Maria Renata Singer from Mossau

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maria Renata Singer von Mossau (* December 27, 1679 in Niederviehbach near Dingolfing ; † June 21, 1749 in Höchberg ) was subprior of the Unterzell Monastery and the last victim of the witch persecution in the Würzburg monastery and probably the last woman accused as a witch of Franconia .

Life

Maria Renata Singer from the noble family of the Singer von Mossau was born as the daughter of an imperial officer. In mid-May 1699, when her mother was 20, she was brought to the Unterzell Abbey near Würzburg as a nun. After a two-year probationary period and because of her praiseworthy behavior , she was given the economic supervision of the monastery, was awarded the title of subprioress and helped with sexton service .

From 1738 the mood changed and in the monastery Unterzell there was probably envy and resentment because of her hard work, which is why her cats were taken away and from then on she was made responsible for all bad incidents within the village of Zell am Main . When six cases of possession arose in 1744 , rumors that Singer was guilty of witchcraft increased. According to the trial files, she is said to have caused pain and infestation with “hellish spirits” in several of her flatmates in the monastery through magic and roots or herbs. In 1749 there were suspicions that she was moonstruck , which is why she was attacked one night in the face by a nun with a discipline blow (device for caste, a kind of whip). He was arrested and charged with witchcraft in January of the same year .

In February 1749, during a monastic interrogation by nuns, Maria Renata confessed that she had been a witch for years. This confession made it possible for the responsible abbot of Oberzell, Oswald Loschert , to commission a secular court. After further questioning under the high princely Wurzburg court and Konsistorialrat Friedrich Ebenhöch with the charges learning witchcraft, closing a vicious alliance , execution of any damage spells , attend in covens, closing a vicious Paramour , dishonor sacred Host and mice making it agreed on all points guilty . After that, she is said to have also been interrogated by a clerical court until it passed a judgment on May 28th, which was based, among other things, on an opinion from the medical faculty. In subsequent further interrogations, she is said to have named the names of two other witches . During the negotiations she was imprisoned at Marienberg Fortress .

On June 21, 1749, the final sentence, the living cremation at the stake , was announced publicly. Through the work of the Würzburg Prince-Bishop Karl Philipp von Greiffenclau zu Vollrads , the judgment on beheading and subsequent cremation was softened. Because of the physical exhaustion, Maria Renata was brought on a chair to the place of execution in the middle bastion near Höchberg, where she was executed between eight and nine in the morning on a heaped sand square . Her head was erected on a pole as a deterrent to the city of Würzburg , the rest of the body was burned in the witch's quarry .

Historical meaning

The witch trial against Maria Renata Singer von Mossau, along with the trial against Sophia Agnes von Langenberg, was one of the few in which a clergyman was publicly accused of being a witch and was also executed.

In art

Erich Kunkel processed the life of the subpriorin into his play Maria Renata , which premiered in Würzburg in 2004.

At the scene of the events in Unterzell Monastery, the play Herr, open my lips by the Lower Franconian writer Roman Rausch from Gerolzhofen was performed on July 18, 2019 .

swell

  • O. Loschert: True and cumbersome news of the coincidence, so the virginal Unterzell monastery near Wirzburg of the Premonstratensian order affected. Written in 1749, in: Göttingisches historical magazine. 1787-91. 1788, 2nd vol., 594-631. Digitized .
  • Georg Gaar: Christian salutation next to the Scheiter-Hauffen, whereupon the corpse Mariae Renatae, a sorceress executed through Schwerdt, was burned on June 21st in the year 1749 outside of the city of Würtzburg / done to a multitudinous people ... By Georgio Gaar ( Digitized , UB Frankfurt am Main).
  • Historischer Verein Würzburg: files from the trial of the nun Maria Renata (1749). MS f. 20 ( Brief message from the execution […] of June 23, 1749 ) and MS f. 267 ( Acta infelicis monialis Renatae, anno 1749 ). State Archives Würzburg.

literature

  • Anna Renata Singer von Mossau, the last German witch: a historical picture presented to commemorate the now hundred-year decline of a long and horrific delusional delusion and the liberation from the shameful Inquisition in Germany, together with an outline of the history of the witch trials in general and the accompanying acts as well as a Saxon witch trial from the seventeenth century , Leipzig 1849. (no author details - published in the Serig'sche Buchhandlung)
  • Ralph Kloos and Thomas Göltl: The witch burners of Franconia . Erfurt 2012. ISBN 978-3-95400-109-5 , pp. 77-80.
  • Eduard Kohl: Maria Renata Singer of Mossau. The story of a head nurse in Zell who was the last Franconian witch to be burned . Zell am Main 1999.
  • Christoph Meiners: History of a strange devil's possession in Franconia between the years 1740 and 1750. , in: Göttingisches historisches Magazin, 2nd volume, 1788, pp. 1–39. Digitized
  • Anton Memminger : The bewitched monastery depicted according to the files , Würzburg 1904.
  • Friedrich Merzbacher : The witch trials in Franconia. 1957 (= series of publications on Bavarian national history. Volume 56); 2nd, extended edition: CH Beck, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-406-01982-X , pp. 49–52, 157 f., 171–176 and more often.
  • Hans-Jürgen Wolf: Hexenwahn, Witches in Past and Present , Pawlak Verlag, Herrsching, 1990, pp. 185–188.
  • Erik Soder von Güldenstubbe : The Praemonstratensian choirwoman Renata Singer von Mossau and her clan . In: Contributions to the history of the diocese of Regensburg . Vol. 39 (2005), pp. 165-178.
  • Erik Soder von Güldenstubbe: The Praemonstratensian chorus woman Renata Singer von Mossau, who was innocently convicted as a witch. In: Markus Mergenthaler, Margarete Klein-Pfeuffer (Hrsg.): Hexenwahn in Franken. JH Röll, Dettelbach 2014, pp. 170–201.
  • Roman Rausch : The witch nose. The case of Maria Renata Singer. A search for clues. Echter Verlag, Würzburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-429-05396-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eduard Kohl: Maria Renata Singer von Mossau. The story of a head nurse in Zell who was the last Franconian witch to be burned. Zell am Main 1999.
  2. ^ Friedrich Merzbacher : The witch trials in Franconia. 1957 (= series of publications on Bavarian national history. Volume 56); 2nd, extended edition: CH Beck, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-406-01982-X , p. 50 f.
  3. ↑ Historischer Verein Würzburg: files from the trial of the nun Maria Renata (1749). MS f. 267 ( Acta infelicis monialis Renatae, anno 1749 ). Staatsarchiv Würzburg, pp. 69–80 (Interrogatoria of the sisters Walburgis, Alexandra, Theresia, Caecilia, Antonia and the novice Monica).
  4. ↑ Ernst Kern : Seeing - Thinking - Acting of a surgeon in the 20th century. ecomed, Landsberg am Lech 2000. ISBN 3-609-20149-5 , p. 261.
  5. ^ Friedrich Merzbacher : The witch trials in Franconia. 1957 (= series of publications on Bavarian national history. Volume 56); 2nd, extended edition: CH Beck, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-406-01982-X , p. 176.
  6. ↑ Maria Renata - The last witch of Würzburg. ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the homepage of the theater ensemble @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.theater-ensemble.net
  7. ^ Witch hunt in the summer theater. July 26, 2019, accessed August 5, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Singer von Mossau, Maria Renata
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German nun
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1679
PLACE OF BIRTH Niederviehbach
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1749
Place of death Marienberg Fortress