What makes Salem extraordinary, as Norton points out, were the sheer numbers of accusers and accused, as well as the variety of people charged. Usually the people targeted as witches were what Norton calls the "usual suspects": quarrelsome older women of "dubious reputation." (The idea that witch hunts were church-run persecutions of wise old herbalists carrying on the remnants of pre-Christian woman-centered nature religions is regarded as wishful thinking by serious historians.) In Salem, many men were accused (and six were executed), as were prominent citizens and respectable, pious members of the church.