Sdružený zločin čarodějnictví a české země
The Cumulative Concept of Witchcraft and The Lands of Bohemian Crown

Summary/Abstract: The introduction of the paper points out the need for a clear terminology in terms of witch and sorcerer trials, which the author applies and adapts with the use of the foreign historiography. The terminology represents the necessary basis to analyse whether and how these theoretical models can be adopted in individual cases of witchcraft in Bohemia and Moravia. The study is founded mostly but not entirely on the executioner’s books which provide the interpretation platform to define an extent of knowledge about the cumulative concept of witchcraft in the Czech lands as well as to demonstrate a limited reception of such elements. The selection of witchcraft or sorcery cases studied in the paper was carried out using a possible analogy with elements of the cumulative concept of witchcraft, which, I believe, the inland population was to a limited extent acquainted with, although the concept was not followed and used in the judicial practise. I assume that this phenomenon was caused, among others, by absence of erudite demonologists or judges who would have been sufficiently acquainted with elements of witchcraft crime and thus would have been able to enforce the aforementioned concept in their practise. While studying the proceedings of the trials the author argues that propositions about the specific type of witch trials and witch hunts in Bohemia and Moravia are often to be found in the Czech historiography, but these cases are mostly the trials of “undiabolic” witchcraft, therefore only one type of a large spectrum of persecutions, yet not a form which would lack any analogies in various parts of continental Europe. According to the archival sources the Czech lands evince a majority proportion of trials based on simple demonological concepts, while the North Moravian trials from the latter half of the 17th century represent an apparent and very interesting exception. They require a systematic research, though, and are not included in this brief study. The paper has, regarding to its limited scope, its boundaries, however the author hopes that the paper provides not only an introduction in the witchcraft and sorcery field of study, but also relevant hints for possible advancement and an illustration of an immense potential in this area of research.

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