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Spa Witch Trial
The Spa witch trial took place in the city of Spa in present-day Belgium, in 1616. It was one of the larger and better known of the witch trials in Belgium. It led to the execution of ten women, and possibly the death of another four. Background On 31 January 1616, the authorities of Franchimont instituted an investigation into sorcery. The reason was to find a cause for a strange plague which had caused the death of both humans and animals. The authorities encouraged the public to report anyone suspicious, such as women gathering in the forest or anyone absent from work, and condemned those giving bread to the sick, in an attempt to bewitch them, and husbands who suspected their wives of committing adultery with devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of ...s. The tri ...
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Spa, Belgium
Spa (; wa, Spå) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium, whose name became an eponym for mineral baths with supposed curative properties. It is situated in a valley in the Ardennes mountains south-east of Liège and south-west of Aachen. In 2006, Spa had a population of 10,543 and an area of , giving a population density of . Spa is one of Belgium's most popular tourist destinations, being renowned for its natural mineral springs and production of "Spa" mineral water, which is exported worldwide. The motor-racing Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, just south of the nearby village of Francorchamps, also hosts the annual Formula One Belgian Grand Prix and various endurance races such as the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. The world's first beauty pageant, the Concours de Beauté, was held in Spa on 19 September 1888. The town also hosted the Tour de France on 5 July 2010, when stage 2 of the race ended there. In 2021, Spa became pa ...
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Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of . Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven. Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organization is complex and is structured on both regional ...
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Witch Trial
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America took place in the Early Modern period or about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 executions. The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In other regions, like Africa and Asia, contemporary witch-hunts have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, and official legislation against witchcraft is still found in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon today. In current language, "witch-hunt" metaphorically means an investigation that is usually conducted with much publicity, supposedly to uncover subversive activity, disloyalty, and so on, but with the real purpose of intimidating political opponents. It can also involve element ...
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Marquessate Of Franchimont
The Marquessate of Franchimont was a lordship forming the western frontier of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Its base was Franchimont Castle. It was made up of the bans of Theux, Spa, Sart, Jalhay and later Verviers. The prince-bishops of Liège first took the title of marquis of Franchimont at the start of the 16th century, adding an outer wall to the castle.Arsène de Noüe, « Une promenade au pays de Franchimont », dans ''Bulletin de l'institut archéologique liégeois'', volume 8, 1866, p. 465. Before the 1789 Liège Revolution, the Marquessate of Franchimont formed a small province within the Prince-Bishopric. This small province, six leagues long by four leagues wide, was bounded in by the Duchy of Limburg (to the east), the Duchy of Luxemburg (fragmented, to the south and the west) and the Princely Abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy (fragmented, to the south and the northwest). The Marquessate was divided into five bans, whose capitals or burghs were: *The ban of Theux (head-ban ...
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Magic (paranormal)
Magic, sometimes spelled magick, is an ancient praxis rooted in sacred rituals, spiritual divinations, and/or cultural lineage—with an intention to invoke, manipulate, or otherwise manifest supernatural forces, beings, or entities in the natural, incarnate world. It is a categorical yet often ambiguous term which has been used to refer to a wide variety of beliefs and practices, frequently considered separate from both religion and science. Although connotations have varied from positive to negative at times throughout history, magic continues to have an important religious and medicinal role in many cultures today. Within Western culture, magic has been linked to ideas of the Other, foreignness, and primitivism; indicating that it is "a powerful marker of cultural difference" and likewise, a non-modern phenomenon. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Western intellectuals perceived the practice of magic to be a sign of a primitive mentality and also c ...
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Devil
A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of the devil can be summed up as 1) a principle of evil independent from God, 2) an aspect of God, 3) a created being turning evil (a ''fallen angel''), and 4) a symbol of human evil. Each tradition, culture, and religion with a devil in its mythos offers a different lens on manifestations of evil.Jeffrey Burton Russell, ''The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity'', Cornell University Press 1987 , pp. 41–75 The history of these perspectives intertwines with theology, mythology, psychiatry, art, and literature developing independently within each of the traditions. It occurs historically in many contexts and cultures, and is given many different names—Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Iblis—and ...
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Garrote
A garrote or garrote vil (a Spanish word; alternative spellings include garotte and similar variants'' Oxford English Dictionary'', 11th Ed: garrotte is normal British English spelling, with single r alternate. Article title is US English spelling variant.) is a weapon, usually a handheld ligature of chain, rope, scarf, wire or fishing line, used to strangle a person.Newquist, H.P. and Maloof, Rich, ''This Will Kill You: A Guide to the Ways in Which We Go'', New York: St. Martin's Press, (2009), pp. 133-6 Assassination weapon A garrote can be made out of many different materials, including ropes, cloth, cable ties, fishing lines, nylon, guitar strings, telephone cord or piano wire.Whittaker, Wayne, ''Tough Guys'', Popular Mechanics, February 1943, Vol. 79 No. 2, pp. 44Steele, David E., ''Silent Sentry Removal'', Black Belt Magazine, August 1986, Vol. 24 No. 8, pp. 48–49 A stick may be used to tighten the garrote; the Spanish word refers to the stick itself. In Spanish, ...
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Tanneke Sconyncx
Tanneken Sconyncx (1560 – 2 June 1603) was an alleged witch from Gottem in the County of Flanders. Her case is among the most notable of the period in Belgium. Case Sconyncx was described as a wealthy, beautiful merchant. She was accused of witchcraft by the bailiff in the city of Deinze, who also performed the arrest. She denied the charges and claimed that the bailiff had made his accusation as revenge because she had refused him sexually. She died during torture after having been tortured day and night without respite from 23 May to 2 June. Legacy In 1995 a statue of "the witch of Tielt" was placed on the market square of Tielt, West Flanders ) , settlement_type = Province of Belgium , image_flag = Flag of West Flanders.svg , flag_size = , image_shield = Wapen van West-Vlaanderen.svg , shield_size = , image_map .... References * J. Monballyu, ''Van hekserij beschuldigd, Heksenprocessen in Vlaande ...
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Witch Trials In Europe
Witch trials in the early modern period saw that between 1400 to 1782, around 40,000 to 60,000 were killed due to suspicion that they were practicing witchcraft. Some sources estimate that a total of 100,000 trials occurred at its maximum for a similar period. Groundwork on the concept of witchcraft (a person's collaboration with the devil through the use of magic) was developed by Christian theologians as early as the 13th century. However, prosecutions for the practice of witchcraft would only reach a highpoint from 1560 to 1630 during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion, with some regions burning those who were convicted at the stake, of whom roughly 80% were women,, mostly over the age of 40. Medieval background Christian doctrine Throughout the medieval era, mainstream Christian doctrine had denied the belief in the existence of witches and witchcraft, condemning it as a pagan superstition. Some have argued that the work of the Dominican Thomas A ...
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1616 In Law
Events January–June * January ** Six-year-old António Vieira arrives from Portugal, with his parents, in Bahia (present-day Salvador) in Colonial Brazil, where he will become a diplomat, noted author, leading figure of the Church, and protector of Brazilian indigenous peoples, in an age of intolerance. ** Officials in Württemberg charge astronomer Johannes Kepler with practicing "forbidden arts" (witchcraft). His mother had also been so charged and spent 14 months in prison. * January 1 – King James I of England attends the masque ''The Golden Age Restored'', a satire by Ben Jonson on fallen court favorite the Earl of Somerset. The king asks for a repeat performance on January 6. * January 3 – In the court of James I of England, the king's favorite George Villiers becomes Master of the Horse (encouraging development of the thoroughbred horse); on April 24 he receives the Order of the Garter; and on August 27 is created Viscount Villiers and Baron Waddon, receivin ...
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