Petrus Zwicker

Peter Zwicker (also Peter Zwicker , † 1403 in Vienna ) was a from East Prussia originating Inquisitor and priest from the Roman Catholic Order of Celestine . Between 1391 and 1403 he headed one of the largest inquisitorial enterprises in the German-speaking area. The victims of this persecution of heretics, which took place in Austria , Pomerania , the Mark Brandenburg and Hungary , were almost exclusively Waldensians . Only a few fragments of the inquisition protocols are preserved today.

Life

Ruins of the Celestine monastery on the Oybin

Petrus Zwicker came from Wormditt in East Prussia and held the post of school principal in Zittau in Upper Lusatia (in the north of the Kingdom of Bohemia ) until 1381. In the same year he entered the nearby Celestine monastery on the Oybin . In 1395 he became both prior of this monastery and provincial of the German Cölestine province . As early as 1390 he was entrusted with the persecution of heretics and from 1391 until the end of his life in 1403 he chaired inquisitorial investigations several times, which led him to long journeys. 

Inquisition of Petrus Zwicker

Course of the Inquisition

The initiative for this wave of persecution came from the Bishop of the Diocese of Passau , Georg von Hohenlohe (1388–1423). In 1391 Petrus Zwicker came to Steyr / Upper Austria for the first time after meeting his colleague, the "heretic hunter" Martinus de Amberg in Erfurt . In the Austrian heresy history, this city is considered to be the most important center of the Waldensians in Austria at that time . Several defendants joined the Catholic Church during the trial and thereby saved their lives.

From 1392 to 1394 he worked as an inquisitor in Erfurt and Stettin , especially against the Waldensians there. In Stettin, Zwicker was evidently endowed with episcopal powers and judged at least 443 Brandenburg and Pomeranian Waldensians in a mass process. In the court records, less than half of which have survived, the penalties are quite mild, which suggests that the delinquents have a certain penitentiality .

In 1395 he came back to Austria. In Garsten / Upper Austria, near Steyr, where the inquisitor was quartered with the local pastor, an assassination attempt on him failed in 1395: the assassins had tried to set fire to the vicarage, and strangers saw a scorched gesture of threat at a city gate in Steyr Piece of wood and a bloody knife attached. In 1396 Zwicker extended the Inquisition to Enns / Upper Austria and chaired proceedings in Steyr in 1397 and 1398. The year 1397 is likely to have represented a high point of persecution: in the same year alone over a thousand people were interrogated in Steyr and between eighty and a hundred convicted heretics were burned in a place known as the heretic cemetery . A memorial erected in 1997 in Steyr commemorates this event. In 1400 Zwicker led inquisition trials in Trnava in today's Slovakia , in 1401 in Hartberg / Styria and in Sopron / Hungary, where Zwicker had Waldensians' houses razed and even ordered the opening of graves to have the corpses of the deceased heretics cremated. In 1403 he worked in Vienna . After his death in 1403, Stephan Lamp, later pastor of Gutau / Upper Austria, took over the office of inquisitor in Zwickers. However, nothing is known about the persecutions that were exerted under him. After the inquisition of Petrus Zwicker, there is hardly any evidence of the existence of Waldensians in Austria.

There are few clear indications for the use of torture during the Inquisition of Petrus Zwicker, but it has been proven in the case of two heretics in Stettin in 1392.

Individual fates

The Waldensian monument in Steyr

The fact that Petrus Zwicker sometimes invited children to his inquisition court is proven in the case of ten-year-old Salomon from Schwamming (near Garsten / Upper Austria, near Steyr). The boy was sentenced to wear the colored heresy cross sewn onto the robe as a mark of shame for two years .

Petrus Zwicker did not make a particularly intimidating impression on some of the accused. A widow of Kunegundi even accused him of sinful behavior in Steyr because the inquisitor had previously condemned seven Waldensians from the village of Unterwolfern ( Wolfern / Upper Austria) to the stake. However, this boldness did not help her. She was sentenced to death along with other women.

Some heretics also stood before an inquisition court several times in their life. Elsa Feuer from Dambach near Garsten / Upper Austria was sentenced by an inquisitor as a young woman. In 1391, when she was 60, she was not sentenced to death by Petrus Zwicker, but was given a heavy sentence. For the rest of her life, she should wear the blue heresy cross on the front and back of her outerwear. In addition, she was to take a tour of the Garstner local church on seven consecutive Sundays, where she was to be beaten with rods by the pastor who followed her. Furthermore, she should then lie backwards on the threshold of the house of God so that she could be stepped on by the churchgoers. After she resisted this barbaric punishment and started an argument with the pastor, she was finally burned at the age of 67 at the behest of Petrus Zwicker.

Quote

"May all Catholic princes take care, may they make an effort that all the worthless heretics who threaten murder and arson are caught, embarrassedly interrogated and brought back to the unity of the Catholic faith!"

- Petrus Zwicker : 1395

swell

• Veit Arnpeck : Chronicon Austriacum. In: Hieronymus Pez : Scriptores rerum Austriacum. Volume 1, Leipzig 1721, p. 1244.
• Ignaz Döllinger : Contributions to the sect history of the Middle Ages. Volume 2, Munich 1890, pp. 305-311, 328-351 and 367-369.
• Gerhard Gartner: Medieval heretic trials in Steyr. In: Franz Loidl: Mission and Realization. (= Vienna Contributions to Theology, Volume 44). Vienna 1974, pp. 125–128.
• Herman Haupt: Waldensianism and Inquisition in Southeastern Germany since the middle of the 14th century. In: German journal for historical science. Volume 3, 1890, pp. 401-411.
• Herman Haupt: The Waldensian origin of the Codex Teplensis and the pre-Lutheran German Bible prints. Würzburg 1886, pp. 34-36.
• Dietrich Kurz : Sources on the heretic history of Brandenburg and Pomerania . (= Publications of the historical commission in Berlin, volume 45, source works 6). Berlin 1976.
• Wilhelm Preger: Contributions to the history of the Waldesier in the Middle Ages. In: Treatises of the historical class of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Volume 13, 1875, pp. 246-250.
• Valentin Preuenhueber : Annales Styrenses including its historical and genealogical writings . Nuremberg 1740, p. 47.
• Leopold Stainreuter : Chronicle of the 95 dominions. In: German chronicles and other history books of the Middle Ages 6: Austrian chronicle of the 95 dominions. Edited by Joseph Seemüller . Hanover 1906, p. 221 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )

literature

• Peter Biller: The Waldenses, 1170-1530. Between a religious order and a church. (= Variorum Collected Studies Series, Volume 676). Aldershot 2001, especially pp. 271-290.
• Gerhard Gartner: Medieval heretic trials in Steyr. In: Franz Loidl: Mission and Realization. (= Vienna Contributions to Theology, Volume 44). Vienna 1974, pp. 123-125.
• Martin Erbstößer: Structures of the Waldensians in Germany in the 14th century. In: Sabine Tanz (Ed.): Mentality and Society in the Middle Ages. (= Contributions to the history of mentality, Volume 2). Frankfurt am Main 1993, pp. 95-106.
• Herman Haupt :  Zwicker, Petrus . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 45, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1900, p. 535.
• Herman Haupt: Waldensianism and Inquisition in Southeastern Germany since the middle of the 14th century. In: German journal for historical science. Volume 3, 1890, pp. 366-377.
• Werner Maleczek : The persecution of heretics in the Austrian high and late Middle Ages. In: Erich Zöllner (Hrsg.): Waves of persecution in Austrian history. (= Writings of the Institute for Austrian Studies, Volume 48). Vienna 1986, pp. 18-39.
• Georg Modestin: Heretic in the City. The trial against the Strasbourg Waldensians from 1400. Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 2007, ISBN 978-3-7752-5701-5 .
• Peter Segl: The Waldensians in Austria around 1400: teaching, organizational form, spreading and combating. In: Albert de Lange, Kathrin Utz Tremp (eds.): Friedrich Reiser and the Waldensian-Hussite International: Files from the Ötisheim-Schönenberg Conference, October 2 to 4, 2003. ISBN 3-89735-433-0 , p. 161 -188.
• Reima Välimäki: Heresy in Late Medieval Germany. The Inquisitor Petrus Zwicker and the Waldensians . York Medieval Press, York 2019, ISBN 978-1-903153-86-4 .
• Ernst Werner: Ideological aspects of German-Austrian Waldensianism in the 14th century. In: Studi Medievali. Volume 3, Series 4, 1963, pp. 218-226.
• Martin Windischhofer: The Waldensians in Austria. Departure, persecution and change of the early movement until 1315. Diploma thesis. Vienna 2006, especially pp. 126–130.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Modestin: Heretic in the city. P. 6.
2. ↑ Head: Petrus Zwicker. P. 535f.
3. ↑ Maleczek: Persecution of heretics. P. 31.
4. ↑ Windischhofer: Waldensians. P. 141.
5. ↑ Windischhofer: Waldensians. P. 127.
6. ↑ Short: Heretic history. P. 67.
7. ↑ Windischhofer: Waldensians. P. 127 and Döllinger: Contributions. P. 311.
8. ↑ Report on it: Preuenhuber: Annales Styrenses. P. 47; Stainreuter: Chronicle. P. 221; Arnpeck. Chronicon. P. 1244.
9. ↑ Haupt: Waldenserthum. Appendix I, p. 403.
10. ↑ cf. Maleczek: persecution of heretics. P. 33.
11. ↑ Short: Heretic history. P. 74; Windischhofer: Waldensians. P. 61.
12. ↑ Haupt: Waldenserthum. Appendix II, item 1, p. 406.
13. ↑ Haupt: Waldenserthum. Appendix II, item 2, p. 406.
14. ↑ Haupt: Waldenserthum. P. 372.
15. ↑ Haupt: Waldenserthum. Appendix II, item 1, p. 405 and item 2, p. 407f.
16. ^ Original text in: Preger: Contributions. P. 250; Translation ibid., P. 232.