Elisabeth Hoffmann

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the German artist, see Elisabeth Hoffmann (artist) .

Elisabeth Hoffmann (also Hoffmannin , the pastor in the Bock) (* around 1607 in Wiesbaden ; † September 30, 1676 in Idstein ) was a German victim of the witch hunts in Idstein .

Life

After the death of her first husband, the Wiesbaden land rider (landgrave supervisory officer) Ernst Engelberg Knöbel, Elisabeth married pastor Johannes Hoffmann in 1652, who was called to Sonnenberg from his previous position in Erbenheim on December 6, 1655 .

Wiesbaden - Excerpt from the Topographia Hassiae by Matthäus Merian the Younger 1655

The couple belonged to the respected middle class; the pastor was also the rector of the Latin school in Wiesbaden. The couple doesn't seem to have harmonized very well. According to the files that have survived, the pastor declared that he had lived badly with her for a long time because of her bad housekeeping, and that he had daily quarrels , while she said he was otherwise strange .

Elisabeth Hoffmann apparently did not play the traditional role of wife and pastor's wife, but ran the "Gasthaus zum Bock" in Wiesbaden and mostly stayed there. In the files there are different details about the Badhaus zum Bock , whether the Baadherberg zum Bock belonged to her or whether the Gasthaus zum Bock (today Schwarzer Bock ) belonged to the pastor Johann Hoffmann.

Relatives of hers lived in Wertheim . The files say that her stepsister was the victim of a witch trial there.

Witch trial

Background: witch hunts in Idstein

In the years 1676/1677 Idstein was the scene of witch hunts and trials under the Protestant Count Johannes von Nassau-Idstein (1603–1677) . The persecution ended when Count Johann died on May 23, 1677 at the age of 74. Sometimes he had led the witch trials from the castle in Wiesbaden. Between February 3, 1676 and March 31, 1677 39 people were executed for witchcraft in Idstein, 31 women and 8 men. During the interrogation, the defendants were tortured for anything they were accused of. Each interrogation brought a growing number of new suspects through statements . The victims came from Idstein, Heftrich , Wehen and Wiesbaden , among others .

On March 22nd, 1676 Heftrich became Cäcilie Zeitlose Wicht , wife of the pastor Johannes Wicht from Heftrich, victim of the witch hunt in Idstein.

Victims of the witch trials from Wiesbaden

In 1676 and 1677 six people from Wiesbaden, Sonnenberg and Biebrich were denounced, accused, convicted and executed in witch trials. The most prominent victim of the witch persecution from Wiesbaden in 1676 was the 69-year-old Elisabeth Hoffmann, wife of the pastor in Sonnenberg.

Witch trial against Elisabeth Hoffmann

On May 12, 1676, an anonymous complaint was made against her with suspicion of sorcery. Because she denied everything, several Wiesbaden citizens were questioned who testified that Elisabeth Hoffmann had sat on tall trees in 1664 (at the age of 57!) And jumped down. On May 31, the news was announced that the pastor had made off . On June 24th she came back to the “Gasthaus zum Bock” and locked herself in a chamber. She was arrested and taken to Idstein on July 7th. She testified that she had been in Mainz and Worms for a while . The first interrogation on July 10th said: Articuli Inquisitionales, What to ask the pastor about in the Bock in Wiesbaden. In a simple interrogation, the woman of hope denied the allegations of all eleven formulated questions of the prosecution.

Torture scene (with torture stick and finger strokes), woodcut, anonymous leaflet, 16th century

On July 29th there was a confrontation with the defendant Gumpfen-Christine , which she said: Elisabeth Hoffmann had been with her at the witch's dance . Since Elisabeth Hoffmann denied everything, the executioner was introduced to her. Under the torture, her feet were placed one by one in the screw until she confessed to participating in witch dances.

On August 21st, the pastor was brought forward again. Apparently out of fear, as if out of her mind, she confessed: she had her witch's ointment in the cellar of her house in a small earthen pot in the far corner in a hole on the right-hand side, the ointment looked brownish. You made it yourself. The old bell ringer (Agnes Kindermann, former head of the Maiden's School and widow of the Wiesbaden bell ringer Matth. Kindermann, executed on December 16, 1676) and Gumpfen-Christine would have helped. They would have taken dead children for it. They had taken them from the Wiesbaden cemetery. They would have chopped up an excavated child with an ax and cooked it in a brown cauldron.

In the course of the interrogation, she mentioned, among other names, those of Schäfer-Fritz (Fritz Kesselring) and the butcher Philipp Pflüger from Wiesbaden, both of whom were later also executed.

Further interrogation days were August 24th and 29th. With all her heart she protested that she was innocent, had nothing to do with the devil and could not do witches.

She was interrogated again on September 9th for telling the superintendent the day before that she could not do witches. When the count heard of this, he ordered intensified torture. She collapsed completely from the pain. The clerk wrote: At last she said the devil had betrayed her. He would have been with her that night. She fell away from God and committed herself to the devil . You've also done rocket science. The devil had urged them to do more damage, to hex the chief bailiff, the secretary and the guards. He also wanted to give her poison to distribute; but she did not take the poison. Her husband prayed hard so that she had to sleep alone. Then the devil came and fornicated her.

The blood dish

After the confession of guilt was available, the blood court met. In Idstein, the public prosecutors (Fiskal), a defense attorney and 14 blood jury gathered on the market square, including twelve mayors from the surrounding towns, for the group executions. The chief magistrate broke the baton over the accused and the clerk read out the death sentence signed by the count.

Pact with the devil ( Compendium Maleficarum , 1608)

In the case of the pastor's wife Hoffmann, the fiscal authorities read the following charges:

• 1. that the vice of sorcery is forbidden as a punishment for life, and the defendant:
• 2. I let myself be seduced into sorcery and witchcraft
• 3. I learned witchcraft from a woman in Frankfurt at the age of 10
• 4. I forsook God and swore to the devil
• 5. was baptized in the devil's name
• 6. have a devil's mark
• 7.'ve been using the evil spirit fornication driven
• 8. I made witches' ointment and went on witch dances
• 9. I abused the evening meal ( Lord's Supper ) in a devilish way
• 10. I poisoned the pastures with other witches, from which a lot of cattle fell over
• 11. I also helped make caterpillars and spread them in the field
• 12. I killed several cows with poison
• 13. I bewitched myself into a horse
• 14. attacked a child and bewitched it to die
• 15. I charmed a girl by touching it
• 16. I bewitched a soldier boy with soup that he became lame, but got along again through the bath
• 17. I seduced a poor maid into the vice of magic
• 18. Have engaged in various fornication and adultery
• 19. I have committed other evil deeds against people and livestock
• 20. I was responsible for the fact that she was executed for a hideous example for others, but for herself to be executed with fire from life to death as a well-deserved punishment.

execution

Because her husband had testified that he had not felt any witchcraft on her, that she had been pious and diligently attended church, she was pardoned for beheading and then burned. Adam Fließenbarth from Wehen and Fritz Kesselring from Wiesbaden were executed with her on September 30, 1676 .

Accompanied by the ringing of the poor sinners bell, a processional procession formed to the place of execution on the Galgenberg. In front was the predecessor , then the 50-man regional committee under the governor Johann Sebastian Post. The clergy sat on the death row inmates' cart to accompany them on their last journey. The citizens and schoolchildren followed under the direction of the cantor to attend the execution for educational reasons. The condemned kneeled on the ground with their hands tied, behind them the executioner, Master Leonhard, performed his office with the sword.

After the beheading, the bodies were cremated in public. The count granted a funeral only in exceptional cases in return for a donation to the church. Then the relatives were able to bury the dead in the Wolfsbach cemetery, the then criminal cemetery. In the case of the pastor's wife in Sonnenberg, one can assume the latter.

literature

• Files in the Hessian Main State Archive Wiesbaden, Dept. 349 (Idstein). Nos. 312, 313, 346, 254-360; Dept. 137 (Wiesbaden): Sonnenberg No. 38.
• Walter Czysz: victim of the witch madness. Witch trial against Wiesbaden citizens (1676). In: Hans-Jürgen Fuchs (Ed.): Crimes and fates. A Wiesbaden pitaval. Spectacular criminal cases from four centuries. Edition 6065 - Publishing House for Regional Culture and History, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 978-3-9810365-0-3 , pp. 33–52.
• Th. Schüler: The execution of witches from Wiesbaden, Sonnenberg and Biebrich occasionally during the Idstein witch trial in 1676. In: Alt-Nassau. Sheets for Nassau History and Cultural History. Open supplement to the Wiesbadener Tagblatt , No. 6, 1904, pp. 21–23.
• The witch hunt in Idstein with the names of the victims from Wiesbaden (accessed September 14, 2015).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Walter Czysz: Victims of the witch madness. Witch trial against Wiesbaden citizens (1676). In: Hans-Jürgen Fuchs (Ed.): Crimes and fates. A Wiesbaden pitaval. Spectacular criminal cases from four centuries. Edition 6065, Publishing House for Regional Culture and History, 2005, p. 43.
2. ↑ Biography of Cäcilie Wicht on the pages of the parishes of Heftrich
3. ^ Names of the victims of the witch trials from Wiesbaden
4. ↑ Walter Czysz: Victims of the witch madness. Witch trial against Wiesbaden citizens (1676). In: Hans-Jürgen Fuchs (Ed.): Crimes and fates. A Wiesbaden pitaval. Spectacular criminal cases from four centuries. Edition 6065, Publishing House for Regional Culture and History, 2005, pp. 42–48.