While the Salem witch trials are perhaps the most famous witchcraft panic in the Western world, witch hunts raged in Europe for years before and after 1692. From the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, approximately 50,000 innocent women, men, and children were executed for the crime of witchcraft. Many more were arrested, imprisoned, and tortured for this crime. Though legal witch hunts came to an end in Europe by the late eighteenth century, the persecution of alleged witches sadly continues in parts of the world to this day.

The Salem Witch Museum has long been interested in international connections. Over the past several years, the museum has had the opportunity to work with numerous European museums and international scholars specialized in their own local history of witchcraft. These connections have revealed fascinating similarities and differences in a shared history of witch hunting, opening new avenues for understanding of these devastating events.

As of 2025, The Salem Witch Museum has partnered with Moyse’s Hall Museum in Bury St. Edmunds, England. Twenty years before Salem’s infamous witch hunt, the trials of Amy Denny and Rose Cullender was held in Bury St. Edmunds. The Salem witch trials would prove to be the largest and deadliest witch panic in the North American English colonies. In a fascinating connection, the Bury St. Edmunds trials set important legal precedents that directly influenced the events of 1692.

Information on these connections will go on display at both the Salem Witch Museum and Moyse’s Hall. A series of lecture swaps is also planned with the Salem Witch Museum giving lectures to the Bury St. Edmunds Museum audience and vice-versa; creating a mutual exchange of knowledge and culture.

Past Collaborations: