Elisabeth Plainacher

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Elisabeth Plainacher , also Elsa Plainacher , (* around 1513 in Pielamund ; † September 27, 1583 in Vienna ) was sentenced as a witch in the course of the witch hunt and executed . She was the only victim of the witch hunt in Vienna.

Life

The witch burning of Elisabeth Pleinacher in Vienna. (M. Bermann, 1880)

Elsa Plainacher was born as Elisabeth Holtzgassner around 1513 in Pielamund , a small settlement near the town of Melk in Lower Austria, at the confluence of the Pielach River into the Danube .

Her parents ran a mill (the Hoffmüll) on the right side of the Pielach on behalf of the rulers (probably that of Melk Abbey ). The original place of this mill is silted up and can no longer be found. She had several siblings, but only the "shipman" Vitus Holtzgassner is known by name, who later lived in Melk ( under the Schlachtprugge ).

Elsa had an illegitimate child of a mill helper named Hoisl at a very young age, which is a common family name, but could also be the corruption of a given name. Since the child no longer appears in her later vita, it must have died early. The infant mortality rate at that time was very high.

Elsa got married to a miller, of whom nothing is known apart from the family name Paumgartner. He probably died early, as no divorce could be accepted at that time, and Elsa married a second time. There were at least two known children from this marriage: Achatius, who took over his father's mill and became wealthy, and Margareth. Another marriage with a smallholder named Plainacher followed. He is likely to have managed a manorial farm (that of the von Grünbichl from Kilb ) as a dispossessed. This farm was almost certainly the Gschwendthof in the municipality of Rammersdorf in Lower Austria near St. Pölten . Her landlord was Georg Achaz Mattseber zu Goldegg, and she herself was under the administration of the Volkert Regional Court, Baron von Auersperg .

Her daughter Margareth married the farmer Georg Schlutterbauer from Strannersdorf in the municipality of Mank around 1550 . Margareth and Georg first had three children in a row, Catharina, Ursula and Hensel (Hans). After that they should not have planned any further children, as there was now a period of about 10 years without births. Then Anna was born. The mother Margareth died in childbed. Even before her death, she made her mother promise to take care of the girl, as Georg Schlutterbauer became more and more drunk and was prone to violence. From then on, a typical mother-in-law – son-in-law conflict probably arose. The three Schlutterbauer children all (allegedly) died in bed that same year. Only Anna, who now lived with her grandmother, remained alive.

Persecution as a witch

Schlutterbauer began to blacken his mother-in-law, who had also converted to Protestantism in Catholic Austria, as a witch. She was not giving him back his only child and hexing it more and more, was the accusation. They only bring it to Protestant services and teach it for the devil. The somewhat feeble-minded, epileptic and adolescent girl, who was 15 years old at the time, could not refute the suspicion on her own and was described by the interviewees as possessed by the devil. Epilepsy was a strong indicator of this at the time. Anna evidently confused a lot under the pressure of the questioning, whereby the results probably corresponded to the wishful thinking of the interrogating organs. So she stated that her grandmother fed milk to snakes in the stable. Presumably, however, a snake found its way to the milk that farmers often put in the barn for the cats on the farm. She also spoke of a tall, black, shaggy man whom her grandmother introduced to her. Her grandmother supposedly asked: "Annele - do you want him?" It should have been a suitor who had an eye on Anna. The clergy exorcised her three times, which did not seem to bring any improvement. After the third exorcism in Vienna, the insanity was recognized and taken to the citizens' hospital , where it remained for the time being. But Schlutterbauer did not give up. He pressed the authorities more and more so that Elsa Plainacher was arrested in mid-1583 and taken to Vienna. However, the Viennese doctors and priests referred to her as simply old and weak. It was argued that she should also be taken to the citizens' hospital.

But then the Jesuit and preacher Georg Scherer , who was born in Schwaz in Tyrol, came on the scene. He held a sermon against witches in general and against Elsa Plainacher in particular in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral. The excited people then demanded that they be tortured in order to force a confession. In the basement of the Malefizspitzbubenhaus in Vienna's Rauhensteingasse, the old and sick Elsa Plainacher was subjected to three terrible tortures in which she admitted everything that was wanted to be heard from her. She was sentenced to death at the stake and tied to a board on September 27, 1583, which was attached to the tail of a horse, and thus dragged to the place of execution. The Gänsweyd execution site was where Kegelgasse now joins the Weißgerberlände , that is, “ Unter den Weißgerber ”, who had their tanneries a little closer to town. Elsa Plainacher was tightened, d. H. Burned at the stake in full consciousness. Their ashes were scattered in the Danube, today's Danube Canal.

Her granddaughter Anna was given to the Barbarastift for secular women by patrons, which was located in Vienna 1st, Postgasse. Your further life is lost in the dark of history. Georg Scherer died in 1605 when he was hit in the pulpit in a similar sermon in Linz in the church. Georg Schlutterbauer, who had handed the farm over to his son well in advance, ended his life as a day laborer and resident (subtenant) of a farm near Texing in Lower Austria.

In Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district) the Elsa-Plainacher-Gasse was named after the victim of the witch hunt, in Mank the Plainachergasse commemorates the persecuted.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Werner Sabitzer: Death at the stake. In: veko-online.de . Retrieved February 13, 2017 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Plainacher, Elisabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Plainacher, Elsa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian woman, executed as a witch
DATE OF BIRTH around 1513
PLACE OF BIRTH Pielamund , Melk
DATE OF DEATH September 27, 1583
Place of death Vienna