Witch commissioner

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Witch commissioners (colloquially sometimes also called witch judges ) were jurists during the early modern period who were appointed by the lords of the state or court . Their job was actually to ensure the proper course of a witch trial . In practice, however, they often drove the persecution forward.

tasks

In order to regulate and control the witch trials, the respective authorities issued witch trial ordinances. In order to ensure compliance with the provisions laid down there, secular lawyers were appointed as commissioners, i.e. as agents and special officials of the sovereign. The appointment of legally trained commissioners for specific purposes was a common practice and has now been extended to the witch trials. Sometimes they were sent to certain courts or offices, but sometimes they were also requested by them as experts. There were witch commissioners in various territories of the Holy Roman Empire in Kurbayern , Kurköln , Nassau and elsewhere.

Where the sovereigns themselves became advocates of an intensive witch hunt, the witch commissioners were, so to speak, the executive body. According to the Electoral Cologne Witch Trial Code of 1607, they were intended as impartial legal experts who were supposed to advise the ordinary judges and lay judges on the difficult matter of the witch trials. In fact, however, they determined the procedure. Besides them, the judges and lay judges actually responsible only played a minor role. They decided on arrest warrants, and it was they who questioned the suspects during the torture and gave instructions to the executioners. Ultimately, it was they who formulated the judgments, even if they officially only acted as impartial legal scholars.

The administration was very different. In addition to the rather inconspicuous acting commissioners, there were some who stood out for their particular zeal such as Franz Buirmann , Kaspar Reinhard or Heinrich von Schultheiß , who also left behind a theoretical text on the conduct of the process.

Critics of the witch trials, such as Friedrich von Spee , repeatedly emphasized the material interest of the witch commissioners. In fact, there was a precise financial regulation in Kurköln, for example, according to which the commissioners received certain sums of money depending on the number of arrest warrants, tortures and judgments. For every arrest or torture warrant, a commissioner received one Reichstaler and two for a judgment. Some of them, like Heinrich von Schultheiss, who was not only ennobled, but was also able to acquire large estates, undoubtedly profited from their office. Franz Buirmann in the Rhenish part of the Electorate of Cologne has also greatly enriched himself through his work.

literature

  • Tanja Gawlich: The witch commissioner Heinrich von Schultheiß and the witch persecution in the Duchy of Westphalia. In: Harm Klueting (Hrsg.): The Electorate of Cologne Duchy of Westphalia from the beginnings of Cologne rule in southern Westphalia to the secularization of 1803 (= The Duchy of Westphalia. Volume 1). Aschendorff, Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3-402-12827-5 , pp. 297-320, here pp. 304 ff.
  • Rainer Decker : The witch hunts in the Duchy of Westphalia. In: Alfred Bruns (Ed.): Witches. Jurisdiction in the Sauerland region of Cologne. Schieferbergbau-Heimatmuseum, Schmallenberg-Hothausen 1984, pp. 189–218, here p. 201.
  • Witch commissioner . In: German Academy of Sciences of the GDR, Prussian Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): German legal dictionary . tape 5 , booklet 6 (edited by Otto Gönnenwein , Wilhelm Weizsäcker , with the assistance of Hans Blesken). Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1966, OCLC 832566397 ( adw.uni-heidelberg.de - first edition between 1952 and 1960).