Notes Prologue 1. APP AM Kalisz, I/158, pp. 347–60. 2. R. Briggs, ‘ “Many Reasons Why”: Witchcraft and the Problem of Multiple Explanation’, in J. Barry, M. Hester and G. Roberts (eds), Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Studies in Culture and Belief (Cambridge, 1998), p. 53. 3. See M. Zakrzewska, Procesy o czary w Lublinie w XVII i XVIII w. (Łódź, 1947), p. 3; J. Wijaczka, ‘Procesy o czary w regionie świętokrzyskim w XVII–XVIII wieku’, in J. Wijaczka (ed.), Z przeszłości regionu świętokrzyskiego od XVI do XX wieku. Materiały konferencji naukowej, Kielce, 8 kwietnia 2003 (Kielce, 2003); and idem, Procesy o czary w Prusach Książęcych (Brandenburskich) w XVI–XVIII wieku (Toruń, 2007). 4. F. Spee, Cautio criminalis seu de processibus contra sagas (Frankfurt, 1632), and Czarownica powołana, abo krótka nauka y przestroga z strony czarownic... (Poznań, 1639). 5. M. Bogucka, Women in Early Modern Poland, against the European Background (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 106–9; M. Pilaszek, Procesy o czary w Polsce w wiekach XV–XVIII (Cracow, 2008). 6. B. Baranowski, Procesy czarownic w Polsce w XVII i XVIII w. (Łódź, 1952). 7. S. Clark, Thinking with Demons (Oxford, 1999 [1997]); Briggs, ‘Many Reasons Why’; and A. Rowlands, ‘Telling Witchcraft Stories: New Perspectives on Witchcraft and Witches in the Early Modern Period’, Gender and History 10, no. 2 (1998), 294–302. 1 Witchcraft in Context: Histories and Historiographies 1. R. Briggs, Witches and Neighbours (London, 1996), p. 4. 2. For a better insight into Polish history between 1500–1800 see N. Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland (2 vols, Oxford, [1981] 1991); R.I. Frost, After the Deluge: Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War 1655–1660 (Cambridge, 1993); G. Lukowski and H. Zawadzki, A Concise History of Poland (Cambridge, 2001); A. Zamoyski, The Polish Way: A Thousand Years’ History of the Poles and Their Culture (London, 1989); A. S. Kamiński, Republic v Autocracy: Poland-Lithuania and Russia 1686–1697 (Cambridge, MA, 1993); M. Bogucka, Historia Polski do 1864 roku (Wrocław, 1999); J. Pieszczachowicz (ed.), Wielka Historia Polski (Cracow, 2000–01); J. Topolski (ed.), Dzieje Polski (Warsaw, 1975); and S. Kieniewicz, History of Poland (Warsaw, 1979). 3. For discussion on the Polish word szlachta, see Davies, God’s Playground, I, p. 206; J. Topolski, ‘The Structure of the Polish Nobility in the 16th and 17th Centuries: Some New Findings and Reflections’, in idem, The Manorial Economy in Early Modern East Central Europe (Aldershot, 1994), pp. 60–70; W. Konopczyński, ‘Wielkopolski w dobie Rzeczypospolitej szlacheckiej’, 191 192 Notes Roczniki Historyczne 1 (1925), 75–101; H. Litwin, ‘The Polish Magnateria 1454–1648: The Shaping of an Estate’, APH 53 (1986), 63 –92; J.K. Fedorow icz, A Republic of Nobles: Studies in Polish History to 1864 (Cambridge, 1982); R.I. Frost, ‘The Nobility of Poland-Lithuania, 1569–1795’, in H. Scott (ed.), The European Nobilities in the 17th and 18th Centuries (2 vols, London, 1995), II, pp. 183–222; R. Butterwick (ed.), The Polish-Lithuanian Monarchy in European Context, c. 1500–1795 (Basingstoke, 2001); and I. Banać, The Nobility in Russia and Eastern Europe (New Haven, 1983). See W.N. Trepka, Liber Generationis vel Plebeanorum, ed. W. Dworzaczek (Wrocław, 1963). 4. Lukowski and Zawadzki, History, p. 48, and Frost, Nobilities, p. 192, where he suggests a figure of between 8 and 10 per cent according to contem- porary traveller to Poland, Bernard Connor and between 6 and 7.5 per cent according to tax registers. Kaczmarczyk suggests 8 per cent or half a million by 1550, rising to one quarter in Mazowsze. See Z. Kaczmarczyk and B. Leśnodorski, Historia Państwa i Prawa Polski od połowy XV do r. 1795, vol. II. (Warsaw, 1957), p. 75. 5. Davies, God’s Playground, I, pp. 218, 229. 6. Frost, Nobilities, p. 214, who refers to H. Olszewski, ‘The Essence and Legal Foundation of the Magnate Oligarchy in Poland’, APH 56 (1988), 29–49. 7. Frost, Nobilities, pp. 206–7, 212. See K. Przybos, ‘Latyfundium Lubomirskich w połowie XVII wieku’, Studia Historyczne 35 (1992), 19–33, where he notes that in 1642 Stanisław Lubomirski possessed 316 villages, 18 towns and 163 estates. 8. J. Kochanowicz, ‘The Polish Economy and the Evolution of Dependency’, in D. Chirot (ed.), The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern European Economies and Politics from the Middle Ages until the Early Twentieth Century (Berkeley and London, 1989), p. 98. Kochanowicz believes that in addition the system of German law strengthened seigniorial power at the expense of royal power. 9. Z. Sadowski, Pienądz a początki upadku rzeczypospolitej w XVII w. (Warsaw, 1964), p. 355. 10. Kaczmarczyk and Leśnodorski, Historia Państwa, p. 175. 11. Kochanowicz, ‘Economy’, p. 113. 12. This was evident in the elections of Henri of Valois and Stefan Batory, which caused particular tensions among the Wielkopolska szlachta. 13. Davies, God’s Playground, I, pp. 492, 502. 14. Frost, Nobilities, pp. 216–19. 15. J. Ptaśnik, Miasta i mieszczaństwo w dawnej Polsce (Warsaw, 1949), and M. Bogucka, ‘Polish Towns between the 16th and 18th Centuries’, in J. K. Fedorowicz (ed.), A Republic of Nobles: Studies in Polish History to 1864 (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 138–52. 16. Kochanowicz, ‘Economy’, pp. 111–13. 17. Lukowski and Zawadzki, History, p. 55. 18. Davies, God’s Playground, I, p. 288; Kochanowicz, ‘Economy’, pp. 94–5. 19. A. Mączak, ‘The Structure of Power in the Commonwealth’, in J. K. Fedorowicz (ed.), A Republic of Nobles: Studies in Polish History to 1864 (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 131–3. 20. Kaczmarczyk and Leśnodorski, Historia Państwa, p. 178. 21. The dietines functioned on a local level, but wielded some power. For example, a dietine was held to elect representatives to the Sejm, to the Notes 193 Crown Tribunal, and to consider reports from the Sejm. There was also a dietine to pass local resolutions or lauda and one that discussed the trade and finance of the province as well as taxes and military affairs. Lukowski and Zawadzki, History, p. 71. 22. K. Wilson, ‘The Politics of Toleration: Dissenters in Great Poland (1587–1648)’ (PhD thesis, SSEES, University College London, 2005), p. 133. 23. There are many differing opinions as to what exactly constituted Sarmatism and what its influence was. However, there is general acceptance that it was a belief which influenced noble attitudes and lifestyle based on the notion that the nobility was descended from the ancient tribe of the Sarmatians (some traced back to Noah) who originated from the region north of the Black Sea called Sarmatia. It was popular in the time of the Jagiellonian dynasty, but went into decline during the Saxon period, reaching its apotheosis in the course of the seventeenth century. Frost writes ‘This identity-myth claimed that the szlachta, whether of Polish, Lithuanian, Ruthenian or German descent, formed one political nation, descended from the ancient Sarmatian tribe which had long resisted the Roman Empire. By the mid-seventeenth century the hallmarks of the “Sarmatian nation” were the use of the Polish language, adherence to the Catholic faith and the adoption of a distinctive style of dress, heavily influenced by Turkic and Tatar models, which symbolized the difference between the Polish constitution and the political systems of Western Europeans, whose effete, mincing fashions were taken to denote the domination of society by absolute royal power.’ Frost, Nobilities, pp. 184–5. See also S. Cynarski, ‘The Shape of Sarmatian Ideology in Poland’, APH 19 (1968), 5–17; M. Bogucka, The Lost World of the ‘Sarmatians’: Custom as the Regulator of Polish Social Life in Early Modern Times (Warsaw, 1996); and J. Tazbir, ‘Sarmatyzm a barok’, Kwartalnik Historyczny 76 (1969), 815–30. 24. What Davies calls the ‘Sandomierz Compromise’ of 1569–70 was an attempted concord between the Protestant groups in Poland. Davies, God’s Playground, vol. I, p. 185. 25. Pilaszek, Procesy, pp. 522–3. 26. Ibid., pp. 528–30. 27. J. Kłoczowski, Dzieje chrzejściaństwa polskiego (Warsaw, 2000), pp. 188–91, 198. The intensification of attention and respect paid to the Eucharist and the significance of transubstantiation has great relevance to descriptions of its abuse in witchcraft. 28. J. Kłoczowski, A History of Polish Christianity (Cambridge, 2000), p. 155. He maintains that thousands of people died as a result of accusations of witchcraft at the end of the seventeenth century and that the witchcraft persecution came directly from Germany, as so many other Polish histor- ians are keen to prove. He regards the decline in the number of cases as directly relative to an increase in accusations of blood libel against Jews. 29. Kaczmarczyk and Leśnodorski, Historia Państwa, p. 177. 30. J. Topolski, Wielkopolska poprzez wieki (Poznań, 1999), pp. 847, 510–11. 31. J. Topolski, ‘Model gospodarczy Wielkopolski w XVIII wieku’, Studia i materiały do dziejów Wielkopolski i Pomorza (20), 10, no. 2 (1971), 61; and idem (ed.), Dzieje Wielkopolski (2 vols, Poznań, 1969), I, pp. 515, 517, 522–3. Such conflict in the sixteenth century included withholding taxes, the 194 Notes late arrival of forces on the eastern battlefield, and a strongly fuelled Executionist movement supported by the area’s many Protestants. 32. Topolski (ed.), Wielkopolski, p. 490; E. Opaliński, Elita władzy w wojewódźtwach poznańskim i kaliskim za Zygmunta III (Poznań, 1981); and Wilson, ‘Toleration’, p. 101. 33. U. Piotrkowska, ‘Struktura i rozmieszczenie własności feudalnej w wojew- ództwie Poznańskim w drugiej połowie XVI wieku’, in Społeczeństwo star- opolskie, IV (Warsaw, 1986), pp. 25, 28. 34. Wilson, ‘Toleration’, p. 272. 35. Topolski, ‘Model’, p. 66 and Kaczmarczyk and Leśnodorski, Historia Państwa, p. 11. 36. Davies, God’s Playground, I, p. 305. 37. Wilson, ‘Toleration’, pp. 130–3. 38. Kłoczowski, Polish Christianity, p. 99. 39. J.