Barbara Lierheimer

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Barbara Lierheimer († July 23, 1590 in Nördlingen ) was a victim of the Nördlingen witch hunt in the early modern period .

Barbara Lierheimer had moved from Kirchheim am Ries to Nördlingen. There she was also called Kirchheimerin. She worked as a midwife in the imperial city of Nördlingen . She had a son who was a Lutheran pastor.

Maria Marb was arrested during the Nördlinger witch trials . During interrogation, she accused several women of witchcraft , including Maria Holl and Barbara Lierheimer. After rumors began to circulate about Lierheimer's alleged witchcraft, her son urged her to leave the city. Lierheimer stayed in town anyway because she relied on her good conscience and her good reputation as a midwife.

On June 1, 1590, Lierheimer was captured along with Katharina Keßler, Rebekka Lemp , Barbara Wörlin, Margaretha Hummel and Margarethe Frickinger. Her fellow sufferers were later all burned for witchcraft. Lierheimer was also accused of witchcraft and tortured.

The executioner from Nördlingen had reservations about the midwife Lierheimer, because she did not support his wife in labor. Lierheimer defended himself against this accusation with a scheduling conflict, she had already promised help to the wife of the Nördlingen hospital priest. The executioner, however, was of the opinion that Lierheimer did not want to help, because the contact with executioners and their relatives was dishonorable.

On July 9th, Lierheimer rejected the witchcraft madness with the following statement: "It could not be that the boss could conquer people."

However, under constant embarrassing questioning , Lierheimer confessed more and more gruesome crimes. She claimed to have met the devil in the form of a Catholic monk. During the interrogation, a banquet at a friend's house turned into a cannibalistic event, at which a roasted child's foot is said to have been on the table. During interrogation, she claimed to have murdered her husband after a dance on the orders of the devil. When her ingenuity ran out, she was tortured again. At the eighth interrogation, she recanted her statements, whereupon the executioner was called. Before the executioner arrived, she had confirmed her confessions again. Even when she “confessed”, however, she insisted on her professional honor as a midwife and denied having ever harmed a child whose birth she had accompanied.

Lierheimer died of torture while in prison. Her body was cremated on July 23, 1590.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ to the payment of the midwife Barbara Lierheimer, City Archives Nördlingen, city bills 1590, fol. 174
  2. ↑ Lyndal Roper : Witch Mania. Story of a persecution . CH Beck, Munich, 2007, p. 104; ISBN 978-3-406-54047-9
  3. ↑ Eva Maria, Wilhelm Lienert: The desecrated honor of Rebekka L. or: A completely normal witch trial ... Historicum.net, 2002 (PDF; 819 kB)
  4. ↑ Dietmar-Henning Voges: Nördlingen since the Reformation: From the life of a city . CH Beck, Munich, 1998, ISBN 3-406-43360-X , p. 67
    City Archives Nördlingen, Witch Trial     Files Barbara Lierheimer 1590, Council Protocol 1590/91, fol. 78, 95, 148. Inventory book 1587–1590, fol. 141-142 BC
  5. ↑ Lyndal Roper : Witch Mania. Story of a persecution ; P. 103
  6. ^ City archive Nördlingen, Witch Trial Files Barbara Lierheimer July 14, 1590
  7. ^ Stadtarchiv Nördlingen, Witch Trial Files Barbara Lierheimer, e.g. July 9 and 10, 1590
personal data
SURNAME Lierheimer, Barbara
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Victim of the Nördlinger witch hunt
DATE OF BIRTH 16th Century
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 1590
Place of death Nordlingen