Anti-witchcraft discourse in the Polish sixteenth-century printed books

The author examines the historical development of the theme of witches’ presence within the Polish Kingdom and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in book printing. He analyzes various approaches to the theme of witchcraft in Polish literature, highlighting how the writer’s perspective influenced their depictions. The author concludes that the “witches’ prevalence” thesis emerged in the 16th-century Polish polemical literature as part of a broader narrative of “modern moral decline”, functioning as a rhetorical model for designating confessional opponents. Thus, discussions of witchcraft primarily unfolded within the context of Catholic-Protestant disputes, serving as a vivid allusion among other tools of rhetorical persuasiveness. The features of witchcraft in the polemical tradition are inscribed in the collective image of the “Constitutive Other” as a heretic and a pagan and testify not to the intensification of the campaign against witches in printed materials but rather to the development of confessional disputes. In contrast, 17th-century printing utilized the concept of the “witches’ prevalence” in relation to individuals literally suspected of witchcraft, coinciding with an increase in witch trials. This transformation redefined the understanding of the prevalence of magical practices for new purposes.