| Summary: | In close-readings of court records reflections on language's own ability to convey meaning comes to the fore, bridging the gap of four hundred years between the seventeenth and the twenty-first century. Firstly, there is the process of standardisation of language; steadily more phraseology in the court records seen in both regions. It is as if the scribe has been bored after decades of repeating the same type of interrogation and confession. Secondly, there is the dissolving process of language seen in the confession of long tortured persons; expressions falling apart, syntax as well as contents blurred and at times unintelligible. Thirdly, there are implicit formulations carrying the message of torture in a long row of cases. Fourthly, there is the establishing of a meta-level of language through the voice of the scribe. His comments reveal much about the climate in the courtroom and the contemporary attitude to witchcraft. These features show that judicial practise in witchcraft trials is displayed through in-depth studies of language structures to a degree considerably beyond what immediately seems to be the case from superficial reading. This thesis has compared witchcraft trials in two European regions. My hypothesis, stating that a co-existence of several factors working in the same direction, influencing different levels of society, prepared the ground for the witch-hunt to start and to continue, has been supported. The two analytical approaches to the material, quantitative and qualitative, have in completion demonstrated the fruitfulness of a broad interpretative effort as well as the complexity of the historical witch-hunt as a phenomenon. A set of factors was suggested in my hypothesis as tentatively influential on the actual witchcraft trials. My analyses have confirmed several of these; the demonological element, the laws, the church, pressures from local courts, torture, personal influence from legal and clerical officials, assimilation of demonological ideas in an oral society, ideas about the ...
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