Čarodějnické procesy na Jesenicku – Neubauerová Michaela (2020)

This Czech-language book examines the witch trials in the Jesenicko region during the 17th century, which, because of many adverse circumstances, became so extensive that they are now considered the largest mass witch hunt in all of Silesia, surpassing the better-known trials in Losinsko and Šumpersko in both scale and number of victims. The author draws on period written sources preserved in Czech and Polish archives and presents them to Czech readers for the first time. She begins with the exceptional case of Barbora Schmiedová in 1622, who was accused by her husband of witchcraft, poisoning, and arson; the accusation led to an extensive investigation and the persecution of dozens of people from the Jesenicko estate. Another chapter describes a second powerful wave of witch trials, during which a so-called witch oven was built because of the large number of executions. A further story concerns a herdsman's accusation in 1651 against six people from Široký Brod, allegedly for taking part in a sabbath and practising witchcraft. The subsequent trial, conducted using torture, caused the trials to spread like an avalanche, and during several horrific months dozens of people from the Jesenicko region ended up burning at the stake. The Thirty Years' War, the devastation, destruction, and plundering of the region, poor harvests, epidemics, plague, and famine all led to the search for a scapegoat, a personification of evil, and an enemy of society: witches. When the persecution went beyond certain limits, townspeople and the nobility themselves began to resist, and the wave of persecution was stopped through the intervention of a bishop from the royal family.