From the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, many people were targeted as witches. Though there were many factors that could lead someone to believe that somebody was a witch, wealth, religion, and gender were three major reasons for persecution.

Wealth was a big impact on the people who were claimed to be witches, document one supports this because the midwife was, assumedly, poor. Since she was cutting the corn as well as being a midwife, we can conclude that she was poor and needed the money. Maybe, because she was poor, they wanted to get rid of her to help the economy. Another example is document three. In this example, there is a poor beggar asking for money. Maybe Thomas Andy, the writer of the document, called her a witch to get rid of her because she was being annoying by asking for charity. Another example of wealth being brought into account for a witch trial is document six. It tells how poor people are convicted, but so are the wealthy. Sometimes the poor or needy would say that the wealthy were witches so they could have their wealth. Document two also talks about people lying about someone being a witch so they could get their wealth. Lastly, Document 15 is a graph that shows that the higher status and better occupation you had, the less accused there were. This could be because they would go after the beggars because they didn’t contribute to society.

Gender was also a big factor, as women were more likely to be targeted than men. Document 8 says