Walpurga housewife

Walpurga hausmannin (* 1510 / 1527 ; † 2. September 1587 in Dillingen , Bavaria ) is a victim of Dillinger witch trials . She was a Bavarian midwife and was burned for alleged witchcraft , vampirism, and child murder. The confession she made under torture is a classic example of the alleged witch- devil relationship . This pattern was later used in many witch trials .

Life

Walpurga housewife was a widow and lived in poor conditions. She was working as a licensed midwife in the city of Dillingen for 19 years when she was charged with sorcery and arrested.

Confession under torture

Awakened monsters Zeyttung 1590

Walpurga's confession, invented under torture, formed the style for the witch confessions of the subsequent waves of persecution. There are several copies of her confession in the region's archives. Her confession was so sensational that the town clerk of Dillingen allowed third parties to look into the process files and so process details leaked out. These were published by an anonymous printer in the Newe newspaper , a single-sheet woodcut . This was a woodcut - leaflet , a so-called witches newspaper ( Erweytterte fiends Zeyttung ) that were typical of the witch hunts in southern Germany. The correspondent of the Augsburg trading house Fugger published a copy in the Fugger newspaper . The Walpurga housewife case attracted much attention and became widely known.

In summary, the confession reads as follows:

When she was widowed 31 years ago, she and a servant cut corn. With him she had agreed to indulge her that same night. However, it was not the servant who appeared in the evening, but the evil spirit in the form and clothing of the servant. It was only after she had committed fornication with the devil that she noticed his goat's foot. The devil left her when she called the name Jesus . This statement is exemplary and is also repeated in the main by Johannes Junius , for example . She threw away the half thaler that she had received from the devil as a reward because it was fake.

When her lover visited her again the next night, he had promised her protection from poverty and she had signed the devil's pact with her blood. Since she could not write, the devil took her hand. At night she went out on a fork (presumably a pitchfork) with her lover devil and met the great devil at a meeting of the devils (witches' sabbath) . This had confirmed the devil's pact and baptized them Höfelin and the devil Federlin . She would have been forced to deny Jesus and the saints and would have been brutally beaten if she hadn't gone through everything. She drank red and white wine , and fried children often ate, but no salt. During the 31 years she received the Lord's Supper, but did not swallow the Host, but instead gave it to Federlin. Federlin also went to her in custody to engage in fornication with her (possible evidence of rape while in custody).

She had received an ointment from Federlin to harm people and cattle and the fruits of the fields. Under torture, she stated that while she was working as a midwife, she had either murdered 40 children, many of whom were not baptized, with Federlin's ointment or crushed them and sucked the blood out of a child. The 40 children and a few adults are all meticulously listed with names and ways in which they were allegedly put to death by Walpurga.

It is significant that she initially speaks of the devil ( the evil spirit ), then turns it into a prostitute and reintroduces the devil ( great devil ) later than someone who baptizes both her and the prostitute. In this way it can be traced how, under the pressure of the torturers, who demanded more details, she gradually worked out the devil's universe.

death

Walpurga housewife was sentenced to death under the Augsburg Bishop Marquard . Their property has been confiscated. The sadistic tortures she had to endure on the way to the place of execution were described in detail in the judgment:

On the way to the place of execution, the cart to which she was tied was to be stopped five times and her body torn with pliers. The first time in front of the town hall her left breast and right arm were torn with the red-hot iron, the second time under the gate her right breast, the third time at the Mühlbach her left arm and the fourth time at the place of execution her left hand. At the place of execution, her right hand, with which she had sworn the oath as a midwife, was cut off, and she was then burned alive at the stake . Walpurga houseman's ashes should be scattered in a river and not buried.

Plaque

A memorial plaque of the Rotary Club commemorates the victims of the Dillingen witch trials , which was unveiled on December 12, 1994 in the Dillingen palace courtyard against the resistance of the Episcopal Ordinariate .

literature

• Brian Pavlac: Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials. ´ Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn et al. 2009, ISBN 978-0-313-34873-0 .
• Leonard RN Ashley: The Complete Book of Devils and Demons. Barricade Books, New York 1996, ISBN 1-56980-077-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wolfgang Behringer , Hausmännin, Walburga (1510 / 1527-1587) , The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Santa Barbara / Ca. 2006, Volume 2, pp. 477-479.
2. ↑ Wolfgang Behringer: The persecution of witches as reflected in contemporary journalism: the "Erweytterte Unholden Zeyttung" from 1590 (PDF; 4.5 MB), Upper Bavarian Archive. - 109. 1984, 2, pp. 339-360, footnote no. 47, p. 348.
3. ^ Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer, Robin Bruce Barnes (Ed.): Ideas and Cultural Margins in Early Modern Germany. Ashgate Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7546-6568-7 , p. 226.
4. ^ ^{A b} Fugger newspapers: unprinted letters to the Fugger family from the years 1568–1605 , Victor Klarwill, 1873, Vienna (1923), section 82, pp. 103–110.
5. ↑ Walter Stephens: Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief. University of Chicago Press, 2003, ISBN 0-226-77262-4 , pp. 2-3.
6. ↑ Memorial plaque in the Dillinger castle courtyard for the victims of the witch trials