Barbara Meyhe

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Barbara Meyhe (also Meyhin, nee Barbara Banse) (* around 1565 in Bernburg (Saale) ; † unknown), wife of Mayor Christoph Meyhe, was a victim of the witch hunts in Bernburg during the reign of the reformed regent Christian I and during the Term of office of Mayor Johann Weiser. The elderly woman Barbara Meyhe was charged as a witch by the city council in a trial that ran from April 24, 1617 to April 13, 1619.

family

Barbara Meyhe and her husband came from respected Bernburg families. Her grandmother, the "Curth cook" (wife of Kurt Koch), was a very old woman who was burned as an alleged "witch" in 1580 together with two other women. At the time of the witch hunts, this was seen as a particular indicator of stress. One of her sons, Hans Koch, was a councilor in Bernburg and emigrated to Frose . One of Barbara Meyhe's two brothers, Jonas Banse, was the mayor of Bernburg, the other brother, Samuel, was a bailiff in the abbess's monastery in Bernburg and had leased property in Güsten . His son, Hans Banse, was a councilor in Quedlinburg .

Mayor Christoph Meyhe's ancestors have held the office of mayor in Bernburg for 200 years. His first marriage was to a daughter of the late superintendent Ambrosius Hezeler and had celebrated a big wedding with his current wife. Barbara Meyhe had five daughters, three of whom were married, two of whom were still children. The sons-in-law were: the governor Johann Fuhrmeister, the doctor Dr. Stephan Mylius and the city cook Hans Eckhart. Two sons are mentioned for Christoph Meyhe.

The Meyhe family's fortune was estimated at several thousand guilders.

Marienkirche

Witch trial against Barbara Meyhe

In the witch hunts in Bernburg from 1555 to 1664 at least 46 people were charged. The witch trial against Barbara Meyhe in 1617 began with an investigation into strange ghost apparitions of an alleged goblin in the house of the superintendent Magister Conrad Reinhard, pastor at the Marienkirche . Mayor Meyhe's wife was held responsible for these apparitions. From the surviving documents it appears that the maid in the house of the superintendent, Esther, was behind the noises of the alleged goblin and the defamations. The apparitions ceased when she left. The court never officially investigated this.

The court met with Mayor Weyser and Captain von Einsiedel. On April 26, 1617, 49 witnesses were sworn in and questioned, most of whom only knew the allegations from hearsay. On August 4, 62 interrogation articles and 37 "new articles" were drawn up for interrogation of the accused. Many allegations and charges against Barbara Meyhe testify to the envy of her wealth. Notarius publicus was Martin Weiser. The Meyhes' everyday conflicts with Mayor Johann Weiser, the treasurer and other personalities are mentioned in the trial documents.

Bernburg, the former town hall of Neustadt before its demolition in the second half of the 19th century. Barbara Meyhe was believed to have been imprisoned in this building.

Question 56 was e.g. B: “Isn't it true that they managed to marry all daughters by magic and forced the Freyer by means of a spit that they had to come if they wanted?” Question 57: “Isn't it true that they got Ludwig Arndt to marry him Incapacitated, did the team [manhood] return him in a bet afterwards? ”In additional articles she was asked whether the kite often came to her, whether she had a money kite that spewed money out on the pear tree in the garden, whether she was a grain kite who brought her the grain from other people's land, whether a black bird had brought her the many eggs found? The court chaplain, Magister Joh. Streso, testified that a total of six people convicted of witchcraft had said the Meyhin before their death.

Christian I had the files sent to him and, on June 10th, ordered expert opinions on legal instruction to be obtained. The law faculties of the University of Helmstedt and the University of Jena recommended imprisonment and torture . During the interrogation of the accused on August 6, 1617 in the granary, she denied all the charges: "She would be completely pure and innocent because of magic, ... she confesses to God." On August 16, new witnesses were heard under oath. A town servant testified to the dragon's visit to the prison: "The evil enemy [devil] would have been with her." The light could be seen through a bunghole in the door.

The charges against the mayor's wife became known far beyond the city limits. The Kramer woman Elisabeth Vogt from Nienburg tried as a "free rider" to blackmail the Meyhe family with hints of secret knowledge about the accused. The Meyhe family sued them. In the interrogations from November 13, 1617, Elisabeth Vogt burdened the mayor's wife considerably and occupied the court and the public for a long time. Finally, on June 6, 1618, Elisabeth Vogt was convicted and executed with the sword for murder, theft and adultery.

Through petitions from the Meyhe family to the authorities and the prince, Barbara Meyhe received better conditions of detention and was no longer imprisoned in a vault under the ground, but in the granary. Exoneration witnesses were heard and a copy of the files was given to the family. Against the opposition of the court, these applications were only approved on the direct order of Prince Christian. Eventually the family was allowed to appoint a defense attorney, but their son-in-law, Mayor Johann Fuhrmeister, declined to do this. Then Mayor Meyhe in Halle won the lawyer Alexander Müller as defense attorney, who had 76 exonerating witnesses summoned for questioning, all of them people from respected positions.

In October 1618, the Magdeburg Schöppenstuhl and the Wittenberg Faculty of Law recommended the use of torture. This took place on December 19 in the town hall in the upper room above the scale. After intensifying the torture on the ladder, wearing Spanish boots and burning sulfur, the accused made a confession on charges that stereotypically appeared again and again in the witch trials: devil pact , devil's compensation , participation in the witch's sabbath , magic damage and devil's mark. Using magic at the wedding of the daughters, she denied responsibility for the goblin and money, corn, flour, meat or egg dragons. The protocol concluded: "And with this she has ended her original gout, to remain true to the pure truth, declared herself again and in all this she would not have weighed on her conscience or other people."

The defense document Articuli probatorii comprised 656 articles. The lawyer referred to the Reformed theologian Anton Praetorius , who wrote in 1598, “that the authorities are not obliged to bring everything hidden here to light, that is rather God's business.” The defense argued with the ancient classics and the Bible : "But it is little fruit of the Reformed religion of the town of Bernburg that one wants to ascribe all calamities, illnesses and death itself to sorcerers and witches." In every sermon Superintendent Reinhard would have railed against sorcery and against Meyhin and that The mayor and his wife did not give in to the wish of the mayor and his wife that a prayer be said to ask our Lord God that he would bring the truth to light and save innocence. The superintendent had rather incited the people in the parish and was responsible for a letter of indictment to the prince.

Christian I. ordered in an act of grace , an "extraordinairen punishment", to expel the mayor's wife Barbara Meyhe and her husband forever in view of their almost two years imprisonment and the severe torture. You had to reimburse all expenses of the process. On April 13, 1619, mentally and physically shattered, she accepted the prince's grace. Both left Bernburg financially ruined. The last surviving letter from the mayor comes from Magdeburg , dated May 20, 1619. Her further fate is not known.

The cost calculation shows that significant amounts were incurred for appraisals from law schools and court costs, as well as for the long prison term.

Bernburg (Saale) plaque victims of the witch trials

Honor

On December 9, 2015, the unveiling of a memorial plaque for the victims of the witch persecution in Bernburg (Saale) took place at the former rectory of the Church of St. Marien, Altstädter Kirchhof 10 , naming the fate of Barbara Meyhe / Banse.

swell

  • Landesarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt , Dept. Bernburg C 8 Justice Appendix No. 1 aa Acta Inquisitionis contra Barbara Bansin, Mayor Meyhen's housewives for accused sorcery 1617–1619. The witch trial files of the trial against Barbara Meyhe were completely preserved except for the cost accounting and the defense letter. The files, which comprised several thousand folio pages, disappeared during World War II . The first file was dated April 24, 1617, the last from June 15, 1619. A summary of the process documents before the destruction of the files was prepared by:
  • Pastor Dr. Schmidt-Deetz, trial against the wife of the Bernburg mayor Christoph Meyhe, Barbara, b. Banse, for witchcraft (1617–1619), communicated from the files of the Anhalt. State Archives to Zerbst from Buchdruckerei H. Zeidler, Zerbst, 1930, pp. 1–31.
  • H. Peper: History of the city of Bernburg. Bernburg 1938, pp. 116-118.

literature

  • Manfred Wilde : The sorcery and witch trials in Saxony . Cologne 2003, p. 328, p. 329, p. 344, p. 349, p. 363, p. 364.
  • Monika Lücke , Dietrich Lücke: burned for their magic sake. Hunting of witches in the early modern period in the area of ​​Saxony-Anhalt . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2011, pp. 119–127.
  • Monika Lücke, Walter Zöllner: Witch persecution in the early modern times in the area of ​​Saxony-Anhalt . In: Elke Stolze (Ed.): FrauenOrte. Women's history in Saxony-Anhalt . Vol. 1, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle 2008.
  • Susanne Wiermann: The Witch of Bernburg , Schuster Verlag Baalberge, 2012, ISBN 978-3-9813121-9-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Memorial plaque for the victims of the witch hunt
  2. ↑ MITTELDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG: Remembering the persecution of witches , December 10, 2015, p. 8
personal data
SURNAME Meyhe, Barbara
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyhin; Banse Barbara (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Victims of the witch trials in Bernburg (Saale)
DATE OF BIRTH around 1565
PLACE OF BIRTH Bernburg (Saale)
DATE OF DEATH after 1619