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The devil's children: child witch-trials in early modern Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Robert S. Walinski-Kiehl
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Continuity and Change , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , August 1996 , pp. 171 - 189
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

ENDNOTES

1 A useful, fairly comprehensive bibliography of the vast literature on early modern witchcraft can be found in Levack, Brian P., The witch-hunt in early modern Europe, 2nd edn. (London, 1995), 261–84.Google Scholar

2 See, in particular, Wiesner, Merry E., Women and gender in early modern Europe (Cambridge, 1993), 223–35.Google Scholar

3 In comparison with the significant number of regional monographs that have appeared since the early 1970s, only a few studies of children and witchcraft have been published in recent years: Behringer, Wolfgang, ‘Kinderhexenprozesse. Zur Rolle von Kindern in der Geschichte der Hexenverfolgung’, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 16 (1989), 31–47Google Scholar; Weber, Hartwig, Kinderhexenprozesse (Frankfurt, 1991)Google Scholar; Monter, William, ‘Les enfants au sabbat: bilan provisoire’, in Jacques-Chaquin, Nicole and Préaud, Maxime eds., Le sabbat des sorciers, XVe-XVIIIe siècles (Grenoble, 1993), 383–8Google Scholar; Sebald, Hans, Der Hexenjunge. Fallstudie eines Inquisitionsprozeses (Marburg, 1992)Google Scholar; Walz, Rainer, ‘Kinder in Hexenprozessen. Die Grafschaft Lippe, 1654–1663’, in Wilbertz, Gisela, Schwerhoff, Gerd and Scheffler, Jürgen eds., Hexenverfolgung und Regionalgeschichte. Die Grafschaft Lippe im Vergleich (Bielefeld, 1994), 211–31.Google Scholar

4 For examples of this negative view of childhood, see Ariès, Philippe, Centuries of childhood (New York, 1962)Google Scholar; Stone, Lawrence, Family, sex and marriage in England 1500–1800 (Harmondsworth, 1979).Google Scholar

5 Wrightson, Keith, English society, 1580–1680 (London, 1982), 104–18.Google Scholar

6 Behringer, , ‘Kinderhexenprozesse’, 33Google Scholar; Weber, , Kinderhexenprozesse, 199.Google Scholar

7 Sprenger, Jacob and Kramer, Heinrich, Malleus maleficarum (1486), ed. and trans. Summers, Montague (London, 1948), 140–3.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., 144.

9 Behringer, , ‘Kinderhexenprozesse’, 34.Google Scholar

10 Henningsen, Gustav, The witches’ advocate: Basque witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition, 1609–1614 (Reno, 1980).Google Scholar

11 Midelfort, H. C. Erik, Witch hunting in southwestern Germany, 1562–1684: the social and intellectual foundations (Stanford, 1972), 179.Google Scholar

12 The best introduction to the Salem panic is still the study by Boyer, Paul and Nissenbaum, Stephen, Salem possessed: the social origins of witchcraft (Cambridge, Mass., 1974).Google Scholar

13 Behringer, , ‘Kinderhexenprozesse’, 33.Google Scholar

14 Binsfeld, Peter, Tractatus de confessionibus maleficorum et sagarum (Trier, 1589; German translation: Tractat von Bekanntnuss der Zauberer und Hexen (Munich, 1591)).Google Scholar

15 See Behringer, ,‘Kinderhexenprozesse’, 34–6, for a summary of Binsfeld's views on child witches.Google Scholar

16 Weber, , Kinderhexenprozesse, 226.Google Scholar

17 Boguet, Henri, An examen of witches (1602), ed. Summers, Montague, trans. Ashwin, E. A. (London, 1929; reprinted 1971), 234.Google Scholar

18 Ibid.

19 Quaife, G. R., Godly zeal and furious rage: the witch in early modern Europe (London, 1987), 189.Google Scholar

20 Ankarloo, Bengt and Henningsen, Gustav eds., Early modern European witchcraft: centres and peripheries (Oxford, 1990), 304.Google Scholar

21 Walz, Rainer, Hexenglaube und magische Kommunikation im Dorf der Frühen Neuzeit. Die Verfolgungen in der Grafschaft Lippe (Paderborn, 1993), 468–9.Google Scholar

22 Midelfort, , Witch hunting, 182.Google Scholar

23 Useful accounts of Würzburg's panic involving children can be found in the following studies: Diefenbach, Johann, Der Hexenwahn vor und nach der Glaubensspaltung in Deutschland (Mainz, 1886), 124–7Google Scholar; Solleder, Fridolin, ‘Zu Würzburg brennen sie Kinder’, Frankenwarte 34, 24 08 1933Google Scholar; Weber, , Kinderhexenprozesse, 261–7.Google Scholar

24 Würzburg, Staatsarchiv, Hist. Saal VII f.25 Nr. 377, fos. 121–8.Google Scholar

25 Lea, Henry Charles, Materials toward a history of witchcraft, ed. Howland, Arthur C. (3 vols., New York, 1957), vol. 111, 1187–8.Google Scholar

26 Goffman, Erving, Asylums: essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates (Harmondsworth, 1968)Google Scholar. Walz, , in ‘Kinder in Hexenprozessen’ (pp. 227–8), has used Goffman's arguments in his study of the Lippe child witch-trials.Google Scholar

27 For accounts of Calw's witch-panic, see Midelfort, , Witch hunting, 158–63Google Scholar; Ebinger, Christof, ‘Zwei Kinderhexenprozesse in Calw (Württemberg) im 17. Jahrhundert’ (unpublished thesis, Pädagogische Hochschule, Heidelberg, 1987)Google Scholar; and Weber, , Kinderhexenprozesse, 286–97.Google Scholar

28 Häberlin, Georg Heinrich, Historische Relation von denen In der Hochfürstl. Würtemb… Stadt Calw einger Zeit her Der Zauberey halber beschreyten Kindern, und andern Personen. Sambt einer Christlichen Predigt Wie solchen…Satanischen Anläufften Christlich zu begegnen (Stuttgart, 1685).Google Scholar

29 For a detailed examination of the providential view, see Midelfort, , Witch hunting, ch. 3.Google Scholar

30 This trial has been reproduced recently with a valuable critical commentary by Professor Sebald, Hans with the title Der Hexenjunge (see n. 3 above)Google Scholar. The trial manuscript disappeared from Bamberg at the end of the nineteenth century and is now deposited in the Rare Books Department of Cornell University. For a local study of Bamberg's witch-persecutions, based on source material in the city's archives, see Walinski-Kiehl, Robert S., ‘Prosecuting witches in early modern Germany, with special reference to the bishopric of Bamberg, 1595–1680’ (unpublished M.Phil, thesis (Council for National Academic Awards), Portsmouth Polytechnic, 1981).Google Scholar

31 Discounting the anonymous boy, only six children were examined; see Walinski-Kiehl, , ‘Prosecuting witches’, 110.Google Scholar

32 See Sebald, , Der Hexenjunge, 28–41, for a High German version of the complete trial.Google Scholar

33 Schindler, Norbert, Widerspenstige Leute. Studien zur Volkskultur in der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt, 1992), 301.Google Scholar

34 For discussion of children's descriptions of the sabbat, see Walz, , ‘Kinder in Hexenprozessen’, 216–17Google Scholar, and Sebald, , Der Hexenjunge, 53, 106.Google Scholar

35 Staatliche Bibliothek Bamberg, RB Msc. 148, nos. 452–4.Google Scholar

36 ‘Ich will nicht mehr Gott gehören; und im Namen des Teufels habe ich Ihm dreimal ins Gesicht gespuckt. Meine Seele [‘mein stern’] soll im höllischen Feuer brennen und ich will immer und ewig dem Teufel gehören. Ich habe Gott im Himmel, die Seligste Jungfrau Maria und die vier Engel St. Andreas, St. Michael, St. Georg und St. Jakob verleugnet’ (Sebald, , Der Hexenjunge, 37Google Scholar).

37 Sebald emphasizes the sadistic elements of the boy's confession (ibid., 84).

38 ‘Wenn ich ein Inquisitor [‘examinator’] wäre, und es mit Hexen, die nicht gestehen wollten, zu tun hätte, würde ich sie solange strecken [‘dehnen’] lassen, bis die Sonne durch sie scheinen könnte’ (ibid., 40).

39 Ibid., 76–82.

40 Dupré, Emile, Pathologie de l'imagination et de l'émotion (Paris, 1925)Google Scholar. An English summary of Dupré's ideas can be found in Baroja, Julio Caro, The world of the witches (Chicago, 1964), 250–2.Google Scholar

41 Midelfort, , Witch hunting, 109.Google Scholar

42 For discussion of the essential features of ‘brainwashing’, see Sebald, , Der Hexenjunge, 84–6Google Scholar, and Henningsen, , The witches’ advocate, 20–2.Google Scholar

43 Sebald, , Der Hexenjunge, 87–9.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., 84.

45 Robbins, Rossell Hope, The encyclopedia of witchcraft and demonology (Feltham, 1959), 94.Google Scholar

46 For a range of possible motives, see Weber, , Kinderhexenprozesse, 37–40, 57–9 and 246–9Google Scholar; Behringer, , ‘Kinderhexenprozesse’, 43–4Google Scholar; and Walz, , ‘Kinder in Hexenprozessen’, 211–15.Google Scholar

47 Walz, , ‘Kinder in Hexenprozessen’, 217–18.Google Scholar

48 Quaife, , Godly zeal, 188–9.Google Scholar

49 Hsia, R. Po—Chia, Social discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe 1550–1750 (London, 1989), 147Google Scholar; Weber, , Kinderhexenprozesse, 89.Google Scholar

50 Newer Tractat von der Verführten Kinder Zauberey (Aschaffenburg, 1629)Google Scholar. For a summary of this treatise, see Midelfort, , Witch hunting, 140.Google Scholar

51 ‘Die Kinder seindt unser grost unnd kostlicher Schatz, last uns sie mil groster Sorgfaltigkeit bewahren…’ (Newer Tractat, 18).Google Scholar

52 See especially Muchembled, Robert, Popular and elite culture in France, 1400–1750 (Baton Rouge, 1985)Google Scholar and Hsia, , Social disciplineGoogle Scholar. For critical observations about the process of ‘social disciplining’, see the stimulating essay by Roper, Lyndal, ‘Drinking, whoring and gorging: brutish indiscipline and the formation of Protestant identity’, in her Oedipus and the devil: witchcraft, sexuality and religion in early modern Europe (London, 1994), 145–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Hsia, , Social discipline, 144–5Google Scholar; Weber, , Kinderhexenprozesse, 66–71.Google Scholar

54 Weber, , Kinderhexenprozesse, 194.Google Scholar

55 Larner, Christina, in Enemies of God: the witch-hunt in Scotland (London, 1981)Google Scholar, observed that ‘witchcraft was imagined as the summation of all possible forms of disorder and evil’ (p. 195)Google Scholar. See also Wiesner, , Women and gender, 229Google Scholar. For an excellent examination of inversion and witchcraft, see Clark, Stuart, ‘Inversion, misrule and the meaning of witchcraft’, Past and Present 87 (1980), 98–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 Weber, , Kinderhexenprozesse, 94, 102.Google Scholar

57 ‘… darnacher hetten sie sich entbloset vnd einer sich auf den anderen gelegt’ (Macha, Jürgen and Herborn, Wolfgang eds., Kölner Hexenverhöre aus dem 17. Jahrhundert (Cologne, 1992), 79).Google Scholar

58 ‘…wie man vnd fraw züsamen gebraücht vnd betrieben’ (ibid., 206).

59 Weber, , Kinderhexenprozesse, 41–9.Google Scholar

60 Behringer, Wolfgang, Hexenverfolgung in Bayern. Volksmagie, Glaubenseifer und Staatsräson in der Frühen Neuzeit (Munich, 1987), 352–4.Google Scholar

61 A comprehensive examination of this series of prosecutions can be found in Nagl, Heinz, ‘Der Zauberer-Jackl-Prozeß. Hexenprozesse im Erzstift Salzburg, 1675–1690’, Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Salzburger Landeskunde 112/113 (1972/1973), 385–541, and 114 (1974), 79–243Google Scholar. For a useful summary of these prosecutions, see Wolf, Hans-Jürgen, Hexenwahn. Hexen in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Dornstadt, 1990), 293–5Google Scholar. See also Schindler, Norbert,‘Die Entstehung der Unbarmherzigkeit. Zur Kultur und Lebensweise der Salzburger Bettler am Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts’, in his Widerspenstige Leute, 258–314, for a fascinating study of the culture and way of life of the Salzburg vagrants.Google Scholar

62 Hsia, , Social discipline, 65–6.Google Scholar

63 See, in particular, Muchembled, , Popular and elite culture, 235–78Google Scholar, for an interpretation that relates witch-hunting specifically to cultural conquest and repression.

64 Weber, , Kinderhexenprozesse, 28.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., 39–40, 252–8.

66 Sebald, , Der Hexenjunge, 109Google Scholar. For an examination of reforming zeal in Bamberg and the territory's witch-hunts, see Walinski-Kiehl, , ‘“Godly states”, confessional conflict and witch-hunting in early modern Germany’, Mentalities/Mentalités 5 2 (1988), 13–24.Google Scholar

67 Roper, , Oedipus and the devil, 233.Google Scholar

68 The role of rebellion among child witches has perhaps been over-estimated by Weber, , in his Kinderhexenprozesse, 92–106.Google Scholar

69 Victor, Jeffrey S., Satanic panic. The creation of a contemporary legend (Chicago, 1993), 209.Google Scholar

70 For a useful introduction to the perplexing phenomenon of contemporary ‘satanicritual abuse’, see Richardson, James T., Best, Joel and Bromley, David G. eds., The satanism scare (New York, 1991).Google Scholar

71 Eliot, T. S., ‘Burnt Norton’, in his Collected poems 1909–1962 (London, 1963), 189.Google Scholar