Werewolf witch trials were witch trials combined with werewolf trials. Belief in werewolves developed parallel to the belief in European witches, in the course of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Like the witchcraft trials as a whole, the trial of supposed werewolves emerged in what is now Switzerland (especially the Valais and Vaud) during the Valais witch trials in the early 15th century and spread throughout Europe in the 16th, peaking in the 17th and subsiding by the 18th century. The persecution of werewolves and the associated folklore is an integral part of the "witch-hunt" phenomenon, albeit a marginal one, accusations of lycanthropy involved in only a small fraction of witchcraft trials.
During the early period, accusations of lycanthropy (transformation into a wolf) were mixed with accusations of wolf-riding or wolf-charming. The 1598 case of Peter Stumpp led to a significant peak in both interest in and persecution of supposed werewolves, primarily in French-speaking and German-speaking Europe. Werewolf trials reached Livonia in the 17th century, and would become the most common form of witch-trial in that country. The phenomenon persisted longest in Bavaria and Austria, with persecution of wolf-charmers persisting until well after 1650, the final cases being recorded in the early 18th century in Carinthia and Styria.
France
France experienced several dozen werewolf witch trials around the end of the 16th-century. In many of the cases, such as that of the Gandillon Family, the infamous "Werewolf of Châlons" and Jacques Roulet of Angers, the accused were also accused of murder and cannibalism.
One of the most well known of the werewolf witch trials of France was that of Gilles Garnier of Dole in 1573.
Livonia
In Livonia, the indigenous peasantry, in contrast to the Baltic-German burghers and nobility, often continued to conduct pagan worshiping in defiance to both the Christian church, the authorities and nobility, the entire 17th-century. Consequently, they did not believe in Satan and therefore not in witches or Satanic pacts. They did, however, believe in both malevolent magic as well as in the existence of werewolves, though they did not associate them with Satan, as the church and authorities did.
The result of this was when the Baltic peasantry accused any one of practicing black magic or of causing damage to humans lives, property and animals while in the shape of a werewolf, the authorities interpreted this in to accusations of witchcraft and Satanic pacts, and pressed the accused to adjust their confessions in accordance with the European witchcraft model during torture.
In at least 18 trials between 1527 and 1725, 18 women and 13 men were accused of having caused harm in the shape of werewolves. The accused often confessed to have been given their "wolf skins" by another person or by a demon, sometimes after having eaten something particular, and hid them, usually under a rock, when they did not use them. In 1636, for example, a woman from Kurna claimed to have been taken into the woods by an old woman and given berries to eat, and then begun to hunt with the woman in the woods as wolves.
People did not only turn into wolves, but also bears. The testimony of Gret of Pärnau claimed that while Kanti Hans and his spouse had turned into wolves, a female accomplice of them had taken the shape of a bear (1633). The accused never voluntarily claimed to have had any association with Satan, but through leading questions and torture, the authorities adjusted confessions about werewolves into confessions about witchcraft, which resulted in convictions and executions of the claimed werewolves as witches. As late as in 1696, Greta, the daughter of Titza Thomas, gave testimony that a whole pack of eleven werewolves were hunting in the woods around Vastemoisa under their leader Libbe Matz.
Hans the Werewolf
The trial of "Hans the Werewolf" is a typical example of the combined werewolf and witch trials, which dominated witch hunts in Livonia.
In 1651, Hans was brought before the court in Idavere accused of being a werewolf at the age of eighteen. He had confessed that he had hunted as a werewolf for two years. He claimed he had gotten the body of a wolf by a man in black. "When asked by the judges if his body took part in the hunt, or if only his soul was transmuted, Hans confirmed that he had found a dog's teeth-marks on his own leg, which he had received while a werewolf. Further asked whether he felt himself to be a man or a beast while transmuted, he said that he felt himself to be beast".