Germany can be considered a "classic" country of witchcraft. In England for the entire long period of the "witch hunt" more than a thousand sorcerers and witches were executed, in Germany, a hundred times more.
The use of torture was prohibited under English law. In Germany, the law provided for this measure of influence as mandatory.
In England, a punishment such as burning at the stake was rarely used. In Germany, this was the generally accepted method of dealing with witches and sorcerers.
In Germany at that time there was no centralized state power. The country stood on three hundred autonomous territories, both large and small. She was nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire and recognized the Imperial Code of Carolina (1532), which provided for the use of torture in the investigation of witchcraft and the death penalty. But everywhere witches and sorcerers were treated as they pleased.
TRIRIAN VEDIAN PROCESSES
Courts in Trier, as elsewhere in Germany, began to be held much later than in the rest of Europe.
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The Archbishopric of Trier (with the throne in Koblenz) was headed by a prince (elector), who had the right to take part in the election of the emperor. He also exercised spiritual jurisdiction over the neighboring French province of Lorraine and also Luxembourg. It was from here that the "witch infection" penetrated into Trier at the end of the 16th century, no matter how hard the skillful shoulder-case master, the Attorney General of Lorraine, Nicola de Remy, tried to eradicate it.
A series of disasters struck the city of Trier and its surroundings in 1580 - heavy rains became frequent, there were massive invasions of mice and locusts, and devastating raids made at someone's instigation by Protestant mercenaries became more frequent. The authorities suspected unkindness. Deciding that witches and sorcerers were to blame for all these misfortunes, they ordered the civil and ecclesiastical courts to sort things out. They, of course, tried and actually wiped out two villages suspected of witchcraft. Of all the women in them, only two survived. Some high-ranking officials - burgomasters, councilors, judges - also fell victim to unbridled persecution.
Among them was Dietrich Flade, who for twenty years headed the secular court, the lieutenant governor of Trier and the rector of the local university. They found some old hag, who was threatened with the death penalty, and she immediately confirmed that Flade was a sorcerer, which was required to be proved. Monstrous torture began, and the judge began to confess everything that was asked of him.
Now the Vedic courts followed one another. The bonfires at Trier were the first sparks of a great conflagration. Now the city was rampaged by inquisitorial judges thirsting for blood and booty. Not a single person, whoever he was, whatever step he occupied on the social ladder, could consider himself free from suspicion. The victims died and burned at the stake, and their incriminators and executioners grew rich, filling their own purse.
There was no end to the persecutions unleashed by the inquisitors. They continued for several years, and as a result of these atrocities, poverty settled for a long time in this once rich land. But "in war as in war."
As soon as the money ran out and there was no valuable property left to reward the executioners and persecutors "for their labors", their ardor immediately faded away and the persecution immediately stopped.
BAMBERG AND WURZBURG LEADING PROCESSES
Massive massacres of witches and sorcerers were especially
large-scale and frequent in those Germanic lands ruled by the princes-bishops.
Among the most notorious cities in this respect are Trier, Strasbourg, Breslau, Fulda, Vuiberg and Bamberg. The last two principalities were ruled by especially cruel and rude cousins.
Philip Adolph von Ehrenberg, Prince-Bishop of Würzburg (1623-1631) personally burned nine hundred local witches at the stake. His cousin Johann Georg II Fuchs von Dornheim from Bamberg yielded primacy in cruel reprisals to his more formidable relative, and he himself burned "only" six hundred convicts.
The Chancellor of Würzburg, shuddering with horror, left a detailed documentary description of what was happening in this principality: “A third of the inhabitants are undoubtedly involved in this. The richest, most respected and pleasant owners, prominent members of the clergy were executed. A week ago, a nineteen-year-old girl was burned at the stake as a witch, although she and everyone around her talked about her chastity. According to the authorities, three hundred children between the ages of three and four are already in contact with the devil. I saw how very young schoolchildren were ruthlessly put to death."
At home in Bamberg, this villain Johann George II continued to rage with the help of the bishop's vicar Friedrich Ferner and dozens of assistants. In 1627, mass persecution of sorcerers and witches resumed. The prince-bishop himself innovated this unbridled campaign. By his order, a special prison was built - the "House for Witches", or "Trudenhaus", intended for keeping in austerity the prisoners who were waiting for their turn to appear at the trial.
There, in cells from thirty to forty people languished at the same time. There were, of course, torture chambers in which the executioners had committed atrocities even before the trial. They were called "confession rooms".
For the immediate washing away of their sins, they did not forget to provide a small chapel in the prison. The same prisons, albeit smaller, were built in other cities of the principality - in Zeil, Holmstad, Kromach. In the period from 1627 to 1630, such courts were distinguished by particular cruelty and ruthlessness. Only one member of the commission of inquiry, Dr. Ernst Wakolt, personally burned four hundred women accused of witchcraft at the stake.
The vice-chancellor of Bamberg, Georg Haan, tried to suspend this insane orgy of reprisals against innocent people, but as a result he paid for his intercession. He was accused of "sympathizing with witches" and burned at the stake in 1628 along with the wife of a prelate. Even the intercession of Emperor Ferdinand II for the wife of a wealthy resident of the city did not help. She was nevertheless burned as a witch with a dozen others, and no one even bothered to bring charges against her, let alone provide a lawyer for her defense.
SADNESS PARTICIPATION
A sad fate befell the burgomaster of Bamberg, Johannes Junius. The confessor of Emperor Ferdinand II, Father Aatormann, persuaded him to take measures to end the lawlessness that is happening over witches and sorcerers in Bamberg. After all, such outrageousness can prevent his next election to this high post. The warnings worked on the emperor. He demanded from the Bamberg authorities open trials, providing the accused with legal defense and canceling the confiscation of the property of the executed. But he kept the torture just in case.
Terrible terror in Bamberg subsided in the summer of 1631
after the death of the bishop's vicar Friedrich Ferner. The threats of the Swedish king Gustav II, who entered Leipzig with his army in September, also had their effect. He categorically warned the emperor about the beginning of a possible war with him, if effective measures were not taken to end the anti-Vedic hysteria. Despite this, in 1630, thirty-one people were still burned at the stake. But in 1631 - not one.
Only after the death of the prince-bishop of Würzburg in 1631, his cousin the prince-bishop of Bamberg in 1632 and the cardinal-bishop of Vienna in 1630 did the persecution actually cease.
Eichstat Court of Witches
The Eichstatt trial of sorcerers and witches, organized in 1637-1638 in the bishopric of Eichstaten near Ingolstadt, was essentially no different from all the others that swept Germany.
This is clearly evidenced by accidentally preserved protocols drawn up by a scribe during the Wedic process. But, obviously, in order not to cast a shadow of witchcraft on descendants, the publishers omitted all names in the texts - judges, prosecutors, witnesses, accused, replacing them with the letters NNN … And in this court, the investigation procedure follows the clichés developed over the years in this country. It all starts, as always, with a complete denial of all charges. Then the suspect is handed over to the executioner, and she begins to "confess", fig.
Because of the monstrous pain after the torture, the woman begins to believe that she is a witch, and speaks such nonsense that she herself would never have believed in under other circumstances. Nobody, of course, demands any proof from her.
One denunciation or suspicion is enough. In addition, what evidence can be expected from such "confessions": night flights, unbridled feasts at the Sabbath, causing a storm, exhuming corpses, going through an open door.
Frightened peasants and women in the depths of their hearts could not understand why they suddenly became such "important persons" - they are listened to by many high-ranking, important officials, listened to for three whole weeks only in order to eventually send them to the next world.
In just less than a year, the number of victims who were burned at the stake in the bishopric of Eichstatt reached 154 people.
FIGHT LUTHERAN WITH CATHOLIKS
Self-interest and concern for one's own pocket were by no means the only reasons for the Wedic processes.
There was another incentive for the ruthless destruction of the alleged witches and sorcerers in Bamberg. In a religiously divided Germany, ravaged by the Thirty Years' War, Catholic and Protestant armies constantly took part in bloody clashes with each other. Catholic rulers such as Johann George II used witchcraft as a pretext for the complete destruction of the Lutheran opposition.
JOHANNES UNIUS - VICTIM OF REVENGE
The trial was held by the burgomaster of the city of Bamberg Johannes Junius in 1628. Bamberg, as we said above, was a notorious center of lawlessness and Vedic persecution, and Junius, to his great misfortune, fell under the hot hand of the main villain and persecutor of "heretics", Prince-Bishop Johann George II. On his personal order, many prominent and wealthy citizens were burned in Bamberg, including the chancellor, vice-chancellor of the principality and five burgomasters, among whom was Johannes Junius.
Obviously, he something badly annoyed the ruler of the diocese, if, despite many years of service (Johannes Junius served as burgomaster since 1608), he decided to destroy him, accusing him of witchcraft. At the time of his arrest he was fifty-five years old.
A year earlier, his wife was burned to death in a crematorium oven in the neighboring town of Peil on charges of witchcraft.
He was faced with one of the most ridiculous charges. One of the witnesses, Dr. Georg Haan, the deputy burgomaster (who would also be burned a little later), said at a confrontation that about a year ago he saw him with his own eyes at a Sabbath in the office of the election commission, "where everyone ate and drank."
That was enough. He was stripped and a bluish shamrock-like mark was found on his right side. He was pricked three times with needles, but he did not feel pain, and blood did not come out on his body. Everything is clear - before them is a sorcerer, an accomplice of the devil. Long, painful torture began …
The memory of this courageous man is still preserved to this day also because in some inexplicable way he managed to convey a touching letter from prison to his daughter, in which he told her in detail about the atrocities that the inquisitors are committing, about how they beat out innocent people have “confessions”, “My beloved daughter Veronica. I entered the prison innocent, I was tortured innocent, and I have to die innocent. " On July 24, 1628, when he wrote this letter of confession to his daughter, he was already firmly convinced that he would never prove his innocence. He ordered her to save her life, to flee from Bamberg as soon as possible, for she, too, could be captured, accused of complicity and sent to the stake. The young woman is said to have managed to escape and survived."Whoever got into a dungeon for libel in witchcraft," wrote the burgomaster, "will certainly be forced to confess to this, or will be tortured until he invents something and such an invention suits the torturers."
The unhappy, completely exhausted burgomaster gave free rein to his imagination. “Once,” he wrote, “I met a witch in the guise of a goat. She often came to me and demanded that I give up God. I abandoned God and his heavenly host and recognized the Devil as my God.
WITCH HUNTERS
This witch taught me how to fly to the Sabbath on a black dog. Then they forced me to kill my son, but I refused. In that case, you have to kill your daughter, the devils insisted. Then I killed a white horse instead of my daughter. But that didn't help either. Then I took the wafer and buried it in the ground. Having learned about this, they finally left me behind."
However, the "witch hunters" and sorcerers were not going to lag behind. They demanded that he name his accomplices. They interrogated him for a long time, with partiality, and from their ambiguous questions it became clear to him exactly what names they wanted to hear from him. The broken burgomaster gave false testimony, confessed everything. But this did not help him - he was sentenced to death.
“Now, my dear child, Veronica,” Junius wrote to his daughter, “you know all my actions and all my“confessions”for which I will have to accept death. And all this is an absolute lie, slander against oneself, may God help me and will not leave me at the last hour."
In the postscript, he added that the six witnesses who were in prison who testified in witchcraft against him, before execution, asked him for forgiveness for their sins, since they accused him only in order to avoid unbearable torture, like himself.
"Farewell, my dear Veronica, your father Johannes Junius will never see you again!" - this message from prison ended with such sad words.
His executioners, however, showed a certain mercy to him. His death was instant and painless. They tied him to a chair and cut off his head with a sharp sword.
Yet he could not escape the flame. The dismembered body of the burgomaster was taken to the neighboring town of Zeil, where his wife was burned as a witch, and there he was burned in the same oven.
TORTURE AND EXECUTION
In order to suspect a person of witchcraft in the era of mass "witch hunts", in fact, no evidence was required. The usual denunciation or anonymous accusations were quite enough for "half-proof", the other half of the accused was "beaten out" by means of torture.
The unfortunate man was tortured even during his arrest, which usually took place late at night. A man who had not yet come to his senses after a dream could not imagine what they were taking him for and what kind of charges he would be charged with. Then the suspect was thrown into a prison, in a dark solitary confinement cell, where he was left long enough to reflect on his future fate.
In a sense, being in prison itself is torture. Prisons in the 16th - 17th centuries everywhere, both in Europe and in America, were not at all like modern ones.
These were fetid dungeons, where many prisoners died of infectious diseases, and those under investigation went crazy even before the investigation began. The torture and methods of its application varied.
The most terrible torture of witches and sorcerers, by all accounts, was subjected in Germany at the beginning of the 16th century, and the city of Bamberg became synonymous with horror.
At the appointed hour, the clothes were torn off the victims, after which they were taken to the torture chamber, where notaries were waiting for them, writing down every word that was plucked out in agony.
In Germany, a disgusting ritual also reigned: before the beginning of the torture, the priest always lit the instruments of torture.
The torture usually proceeded in the following sequence: the use of a vice for the thumbs, then a few dozen lashes, a vice for the toes, stretching on a rack, hanging from ropes, breaking the shoulder joints. If the accused still persisted and did not give evidence, he was immersed in ice water, sometimes in boiling water, and lime was added to the boiling water. The prisoners were fed only salty food. mainly herring boiled in a salty solution, and herring brine from a barrel was added to the drink.
However, it was not the main purpose of torture to “knock out” confessions of guilt from the accused or the accused. The real torture was reserved for the last, most important interrogation, the purpose of which is to get the witch or sorcerer to name the accomplices. After torture, the victim was usually dressed and warmed, that is, brought to his senses, prepared for the next torture. Witches were usually tortured with particularly subtle cruelty. Their feet were cut open and boiling oil or molten lead was poured into their deep wounds, and their tongues were pierced with needles. Among the repeatedly tested instruments of torture, one can name a "wooden horse", various racks, an iron chair red-hot on a fire, a chair with "iron spikes", high vise for the legs ("Spanish boots"), huge shoes made of leather or metal, which were worn by the tortured and either boiling water or boiling oil was poured into them,or molten lead.
A professional executioner could guarantee the recognition of anyone who fell into his hands. If the accused was silent during the investigation, then his behavior was regarded as contempt of the court and for this special torture was imposed. A wooden platform was laid on the man lying on the floor, an increasingly heavy load was piled on it, until he gave up. Demonologists, of course, explained such stubborn silence not by the personal courage of a person, but only by the "spell of the Devil." This is how Giles Corey was executed at the Salem trial.
WITCHING METHODS
In the main torture, there were two methods - "strappado" (from Italian - "strappare" - to tear, tear), that is, a rack, and "squassification" (an English term borrowed from the Italian verb "squassare" - to throw), that is, "tossing ".
In the first case, the accused was pulled up to the ceiling by a rope tying his wrists, and a heavy load was suspended from his feet. Usually, this torture ended in dislocation of the shoulder joints, but it did not leave any traces of "rough treatment."
An even more painful torture - the "tossing" was similar to the "strappado", but in this case the person suspended from the ceiling on the rope was released, then it was pulled sharply, not allowing his feet to touch the stone floor. Iron blanks were used as weight. These were ordinary, "ordinary" tortures used for centuries.
Since ancient times, people, inflicting unbearable pain and suffering, have sought to achieve recognition of the truth from others like themselves. Even a humanist like the philosopher Aristotle considered torture a reliable means of proving the guilt of sinners and their subsequent punishment. Greek playwright of the 5th century BC Aristophanes in his works already mentions such terrible instruments of torture as a rack or a wheel.
