Religion and persecution

Umair Khalil () and Laura Panza
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Umair Khalil: Deakin University

Journal of Economic Growth, 2025, vol. 30, issue 1, No 3, 87-159

Abstract: Abstract This paper investigates the relationship between local religiosity and episodes of persecutions in Europe between 1100 and 1850. We introduce a novel proxy for measuring local religion: the cult of saints in early Western Christianity. Our findings show that cities with an established cult of a saint are 11% points more likely to engage in Jewish persecutions and witch trials. However, cities with more progressive gender norms, measured by the presence of a female saint cult, are less likely to persecute witches compared to male-only saint cities. Our baseline relationship persists after controlling for a range of city-level economic, geographic and institutional characteristics and after accounting for other major confounders. Suggestive evidence points towards two mechanisms behind the saints-persecution relationship: (i) changes in norms induced by longer exposure to Christianity; and (ii) proximity of religious groups due to congruence of religious festivities.

Keywords: Minority persecution; Religious institutions; Religiosity; Middle ages; D74; N33; N43; N93; Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Working Paper: Religion and Persecution (2021)
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DOI: 10.1007/s10887-023-09240-w

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