Fachwortschatz in den Groß-Ullersdorfer Hexenverhörprotokollen aus den 70er Jahren des 17. Jahrhunderts

The article presents linguistic analysis of German-language testimonies from accused women in witch trials, focusing on the specialized vocabulary they used. It aims to answer the question, to what extent simple rural women could have been able to use special German terms or Latin borrowings in their testimonies from the fields of law, religion, sexual life, suspect sciences, or the academic sphere, and to what extent the interrogations were staged with a predetermined outcome. Such diachronic linguistic research could help us analyse one of the dark events in the history of the Czech lands realistically