A lejegyzői kontextusról Veszprém megyei boszorkányperes jegyzőkönyvek kéziratai alapján

The present case study investigates manuscripts of documented witness depositions of witch trials from a linguistic perspective, with particular emphasis on the diversity observable in the scribal context, including text formatting, spelling, abbreviations, and corrections. The sources were selected in relation to the venue of the VI^th Scriptorium Conference, though in a broad sense: the analysis focuses on manuscripts recorded in Veszprém County in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. In each manuscript, the observed spelling variations were characteristic of the period. The 17^th-century documents displayed several relatively archaic phonetic and graphic correspondences from both scribes, whereas the 18^th-century documents contained fewer distinctive variants, making the form and sound value of graphemes more decisive. The texts contain only a few corrections, which also suggests that they all may be copies. The document of the witness depositions against Kata Németh and János Horváth from 1759 deserves special attention due to its volume, as it contains variably detailed testimonies from 98 witnesses. In this latter case, it was also necessary to highlight problems related to the transcription of earlier editions of the record.