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For a very long time the issue of men accused of witchcraft was completely overlooked by Polish and European historiography. It was assumed that they took part only in the persecution of women accused of witchcraft – as judges, accusers, executioners and witnesses, and were not themselves accused or tried’. Today we know that such a view was wrong – men accounted for about 20% of European witch hunt victims, and in some areas (such as the Muscovy) they even outnumbered the accused women. The first major and meticulously researched study on men accused of witchcraft in Central Europe was a book Man as Witch: Male Witches in Central Europe by Rolf Schulte. In it, he proposed four main theories regarding who the men accused of witchcraft were and under what circumstances they came before the courts. In my talk, I will analyze in detail all four theories presented by Schulte and compare them with Polish archival sources to see to what extent these hypotheses are defensible in relation to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The central point of reference will be the 17th and 18th Centuries criminal records of town court of Kleczew, one of the main centers of Polish early modern witch-hunting, supplemented by information gathered in extensive Polish Witch Trials Database edited by Michael Ostling, as well as papers and books by Małgorzata Pilaszek, Kateryna Dysa and Jacek Wijaczka
