50 free Witchcraft History trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Between about 1400 and 1775 roughly 100,000 people were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and its colonies and somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 were executed, four in five of them women. The story runs from a 10th-century church text that called night-flights with Diana a delusion, through a 1486 handbook its own church condemned, to prince-bishops who emptied whole villages, a king who wrote his own demonology, a self-styled Witchfinder General, and a Massachusetts village that hanged nineteen people in 1692. These 50 questions cover the whole arc. The Canon Episcopi and the papal bull that backed Heinrich Kramer, the Malleus Maleficarum and the Cologne theologians who rejected it, Trier, Bamberg, Würzburg and the mayor who wrote to his daughter from the torture cell, Alice Kyteler in Kilkenny, Joan of Arc at Rouen, the Basque trials and the inquisitor who doubted them, North Berwick and James VI, Pendle and Thomas Potts, Matthew Hopkins and sleep deprivation, the Torsåker beheadings, Salem's spectral evidence and Giles Corey's plea, Anna Göldi in 1782, Janet Horne in 1727 and Helen Duncan jailed in 1944. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly how many people were executed for witchcraft in Europe and its colonies, 1400–1775?
40,000 to 60,000
About 100,000 were prosecuted; the nine million figure is a 19th-century invention.
Q 02Roughly what share of those convicted of witchcraft in early modern Europe were women?
80%
Most were over 40, and the accusers were usually neighbours of both sexes.
Q 03Witch prosecutions in Europe peaked during which period?
1560 to 1630
That coincided with the Counter-Reformation and the wars of religion, hitting the Holy Roman Empire hardest.
Q 04The Malleus Maleficarum is usually translated into English as what?
The Hammer of Witches
It is the best-known treatise on witchcraft and was first printed in Speyer in 1486.
Q 05Who wrote the Malleus Maleficarum?
Heinrich Kramer
The German Dominican published under the Latin name Henricus Institor and claimed to speak for the Church.
Q 06Which body condemned the Malleus Maleficarum for recommending illegal procedures?
The Faculty of Cologne
Kramer was never removed and went on enjoying considerable prestige.
Q 07Which pope issued the 1484 bull Summis desiderantes affectibus at Kramer's request?
Innocent VIII
It ratified powers Kramer and Sprenger already held and named the dioceses of Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg and Bremen.
Q 08The 10th-century Canon Episcopi dismissed night rides with which pagan goddess as delusion?
Diana
It entered canon law through Gratian's Decretum and was a problem for later demonologists who wanted witches to be real.
Q 09Who was the first recorded person condemned for witchcraft in Ireland, in 1324?
Alice Kyteler
Dame Alice fled; her servant Petronilla de Meath was flogged and burned at the stake in Kilkenny.
Q 10Joan of Arc was executed at Rouen in 1431 after a trial on what charge?
Heresy
The counts included wearing men's clothes and acting on demonic visions; a 1456 retrial overturned the verdict.
Q 11The Trier witch trials of 1581–1593 were held in which present-day country?
Germany
Some 368 people were burned in 22 villages, possibly Europe's largest peacetime mass execution.
Q 12Which Trier university rector and chief judge was executed for opposing the persecutions?
Dietrich Flade
He had doubted the use of torture and treated the accused mildly, so he was tortured and burned himself.
Q 13Around how many people were executed in the Bamberg witch trials of 1626–1632?
About 900
A May frost that destroyed the vines of Franconia helped trigger the panic.
Q 21In which year were the Pendle witches tried at Lancaster Assizes?
1612
Ten were hanged, nine at Lancaster and one at York; the clerk Thomas Potts wrote it all up.
Q 22The Pendle witches were charged with murdering how many people by witchcraft?
Ten
Twelve were accused from the area around Pendle Hill in Lancashire; one died in prison before trial.
Q 23Matthew Hopkins claimed which title, never actually granted by Parliament?
Witchfinder General
He and John Stearne sent more people to the gallows than all English witch-hunters of the previous 160 years.
Q 14Johannes Junius, who wrote to his daughter from jail before his 1628 execution, held what office?
Mayor of Bamberg
After thumbscrews and leg vises he confessed to seeing 27 colleagues at a sabbat, and told Veronica it was all lies.
Q 15Which prince-bishop was particularly active in the Würzburg witch trials?
Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg
An estimated 900 people were executed or died in custody in the prince-bishopric, children among them.
Q 16Which Jesuit's 1631 Cautio Criminalis argued that torture creates witches where none exist?
Friedrich Spee
He had served as confessor to the condemned along the Rhine and published anonymously at Rinteln.
Q 17The Basque witch trials, which examined some 7,000 cases, began in 1609 in which town?
Logroño
The junior inquisitor Alonso de Salazar Frías later concluded the whole thing rested on fantasy.
Q 18Which Scottish king attended the North Berwick witch trials of 1590?
James VI
Storms on his voyage home from marrying Anne of Denmark were blamed on witches; he wrote Daemonologie in 1597.
Q 19James VI's Daemonologie is believed to be a main source for which Shakespeare play?
Macbeth
Many of the Weird Sisters' rituals and quotes come straight from the king's book.
Q 20James VI wrote Daemonologie largely in response to which sceptical 1584 book?
The Discoverie of Witchcraft
Reginald Scot's book also gave the first detailed English description of sleight of hand.
Q 24Matthew Hopkins was mainly active in which region of England?
East Anglia
His career ran from March 1644 to 1647, during the Civil War.
Q 25Because torture was unlawful in England, which technique did Hopkins use to extract confessions?
Sleep deprivation
His book The Discovery of Witches cited James I's Daemonologie directly.
Q 26In the water ordeal used in witch-hunts, what did it mean if the accused floated?
Guilt
Sinking meant innocence, which was not much comfort; the test has precedents in the Code of Ur-Nammu.
Q 27A 'witch's teat' was believed to be used to feed what?
Familiars or imps
Witch-prickers hunted for insensitive marks with pins; a third nipple was reported on Bridget Bishop at Salem.
Q 28Convicted witches in England were usually executed how?
Hanged
Burning was reserved for those who had also committed petty treason, such as killing a husband.
Q 29About how many people are estimated to have been executed for witchcraft in England?
500
Around 90 per cent were women; Scotland, with a far smaller population, executed more than 1,500.
Q 30In Scotland, convicted witches were usually strangled at the stake and then what?
Burned
Modern estimates put Scottish executions above 1,500 under the Witchcraft Act 1563.