The Szeged witch trials, which took place in the city of

Szeged Szeged ( , ; see also #Etymology, other alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

in 1728–1729, was perhaps the largest

witch-hunt A witch hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. Practicing evil spells or Incantation, incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the ...

in Hungary. It led to the death of 14 people by burning, although witch trials had been banned by the decree of King Coloman in 1100.

The trials

The witch trial was instigated by the authorities, which decided on this measure to remove the problem of the public complaints about the drought and its consequences of famine and epidemics by laying the responsibility on people among them, which had fraternized with the Devil. If they were killed, the problems would be solved; God did not like the people, and thus they were being punished. A fear arose in the Habsburg empire that witches had begun to be organized like military units. A particular fear in Hungary was that witches were also

vampires A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...

. Among the people accused was the former judge and richest citizen of the town, 82-year-old Dániel Rózsa, said to be the leader of the witches, and Anna Nagy Kökényné, a midwife who had accused him of witchcraft. On 23 July 1728, 12 people, six men and six women, were burned at the stake for witchcraft on a peninsula of the Tisza, called Boszorkánysziget (Island of Witches). 13 people were burned and 28 accused in total. Witch trials had occurred in Hungary since the 16th century, but did not reach any high level until the 1710s and 1720s, when the real panic arrived. In 1756, Queen Maria Theresa ordered that all cases of witchcraft must be confirmed by the high court, which more or less ended the witch trials; the last person in Hungary was executed for witchcraft in 1777.

References

Brian A. Pavlac: List of Important Events for the Witch Hunts
* Robert John Weston Evans: ''The making of the Habsburg monarchy, 1550-1700: an interpretation'' (1984) * Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra, Brian P. Levack, Roy Porter:
Witchcraft and magic in Europe: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
' {{Witch Hunt Hungary under Habsburg rule Witch trials in Europe 1728 in law 1728 in Europe Vampirism (crime) History of Szeged 1728 in the Habsburg monarchy 18th century in Hungary 1729 in the Habsburg monarchy