Fill in the Blanks Witch trials 2Online version Fill the gaps by EMMA TORR 1 questioned fringes false scapegoats witches false declined implicated targeted misfortune stake A witch hunt often began with a : a failed harvest , a sick cow , or a stillborn child . Community members blamed witchcraft , and accused each other of being . Many of the accused were people on the of society : the elderly , the poor , or social outcasts , but any member of the community could be , even occasionally children . While religious authorities encouraged witch hunts , local secular governments usually carried out the detainment and punishment of accused witches . Those suspected of witchcraft were and often tortured ? and under torture , thousands of innocent people confessed to witchcraft and others in turn . Because these witch hunts occurred sporadically over centuries and continents the specifics varied considerably . Punishments for convicted witches ranged from small fines to burning at the . They could have anywhere from a few to a few hundred victims . The motivations of the witch hunters probably varied as well , but it seems likely that many weren't consciously looking for ? instead , they sincerely believed in witchcraft , and thought they were doing good by rooting it out in their communities . Institutions of power enabled real harm to be done on the basis of these beliefs . But there were dissenters all along ? jurists , scholars , and physicians countered books like Kraemer's " Hammer of Witches " with texts objecting to the cruelty of the hunts , the use of forced confessions , and the lack of evidence of witchcraft . From the late 17th through the mid - 18th century , their arguments gained force with the rise of stronger central governments and legal norms like due process . Witch hunting slowly until it disappeared altogether . Both the onset and demise of these atrocities came gradually , out of seemingly ordinary circumstances . The potential for similar situations , in which authorities use their powers to mobilize society against a threat , still exists today ? but so does the capacity of reasoned dissent to combat those beliefs .
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