Sorcery and witch trials in Prague in the 16th and in the first half of the 17th century

Abstract

The beginnings of sorcery trials in Prague date back to the end of the 15th c. In the period before the Battle of White Mountain (1526–1620) only isolated cases of a magic offense (in the form of sorcery) can be documented in Prague. This is despite the fact that since the last third of the 16th c. there has been a noticeable increase in the number of sorcery trials in the Bohemian lands, and the first, isolated cases of witchcraft can also be recorded. One of these cases of sorcery took place in 1553 at the court of the Lesser Town of Prague. The plaintiff in this trial was the royal gunsmith and bell caster Tomáš Jaroš. Relatively more serious cases of witchcraft and sorcery took place in Prague only during the Thirty Years’ War. In 1624 four women from Prague-Hradčany were accused of pimping and practicing magic. One of them was sentenced to be expelled from Prague. In 1630, Mariana Příhodová, the wife of a bricklayer, was investigated in the Old Town of Prague on suspicion of magic and superstitious practices. She was acquitted by the Court of Appeal. In 1631, Lidmila Husáková was arrested in Prague’s New Town on charges of practicing magic, healing practices and divination. She was imprisoned and investigated for almost half a year. She was released from prison after a sharp intervention by her authority, countess Anna Benigna of Fürstenberg. The largest Prague witchcraft case during the Thirty Years’ War took place in 1644. This year, a special commission investigated 19 boys from Prague between the ages of eight and seventeen for the alleged invocation of the Devil at the Jesuit School in the Lesser Town of Prague.