Prista early baby

Prista Frühbottin (also Frübottin, Frühbrot, die Permbasten; * approx. 1490 in Wittenberg ; † June 29, 1540 ibid) was a victim of the witch hunts in Wittenberg during the reign of the Elector and Duke Johann Friedrich I , the Magnanimous (1503–1554 ), and the mayor of Wittenberg, Lucas Cranach the Elder .

Wittenberg city view 1536/37

family

Frau Prista Frühbottin had dealings with knackers , farmhands and the Wittenberg executioner , i.e. stigmatized fringe groups and outsiders. Together with her son Dictus (Benedikt), a skinner's assistant, she was accused by the Wittenberg City Council of willow poisoning through magic . She fled to Belzig and was brought back to Wittenberg. City judge Ambrosius Reuther led the process before the Wittenberg city court. The witch trial files have not been preserved, but details can be found in the combing accounts of the city of Wittenberg.

On June 29, 1540, Prista Frühbottin was executed together with her son Dictus. Another son who was also suspected was named Peter Frühbott. He fled alongside the old Wittenberg executioner Magnus Fischer from Wittenberg, was arrested in Zerbst and hanged there on July 2nd or 3rd, 1540. The youngest son, Klaus Frühbott, had already stood innocently on trial 14 years earlier. In 1540 he was imprisoned for twelve days and was expelled from the country.

Woodcut about her execution

Burning of witches in Wittenberg in 1540

Lucas Cranach the Elder spoke about the execution of Prista Frühbottin and her son Dictus . J. 1540 made a woodcut as an eyewitness with the following information under the single-sheet print:

" Paul. to Rome. XIII . The mighty or superior are not those who are good / sinner who do / fear evil / For they will not take the sword otherwise / She is God's servant / a vengeance over whom he does evil. Vmb many and many bad misdeeds for the sake of / are these four people / as depicted / on the day of Petri Pauli with fire justified in Wittenberg / Anno 1.5.40. As an old woman over 50 years of age / with her son / who surrendered to the devil / but in particular the woman / who played with the devil / held up with him / several jars / practiced magic / weather made / and held up / and To noticeable harm to many poor people, powder made poisoned / also learned to close the same others / so that all cattle pasture was poisoned by them and jre drey helpers / as a result, an individual amount of cattle of oxen / cows / pigs etc. in many places / which they then refused battered and covered / by jren boshopped / desperate geitz for the sake of a small benefit / and this dismantling was done just because of that / because the same scheduling groups are still much and more in the country / than many of beggars / thieves / hens servants / also shepherds / vmblauffen / to abandon / vfnd that a jealous nobility would order diligent attention / thereby harming poor people must be guarded / God the almighty guardian all Christian hearts / put on cunning and temptations from the devil / amen.
Psal. LXXXIII . They make cunning attacks against your people / And advise against your hidden ones. "

In contrast to many other depictions of witch burnings, the woodcut shows the state after the execution. The condemned are already dead, there is a small heap of ash under the judged, the oak beams are hardly burned. It was a particularly brutal burn. Johannes Mathesius (1504–1585) wrote:

"At Wittenberg one also smoked four people who were put up on oak stakes, forged, and miserably smacked and parched with fire like bricks."

The artist does not give the names of those who were executed. These are: Prista Frühbottin, Dictus, son of Prista Frühbottin, as well as Clemen Ziesigk (Zeisig) and Caspar Schiele, both servants and knacker's assistants. The Wittenberg executioner Magnus Fischer, who was also suspected, was arrested after his escape in the county of Mansfeld and sentenced to death by fire, executed in Eisleben on July 7, 1540.

Lucas Cranach the Elder J. welcomed the execution of the condemned as a deterrent, because there were other nefarious gangs in the country made up of beggars, flayers, executioners and shepherds. His father Lucas Cranach the Elder Ä. was mayor of Wittenberg during the drought year. Johannes Mathesius wrote in his Luther biography in 1540: "Around this time there was all sorts of cries about murderous burns and poisoning of food and drink with poison in many places." This shows the great fear of the population, which was greatly unsettled by the circumstances of the time.

Circumstances of the time

The year 1540 is called the summer of the century . It has gone down in climate history as one of the greatest heat and drought anomalies in the past 500 years: extreme heat and exceptional drought that lasted from March to September. It caused an extreme water shortage. Wells and rivers dried up and entire livestock perished. There were fires in the forests and many city fires (see also Drought in Central Europe in 1540 ).

As there was a lack of scientific knowledge, the guilty party was sought who were suspected of being responsible for the climate catastrophe and the death of the animals using black magic . In 1540, Prista Frühbottin and her family were accused in Wittenberg of having poisoned the pastures and cattle with their helpers with poisonous powder so that they could then kill them.

Witch trials in Wittenberg

In Wittenberg at least 21 people were involved in witch trials from 1540 to 1674 : eight executions are attested, e.g. In part, the outcome of 13 other proceedings is not known. In the context of the trial of Prista Frühbottin, records that have survived state that many others were imprisoned and sentenced.

rehabilitation

On October 30, 2013, the Lutherstadt Wittenberg Council announced a socio-ethical rehabilitation of the victims of the witch hunt.

swell

• Stadtarchiv Wittenberg, finance bills, year 1540, fol. 221
• UB Giessen, Dept. of Manuscripts No. 1140, fol. 58f.

literature

• Jörg Haustein : Martin Luther's position on magic and witchcraft (= Munich Church History Studies. Vol. 2). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1990, ISBN 3-17-010769-0 (At the same time: Kiel, Universität, Dissertation, 1988).
• Monika Lücke , Dietrich Lücke: burned for their magic sake. Hunting of witches in the early modern period in the area of ​​Saxony-Anhalt. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2011, ISBN 978-3-89812-828-5 , pp. 119–127.
• Monika Lücke, Walter Zöllner : Witch persecution in the early modern times in the area of ​​Saxony-Anhalt. In: Elke Stolze (Ed.): FrauenOrte. Women's stories in Saxony-Anhalt. Volume 1. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2008, ISBN 978-3-89812-552-9 , pp. 27-49, here pp. 36, 48.
• Johann Mathesius : D. Martin Luther's life in seventeen sermons (= Reclam's Universal Library. No. 2511-2514). Edited by Georg Buchwald . Reclam, Leipzig 1887, p. 304.
• Christian Pfister : Historical records as clues in the discussion of climate change. In: Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft (Ed.): Weather disasters and climate change - can we still be saved? The current state of knowledge - all essential aspects of climate change from the causes to the effects. pg-Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-937624-80-5 , pp. 24–31, here p. 29 f., ( online (PDF; 160.08 kB) ).
• Uwe Schirmer : The execution of a sorceress and her entourage in front of Wittenberg in June 1540 - the reconstruction of the case in the light of the incipient social discipline. In: Erich Donnert (ed.): Europe in the early modern times. Festschrift for Günter Mühlpfordt. Volume 7: Unknown Sources. Essays on the development, preliminary stages, limits and continued effects of the early modern era in and around Europe. Tables of contents of volumes 1–6. Register of persons in volumes 1–7. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-10702-4 , pp. 137–151.

Web links

• Monika Lücke / Walter Zöllner, witch hunt in the early modern period in the area of ​​Saxony-Anhalt ( memento from October 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
• History in the light of frost and heat. A conversation with the historian Christian Pfister
• Weather catastrophe of the summer of 1540
• Image 1 by Karl-Peter Merz, 2013, for the woodcut by Lukas Cranach the Elder. J. to Prista Frühbottin
• Image 2 by Karl-Peter Merz, 2013, for the woodcut by Lukas Cranach the Elder. J. to Prista Frühbottin

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Monika Lücke, Dietrich Lücke: burned because of your magic. 2011, pp. 119–127, here p. 126; Uwe Schirmer: The execution of a sorceress. In: Erich Donnert (ed.): Europe in the early modern times. Volume 7. 2008, pp. 137–151, here p. 138.