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The Trial of Tempel Anneke

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The Trial of Tempel Anneke

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Records of a Witchcraft Trial in Brunswick, Germany, 1663

Edited by Peter Morton

Translated by Barbara Dähms

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Figure 1 (previous page) Cityscape of Brunswick from the east 1652 by Conrat Buno after Merian. This engraving shows the city as it appeared at the time of the trial. The cathedral, the Dom of St. Blasius, is directly below the crest in the centre of the picture. The municipality of Hagen, where the trial took place, is on the right side of the cityscape.

©2006 Peter Morton and Barbara Dähms

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, on m5e 1e5—is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

The trial of Tempel Anneke : records of a witchcraft trial in Brunswick, Germany, 1663 /edited by Peter A. Morton ; translated by Barbara Dähms.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55111-706-1 1. Roleffes, Anna, ca. 1600-1663 – Trials, litigation, etc. 2. Trials (Witchcraft) – Germany – Braunschweig. I. Morton, Peter Alan II. Dähms, Barbara, 1954-

KK270.7.R65T75 2005 345.43’59760288 C2005-905905-2

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For Paul

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Table of Contents

Preface • ix Acknowledgements • xi List of Illustrations • xii

List of Maps • xii

Introduction • xiii I. Historical Background • xiii

II. Understanding the Text • xxxiii Further Reading • xliv

The Trial of Tempel Anneke (1663) • 1 Document A • 3 Document B • 4 Document C • 6

Folio 1 • 7 Folio 2 • 9 Folio 3 • 14 Folio 4 • 24 Folio 5 • 25 Folio 6 • 27 Folio 7 • 32 Folio 8 • 36 Folio 9 • 39 Folio 10 • 41 Folio 11 • 46 Folio 12 • 48 Folio 13 • 49 Folio 14a • 50 Folio 14b • 53 Folio 15 • 55 Folio 16 • 56 Folio 18 • 57 Folio 19 • 62 Folio 20 • 63 Folio 21 • 66

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Folio 22 • 71 Folio 23 • 80 Folio 24 • 82 Folio 25 • 83 Folio 26 • 84 Folio 27 • 95 Folio 28 • 98 Folio 29 • 106 Folio 30 • 112 Folio 31 • 113 Folio 32 • 117 Folio 33 • 119 Folio 34 • 124 Folio 35 • 127 Folio 36 • 128 Folio 37 • 130 Folio 38 • 131 Folio 39 • 133 Folio 40 • 136 Folio 41 • 138 Folio 42 • 140 Folio 43 • 142 Folio 44 • 148 Folio 45 • 150

Supplementary Civic Records • 152

Appendices • 157 A. Glossary of Latin Terms • 158

B. Index of Herbs and Medicinal Ingredients • 163

References • 166 Sources • 170 Index • 171

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Preface

This book is a translation of the records of a witchcraft trial that took place in Brunswick, Germany, in 1663. Our intent has been to make the complete contents of the original documents available in English, as they exist in the archive, and occasionally as they can be reconstructed from other sources. Our decision to translate the records arose from our joint belief that they offer an unusually close picture of the people involved, especially of Tempel Anneke herself. Of the trial records in the Brunswick area that we have read, including some as detailed as the Tempel Anneke case, this one stands out in its vividness.

The book is organized into three basic parts. In the Introduction, we give some historical background and describe the legal context of the trial. The trial records and supplementary archival documents make up the bulk of the book. In the last section, we have included appendices to assist with the Latin terms used in the records, and with the identification of the herbs and medicinal ingredients mentioned in the trial testimony.

The introduction provides background to the trial’s social and historical context. The first section outlines the situation in Brunswick at the time of the trial, and presents some key historical background: we detail here the early modern “composite” nature of witchcraft as consisting of both malefi- cium and diabolism, and also the role of the Carolina (the criminal code of the Holy Roman Empire) in the actual structure of the legal proceedings. The second section of the Introduction describes the archival documents: of what they consist, who wrote them, and the positions and responsibilities of the court officials named. This second section also considers some aspects of the translation, such as the choice of specific words as well as certain conventions we have adopted in reproducing the text.

We wish to emphasize what this volume does not undertake to do. It is intended as a primary source document, with as much background informa- tion as is needed to make sense of the text. In this light, the introductory chapter is not in any way intended as a general introduction to the history of the witch trials of early modern Europe. The general history of the trials is a large and complex subject, embracing a number of controversial issues, and we have not attempted a synopsis of it here. For those readers with an interest in the wider history of the witch trials, we have included footnotes with references, and a brief section of further readings. Here again, because

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the literature is so vast, we have included in this section only those materials that offer an introduction to the topic, rather than attempting any kind of general bibliography.

We have not included our own interpretation of the records or provided a synopsis of their contents. While we certainly have our own theories about the trial, we do not want these to come between the reader and the text. We adopted the same approach in the translation. In the interests of providing as direct an experience with the records as possible, this is a fairly literal transla- tion which preserves the style and character of the original, while leaving the result easily readable in English.

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Acknowledgements

First of all we thank Katharina Dähms and Hans-Dietrich Dähms for their support and hospitality during research visits to Brunswick. We thank the Department of Humanities of Mount Royal College for continuous support and encouragement. For much advice and direction with sources and histori- cal material, we thank Peter’s departmental colleagues: Tom Brown, David Clemis, Steven Engler, Debra Jensen, and Scott Murray. Manuel Mertin, Dean of Arts of Mount Royal College, has also been supportive of the project from the outset.

The project received financial support, as well as encouragement, from the Scholarly Pursuits Committee of Mount Royal College. Professor J.J. MacIntosh of the University of Calgary was enthusiastically helpful in obtain- ing financial assistance.

The staff of the Stadtarchiv Braunschweig, especially Herr Krone and Herr Nickel, have been continuously helpful, both during our initial collecting of documents and with the selection and reproduction of illustrations. We also thank the Landesmuseum Braunschweig, and specifically Herr Otte, for help with illustrations.

Janet Sisson of Mount Royal College was most helpful with the Latin translations. We received much good advice and some useful references from three anonymous reviewers.

Finally, we thank Mical Moser of Broadview Press for her encouragement and patience, as well as her constant good humour.

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List of Illustrations

Figure 1 Cityscape of Brunswick from the east 1652 by Conrat Buno after Merian • ii-iii

Figure 2 The Brunswick Opera House (formerly the Municipal Hall of Hagen) Copper Plate by Beck 1747 • xv

Figure 3 Cityscape of Brunswick from the east 1652 by Conrat Buno after Merian (detail) • xvi-xvii

Figure 4 First page of Folio 11: The testimony of Hille Voge • 45 Figure 5 First page of Folio 23: The medical judgment of Laurentius

Gieseler • 79 Figure 6 First page of Folio 44: The final judgment • 146 Figure 7 Second page of Folio 44: The final judgment • 147 Figure 8 Christmas Rose (helleborus niger) • 162

List of Maps

Map 1 Plan of the City of Brunswick 1671 • vxiii-xix Map 2 Plan of the City of Brunswick 1671 (detail) • xx-xxi Map 3 District of the Duchy of Brunswick 1715 (detail) • xxii-xxiii

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1 The name of the village has a form common to the region: the term “büttel” is from the ancient Saxon word for house or farm, to which is added the name of the original family. In this case the family name was originally “Harckes.” So the name indicates the farm of the Harckes family.

Introduction

I. Historical Background

Sometime in June of 1663 Anna Roleffes, known locally as Tempel Anneke, of the village of Harxbüttel¹ near the city of Brunswick, was arrested on suspicion of witchcraft and was imprisoned in the municipality of Hagen in Brunswick. The earliest written allegations against her appeared in the summer of 1662, and from these records it seems that there were already at that time official enquiries into her activities. Her ultimate arrest stemmed from the charge that she used sorcery to obtain the return of goods stolen from a roofer, Hans Tiehmann. Following her arrest the court investigated a number of other allegations against Tempel Anneke, some from many years earlier, and numerous witnesses were questioned about their knowledge of her affairs. The trial lasted from 25 June to 30 December. Under torture she confessed to witchcraft, and on the latter date she was beheaded and her body was burned.

At the time of her trial Tempel Anneke was a widow, living on the farm of her son, in Harxbüttel, a small village some seven kilometers northwest of Brunswick. Her husband, Hans Kage, had been killed in 1641. In her first testimony before the court Tempel Anneke says that she was born in Harxbüttel, and that she was five years old when Duke Heinrich besieged the city in 1605. The name, Tempel Anneke, derived from the fact that a church property, called the Tempel Hof, of the Order of St. Blasius in Brunswick, had been established in the village. A public house was part of the property, and the publican at the time of the trial, Hans Harves, was called “Tempel Hans.” We do not know how Anna Roleffes obtained the same name. “Anneke” is a diminutive of “Anna.”

The trial testimony indicates that Tempel Anneke practiced as a healer and diviner (a person who can obtain hidden information such as the location of lost goods). She had business in Hagen, and the testimony of her activities originates from several towns and villages in the area northwest of the city. Many of the common social characteristics of those accused of witchcraft at the time apply to Tempel Anneke. She was female, elderly, widowed, and

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1 For the history of Brunswick in the seventeenth century, we have drawn on Jarck and Schildt (2000), Monderhack (1997), and especially Spiess (1966).

dependent upon her family. She may have portrayed her practice as involv- ing magic, although she denies this in her earliest statements to the court. She was literate and owned a few books and herbals, which was unusual for a farm woman of the time. In her testimony she claims to have gained her first medical knowledge from her mother, who had been a maid to a barber in her youth. (In the seventeenth century barbers provided basic medical services in addition to cutting hair.) She claims to have obtained additional knowledge from her books, and from the practices of shepherds and other local people.

A. The city of Brunswick in the seventeenth century¹

Brunswick lies in the eastern region of Lower Saxony in northern Germany, between Hannover and Berlin. In the twelfth century the Guelph duke, Henry the Lion, selected Brunswick as his principal residence, and he built there a castle and a large cathedral, the Dom of St. Blasius. Over the cen- turies Brunswick became an important commercial centre, strategically located on principal trade routes between northern European cities. In the seventeenth century it was a fortified city of some 15,000 inhabitants. Until 1671 Brunswick belonged to the Hanseatic League of cities, whose members were independent in commerce and local governance from their surround- ing jurisdictions.

At the time Brunswick had an unusual civic structure, and to an extent this affected the trial’s legal structure and proceedings. From its earliest days as a settlement on the banks of the Oker River, the city was formed of distinct and largely independent municipalities or boroughs. By the seventeenth cen- tury there were five such municipalities: Altstadt, Hagen, Neustadt, Sack, and Altewieck. Each had its own town hall, mayors and town council, court, and (except Sack) its own district church. There were in addition two independent ecclesiastical districts: the cathedral chapter of St. Blasius in the city centre, and the church and monastery of St. Aegidien in the south. For important matters of common concern the city maintained a General Council, the Gemeine Rat, comprised of representatives of the individual municipal councils.

The seventeenth century was a harsh time for much of central Europe, and the trial took place during a particularly difficult period in Brunswick’s

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history. An important line of the Guelph dukes, the house of Brunswick- Lüneburg, had its seat in the town of Wolfenbüttel, just 15 kilometres south of Brunswick, and for a long time the dukes had claimed their right over the city. They besieged the city several times, and blocked its trade routes for long periods: not surprisingly, this had a serious impact on the local economy. The dukes gained full control of the city in 1671, and it became part of the duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. A much larger military engage- ment, the Thirty Years War, raged around Brunswick between 1618 and 1648. The war had a devastating effect on the civilian population. Tempel Anneke’s husband was killed by soldiers outside of Wolfenbüttel in 1641. Through the skillful diplomacy of its officials, Brunswick managed to avoid besiegement, unlike many cities in the region. Its success in avoiding the conflict, however, brought with it a different cost. As an island of relative peace, the city was swamped with refugees, both noble and poor, especially from nearby Magdeburg (which was burned to the ground in 1631). The resultant overcrowding brought disease, and exacerbated outbreaks of the plague. To add to these difficulties, the region suffered a series of unusually cold winters. Ironically, the frigid winter of 1657/58 brought to an end the worst plague of the century, in which more than 5,000 people in the city died.

Figure 2 The Brunswick Opera House (formerly the Municipal Hall of Hagen) Copper Plate by Beck 1747. This is an illustration of the Municipal Hall of Hagen, where much of the trial took place, as it appeared in 1747. By this date the building had been converted to an opera house. Unfortunately it no longer exists.

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Figure 3 Cityscape of Brunswick from the east 1652 by Conrat Buno after Merian (detail). This is an enlargement of Figure 1, showing the municipality of Hagen. The church on the left side, labeled with the number 20, is St. Catharine’s, the dis- trict church of Hagen. Directly behind the church were the Hagen Market and the Hagen Municipal Hall. The Hagen Gate, where the execution took place, is on the right side of the picture. Wenden Street, along which Tempel Anneke was taken for execution, runs from St. Catharine’s to the Wenden Gate, between St. Andreas church (number 22) and the city wall.

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Map 1 Plan of the City of Bruns- wick 1671. This plan was com- missioned shortly after the oc- cupation of the city by the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1671. The plan is oriented to the east, so that north is on the right. The moat around the city is the Oker River. The Dom of St. Blasius and the castle square appear in the centre of the plan, labeled “A.” The Hagen Market, labeled Ha- gen Marckt, is below and to the right of the castle square.

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Map 2 Plan of the City of Brunswick 1671 (detail). This is an enlargement of Map 1, showing the municipality of Hagen in more detail. The municipal hall of Hagen is just in front of St. Catharine’s church, which is labeled “D” on the plan. Fallersle- ben Street, where the magistrates took testimony, runs east–west on the right side

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of the church. The Wenden Gate (labeled Wende Thor) is clearly marked on the right side of the plan. Wenden Street is the large thoroughfare between the Hagen Market and the Wenden Gate. Kaiser Street, in Neustadt, where several events in the trial took place, is next to St. Andreas church at the top.

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Map 3 District of the Duchy of Brunswick 1715 (detail). This is a detail from a map of the duchy that shows the ar- eas around the city in which the trial events took place. Brunswick is in the centre, and the Oker River runs through the centre of the map from south to north. As Harxbüttel does not appear on this map, we have added it beside the Schunter River northwest of Brunswick. We have also added Neubrück, where a good deal of testi- mony was collected. Gifhorn is at the top of the map, and Campen is northeast of Harx- büttel. Lehre is just below Campen and to the right. Wolfenbüttel, where Tempel Anneke’s husband was killed, is the fortified town to the south of Brunswick.

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1 It is difficult to determine precisely the total number of executions. Newer research rejects early speculation of hundreds of thousands or even millions, and puts the figure at less than one hundred thousand. The most recent survey for continental Europe is Monter (2002). For an idea of the geo- graphical extent of the witch trials, see also the maps at the front of Briggs (1996).

2 This is not always reliable. For example, Kieckhefer (1989) restricts the term “sorcery” to the misuse of medical or protective magic. We have preferred to use “sorcery” interchangeably with “magic” because it is the best translation of Zauberey in the trial records.

3 See Levack (1995, pp. 7-8)

B. Perceptions of witchcraft in the seventeenth century

The trial of Tempel Anneke is a single instance of a much larger episode in European history: the so-called “witch-hunt of early modern Europe,” which lasted from the middle of the fifteenth century through the first half of the eighteenth century. During these three centuries thousands of people were executed for the crime of witchcraft.¹ The proliferation of witchcraft trials was in part a result of the linking together of two very different understand- ings of witchcraft—“maleficium” and “diabolism.” To understand the context of Tempel Anneke’s trial, we must explore the context of both maleficium and diabolism, as well as how they were brought together in early modern legal understanding.

The first conception of witchcraft is that of harmful magic or sorcery. (We will use “magic” and “sorcery” interchangeably.²) The Latin term for harmful magic in the Middle Ages and early modern Europe is maleficium. Although it is difficult to define precisely, in this context we can describe magic as the use of extraordinary powers within objects, words, and signs, to achieve some practical end. “Extraordinary” powers does not imply what today we would think of as “supernatural,” in the sense of existing outside the natural order altogether. In medieval and early modern Europe, the tools of the sorcerer were thought to be part of God’s natural creation and bounded by its laws, and hence “magic” was thought to rely on powers within the realm of nature. Magical powers are more correctly described as “preternatural,” that is, as part of the natural world created by God yet outside the ordinary course of nature.

We can see something of a continuum between what we might call “high magic” and “low magic.”³ At one end of the continuum, we can identify as high magic those practices involving sophisticated arts practiced by people with some degree of education. Two examples of such high magic are the arts of alchemy (the transmutation of metals) and necromancy (the raising

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1 There were many forms of magic between the two extremes. For an introduction to magic in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, see Kieckhefer (1989), Jolly (2001), and Peters (2001). A classic study of magic in early modern England is Thomas (1971).

2 See the translations from Augustine in Kors and Peters (2001, pp. 43–46). 3 See the translations from the writings of Thomas Aquinas in Kors and Peters (2001, pp. 87–

104).

of spirits and demons). At the other end of the continuum, low magic is the use of simple spells, charms, and rituals, by people without formal training or education. In medieval and early modern Europe, many forms of low magic—for healing and divination, among numerous other purposes—were passed on between generations or drawn from individual experience.¹

Both high and low magic could be used for either benevolent or malevo- lent ends. Fear of harmful low magic was common in villages and towns in this period, and this fear was one of the factors leading to the prolifera- tion of witch trials. Trials often began with accusations of maleficium within a community. When people suffered unusual losses or injuries, they frequently looked to their neighbours for the cause. For example, people with magical abilities were believed to be able to kill livestock, to cause human illness, death, and impotence, to prevent a mother’s milk from flowing, and to bring hailstorms to destroy their neighbours’ crops.

Accusations of maleficium by themselves, however, would not have yielded the large numbers of trials and executions that occurred between 1450 and 1750. The second component of witchcraft (which was necessary to instigate a witch-hunt), was the belief that people guilty of maleficium acquire their powers through a pact with the Devil. In this pact, witches were believed to abandon God and to give themselves, body and soul, to the Devil. The term for worship of, or subservience to, the Devil is “diabolism.” In return for their allegiance, the Devil was believed to grant witches the power to perform magic. In the eyes of theologians and the courts of law it was the pact with the Devil—rather than maleficium—that was the real crime of witchcraft. Diabolism is a crime of apostasy—the renunciation of God and the holy sacraments.

The belief that magicians acquire their powers through a pact with the Devil was well established among theologians in medieval Europe. This as- sertion had been made as early as the fifth century by Augustine.² In the thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas argued that all forms of magic involving signs or symbols require the aid of demons, on the grounds that the signs are powerless in themselves.³ The practice of necromancy, which spread in

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1 See, for example, the translations from Nicholas Eymeric’s Directorium Inquisitorium of 1376 in Kors and Peters (2001, pp. 120–26).

2 For a discussion of what may have prompted this link, see Levack (1995, pp. 36–37), and also Kieckhefer (1976).

3 On the subject of the inefficacy of magic and witchcraft without the aid of the Devil, see Clark (1991). 4 See Summers (1928).

the late Middle Ages, was condemned in the fourteenth century by inquisi- tors of the Church, who argued that the magicians could not command the demons as they claimed, but instead offered them worship.¹ In the fifteenth century, the belief that magic requires a pact with the Devil was also applied to those accused of harmful low magic.² People accused of maleficium by their neighbours came to be seen as devil worshippers and apostates. Thus the two quite distinct ideas—maleficium and diabolism—became linked, forming a composite notion of the witch as harmful sorcerer and agent of the Devil. The linking of diabolism to maleficium provided the grounds upon which ac- cusations of witchcraft, arising from the general population, led the legal authorities to conduct investigations and prosecutions.

This composite allowed the crime to be perceived differently by the legal authorities—jurists and judges—than it was by the witnesses and accusers. It was believed by demonologists and jurists that a witch’s magic is completely ineffective without the aid of the Devil. They argued that the Devil deceives the witches into believing that their spells and charms work to bring about their ends, whereas in fact the effect is produced entirely by him.³ Thus the witch’s purpose is incidental to the real crime of apostasy. It made no differ- ence to the guilt of the accused whether the magic was intended for good or for ill. This view was not always shared by the witnesses and the general population. The accusations of witnesses in Tempel Anneke’s trial make no reference to a pact with the Devil, and include only the harmful effects that her magic was believed to produce. Her neighbours were frequently willing to hire her for her magical abilities without concern about the Devil at all.

The complex understanding of witchcraft that developed during the fif- teenth century was promulgated by a large number of books and treatises on the threat and nature of witchcraft, which were subsequently used in sermons and legal tracts. Among the earliest and most well known of the witchcraft treatises is the Malleus Maleficarum (The Witch’s Hammer) of 1487 by the Dominican inquisitor, Heinrich Kramer,⁴ but dozens of similar books were printed and re-printed throughout the early modern period. A later book that also had a large impact is De la démonomanie des sorciers (On the

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1 Kauertz 2001, pp. 90–91. 2 The origin of belief in a devil-worshipping society has a complex history. On this subject, see Cohn

(1993). On the subject of witchcraft as the inversion of Christianity, see Clark (1997, pp. 1–134). 3 Not all regions of Europe accepted this complex concept of witchcraft with equal conviction. In

England, for example, belief in the sabbath never fully took hold. Moreover, the different understand- ings of aspects of witchcraft were subjects of learned debate throughout the period of the witch trials. See Clark (1997, pp. 149–311).

4 See Summers (1928, p. 47). 5 For an introduction to some of the issues, see the Introduction and articles in Volume 4, Gender and

Witchcraft, of Levack (2001). On the specific topic of old women and witchcraft in Germany, see Rowlands (2001), which includes a discussion of recent literature on gender and age in the witch trials.

Demon-Mania of Witches) by Jean Bodin (1580/2001). Bodin’s work was used by jurists at the University of Helmstedt, who served as legal advisors to courts of law in the region of Brunswick and beyond.¹

Based on this composite understanding of witchcraft, certain practices and signs of witches could be expected of the accused. Witches were be- lieved to travel at night to gatherings, called sabbaths, where the Devil would be present. There they were thought to engage in an orgy of blasphemous and immoral rites, including cooking and eating infants, and mocking Christian ritual.² Satan was also imagined to force unnatural sex on his witches, al- though the act was supposedly cold and unpleasant. Witches were believed to give homage to the Devil in disgusting ways, such as kissing his behind while he appeared as a goat. Once a witch had agreed to a pact with Satan he placed a secret sign on her body, and an unusual mark on the body of the accused was often taken as proof of guilt.³

Gender played a key role in the medieval and early modern understand- ing of witchcraft. Although the percentages varied from region to region, a significant majority of those accused were women. In addition to the statisti- cal facts about the trials, the demonological literature of the time argued that women are particularly susceptible to witchcraft. A standardized list of beliefs about women, in support of this conclusion, recurs through the lit- erature. Women are of weak understanding, and are hence more likely to be ensnared by the lies and illusions of the Devil. Their supposed sexual appetite leads them to consort with demons. For example, in a now infamous passage of the Malleus Maleficarum, Kramer writes that, “All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which in women is insatiable.”⁴ Many other attributes were added to the list, including curiosity, vanity, and greed. The issues surrounding the relations between gender and witchcraft have been the subject of consider- able debate,⁵ and research into both early modern perceptions of gender, as

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well as the position of women in society at that time provides key insights into our understanding of witch trials.

This period has been described as the “witch-craze” as a result of the many terrible abuses of justice: this term was first popularized by Trevor-Roper in 1967. Yet it is important to recognize that the demonologists and jurists involved in the witch trials were not victims of any kind of collective irratio- nality. Clark (1997) has shown clearly that issues such as the nature of magic, the powers of the Devil, and the prosecution of witchcraft were the subjects of extensive scientific, legal, and theological investigation across Europe. Kauertz’s (2001) study of the University of Helmstedt, mentioned above, reveals that debates about the nature of witchcraft and its prosecution were carried out across the three faculties of theology, law, and medicine.

We end this section on a cautionary note. The nature of the trials var- ied from one time and region of Europe to another. Issues such as the use of torture, the relative independence of local jurisdictions, and the judicial procedures in effect, all had an impact on the numbers of trials and the likelihood of execution. Differences of opinion among theologians, jurists, scientists, and judges, as well as differences in attitudes and belief among the local people, all contributed to the complexity and variety of people’s experiences. The trial of Tempel Anneke is a single instance of a complex phenomenon, and it is as much influenced by local factors as it is by the general concept of witchcraft.

C. The trial of Tempel Anneke

Witchcraft was a capital offence, punishable by death. In Brunswick, all criminal trials were overseen by the Higher Court of the city, an office of the General Council, rather than the municipal courts, which handled civil cases. In criminal trials, both the decision to prosecute and the final judgment were made by the Higher Court. The investigation and examination of witnesses were carried out by the Lower Courts of the respective municipalities.

Despite the fact that the charges against Tempel Anneke match the features commonly found in the witch-hunt, some of the worst abuses of justice that occurred during the period are not found in the trial. Witch-hunts were oc- casionally brisk and brutal with large numbers of people tried and executed. Torture was sometimes indescribably cruel, and was often used to coerce the accused into naming other people with whom they had associated or had

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1 The trials at Ellwagen, described in Midelfort (1972, pp. 98–112), provide an example of such a witch-hunt in which large numbers of people were tried and executed.

2 See for example Kunze (1987). 3 Rehtmeier and Bünting 1722, Vol. 2, p. 1099. 4 Heinrich Julius 1593.

seen at the sabbath.¹ The execution of convicted witches in Germany was occasionally an act of wanton cruelty rather than the carrying out of a court sentence.²

The Brunswick region was not free of large witch-hunts. Heinrich Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg from 1564 to 1613, a devout Lutheran and Bishop of Halberstadt, executed many witches from across the duchy, with a particularly high number between the years 1590 to 1594. A chronicle of the time reports that he often burned “10, 12 or more” witches in a single day and that there were so many stakes at the place of execution that the site “looked like a little forest.”³ In a Constitution directed at the clergy of Brunswick he castigates the clergy for “looking through their fingers” at witchcraft and other sins.⁴ August the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg from 1635 to 1666 and founder of the magnificent library that still bears his name, was also zealous in the prosecution of witches. Around the year 1610, before his succession to the dukedom, he is known to have burned 70 witches in the small town of Hitzacker.

The features of large witch-hunts are not found in the action against Tempel Anneke. The procedure follows the common practices in criminal in- vestigations, and the use of torture and the execution are carried out accord- ing to the decisions of the General Council and the standard legal practices of the time. One of the earliest documents, dated August 1662, mentions that Tempel Anneke might have been aware of the fact that investigations were being conducted into her activities. Since the arrest and trial proper do not begin until the following year, we can infer that the authorities were slow to commence legal action. The records indicate that the court was diligent in gathering witnesses and acquiring testimony, and there are places where they were concerned that Tempel Anneke’s confessions are not sincere (although most likely, the concern was related to the legal validity of the confession rather than its truth). Finally, although she was questioned about other people with whom she associated or from whom she learned her witchcraft, the court did not press her to implicate others. There is no evidence of any follow-up investigations.

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1 In the following comments we draw on Langbein (1974). For an introduction to the legal contexts of the witch trials generally, see Levack (1995, pp. 68–99).

2 It is argued by Levack (1995) and Monter (2002) that the lack of central control over local courts was a contributing factor in the large numbers of trials in the German lands of the Empire. This is perhaps illustrated by the witch-hunts in the duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

3 See Schroeder (2000). Much of the Carolina is translated into English in Langbein (1974, pp. 261-308).

D. The Carolina¹

During the period of the witch trials, the German lands were part of the Holy Roman Empire. Although politically the region fell under the authority of the Emperor and the Reichstag, which passed legislation for the empire, in fact the region was highly decentralized. In particular, the courts of the various jurisdictions operated largely independently of centralized control.² There was, however, an imperial criminal code, The Criminal Court Regulation of Emperor Charles V, known as the Carolina.³ The Carolina was intended to impose order, and some degree of control, over the jurisdictions through- out the Empire. Among the issues it addresses are the orderly collection of testimony and evidence, their careful recording, and consultation with legal experts in cases of uncertainty. The latter stipulation was heavily emphasized because trials within the Empire were often conducted by local authorities with little or no legal training. In Brunswick at the time of Tempel Anneke’s trial it was required that all judgments concerning capital offences be reached in accordance with the Carolina, as well as the local city regulations and the traditional Saxon laws of the region. (For local civic regulations, see “Additional Civic Records” below.) The Carolina was the major influence on the actual procedures through which the trial progressed.

The distribution of the Carolina was an important step in changing the role of the courts from adjudicating private accusations and disputes—the so-called accusatorial model—to initiating and conducting criminal investi- gations. The model upon which the Carolina is based was developed by the medieval church from Roman origins, and is now referred to as the inquisi- torial model. Although the distinction between accusatorial and inquisitorial trials is not always clear, the distinguishing feature of inquisitorial trials is that the investigation—the identification and summoning of witness, for ex- ample—is directed by the court rather than the parties involved.

The principal parts of criminal investigations under the Carolina were the testimony of reliable witnesses and interrogations of the accused. In es-

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tablishing the guilt of the accused the Carolina relies heavily on confession, although it also allows a guilty verdict when two reliable eyewitnesses are available. When the weight of preliminary testimony sufficiently indicates a guilty verdict, the threat of torture and then torture itself is specified in order to obtain a confession. It is important to recognize that torture was a regular part of criminal trials in Germany at the time, and was not reserved especially for those suspected of witchcraft. Nonetheless, since witches were believed to be agents of the Devil, a threat of extraordinary power, the usual safeguards against abuses of justice were often ignored. Some legal experts considered witchcraft to be a crimen exceptum, an exceptional crime, wherein the ordinary rules of justice had to be relaxed.

There are several distinct stages in trial procedure as outlined in the Carolina. The first was the initiation of investigation. In cases of judicial prosecution a decision must be taken that there exists sufficient suspicion of criminal activity to warrant investigation. Here the Carolina stipulates investigation into someone who is “suspected of a crime through common repute, or is notorious on account of other credible indication.”¹

Once the investigation is initiated, the second and perhaps most important stage is the collection of testimony to determine whether there is what the Carolina calls “legally sufficient indication” to proceed to torture. Sufficient indication meant that the evidence collected during the investigation shows a strong enough presumption of guilt that the court should proceed to obtain a confession, by torture if necessary. Twenty-six sections of the Carolina are devoted to illustrating the circumstances that constitute such indication for crimes of various sorts. One of these stipulations applies to people suspected of sorcery:

When someone offers to impart sorcery to other people, or threatens to bewitch someone and such befalls the threatened person, and the aforesaid person otherwise has associated with men or women sorcer- ers, or has employed suspicious things, gestures, words, and signs such as characterize sorcery, and when, further, the said person has a bad repute of similar sort, then that constitutes a legally sufficient indica- tion of sorcery and is adequate basis upon which to examine under torture. (Article 44, translated by Langbein 1974, p. 279)

1 Article 6, translated by Langbein 1974, p. 269. This part of the trial of Tempel Anneke is found in Document 1 through Folio 4.

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1 This was the fate, for example, of Lücke Behrens in Brunswick in 1671 (Brunswick City Archive C V 101). She was tried by some of the same court officials as was Tempel Anneke. However, she survived

In the trial of Tempel Anneke this stage is documented in Folios 5 through 23, and constitutes the largest part of the trial proceedings.

If sufficient indication is established, the court is then instructed to seek a confession, first through the threat of torture and, if necessary, through torture. In the trial of Tempel Anneke the advice to proceed to this stage, received from the legal faculty of the University of Jena, is found in Folio 24. The Carolina does not lay out rules governing the severity of the torture used, but rather the function that the torture should perform. The intent should not be merely to coerce the accused into a confession, but to ob- tain further information upon which a judgment could be based. Thus, for example, judges are warned against the use of leading questions, and are instructed to use torture to obtain information from the accused “which no innocent person can know.” Article 52 of the Carolina describes the informa- tion that should be sought from those who confess to sorcery.

When someone confesses to sorcery, he shall also be questioned about the causes and circumstances (as above), and moreover, with what, how, and when the sorcery occurred—with what words or deeds. Further, when the person examined states that he hid or held on to something which allegedly facilitated the said sorcery, then afterwards there shall be an attempt to find it; when, however, the said sorcery was committed with other things through word or deed, then they too shall be investigated to see whether they are infected with sorcery. The person shall also be asked from whom he learned such sorcery, and how it came about; whether he also employed such sorcery against more people, and against whom, and what damage thus occurred. (Article 52, translated by Langbein 1974, p. 281)

To be valid, a confession obtained under torture must be confirmed by a rep- etition of the same confession without torture (albeit under the threat of re- sumed torture if the accused should recant). If the accused should withstand all of the torture—which became increasingly severe—without confessing, he or she was commonly spared execution. However, those who did not confess were often banished from the city, which was not a light sentence for the poor or elderly.¹ Upon completion of the attempt to obtain a confession,

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the trial proceedings were presented for the final judgment of the court. Some of the influence of the Carolina on trial procedures within the

Empire derived from its insistence on the consultation of legal experts in forming judgments. In Brunswick after 1615, as in many other German jurisdictions, the trial documents in every case of a capital offence were forwarded to the legal faculty of a respected university for a legal judg- ment, called a Gutachten. In the trial of Tempel Anneke the testimony was forwarded to the University of Jena. The Gutachten received from Jena stipulates death by fire, which is the sentence specified in Section 109 of the Carolina.¹ The court in Brunswick, however, did not consider itself for- mally bound to follow the Gutachten of the universities. Rather they served only as part of the grounds on which the final decision was taken. On the basis of Tempel Anneke’s contrition, the sentence of death by fire was com- muted by the court to beheading and burning of the body.²

The final stage of the trial was the recording of a formal confession, called the Urgicht, and the subsequent carrying out of the sentence. Prior to execution, however, the Carolina gives careful instructions for a final hear- ing, the so-called Rechtstag. This hearing was purely ceremonial. Although it included submissions to the court and the consideration of evidence, the final decision of the court had already been made. In cases where a full confession was available, it was read out before the court. The Rechtstag was held just prior to the execution, which in Hagen would have taken place outside the Wenden Gate.

II. Understanding the Text

The trial of Tempel Anneke was long and complex, lasting seven months and including testimony from a broad spectrum of witnesses from numerous

severe torture without confessing, and was banished from the city. An attempt by her husband to lift the banishment was resisted by local people in Hagen.

1 Section 109 reads, Someone who harms or disadvantages people through sorcery should be punished from life to death, and one should do this punishment with fire. But where someone uses sorcery and hasn’t harmed anyone with it, he should be punished otherwise, according to the circum- stances of the case, in which the judges should use guidance, as is written below concerning the seeking of guidance. [Our translation]

2 The severity of the punishment needs to be seen in the context of the time. For example, the Carolina gives death by fire as the appropriate punishment for arson, and premeditated murder was punished by death on the wheel. Beheading was the penalty for serious theft.

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1 Brunswick City Archive H V 250.

jurisdictions, as well as frequent questioning of Tempel Anneke herself. Full records were kept of every deposition and testimony, as well as correspon- dence with surrounding jurisdictions. As a result, the written record of the trial is extensive and detailed.

A. The archival source

The records from which the translation is drawn come almost entirely from a single file in the city archive of Brunswick. In the seventeenth century full re- cords of trials were not always preserved, and often only the final judgment was kept in the public record. The complete record of the trial of Tempel Anneke, however, was preserved and was placed in the city archive in the early nineteenth century.¹