Witch Trials in Seventeenth-Century Târgu Mureş (original) (raw)
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in the early m odern period. In the second half of the 17th century it was undoubtedly quite a common practice am ong the townswom en of Nowe to h u rl the "w itch" in su lts at one an o th er. On 8 th A ugust 1682 M arianna B aranow ska, a townswom an, appeared in the local court together with some w itnesses who testified th a t Anna Linska h ad insulted the plain tiff verbally. Among others, Petrus Ottowic, a painter, presented his testim ony, according to w hich he, "being in the vestibule, was painting crosses for Mr S tadny and Mr Stolarz", when he heard Mrs Linska who, having noticed Mrs Baranow ska, said loudly these words: "Here goes the whore, the witch, an d the fat cow"1. This accusation, however, did not resu lt in the w itchcraft trial of Baranow ska. This time it was Linska who paid for her slander. The insults cost her 24 P russian m arks as a penalty2. Trials were conducted by the court of benchers both in the town itself an d at out-of-court sessions, w hen the owners of villages located in the Nowe district called fo rju d g es to try their own subjects. S uch a court consisted of a judge (iudex, Schulz), as the chairm an, his deputy (subiudex or vicescultetus), an d six benchers, who chose their own chairm an. The court also included
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For m any years research on witch trials held in E urope in the early m odem period focused on witches, for it w as m ainly women who were accused of w itchcraft and collusion w ith the devil, and it w as m ainly women who were sen t to the stake. Men did play a very im portant role in every witch trial, mainly as prosecutors, judges, assessors, executioners, priests, rulers (secular an d spiri tual), inquisitors, lawyers, demonologists, confessors an d wit nesses and also as defenders or opponents of w itch-h u n tin g 1. B ut in course of time they too becam e victims of w itch-h u n tin g 2. In the Swiss canton of W aadtland (Pays de Vaud), one of the centres of w itch-hunting in Europe, 1,700 persons were b u rn t a t the stake for w itchcraft in 1580-1665, of whom ab o u t o n e-th ird were m en3. Scholars engaged in research on the persecution of persons practising w itchcraft have so far accepted th a t m en were
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The article presents an analysis of court procedures against witches in Lithuania. The author explains which courts handled such cases and which legal acts regulated the course of these procedures. The witch craft court procedure in Lithuania is compared to a procedure discussed in a book by Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Institor (Kramer) from 1487 called 'Malleus Maleficarum' (Hammer of the Witches). The similarities and differences between these court procedures are revealed.