ABSTRACT
The decades between the 1580s and the 1680s witnessed the most aggressive phase of witch hunting, including several mass witch hunts. The worst witch hunt in Silesia took place in three great waves in the years 1622, 1639–1641 and 1651–1652 in the Upper Silesian principality of Nysa. The late phase of the witch hunts after the end of the 17th century was in some of the Upper Silesian principalities accompanied by more numerous cases of alleged vampirism and vampire panics, which led to a post mortem burning of supposed witches and sorcerers as a rule after their exhumation. For the time being the numbers of victims of the witch hunts in Slovakia can be estimated at 200 to 300 persons. Only from the second half of the 17th century were the trials in Eastern Central Europe influenced by Western demonology to a significant degree.
