Q 01/05

The popular 'nine million witches' myth began with a 1784 essay arguing which Enlightenment writer's estimate was too low?

A) Voltaire

B) Rousseau

C) Diderot

D) Montesquieu

Answer · why

A) Voltaire

Voltaire: the essayist scaled up 30 death sentences in one town's archive to all of Europe, yet historians now put executions at 40,000 to 60,000.

Q 02/05

Most accused witches were women, but in which country were nearly all executed witches men?

A) Iceland

B) Scotland

C) England

D) Denmark

Answer · why

A) Iceland

Iceland: openly practised magic there had come to be associated with men, so almost all of the 22 people executed for sorcery were men.

Q 03/05

Which realm saw the most witch trials in early modern Europe?

A) Holy Roman Empire

B) Kingdom of Spain

C) Kingdom of England

D) Papal States

Answer · why

A) Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire: in the prince-bishopric of Würzburg, a ruler bent on the Counter-Reformation had hundreds burned as witches.

Q 04/05

Which Arthur Miller play dramatises the Salem witch trials as an allegory for McCarthyism?

A) The Crucible

B) Death of a Salesman

C) All My Sons

D) A View from the Bridge

Answer · why

A) The Crucible

The Crucible: Miller was later hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee himself and convicted of contempt for refusing to name names.

Q 05/05

Who wrote the Malleus Maleficarum?

A) Nicholas Rémy

B) Jean Bodin

C) Heinrich Kramer

D) Johann Weyer

Answer · why

C) Heinrich Kramer

Heinrich Kramer wrote it after a bishop expelled him from Innsbruck over a witch trial there.