A Hajdú-Bihar Megyei Levéltár évkönyve 8. 1981 (Debrecen, 1981)

Közlemények - Makkai László: Puritánok és boszorkányok Debrecenben

Puritans and witches in town Debrecen by László Makkai

The connection between the English puritanism and witchhunt was a well known and very contradictory occurence. The puritanism had spread also in Hungary in the 17th century within the Reformed Church but its relation to witch-hunt is not revealed by the history until now. Debrecen was a center of the Hungarian puritanisit in the second half of the of the 17th century—in the years between 1575 and 1735—there were 72 cases of witchcraft-trials held. In Hungary the existence of witches was considered as fact, both by the reformed and Roman Catholic clergymen and they were in agreement with the punishment of the witches, but did not take part in the witchcraft-trials neither as witnesses, nor as judges. These were held solely before secular courts of justices. That was the reason, that this kind of handbook was missing from the theological literature, the so called ’witch- hammers’ (malleus maleficarum) which would have analyzed the criteria of witchcraft. Here is firstly reviewed a paper written with similar purpose, entitled 'Short Comments about the Witchcraft' by reformed pastor Mátyás Nógrádi, he became later bishop. It was written as an appendix to the religious meditations titled 'Spiritual criterion’ from 1651. This appendix should have given advice to the court of judges in Debrecen.

In the course of analysis of the text, Nógrádi’s aim is revealed. He belonged to the late, comparatively enlightened generation of Hungarian puritans that had fought against superstititon as well, as expressed a sharp criticism of the feudal conditions, and so against the belief in witches. Nógrádi had compiled the criteria of sorcery to seem uncertain, hardly to identify by the court of justice, and thus to retain them from rash judgement. Remarkable is in his endevour to make distinction between the popular magic of curing and of diabolical witchcraft. He strove to denounce the latter to be pure fiction whilst he made efforts to excuse the first one. Perhaps this is the cause, that while we know between 1614 and 1638 14 witchcraft-trials in Debrecen, out of these 10 ended with capital punishment, since 1650, the arrival Nógrádi’s and during his three decades of activity there was no burning of anyone as a withe in Debrecen. In the period between 1693 and 1735, when the witch-hunt flared up country-wide, among the 45 witchcraft-trials of Debrecen passed only 7 capital sentences.

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