Witch child (historical)

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During the time of witch hunts (15th - 18th centuries) , the term witch's child referred to a minor who, according to the idea, had knowledge of sorcery and the ability to harm others through magic . In the historical witch hunt, hundreds of children were suspected of practicing witchcraft and were convicted of witchcraft and executed in a criminal trial.

In modern witch research, the term child witches is often used synonymously , as a collective term for "children in the witch trial". In this context, the research literature also describes children who, in turn, contributed to their conviction through accusations against others (adults, family members) - be it out of coercion, out of personal distress or misguided opinion.

Witch children are introduced on the Sabbath. The witches are of both sexes and ages: children, teenagers and adults. The children are sacrificed to the demons by the older witches and thus become witches themselves.

Historical ideas

From a theological as well as legal historical point of view, at the time of the witch hunt, a child usually acquired the ability to practice witchcraft through heredity or through belonging to a person who practiced witchcraft. The learning of the art of magic takes place, so the idea of ​​the time, through instruction and education or through an infection of evil , for example through sacrifice , abuse , cursing , touching or the " evil eye ".

→ see also section Statements about witch children

Research history, theories

Since the middle of the 19th century, some archivists and local historians have included individual cases of witch children in their collections of sources on the witch persecution , but without investigating them further. In the second half of the 20th century, the witch child cases disappeared almost completely from the historical contributions. It is only since the beginning of the 1990s that individual historians have taken up the topic again.

1845-1945

The most important older contributions include those by Jean Berchtold-Beaupré (1845 and 1850), Casimir Pfyffer (1850), Johann Diefenbach (1886), Wilhelm Gottlieb Soldan and Heinrich Heppe (1912) and Fritz Byloff (1934). In 1944/45 the child psychiatrist Moritz Tramer listed individual cases from Solothurn and Lucerne in a study . The political scientist Guido Bader mentioned a few cases in his comprehensive account of the Swiss witch trials in 1945.

1946-1989

The devil as a child robber

In his "Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology" from 1959, the English literature professor Rossell Hope Robbins listed individual cases of English and American witch children. Robbins coined the term "little monsters" for those witch children who made allegations against close relatives, which contributed to their convictions.

The American witch researcher HC Erik Midelfort represented in his work "Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany" (1972) the assumption that witch children only appeared in groups and that boys in particular were persecuted for witchcraft.

The American social historian E. William Monter claimed in one of his most famous works ( Witchcraft in France and Switzerland , 1976) that the witch child trials were an insignificant exception and were carried out almost exclusively in Catholic areas.

Historians David Warren Sabean and Norbert Schindler published smaller studies on the subject of witch children in 1986 and 1988, but here the cases were only used as comparative material to represent the regional and village community.

In a short article in the "Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung" (1989), the German historian Wolfgang Behringer dealt with the sacrifice of the child in theological demonology , as well as with already known large-scale trials and the like. a. in Germany, Sweden, North America and Austria and listed the most common theories.

1990-2013

The theologian Hartwig Weber published two books on witch children, including cases of adolescents and young adults (up to 20 years of age) under the term "child". In his first work , Child Witch Trials (1991), individual witch child cases in Reutlingen (1628–1666), Würzburg (1627–1631) and Wertheim (1629–1644) are presented.

In his second work, Von der Verführten Kinder Zauberei (1996), he dealt with some trials in Württemberg (1614–1752). Weber, like Behringer, assumes that the witch children were initially only seen in a passive role as "victims of witches" at that time. He also puts the time of their supposedly active appearance in the second half of the 16th century. According to Weber, the witch children are children who, on the one hand, have been used by the courts and witch hunters to track down other witches and, on the other hand, children who have accused themselves of witchcraft in order to “denounce others on the basis of this legitimation He interprets the self- accusations of the witch children as a reaction to sexual abuse and rape .

The American sociologist Hans Sebald wrote two books on witch children (1992 and 1996). Both treatises focus on the case of a witch boy from Bamberg (1629). According to Sebald, the witch children are mentally ill with symptoms of pseudology (mythomania). He equates the testimony of the witch children with the modern testimony of children as they are used to reach a verdict, especially in divorce and custody cases. As a justification for the denunciations of the witch children, he also gives sexual abuse, whereby either raped children wanted revenge or mothers incited their children to make such statements in order not to have to share custody with the fathers.

In 1994 the historian Rainer Walz published a short article on the child witch trials in the county of Lippe (1654–1663). He cites the neglect ( deprivation ) of children, their urge for attention, the child's receptivity to magical thinking and the unscrupulousness of adults as reasons for the appearance of witch children. For the first time, Walz pointed out that the sources make it difficult to understand whether as many witch children actually accused themselves as research has assumed.

In a short article in the Bündner Monatsblatt (1999), the German historian Rainer Decker presented a case in which fifteen children from Graubünden were suspected of being witchcraft. The case is also repeatedly mentioned in his other essays.

The Australian historian Lyndal Roper published a short article on the subject in 2000. She points to the strong motive of sexuality in the processes surrounding alleged witch children and emphasizes the dominance of pubescent sexuality, especially in the Augsburg child witch trials.

In 2002 a short study by the German historian Rainer Beck appeared on the child witch trials in Freising (1715–1723). In his opinion, the play behavior of the witch children was decisive for their charges and the course of the trial. Like most researchers, he assumes that the witch child cases were a "core phenomenon of the late phase of the witch hunt" and "were primarily directed against male adolescents". Beck first drew attention to the fact that hardly any real crimes were mentioned in the child proceedings.

The Madonna frees an infant from the clutches of a demon

The Swiss historian Kurt Rau wrote a study in 2006 on the child witch trials in Augsburg (1625-1730). He starts from the assumption that the child witch trials are a phenomenon of the 17th to 18th centuries. Century acted. Rau also sees the reason for the appearance of the witch children in their gambling behavior and interprets their denunciations as a reaction to their neglect by the adults. In contrast to Roper, he emphasizes that feelings such as aggressiveness, hatred and revenge played a major role in the Augsburg proceedings.

The Swiss historian Nicole Bettlé published her dissertation on witch children in 2013. She analyzed the cases of over 420 children. She concentrated only on children between 1 and 14 years of age, since according to contemporary imperial law ( Constitutio Criminalis Carolina ) a child was classified as an adult at the age of 14. In her dissertation, she compiled the majority of the processes previously dealt with in research in Germany, England, Sweden, Austria and North America. In turn, she listed 83 new cases (127 children) from Switzerland (1441–1789), which were almost entirely unknown in research. With regard to the Swiss cases, Bettlé published for the first time the grounds for suspecting child witchcraft (83 children) and the wording of the judgments (95 children). Bettlé was the first historian to publish all references to the witch child cases for Switzerland.

Bettlé's analysis made it possible to falsify almost all theories about witch children that had been circulating in research until then. According to their findings, the witch children were primarily children who were suspected of being a family member and / or their unchristian and criminal behavior. The social origin of the witch children also played a decisive role; On the one hand, more children from poor backgrounds were actually accused and executed of witchcraft and, on the other hand, the denunciations of children from “better” families were much more often believed, but criminal proceedings were initiated against them far less often. According to Bettlé, the “individualization of law” in the course of the 15th – 18th centuries was of particular importance. Century, which has resulted in children being held responsible in the event of a crime.

Furthermore, she draws attention to the fact that showing symptoms of anxiety etc. a. While the interrogations were always interpreted as an indication of guilt, not only in the adult but also in the children's trials, and at the height of the child witch trials in the 17th century, for the first time, an exceptionally high proportion of children among the suicides was recorded, which led to melancholy and suicide cases who played an important role in the witch trials ( sanity ), were for the first time ever perceived as a social problem in history. Bettlé also comes to the conclusion that the 420 children she has brought together in her work are only a fraction of the children actually involved and accused in a witch trial and that many more trials must have occurred than are known today .

Statements about witch children from the 15th - 17th centuries

Malleus Maleficarum (1487)

“This is how you have to imagine the process: a succubus takes the semen from a criminal man; if he does not want to pass the seed on to a witch himself as an incubus, he leaves it to a demon assigned to a woman; he sleeps with it as soon as the stars are right, and thus begets a child suitable for witchcraft. ”(II I 4, 109B).

"Through the sacrifice of children, the spread of witchcraft is promoted, for they in turn become witches" (II I 13, 139B).

"We know many cases in which a mother cursed her child out of a spontaneous impulse of anger and how those who had become so possessed could only be freed from the rule of the demon with great difficulty." (II I 13, 140C).

“The judges must also examine each witch's family closely; usually other family members are contaminated accordingly, because the witches have to offer their children to the demon and thus initiate them into this vice [...]. ”(III 33, 250A).

Peter Binsfeld : Tract on the acquaintance of wizards and witches (1589)

"There is the experience / that quite a few magicians and witches take the boys and girls with them to their meetings: [...] That is why our judges are doing right / in this shameful and hidden vice / that they interrogate the minors / give instructions / for further research / vnd jre statement (in the opinion of the doctors) make a guess / which / where will help with other reports / make the report an embarrassing question. That is why I do not allow myself to be covered / and at times do not go without the special provision of God / that if the magicians want to seduce such children / they are imprisoned out of the simplicity of the children / and thus all advice is discovered and scattered. "

Friedrich Spee : Cautio Criminalis or legal concerns about the witch trials (1631/32)

“I recently heard from a pastor who, incidentally, - if the gods will - thought he was quite learned. He used to encourage the judges to arrest and torture those and those he named individually. He continued to urge them not to consider the youth of certain boys either. Some of them are apparently already old enough to be punished and they can be safely executed; there is no hope of improvement. "

Gottlieb Spitzel : The Broken Power of the Dark Sweet (1687)

"[The devil makes children] that they have to marry each other / and court each other / and when such poor children were led six times by the old witches / they would have to seduce other children / and bring them to the villain."

Witch children in this day and age

In studies by sociologists, ethnologists and anthropologists on the subject of sorcery in Africa, the (historical) term “witch's child” is used again, which does not have the same origins in the history of ideas and, from a scientific perspective, cannot be transferred to African children. Against this background, the new name of the historians can be seen, who today use the term "child witches" far more often for the historical cases in order to prevent further misunderstandings.

→ see also witch children (Congo)

Witch children in books and films

The figure of the witch child can be found in books and films. Film classics like The Wizard of Oz , The Exorcist , The Omen or " Harry Potter " as well as countless TV series (including Charmed - Magical Witches , Sabrina - Totally Verhext! ) Are based on early modern imaginations of witch children.

See also

  • Christine Teipel , a girl who was executed as a supposed witch in 1630 at the age of 9.

literature

  • Nicole Bettlé: When Saturn eats its children. Child witch trials and their importance as a crisis indicator . (= Freiburg Studies on the Early Modern Age, Vol. 15) Peter Lang Verlag, Bern a. a. 2013, ISBN 978-3-0343-1251-6 .
  • Rainer Beck : Mäuselmacher or the imagination of evil. A witch trial 1715–1723 , CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62187-1 (Freising children's witch trials).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nicole Bettlé: When Saturn eats its children: Child witch trials and their significance as a crisis indicator . Bern 2013, pp. 83, 162.
  2. ^ Jean Berchtold-Beaupré: Supplément à l'histoire de sorcières dans le canton de Friborg . In: Archives de la Société d'Historie du canton de Friborg . Vol. 1, 1850, and Ders .: Les sorcières . In: Actes de la société jurassienne d'émulation . No. 16, 1845.
  3. Casimir Pfyffer: History of the city and the canton of Lucerne. From the origin to the state upheaval in 1798 . Zurich 1850.
  4. ^ Johann Diefenbach: The witch madness before and after the religious split in Germany . Mainz 1886.
  5. ^ Wilhelm Gottlieb Soldan, Heinrich Heppe: History of the witch trials . Edited by Max Bauer. 2 volumes. Munich 1912 (especially the list of witch fires in Würzburg, p. 17 ff.).
  6. Fritz Byloff: witchcraft and witch hunts in the Austrian Alps countries . Berlin, Leipzig 1934.
  7. ^ Moritz Tramer: Children in witch belief and witch trial of the Middle Ages. Child and superstition . In: Journal of Child Psychiatry . 11, 1, 1944-45, pp. 140-149, 180-187.
  8. Guido Bader: The witch trials in Switzerland . Zurich 1945.
  9. Rossell Hope Robbins: Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology . London 1959.
  10. ^ HC Erik Midelfort: Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany 1562–1684 . California 1972, pp. 182-184.
  11. ^ E. William Monter: Witchcraft in France and Switzerland. The Borderlands during the Reformation . London 1976, pp. 126-127.
  12. David Warren Sabean: The Sacred Bond of Unity: Fellowship through a Thirteen-Year-Old Witch's Point of View (1683) . In: The double-edged sword. Rule and contradiction in Württemberg in the early modern period . Berlin 1986; Norbert Schindler: The Origin of Mercy. On the culture and way of life of the Salzburg beggars at the end of the 17th century . In: Bayerisches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde 1988, pp. 61–130.
  13. Wolfgang Behringer: Child witch trials. On the role of children in the story of the witch hunt . In: Journal for historical research , 16, 1989, pp. 31–47.
  14. Hartwig Weber: Child witch trials . Frankfurt a. M. and Leipzig 1991. (paperback edition under the title witch trials against children )
  15. Hartwig Weber: "From the seduced children magic". Witch trials against children in old Württemberg . Sigmaringen 1996
  16. Hartwig Weber: The possessed children. Belief in the Devil and Exorcism in Childhood History . Stuttgart 1999
  17. Hartwig Weber: Child witch trials . Frankfurt a. M., Leipzig 1991, pp. 261-274.
  18. Hartwig Weber: Child witch trials . Frankfurt a. M., Leipzig 1991, pp. 24-25.
  19. Hartwig Weber: "From the seduced children magic". Witch trials against children in old Württemberg . Sigmaringen 1996, pp. 178-179.
  20. Hans Sebald: The witch boy. Case study of an inquisition process . Marburg 1992; Ders .: witch children. The fairy tale of childlike sincerity . Frankfurt a. M. 1996.
  21. Hans Sebald: The witch boy. Case study of an inquisition process . Marburg 1992; Ders .: witch children. The fairy tale of childlike sincerity . Frankfurt a. M. 1996, p. 11.
  22. Hans Sebald: The witch boy. Case study of an inquisition process . Marburg 1992; Ders .: witch children. The fairy tale of childlike sincerity . Frankfurt a. M. 1996, pp. 13-14.
  23. ^ Rainer Walz: Children in witch trials. The county of Lippe 1654–1663 . In: witch hunt and regional history. The County of Lippe in comparison . Edited by Gisela Wilbertz , Gerd Schwerhoff, Jürgen Scheffler. Bielefeld 1994. pp. 211-231.
  24. ^ Rainer Walz: Children in witch trials. The county of Lippe 1654–1663 . In: witch hunt and regional history. The County of Lippe in comparison . Edited by Gisela Wilbertz, Gerd Schwerhoff, Jürgen Scheffler. Bielefeld 1994, pp. 214, 217.
  25. ^ Rainer Walz: Children in witch trials. The county of Lippe 1654–1663 . In: witch hunt and regional history. The County of Lippe in comparison . Edited by Gisela Wilbertz, Gerd Schwerhoff, Jürgen Scheffler. Bielefeld 1994, p. 230.
  26. Rainer Decker: "Your litigation also violates natural law". How the Roman Inquisition saved the lives of 15 Grisons witch children . In: Bündner (isches) monthly newspaper . 1999, No. 3, pp. 179-182.
  27. Rainer Decker: The Popes and the Witches. From the secret files of the Inquisition . Darmstadt 2003; Ders .: Witches. Magic, Myths and the Truth . Darmstadt 2004; Ders .: Witches. Magic, Myths and the Truth . Darmstadt 2004.
  28. ^ Lyndal Roper: Evil Imaginings and Fantasies. Child-Witches and the End of the Witch Craze . In: Past and Present 167, 2000, pp. 107-139.
  29. ^ Lyndal Roper: Evil Imaginings and Fantasies. Child-Witches and the End of the Witch Craze . In: Past and Present 167, 2000, pp. 109-110.
  30. Rainer Beck: Playing with the devil. Freising child witch trials 1715–1723 . In: Historical Anthropology. Culture - society - everyday life . 10, 2002, pp. 374-415.
  31. Rainer Beck: Playing with the devil. Freising child witch trials 1715–1723 . In: Historical Anthropology. Culture - society - everyday life . 10, 2002, p. 385.
  32. Rainer Beck: Playing with the devil. Freising child witch trials 1715–1723 . In: Historical Anthropology. Culture - society - everyday life . 10, 2002, p. 375.
  33. Rainer Beck: Playing with the devil. Freising child witch trials 1715–1723 . In: Historical Anthropology. Culture - society - everyday life . 10, 2002, p. 381.
  34. Kurt Rau: Augsburg child witch trials 1625-1730 . Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2006.
  35. Kurt Rau: Augsburg child witch trials 1625-1730 . Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2006, p. 24.
  36. Kurt Rau: Augsburg child witch trials 1625-1730 . Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2006, pp. 383ff, 414.
  37. Kurt Rau: Augsburg child witch trials 1625-1730 . Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2006, p. 394.
  38. ^ Nicole Bettlé: When Saturn eats its children: Child witch trials and their significance as a crisis indicator . Bern 2013.
  39. ^ A b Nicole Bettlé: When Saturn eats its children: Child witch trials and their significance as a crisis indicator . Bern 2013, p. 408.
  40. ^ Nicole Bettlé: When Saturn eats its children: Child witch trials and their significance as a crisis indicator . Bern 2013, p. 350.
  41. Quotation from "Malleus Maleficarum" by Heinrich Institoris (alias Kramer) with the help of Jakob Sprenger compiled on the basis of the demonological tradition . Edited by Ulrich Müller, Franz Hundsnurscher and Cornelius Sommer. Göppingen 1993, p. 174.
  42. Quotation from "Malleus Maleficarum" by Heinrich Institoris (alias Kramer) with the help of Jakob Sprenger compiled on the basis of the demonological tradition . Edited by Ulrich Müller, Franz Hundsnurscher and Cornelius Sommer. Göppingen 1993, p. 191.
  43. Quotation from "Malleus Maleficarum" by Heinrich Institoris (alias Kramer) with the help of Jakob Sprenger compiled on the basis of the demonological tradition . Edited by Ulrich Müller, Franz Hundsnurscher and Cornelius Sommer. Göppingen 1993, p. 192.
  44. Quotation from "Malleus Maleficarum" by Heinrich Institoris (alias Kramer) with the help of Jakob Sprenger compiled on the basis of the demonological tradition . Edited by Ulrich Müller, Franz Hundsnurscher and Cornelius Sommer. Göppingen 1993, pp. 280-281.
  45. Petrus Binsfeld: Treatise from the acquaintance of sorcerers and witches . Edited by Hiram Kümper. Mille Tre Verlag, Vienna 2004, pp. 240–241.
  46. Friedrich von Spee: Cautio Criminalis or legal concerns about the witch trials . Transferred and introduced by Joachim Friedrich Ritter , Böhlau, Weimar 1939, p. 78.
  47. Jump up Theophil Gottlieb Spizel (spy): The broken power of the Darkness or Destroyed Devilish Covenant and Buhl friendship with people: This is a thorough report of how and what form the hideous and cursed magical community with the evil spirits approaches; how it goes to and from . Augsburg 1687, p. 356.
  48. ^ Nicole Bettlé: When Saturn eats its children: Child witch trials and their significance as a crisis indicator . Bern 2013, pp. 405, 410.
  49. ^ Nicole Bettlé: When Saturn eats its children: Child witch trials and their significance as a crisis indicator . Bern 2013, pp. 15–18, 405.