15 世纪欧洲爆发了大规模的猎巫运动，虽然德意志地区的猎巫运动发生时 间较晚，但却是 16 至 17 世纪欧洲猎巫运动的中心。
纽伦堡和班贝格都属于德意志南部的法兰克尼亚地区，二者相距约 50 千米， 联系紧密。纽伦堡和班贝格在 16 世纪都实现了一定程度的中央集权，都采取了 纠问式审判的司法程序，都经历了宗教改革和“三十年战争”，都受到了法兰克 尼亚其他地区猎巫狂热的影响，但其 16 至 17 世纪的猎巫情况却截然不同。
本文主要通过纽伦堡 16 至 17 世纪的议会档案，16 世纪纽伦堡的刽子手弗 朗茨·施密特的日记等相关材料，梳理了纽伦堡和班贝格 16 至 17 世纪巫术审判 的总体情况和个案，并简要对二者迥然不同的猎巫运动的情况进行分析。
16 至 17 世纪的纽伦堡共有 51 个巫术案件，其中因“巫术罪”而被处死的 约有 3 人。同一时期的班贝格受到巫术审判的约有 635 人，因“巫术罪”被处死 的约有 388 人。纽伦堡的猎巫受害者主要是社会中下阶级，而班贝格的猎巫受害 者涉及到政治精英。此外，纽伦堡和班贝格的巫术审判都受到了恶魔学理论的影 响，二者的猎巫运动都打破了女性是猎巫运动常见受害者的刻板印象。
本文认为定罪的标准、政治体制和统治阶级的思想观念的不同是 16 至 17 世 纪纽伦堡和班贝格猎巫运动情况截然不同的原因。纽伦堡的定罪标准以实际的犯 罪行为为主，而班贝格的定罪标准以被屈打成招的“巫师嫌疑人”的供词为主。 纽伦堡的统治阶级因其家族垄断纽伦堡商品的生产或销售，使得精英们的自身利 益与城市经济的发展融为一体；而班贝格政治力量相对多元，作为教会领地的最 高统治者亲王主教一直受到教士团的限制，亲王主教、教士团和市议会一直存在 冲突，猎巫运动成为政治斗争的工具。纽伦堡精英们的司法保守主义和人文主义 精神使他们在巫术审判中保持谨慎的态度；而班贝格的大多数精英们致力于恢复 天主教的独尊地位，因 而将猎巫运动作为消灭新教和残存的其他民间信仰的工具。

Large-scale witch-hunts broke out in Europe in the fifteenth century, and although the German region of the witch-hunt came later, it was the centre of the witch- hunting  movement  in  Europe  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. Both Nuremberg and Bamberg belonged to the Franconia region of southern Germany and were closely linked by a distance of about fifty kilometres. Both Nuremberg and Bamberg achieved a certain degree of centralisation in the sixteenth century, both adopted the judicial procedure of inquisitorial trials, both experienced the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, and both were influenced by witch-hunting fervour in other parts of Franconia, but their sixteenth- and seventeenth-century witch-hunts were very different. This study mainly through the Nuremberg sixteenth- and seventeenth-century parliamentary archives, the sixteenth-century Nuremberg executioner Franz Schmidt's diary and other related materials, sort out the Nuremberg and Bamberg sixteenth- and seventeenth-century witchcraft trials, and briefly analyze the situation of the two very different witch-huntings. There were 51 witchcraft cases in Nuremberg in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of which about three people were executed. About 635 people were tried for witchcraft in Bamberg during the same period, and about 388 were executed. The victims of the Nuremberg witch hunts were mainly the lower and middle classes of society, whereas the victims of the Bamberg witch hunts involved the political elite. In addition, both the Nuremberg and Bamberg witchcraft trials were influenced by demonological theories, and both witch hunts broke the stereotype that women were common victims of witch hunts. This study argues that differences in the criteria for conviction, political institutions and the ideology of the ruling classes are responsible for the different circumstances of the Nuremberg and Bamberg witch hunts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nuremberg convictions were based on actual criminal  behaviour,  whereas  Bamberg  convictions  were  based  on  confessions  of ‘suspected  witches’  who  had  been  coerced  into  confessing. The  ruling  class  of Nuremberg, whose family monopolised the production or sale of Nuremberg goods,   integrated the interests of the elite with the development of the city economy;  whereas the political power of Bamberg was relatively diversified, as the supreme ruler of the ecclesiastical lands, the Prince-Bishop had been restricted by the cathedral chapter, the Prince-Bishop, the cathedral chapter and the city council had always been a conflict, the witch-hunting had become a tool for political struggle. The judicial conservatism and humanism of the Nuremberg elites led them to be cautious in witchcraft trials, while the majority of the Bamberg elites were committed to restoring Catholic supremacy, and thus used the witch hunts as a tool to eliminate Protestantism and other remaining folk beliefs.