Drudenhaus

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View and floor plan of the Drudenhaus (etching from 1627, probably by Peter Isselburg)

The Drudenhaus (also Malefizhaus, Trudenhaus, Hexenhaus, witch prison) was a prison in Bamberg , which was used especially for the detention and interrogation of people who were accused of witchcraft . There was a torture site in an outbuilding . It was built in 1627, at the height of the witch persecution in the bishopric of Bamberg under the rule of Prince-Bishop Johann Georg II. Fuchs von Dornheim , for about 30 prisoners. The prison was in operation until the end of 1631, the house was demolished by the middle of the 17th century at the latest. It is shown on a contemporary etching and is mentioned several times in files and pamphlets .

Historical background

The years 1626 to 1631 were the time of the last and greatest wave of witch trials in the Bamberg monastery. During this time, under the rule of Johann Georg II. Fuchs von Dornheim, at least 642 people were victims of the witch hunt, including high-ranking people such as the prince-bishop's chancellor Georg Haan with his entire family and several mayors and councilors of the city of Bamberg, such as Johannes Junius .

Until May 1627, the persecution of witches concentrated in the high-pen on the office Zeil am Main , which had already been the scene of the previous wave of witch trials in the years after the 1617th From this point on, lawsuits against Bamberg citizens began. Initially, they were brought to Zeil on a cart for interrogation and execution. It was not until the end of 1627 that trials and executions took place in Bamberg itself. The Drudenhaus soon played a major role here, alongside other places of detention and interrogation such as the old court . A total of 196 citizens of Bamberg were imprisoned for witchcraft between 1628 and 1631, most of them in the Drudenhaus.

The House

The house was built on the orders of Prince-Bishop Fuchs von Dornheim, the suggestion is said to have been given by the Vicar General and Auxiliary Bishop Friedrich Förner .

The copper engraving

The most detailed information about the Drudenhaus comes from a copper engraving from 1627, which Prince-Bishop Fuchs von Dornheim himself had put into circulation. The etching was probably created by Peter Isselburg ; Earlier attributions indicated Matthäus Merian the Elder as the author, but this work could not be found in his well-preserved oeuvre. Copies of the print are preserved in the Bamberg State Library and in the House, Court and State Archives Vienna as well as in several other collections. The etching shows a view of the building and the floor plan of the ground floor and first floor with a scale.

The floor plan of the building shows 26 individual cells and two slightly larger cells. The following inscription was placed above the portal: DISCITE JUSTITIAM MONITI ET NON TEMNERE DIVOS (a quote from Virgil's Aeneid : “Let this be an admonition to you to learn justice and not to disregard the gods”). The figure of Justitia was placed above it and at the level of the first floor the following verse from the 1st Book of Kings and the 3rd Book of Kings (9: 8–9) could be read on a scrollwork cartouche : “The house becomes one It will be an example that all those who pass over will be in horror, and pale and whistle and say: Why did the Lord do this house so? So one would reply: Because they have forsaken their Lords their God, and have accepted other gods, and worshiped them, and served them, That is why the Lord brought all this evil upon them. ”The second cartouche contained the same text in Latin Language.

In September 1631, a copy of the print was enclosed with a defense letter from the prince-bishop to the Reichshofrat in Vienna. In response to complaints from victims of persecution and their relatives, the Reichshofrat had issued several mandates against the Bamberg witch trials since the end of 1629 and demanded, in increasingly harsh tones, the release of all prisoners. The letter said that the prince-bishop had the house specially rebuilt and that the conditions there were in some cases better than those of the inmates at home. This is how a copy came into the files of the Vienna Archives, where it is still located today.

Written documents

Two noteworthy surviving documents about the Drudenhaus are a "Cathalogus" from April 1631, which gives precise information about the inmates there, and the diary of the Dominican nun Maria Anna Junius, which mainly provides information about the location and end of the Drudenhaus.

The catalog comes from a petition that various persecuted persons and relatives had sent to the Reichshofrat in order to have the trials ended and the prisoners released. According to him, 21 people were still imprisoned in the Drudenhaus in April 1631. However, some of the named people were already dead. The menu of the Drudenhaus, which has also been preserved, shows 15 prisoners for this time. The catalog lists the inmates' names and arrest dates, as well as their estimated assets. He puts the sum of money that was confiscated and confiscated from the "justified" people in Bamberg and Zeil am Main by the prince and his officials at at least 500,000 guilders , other figures even speak of 1.5 million guilders.

Despite several imperial mandates against the Bamberg witch trials, no prisoners were released before the summer of 1631. The diary of Anna Maria Junius reports that the last ten prisoners were only released when Swedish troops approached Bamberg on February 11, 1632 during the Thirty Years' War . However, they had to swear primal feud , that is, swear that they would remain silent about the treatment while in detention and would not take any legal or other action.

Location

The Drudenhaus stood on today's Franz-Ludwig-Strasse, about the same height as today's houses at Franz-Ludwig-Strasse 8 and 10, and partly still protruding into what is now Franz-Ludwig-Strasse 7. The associated torture building, the so-called “Embarrassing Frag”, was located on the site of today's house at Franz-Ludwig-Straße 10.

The End

After 1635 the building was demolished. In 1654 the stones were used in the construction of the Capuchin monastery .

See also

literature

  • Britta Distler (born Britta Gehm): The witch hunt in the Bamberg monastery and the intervention of the Reichshofrat to end it. 2nd, revised edition. Hildesheim 2012, ISBN 978-3-487-14731-4 . (At the same time dissertation University of Jena 1999).
  • Peter Engerisser: Where was the Bamberg Malefiz- or Trudenhaus? (PDF; 1.91 MB). 2008.
  • Patricius Wittmann : The Bamberg Trudenhaus . In: Zeitschrift des Münchener Alterthums-Verein , New Series 4 (1892), pp. 21–26.
  • Ralph Kloos, Thomas Göltl: The witch burners of Franconia. Erfurt 2012, ISBN 978-3-95400-109-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Britta Gehm: The witch hunt in the bishopric of Bamberg and the intervention of the Reichshofrat to put an end to it , p. 268.
  2. ↑ Britta Gehm: The witch hunt in the Bamberg monastery and the intervention of the Reichshofrat to end it , pp. 126f., 135, 141.
  3. ↑ Britta Gehm: The witch hunt in the bishopric of Bamberg and the intervention of the Reichshofrat to end it , p. 162. The old court was used, among other things, as a prison for Georg Haan, see go, p. 154ff.
  4. ↑ Lothar Bauer: The Auxiliary Bishops of Bamberg, Johann Schöner and Friedrich Förner. Contributions to the Counter Reformation in Bamberg . Bamberg 1964, p. 456.
  5. ^ Patricius Wittmann: The Bamberg Trudenhaus. In: Journal of the Munich Alterthums-Verein. New series 4, 1892, pp. 21–26, here: p. 25.
  6. ↑ See the catalog entry in the Bamberg State Library: https://katalog.ub.uni-bamberg.de/query/BV044697292 .
  7. ↑ Peter Engerisser: Where was the Bamberg Malefiz- or Trudenhaus? (PDF; 1.91 MB), 2008, p. 4 (accessed on May 31, 2020).
  8. ↑ Britta Gehm: The witch hunt in the bishopric of Bamberg and the intervention of the Reichshofrat to put an end to it. Olms, Hildesheim 2000 (also dissertation at the University of Jena 1999), p. 260.
  9. ↑ Britta Gehm: The witch hunt in the bishopric of Bamberg and the intervention of the Reichshofrat to put an end to it. Olms, Hildesheim 2000 (also dissertation at the University of Jena 1999), p. 250.
  10. ↑ The “Cathalogus” can be found in Friedrich Leitschuh: Contributions to the history of witchcraft in Franconia. Bamberg 1883, pp. 55-58, online . Cf. Britta Gehm: The persecution of witches in the Bamberg monastery and the intervention of the Reichshofrat to end it , p. 251; here we speak of 1.5 million guilders. See also Peter Engerisser: Where was the Bamberg Malefiz- or Trudenhaus? (PDF; 1.91 MB), 2008, p. 3.
  11. ^ Diary of the Dominican nun Maria Anna Junius, printed in: 52. Report on the existence and activities of the Historisches Verein Bamberg for the year 1890, pp. 7–223, here: p. 14, cf. also the transcript in Uta Nolting: Language use of south German monastery women of the 17th century , Waxmann, Münster a. a. 2010, online ; see also Patrizius Wittmann: Die Bamberger Hexen-Justiz (1595–1631). Represented from documents and files. In: Archives for Catholic Church Law. Volume 50 (= New Series, 44), Mainz 1887, pp. 177–223, here: pp. 220 f. Online .
  12. ↑ Peter Engerisser: Where was the Bamberg Malefiz- or Trudenhaus? (PDF; 1.91 MB), 2008, p. 4 (accessed on May 31, 2020).
  13. ^ Robert Zink: witch hunts in Bamberg. In: bamberg today. 1982, issue 1, p. 12.

Coordinates: 49 ° 53 '36.3 "  N , 10 ° 53' 28.5"  E