Estirpò ancora delli suoi paesi le strighe - The one (and only) report on the persecution of witches in the Nemanjić state

Benjamin, Hekić

Prilozi za knjizevnost, jezik, istoriju i folklor

85

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http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?id=0350-66731985015H

2019-2020/02/11/11:27:51

In the Copioso risretto de gli anali di Rausa (1605), written by the Ragusan chronicler Jakov Lukarević (Giacomo Luccari), we find a report on the persecution of witches in the Nemanjić State. According to Lukarević, grand župan Stefan Nemanja and tsar Stefan Dušan persecuted witches in their country, and moreover, tsar Dušan burned the books of magic called “Grominjak” in Slavic language. This report can’t be confirmed by any other historical source, contemporary or later, but we think that Lukarević didn’t invent the story. We reckon that Lucarević based his report on the persecution of witches on certain historical events. The persecution of heretics during Nemanja’s reign could’ve been that on which Lukarević based his story of Nemanja’s persecution of witches. In the time of Stefan Dušan the legislation sanctioned the practice of magic (though, the practitioners are predominantly termed as males); perhaps the tsar has persecuted individually some wizards or sorcerers that had broken the law. But this certainly couldn’t have been a true witch hunt, like those that Lukarević could’ve witnessed in his time. Likewise, Grominjak in fact could’ve been the same as gromovnik, an astrological and meteorological manual used in mediaeval Serbia for divination by thunders and earthquakes; this handbook could’ve seemed to Lukarević as a real grimoire used for summoning demons. And since numerous manuscripts of gromovniks have survived, they obviously hadn’t been systematically destroyed by the authorities. Our conclusion is, therefore, that Jakov Lukarević knew of some real events that were influenced by his own experience and knowledge which ultimately shaped his story into one of an early modern witch hunt “transported” into mediaeval Serbian state.