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1

THE PARLIAMENTARY DECREE OF 1543 AND THE BEGINNINGS OF WITCH-TRIALS IN POLAND

100%
Ostling M.
Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce
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2005
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vol. 49
93-103
EN
Scholars have long held that the Polish witch-trials began, in part, as an un-intended consequence of the Polish parliamentary decree of 1543 regulating the jurisdictions of ecclesiastical and secular courts. That decree confirmed the church's traditional jurisdiction over all spiritual matters, including witchcraft and magic. However, because of a clause specifying that where witchcraft caused material harm to a person or to property the case was to be turned over to the secular courts, the decree resulted in the wholesale transfer of witch-trials to the secular courts and the beginning of large-scale witch persecutions in Poland. This understanding of the beginnings of witch-trials in Poland is incorrect, as the present article attempts to demonstrate. In fact, the decree of 1543 deals with witchcraft in just a few words, and clearly preserves ecclesiastical-court jurisdiction over witch-trials, with no exceptions. The alleged conditional clause or rider transferring jurisdiction to the secular courts in cases involving material harm does not exist. The article traces belief in the existence of such a clause to a brief essay from 1878: the author of that essay appears to have conflated two unrelated passages from Herburt's 16th-century digest of Polish law. Moreover, the article reviews Polish anti-witch-trial literature from the 17th and 18th century, and shows that the authors of this literature consistently cited the decree of 1543 to support their contention that witchcraft belonged in the ecclesiastical courts, without qualification.Finally, the article examines select witch-trial verdicts - from small towns, larger towns, appellate courts, and the high royal court for towns (the Assessory Court; sad asesorski) - to show that these courts never mentioned the decree of 1543. This is true even when, as in some Assessory Court decisions, the court sought to regulate or restrict the jurisdiction of small-town secular courts over witch-trials. The conclusion follows that the decree of 1543 regulated the relations between ecclesiastical courts and noble courts (the 'ziemskie' and 'grodzkie' courts), to the total neglect of the town courts in which the overwhelming majority of Polish witch-trials took place. With their independent legal tradition deriving from so-called Saxon law, town courts were not influenced in any way by the decree of 1543. The rise of witch-trials in Poland in the 16th and 17th century thus cannot be traced to the enactment of a specific law; rather, it was a result both of cultural changes and of the pan-European 'judicial revolution' with its increasing reliance on torture, the 'queen of proofs'.
2

A WITCHCRAFT TRIAL IN MLOTKOWO VILLAGE IN 1692. A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF 17TH CENTURY WITCH-HUNT IN THE POLISH-LITHUANIAN COMMONWEALTH

100%
Wijaczka J.
Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce
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2004
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vol. 48
161-170
EN
In early-modern times the persons accused of witchcraft were put to various ordeals that were to prove their guilt or innocence. In Western Europe the most widespread in early-modern times were the ordeals by water, fire, tears, weighing and pricking. In the 16th-17th century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the most widespread ordeal was that by water, the so-called ducking of witches, which the people of that period thought to be the best means of discovering a witch or her accomplices in a village or a country town. The present contribution presents, among other things, the story of the ducking of teenage children, an ordeal that was to prove whether water indeed gave the answer whether the person accused of witchcraft actually practiced it. This ducking of teenagers took place during a trial in Mlotkowo village (Northern Great Poland) in 1692. The course this trial took is presented, since this is the only such case in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in early-modern times.
3

ENEMY FROM WITHIN AND HIS REPUTATION: INVESTIGATION OF WITCHCRAFT AND GOSSIP IN ANTHROPOLOGY (Nepriatel zvnutra a jeho povest: skumanie bosoractva a klebiet v antropologii)

100%
Buzekova T.
Slovenský národopis (Slovak Ethnology)
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2008
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vol. 56
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issue 2
130-146
EN
The paper deals with investigation of witchcraft and gossip in anthropology. These two phenomena are interconnected and they have been examined by scholars since the early period of anthropological research. Anthropologists didn't deny that both witchcraft and gossip have psychological dimension, but it was not easy to deal with them theoretically. After presentation of the key points of anthropological investigation of witchcraft and gossip the authoress introduces the current perspective of evolutionary psychology. This psychology integrates principles and results which are drawn from evolutionary biology, cognitive science, anthropology, and neuroscience.
4
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THE ROLE OF GENDER IN ACCUSATIONS OF WITCHCRAFT: THE CASE OF EASTERN SLOVENIA

88%
Mencej M.
Český lid: etnologický časopis (Český lid: Ethnological journal)
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2011
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vol. 98
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issue 4
393-412
EN
The paper deals with the role of gender in the context of witchcraft. It focuses on the situation in a rural area in eastern Slovenia, where the author and her students researched witchcraft in 2000 and 2001. The meaning of a gender in witchcraft accusations is presented with respect to various levels and types of witch (social level – neighborhood witches, village witches; supernatural level – night witches; counterwitches). Among neighborhood witches (about whom people believe that they perform some kind of magic: placing eggs etc. in the hope that they will hurt neighbors; intentional praise), women are typically assumed to be guilty; men appear only in the subcategory of people with evil eye. Similar holds for all the subcategories of village witches, except for those who earned their reputation because of the assumption of their possession of a book of magic (where men predominate). Night witches (in the form of lights or vague presences which make it difficult for people to find their way) are always female (they are spoken about using the feminine gender; when they are recognized as people from the village, they are always women). In contrast, the ratio of men to women among counterwitches, to whom people turned for help against witches, rises dramatically. The most influential counterwitch whom people visited in this area was a men. The relationship between the sexes can also be seen through an analysis of (migratory) legends about witches whereby many of them reveal a concealed misogyny.
5

WITCHCRAFT, SORCERY AND HAND WRINGING IN THE LIFE OF SIBERIAN PEASANTS: ON THE MATERIALS OF HISTORICAL SOURCES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

63%
Putilina Y. V., Ustinova O. V., Shevchenko N. y. A.
Muzeológia a kultúrne dedičstvo
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2018
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vol. 6
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issue 2
71 – 81
EN
In the nineteenth century, the Orthodox Church, authorities, investigative bodies and courts officially recognized the possibility of such phenomena as witchcraft, witcheries, hand wringing, sorcery and shamanism. This is confirmed by numerous reports, eyewitness accounts, messages, investigations and trials materials. Penalties for such “acts”, appointed by the courts, were often rather mild (church repentance, offertory, lashes, etc.). More severe measures were prescribed much more rarely (expulsion from a settlement, prison, etc.). The reason for this state of affairs was the complexity of proving that any manifestations of the “sufferer” were caused precisely by witchcraft or witcheries. It is shown that there were some peculiarities in the attitude towards the witchcraft among the population of the Siberian region. It is established that snakes and frogs, which were very common in the Siberian region, became the main attribute and material used in witchcraft, sorcery and witcheries. Herbs characteristic of the flora of the Siberian region were also used in the rituals. It is confirmed that witchcraft in the Siberian region was less common than in other regions of the country. This “mystery” was most often practiced by women and much less often by men.
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