Sidonia from Borcke

Sidonia von Borcke, depiction of the 18th century.

Sidonia von Borcke , also Sidonie von Bork , (* 1548 , Stramehl Castle ; † September 28, 1620 in Stettin ) was a Pomeranian noblewoman. She was convicted of witchcraft and executed.

Life

Sidonia von Borcke was born in 1548. She came from the Pomeranian noble family Borcke , remained unmarried and had disputes with her family over her father's inheritance. She made herself unpopular in large circles through bickering, gossip addiction and all kinds of quarrels.

In 1604 she entered the Protestant virgin monastery at Marienfließ . There she got into an argument with the other nuns, especially with the prioress. An investigation led by Sidonia von Borcke's complaint, led by her relative Jost von Borcke , turned against her. Statements came from the ranks of the nuns accusing Sidonia von Borcke of witchcraft.

On November 21, 1619 Sidonia von Borcke was arrested. The court in Stettin initiated an in-depth investigation and sent the files to the Magdeburg jury chair . The latter decided that Sidonia should be questioned under torture. Sidonia then pleaded guilty under the torture. Thereupon she was sentenced to death on September 1, 1620 in a witch trial. On September 28, 1620 she was executed by sword in Stettin and then the body was burned at the stake.

Afterlife

"Sidonia Von Bork" by Edward Burne-Jones , 1860

The fate of Sidonia von Bork (or Borcke) always remained alive in legend and poetry. Soon after her death she was blamed for the sterility and the extinction of the Pomeranian ducal house of the Griffins, which was sealed in 1637 . Her fate was transfigured and romanticized in the legend; In her youth, the 72-year-old who was executed was ascribed a beauty that no one was supposed to be able to escape.

The Protestant theologian Wilhelm Meinhold (1797-1851) published the novel Sidonia von Bork, the monastery witch in 1847 , after he had had great success with his 1843 work Maria Schweidler, the amber witch . This second novel was denied the resounding effect of his amber witch in Germany.

The very successful English translation of the monastery witch was created by Jane Francesca Elgee (1821-1896), the mother of Oscar Wilde , and was published in 1849 under the title Sidonia the Sorceress . This translation strongly influenced the Pre-Raphaelites , especially Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898), who in 1860 painted two pictures on this subject. Both paintings, titled Sidonia von Bork 1560 and Clara von Bork 1560 , are exhibited in the Tate Gallery in London . William Morris (1834-1896), a friend of Edward Burne-Jones, reprinted the novel in 1893 as a splendid volume on the Kelmscott Press .

Even Theodor Fontane (1819-1898) has been working on the fabric. The fragment Sidonie von Borcke , which he wrote between 1879 and 1882, has survived . It was first published in 1966.

Less well-known are the tragedy in 5 acts Sidonia von Borck by Paul Jaromar Wendt (1840-1919) and the 1910 novel Die Klosterhexe von Marienfließ and the fall of the Pomeranian ducal family by Ludwig Hamann (1867-1929).

literature

Dirk Alvermann : A restless, strange creature. The life of Sidonia von Borcke (1548–1620) , Rehna 1998.
Wulf-Dietrich von Borcke: Sidonia von Borcke. The witch from the Marienfließ monastery. Thomas Helms Verlag , Schwerin 2002, ISBN 3-931185-45-1 .
Hubertus Fischer (Ed.): Monastery women, monastery witches. Theodor Fontane's Sidonie von Borcke in a cultural context. Rübenberger Verlag Tanja Weiß, Neustadt am Rübenberge 2005, ISBN 3-936788-07-3 . ( Preface )
Kyra Inachim: rule of the last generation of griffins. The history of Pomerania. Rostock: Hinstorff 2008. ISBN 978-3-356-01044-2 .
Gerda Riedl: 'Everything from the right!' Early modern witch trials using the example of the Sidonia von Borcke case. In: George, Marion; Rudolph, Andrea. Witches: Historical factuality and fictional imagery. Dettelbach 2004. JHRöll Verlag. ISBN 3-89754-225-0 .
Andrea Rudolph: Wilhelm Meinhold's witch novel 'Sidonia von Bork' (1847/48) - a settlement with the libertine emancipation of women as a 'suffering of our time'. In: George, Marion; Rudolph, Andrea. Witches: Historical factuality and fictional imagery. Dettelbach 2004. JHRöll Verlag. ISBN 3-89754-225-0 .
Max von Stojentin: The great witch fire in Neustettin from 1586–1592 . In: monthly sheets of the Society for Pomeranian History and Antiquity, 12 (1898), pp. 41-47, 61 (PDF; 1.01 MB), accessed on June 16, 2016.
Max von Stojentin: The witch and magic creatures in Pomerania up to 1637 . In: From Pomeranian Ducal Days. Kulturgeschichtliche Bilder , Verlag Herrcke & Lebeling, Stettin 1902, pp. 1–35 (PDF; 1.8 MB), accessed on June 16, 2016.

Web links

Commons : Sidonia von Borcke - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Sidonia von Borcke - Sources and full texts

Footnotes

↑ Georg Sello : Historical sources of the castle and castle-sitting family of Borcke . Volume 3: Family law documents of the 16th and 17th centuries . I. part. Self-published by the family board in 1907, pp. 31, 144, 817.
↑ Martin Wehrmann : History of Pomerania . Volume 2. 2nd edition. Friedrich Andreas Perthes, Gotha 1921, p. 111. Reprint: Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1992, ISBN 3-89350-112-6 .

personal data
SURNAME	Borcke, Sidonia from
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Borcke, Sidonie von; Bork, Sidonie from
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German nobles, executed as witches
DATE OF BIRTH	1548
DATE OF DEATH	September 28, 1620
Place of death	Szczecin

[1] Georg Sello : Historical sources of the castle and castle-sitting family of Borcke . Volume 3: Family law documents of the 16th and 17th centuries . I. part. Self-published by the family board in 1907, pp. 31, 144, 817.

[2] Martin Wehrmann : History of Pomerania . Volume 2. 2nd edition. Friedrich Andreas Perthes, Gotha 1921, p. 111. Reprint: Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1992, ISBN 3-89350-112-6 .