Christine Teipel

Boards at Hexenplatz in Oberkirchen

Christine Teipel (* 1621 ; † May 4, 1630 ) was executed as a witch in Oberkirchen im Sauerland in Germany and is an example of how children could have an initiating and driving role in witch trials.

Christine ("Stine") Teipel was probably born in 1621 in Oberkirchen. Her parents had moved from the neighboring town of Schmallenberg and probably lived in Oberkirchen as supplements and day laborers; at least the family was the poorest family in town. After her mother's death, she lived with her father and stepmother, whom she stressed during the interrogation.

In 1628, the then seven-year-old Stine Teipel began to tell publicly without being asked that she was a witch and named 15 adults and a child from the local area as known participants in the witch's dance. The background to these sudden accusations could possibly be a case of (attempted) child abuse. Those she had publicly accused of witchcraft were increasingly isolated from their neighbors in the following months. Most of the cases involved relatives or descendants of people who had been executed in a first wave of witch trials around 1595, so that the allegations were apparently often viewed as plausible. In addition, Stine Teipel claimed to be able to do magic and, according to her own statement later, wanted to teach this "art" to playmates.

But when witch trials began all over the Duchy of Westphalia in 1629 , two peasant lay judges investigated on their own in view of the suspicions that were circulating and, on March 7, 1630, interrogated the meanwhile nine-year-old Stine on March 7, 1630 without consulting the judge. The court did not begin the official investigation of the witchcraft allegations until a week later with the summons and interrogation of ten witnesses. The suspicions raised by these witnesses were based in most cases on the accusations made by Stine Teipel over the past year and a half; On March 18, the first witch trials began with the re-interrogation of the meanwhile imprisoned Stine.

Stine herself was very expressive in court; Her voluntary confession is one of the most extensive in the whole file and is very detailed in the description of the witch's dance and the subsequent meal. As a key witness, so to speak, she had to remain in custody until the beginning of May 1630, when all trials against those accused by her had ended. During a further interrogation, she charged her stepmother and the nine-year-old Grete Halman with witchcraft. In a comparison, the two girls mutually confirmed that they had seen the other at the witch's dance. After Grete had massively accused her parents, the two girls were executed together with seven adults on May 4, 1630. The trial itself took place at the same time as the Fredeburg witch trials in Fredeburg, as evidenced by the Oberkirchen court records; It is unclear whether the execution actually took place at the court near Oberkirchen or in Fredeburg.

A total of 67 people were charged with witchcraft in the Oberkirchen court in eight weeks, and 61 of them were executed, including Stine and her stepmother and Grete with her parents, her sister-in-law and three other relatives. Almost all of the suspects in the first trials had been incriminated by Stine Teipel, a total of 16 people, i.e. about a quarter of all the accused; the subsequent proceedings in turn were largely based on what was stated in their confessions. Partly directly, partly indirectly, almost all of the Oberkirchen witch trials of 1630 are related to the accusations that Stine Teipel had made in public from 1628 and in the spring of 1630 in court. As recently as 1641, eleven years after her execution, her charges led to suspicion and at least one charge and execution.

Oberkirchen Christine Teipel blackboard witch trial

In the Lüttmecke near Oberkirchen on Hexenplatz , plaques remind of the Oberkirchen witch persecution and the trial of Christine Teipel.

Overall, the case of Christine Teipel is an example of how the initiative for witch trials often came from the population - or in this case a child - and finally set off a wave of trials.

See also

• Excerpts from Christine Teipel's witch trial file
• Witch hunt in the Duchy of Westphalia

literature

• Alfred Bruns: The Oberkirchener Witches Protocols , in: Schieferbergbau- und Heimatmuseum Holthausen , Schmallenberg - Holthausen: Witches - Jurisdiction in the Electoral Cologne Sauerland , documentation for the exhibition from July 21 to August 4, 1984, "Christinichen Teipeln from Oberkirchen", p. 26 ff
• Tobias A. Kemper: "... the still growing blooming youth as a hideous example ..." . Child witch trials in Oberkirchen ( Duchy of Westphalia ). In: SüdWestfalen Archive, volume 4/2004. Pp. 115-136.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ All of the following with individual references from the sources according to: * Tobias A. Kemper: "... the still growing blooming youth to a hideous example ..." . Child witch trials in Oberkirchen (Duchy of Westphalia). In: SüdWestfalen Archive, volume 4/2004. Pp. 115-136.
2. ↑ Cf. on this with reference to sources and on the problem of the suggestibility of children and possible mythomania in detail Tobias A. Kemper: "... the still growing blooming youth to the abominable example ..." . Child witch trials in Oberkirchen (Duchy of Westphalia). In: SüdWestfalen Archive, volume 4/2004. Pp. 115-136.