"...we should pass over all biographies of 'the good and the great,' while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows."
~Edgar Allan Poe

Monday, November 11, 2024

The Witches of Innsbruck Strike Back




Witchcraft trials are hardly known for their happy endings, so I am pleased to share with you a tale where one remarkable woman took on a notorious witch-hunter--and won.

The villain of our piece is Heinrich Kramer, monk and self-appointed witch inquisitor.  Kramer was a staunch advocate of a theory which emerged in the late fifteenth century--that the practice of witchcraft was not harmless pagan superstition, but a religious heresy practiced by evil minions of Satan himself.  Kramer was anxious to stage a well-publicized trial to showcase his pet belief, and in 1485, he found his opportunity in Innsbruck, Austria.

Kramer called on Innsbruck’s ruler, Archduke Sigismund, presented him with papal decrees formally sanctioning his witch-hunting work, and informed the Archduke that he intended to set up shop.  This put Sigismund in a bind.  He was not fond of the idea of this bossy little fellow interfering in the life and work of his seemingly law-abiding subjects, but on the other hand, well, orders from the Pope are orders from the Pope.  In what I imagine was a somewhat grumpy manner, Sigismund told Kramer to get on with it already.

We know very little about the other major figure in our story.  This is a great pity, because Helena Scheuberin was clearly a person that History would have liked to have known better.  About all that is recorded about her biography is that she was a native of Innsbruck who, in 1477, married a merchant named Sebastian Scheuber.  (As was the custom in those days, when Helena wed, she took on the feminized version of her husband’s surname.  Her family name is unknown.)  

Helena was an attractive woman from what was evidently a prosperous background, so Sebastian had less fortunate rivals for her hand.  Among them was the head manager of Archduke Sigismund’s kitchens (his name is unrecorded.)  After Helena and Sebastian married, our high-level cook consoled himself by taking a Bavarian woman as his bride.  In October 1485, things took a startling turn when the cook and his wife paid a visit to Kramer in order to accuse Helena of being a witch.  The cook explained that before Helena married Sebastian, she had been the cook’s lover.  After their split, things remained so friendly between them that Helena attended the cook’s wedding.  However, at the reception afterwards, Helena made an ominous comment to the bride:  “You shall not have many good and healthy days here.”  The cook’s wife assured Kramer that, sure enough, in the seven years of her marriage, she had enjoyed only one month of well-being.  Well, what additional proof of witchcraft do you need?

Kramer picked up more local gossip about Helena.  Some of her neighbors said that since her marriage, Helena had an “intimate friendship” with a knight named Jorg Spiess.  After she rejected Jorg’s suggestion that they take things to a more physical level, the knight suddenly and mysteriously died.  Jorg’s family told Kramer that on the day Spiess died, he had dined with Helena.  Afterwards, he took ill, wailing, “I have eaten something I can’t get over…the reason why I’m dying is that woman killed me!”  Jorg sent for his doctor, but he died soon after the physician’s arrival.  (As a side note, Helena’s husband Sebastian was having an affair with one of Jorg’s relatives, which could conceivably give the Spiess family a motive for wanting Helena permanently out of the picture.)

Helena herself, meanwhile, was not shy about treating the witch-hunter with the contempt she felt he deserved.  Kramer whined in a letter that “not only did she harass me with constant rebukes from the start (I had scarcely been in town for three days)” but “one time when I passed her and did not acknowledge her, she spat on the ground, publicly uttering these words: ‘Pah—you! You lousy monk! I hope you get the falling sickness!’”  As a bonus insult, Helena not only refused to attend Kramer’s sermons, she encouraged others to boycott him as well.  She found his obsession with demons and witchcraft “heretical,” adding, “When the devil leads a monk astray, he spouts nothing but heresy. I hope the falling sickness knocks him on the head!”  As Marion Gibson noted in her recent book, “Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials,” Helena’s reaction to the witch-finder was remarkably sane: “She was not overreacting,” Gibson wrote, “nor was she ignorant of the risk--the lives of women in her town were in danger, so she spoke up. Far from being a witch, she was an intelligent, engaged Christian.”  Helena argued theology with Kramer in a way he probably had never experienced before--certainly not from a woman.

Helena was brave, of course, but bravery is an excellent way to put a target on your own back.  And that was exactly what happened.  “For this reason,” Kramer went on, “I had to investigate her name and life for the first time.”  He suspected her of being guilty of “double heresy, namely a heresy of Faith and the heresy of Witches.”  Kramer accused Helena of being not only promiscuous, but “deceitful, spirited, and pushy.”  There were other Innsbruck women Kramer believed guilty of various heresies:  Rosina Hochwartin, her mother Barbara, Barbara Pflieglin, Barbara Hüfeysen, Barbara Selachin, and Agnes Schneiderin. Kramer saw them as a literal coven of witches, with Helena as their leader.  Although a total of 63 people were investigated by Kramer, these women were the only ones to be formally charged.  Gibson found it an “inescapable conclusion” that Kramer “was looking almost exclusively for female witches.”

Their trial began on October 29, 1485.  It was a church court, with Kramer acting as judge.  Helena was the first defendant to be questioned.  It is safe to say that it did not go as Kramer had hoped.  His interrogation went off the rails almost immediately when he bluntly asked Helena if she had been a virgin when she married.  Onlookers were shocked.  Witch or not, one did not ask the wife of a respectable Innsbruck merchant that sort of question.  Christian Turner, who was in court as the representative of the local bishop, rebuked Kramer that such things were “secret matters that hardly concern the case,” and ordered him to change the subject.

Turner was not finished.  He demanded to know why Kramer had not presented the court with formal written articles detailing the charges against the women.  Caught off guard by this unexpected resistance, Kramer muttered that the proceedings would be suspended until 11 a.m. while he prepared the articles.  At eleven, Kramer received another nasty surprise.  When Helena reappeared in court, she was accompanied by Johann Merwart, a highly-respected expert in church law.  It was announced that Lord Merwart would be acting as legal representative for the defendants.

Yes.  The witches had lawyered up.

Even going by the dry historical record, Merwart clearly had fun tearing Kramer’s case into judicial ribbons.  He questioned the technical legitimacy of the whole proceedings.  He mocked Kramer for focusing on “hidden sins” rather than focusing on “articles of bad reputation”...but, whoops, Kramer hadn’t even bothered writing those articles.  Merwart declared that Kramer “just seized the women before he instituted the proceedings in the proper setup.”

Merwart was just getting warmed up.  He dismissed Kramer “as being a suspect judge in this cause,” and asked the Lord Commissary to toss the witch-hunter into the nearest jail cell.  Merwart advised his clients to not answer any of Kramer’s questions “because he was no longer their judge.”

Kramer responded to this onslaught by angrily declaring that he was indeed competent to judge the case.  Merwart cheerily replied that he would bring that question to the Pope, and have him decide.

Christian Turner then intervened, suggesting that the trial be adjourned for two days, to let everyone cool off.  He, Turner, would then give his judgment on whether Kramer was competent to try the case.

Coincidentally or not, when the court reconvened, it was on the evening before All Saints--what we today usually call “Halloween.”  When everyone had gathered together, Turner announced his decision: That the trial had been “instituted in violation of the legal system.”  He ordered that the accused women be immediately released from custody.  It was also revealed that Archduke Sigismund had paid the women’s legal bills, as well as the expenses Kramer had run up in Innsbruck.  Wasn’t that nice of him?  Everyone was now free to go on their merry way.  Court officials strongly suggested that Kramer not let the door hit him on the way out.

Unfortunately for the world, Kramer got revenge for his defeat by writing “Malleus Maleficarum,” intended as a training manual for other witch-hunters.  It is one of the most cruel and misogynistic books ever written.  Kramer described all women--going back to Eve--as stupid, sex-obsessed, dishonest, and generally dangerous.  Little wonder, he argued, that nearly all practitioners of the black arts were female.  He declared that these witches must be sought out and destroyed.  Oh, and don’t bother with “legal niceties.”  Just round up those devil worshipers, and torture them until they confess.  His arguments, deranged as they sound, were appallingly influential, resulting in the persecution and death of uncountable numbers of people, largely women.

Although Kramer lost the Innsbruck battle, you could say he won the war.

Friday, November 8, 2024

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

It's not the only new thing around here, I guess.



Britain's last executed witch...may not have been executed after all.

Why we call it a "grandfather clock."

The British "bonfire night" of 1824.

Why ancient Roman concrete was so strong.

The use of medicinal herbs 15,000 years ago.

To some people, it's a museum.  To others, it's a crime scene.

The day it rained cats in Brooklyn.

The days of professional walking.

Some old-fashioned cocoa and cider recipes.

Some old-fashioned sandwich recipes.  (Be warned: Most of them sound pretty horrifying.)

A medieval nurse gets a raise.

In which a bunch of Chinese dinosaurs die boring deaths.

The cat science behind "If it fits, I sits."

The life of a British barrister in India.

Do ghosts die?

The old signage of London.

Pro tip: Before buying a home, check the attic.

The mysterious sequel to an Iron Age massacre.

Some medieval marginalia.

The cholera scourge, 1849.

Do you ever get the feeling that you belong to the wrong species?

Divination in Early Modern Britain.

The Battle of Tippecanoe.

A murder case with some wild twists.

Did prehistoric Polynesians sail to Antarctica?

Is this the world's oldest tree?

The life and death of an Ice Age infant.

A brief history of the "royal we."

A "boy murderer."

The mice of Philpot Lane.

A slice of medieval Polish history.

A bizarre ancient "Frankenstein" skeleton.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a witchcraft case with a feel-good ending.  In the meantime, bring on the mandolins!

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com



Ghosts may be alarming, but they’re usually not hazardous to your health.  This following tale may be an exception.  The “Altoona Times,” October 27, 1884:

New York, October 25.--Dr. Charles C. King, of Buffalo, who is now here, tells a curious story. A month ago two men entered his office.  One said he was suffering from a physical injury inflicted by a ghostly assailant. The doctor was incredulous, but examined and found a couple of severe bruises on his chest, one round, as if inflicted by a club, and the other long and narrow, like a knife cut. The fourth rib had been broken and the right lung injured. The surface of the body was not injured, beyond discoloration. 

"How the injuries could be inflicted I could not guess," said the doctor. "The patient said he was asleep, felt himself suddenly seized by the throat, struggled to get away, but only succeeded in getting enough liberty to scream.  He was immediately struck in the chest, felt the bones crush and was stabbed. The blade entered his side several times. He was found lying on the floor senseless, the moon shining upon him, the windows and doors all locked on the inside, and nothing disturbed." 

The patient recovered finally, and the doctor went home, thirty miles, with him. He had gone to bed, when he heard a horrible shriek, followed by a heavy, crashing sound. He found the man lying on the floor senseless, bleeding from the mouth, with his rib broken afresh, his body bruised all over, and evidently in a dying condition.  He recovered consciousness a short time before death, and asserted that he had been picked up by an invisible foe, hurled against the wall and then thrown on the floor. 

"I believe he could not have injured himself on either occasion," concluded the doctor.

Monday, November 4, 2024

Fake Telegrams and a Genuine Death: The Elizabeth Cook Mystery

In February 1932, a twenty-year-old Bostonian named Elizabeth Barrett Cook was sailing in the steamer Chinese Prince from Naples to Gibraltar.  However, when she received a cablegram from a Helen James, announcing the death of Cook’s fiancé, St. George Arnold, the young woman naturally planned to head home as soon as possible, although the message, rather oddly, told her “on no account” to return to America.

She never made it.  Soon after she received the tragic news, she fell ill, and soon afterward was found dead in her cabin, with the cable lying beside her.

And here the story turns from mere tragedy to dizzying insanity.  It soon transpired that the cable was a hoax.  No one in the Cook family had ever heard of any “Helen James.”  And Mr. Arnold was alive and in perfect health.  It was also discovered that this was not the first time Miss Cook had been the target of such a cruel stunt.  Found among her papers was another cable she had received the previous June, alerting her to the serious illness of her mother.  That statement had been another ghoulish fiction.

How did this young woman die so suddenly, you may be wondering?  Good question.  Some reports said traces of a sleeping drug were found in her system, indicating either accidental or deliberate overdose.  Other reports discount this, saying she died of pneumonia.  An autopsy was performed, but it was unable to show the cause of Cook's death.  However, no sign of drugs were found in her organs.

Who sent the sadistic “joke” cablegrams?  You tell me.  A theory was floated at the time that, out of a peculiar sense for the dramatic, Miss Cook sent the messages to herself.  The Boston Post ran a story alleging that on a previous cruise, Cook had sent herself a fake telegram announcing the death of her mythical sweetheart, “Malcolm,” after which she staged a melodramatic scene threatening suicide.  

Many people are fond of hoaxing others, but hoaxing yourself would be something of a first.  

"Sheboygan Press," February 24, 1932, via Newspapers.com


The “Post” alluded to reports that sleeping pills had been found in her cabin, and hinted that Cook had used them to stage what she intended to be a fake suicide attempt that, unfortunately, proved to be more realistic than she had expected.  According to one story, it was discovered that the bogus messages were not cablegrams, but telegrams that had been sent from Italy, which suggested she had sent them from Naples just before boarding the “Chinese Prince.”  However, as far as I can tell this was never corroborated.  Having only the conflicting contemporary news stories to go by, it is hard to tell how much of what they printed was solid fact or fanciful fiction.

An intriguing detail was that it was well-known that Cook was an heiress.  The very next year, she was due to receive two legacies that would have made her an extremely wealthy young woman.  It was never made clear who would receive this money in the event of her death.  It is impossible to tell what, if any, connection this had to her strange demise.

If there was any solid resolution to this peculiar case, it evidently was never disclosed.

Friday, November 1, 2024

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

I'd invite you all for dinner, but the kitchen staffers at Strange Company HQ are having One Of Those Days.



The Stull-Best murder.

The trick-or-treat murder.

A plant that is "both ghost and vampire."

Victorian era swapping.

The practice of feeding the dead to vultures.

Railway travel in 19th century France.

Mexico's "back door to Hell."

Why "Fido" became a popular dog name.

Rules for medieval anchoresses.

Ancient fortune-telling tools.

A genealogist goes rogue.

Scary medieval animals.

Scary medieval witches.

A murderous mother.

The range of mystical experiences.

Drunken ghosts!  Cannibal ghosts!

Julius Caesar vs. the pirates.

Humans aren't the only ones who like to tie one on.

When numbers were tactile.

Why ghosts aren't usually naked.

The nature of terror.

An alien abduction case in Los Angeles.  (A caveat: I live in L.A., and it's often hard to tell the extraterrestrial visitors from the native residents.  Just FYI.)

An alien abduction case in New York.

We see them here, we see them there, we see those damned ghosts everywhere.

A visit to the UK's most haunted castle.

A wild story about a royal dentist.

The piece of cheese that nearly destroyed a rocket test.

October 31 is more than just Halloween.

Mark Twain's haunted house.

A brief history of palm reading.

A brief history of the muses.

The grim side of Victorian humor.

A memorial to librarians who died during WWI.

The strange case of the vanishing police chief.

A demon-possessed convent.

More evidence that we've been underestimating Neanderthals.

A diplomatic incident, 1600.

A previously unknown Chopin piece has been discovered.

Victorian scientists were fascinated by ghosts.

Ancient Mesopotamians were fascinated by beer.

The Harvard astrophysicist who's fascinated by alien wreckage.

Maybe we shouldn't meditate.  (And don't even talk to me about hypnosis.  I know someone who was really screwed up by that crap.)

A brief history of the word, "scary."

The skeleton that confirmed a Norse saga.

Why smugglers used to love ghost stories.

The Corpsewood Manor murders.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a young woman's puzzling death.  In the meantime, here's a lovely bit of Bach.