During the 14th-17th Century Europe when Witch trials and Witch hysteria was common, were there any sceptics who did not believe in witch craft or witches? Surely there would have been? I tried doing my own research on this, but could not find much. I assume they would have kept quiet in fear of being executed themselves.
The most famous one was inquisitor Alonso de Salazar Frías, the man who managed to have the Inquisition kill the concept of witchcraft. In Spain, the concept of witchcraft died out in 1614. Some years prior there had been the trial of the witches of Zugarramurdi, where a bunch of "witches" had been sentenced to death and executed.
One of the judges who took part in the trial, though he had joined late, revised the procedure, and submitted it to the Supreme Council of the Inquisition, with allegations of judicial malpractice and procedural errors. The Supreme Council revised the procedure in extenso and agreed with Alonso de Salazar's conclusions. The statement issued by the Supreme Council explicitly said that witchcraft did not exist but that the alleged witchcraft was nothing else but collective and/or individual hysteria, as well as neighbours denouncing neighbours in bad faith. The families of the witches of Zugarramurdi were restored in their rights and honour, and the sambenitos taken out.
This was the end of witchcraft persecutions in Spain, that had taken the lives of more than 50 people up to that moment. Alonso de Salazar Frías would go down in History as "the witches' defendant".