch War of Independence in 1579. During the late 16th century, the Netherlands did experience a couple of high-profile witch trials.

In June 1593, the High Court (Hoge Raad) repealed a death sentence for witchcraft from Schiedam in the Province of Holland. This became a case of precedence which was henceforth followed as common practice in Holland, thereby de facto abolished the death penalty for witchcraft in the province.^[2] This case of precedence was followed by the Province of Utrecht from 1596, by Groningen from 1597 and by Gelderland from 1603 onward.^[2]

The last person executed for witchcraft in the Netherlands has often been referred to as Anna Muggen of Gorinchem in 1608.^[3]

The fact that the common practice of repealing death sentences ended witchcraft executions in the Netherlands, however, did not mean that there were no witch trials. Witch trials still occurred in the Netherlands the entire first half of the 17th century, though they were relatively few and no longer resulted in executions. A high-profile case was one in Holland in 1659, when a woman was sentenced to pillorying accused of having sworn her three children to Satan.^[3]

The lack of witchcraft executions in the Netherlands attracted attention in contemporary Europe. It was also a cause of misplaced national pride as well as political propaganda, as the Dutch pointed to the severe Witch trials in the Spanish Netherlands and stated that in contrast to the case of their Catholic neighbor, there was no need of witch trials in the Netherlands as no one had been proven guilty of sorcery and claimed sorcery had been proven to be illusions.^[2]

The common belief in witchcraft among the public did however persist despite the lack of interest from the authorities to conduct such trials. Witchcraft accusations as part of defamation cases occurred the entire 18th century, and as late as in the 19th century there occurred lynchings of people pointed out as witches.^[3]

In 1823 a woman, Hendrika Hofhuis famously demanded that the authorities allowed her to be subjected to the ordeal of water to clear her name in her community after she had been accused of being a witch. The authorities agreed in order to solve this defamation dispute, and she passed the test and cleared her name in the eyes of her neighbors. While not a witch trial in reality, as the authorities merely allowed her this to end the harassment from her neighbors, this can nevertheless be regarded as the last witch trial in the Netherlands.

See also[]

• Witch trials in the early modern period

References[]