The bamberg witch trials

Between and were killed. It is worth noting that although a vast number of alleged witches were executed in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, most deaths resulted from mass panics in a few separate communities.

That a witch-prison was built in Bamberg highlights the intensity of the hunts in this particular town. Both Protestants and Catholics viewed each other as heretics.

This can in part explain why there were so few witch hunts in religiously stable areas, such as Spain, and so many in volatile areas, such as Germany. Bamberg fits into this view neatly: it was a re-Catholisised town surrounded by Protestant states. Most of the victims were women. As was often the case, he was implicated by other victims under torture.

Junius continued deny his involvement in witchcraft for a week of torture, before finally confessing. Whilst imprisoned, he wrote a secret letter to his daughter. On June 28, , his first interrogation took place. The interrigators ask him to confess voluntarily. A man present at the time took notes on what Junius said: " He has never renounced God; God will not forsake him; if he were such a wretch he would not let himself be so tortured; God must show some token of his innocence.

He knows nothing about witchcraft Thumbscrews, strappado, and leg screws. After many torture sessions and interrogations, he still didn't confess. The torturer begged him to confess because he knew Junius couldn't last much longer with the torture. The torturer told him to make something up that will prove him a witch. And so he did. He confessed that he was to kill his children. He also confessed that a woman that turned into a devil goat seduced him and made him renounce God.

Braun replied: You are a scoundrel. Oh no, I cried, I am certainly not that, not in the slightest, I am as honourable as all of you, but if it continues like this, then no honourable man in Bamberg is safe, you just as little as me or anyone else. He was then condemned to death. The End. The Hexenbischof Witch Bishop von Dornheim, as he was known, ruled the state from to and established an efficient witch-burning machine aided by the Inquisition.

By the time von Dornheim reached power, witch- hunting had already been established in Bamberg, and at least persons had been executed since Von Dornheim established an operation of lawyers, full-time torturers and executioners, led by Suffragan Bishop Friedrich Forner.

A witch prison, a Drudenhaus, was built, with a capacity of 30 to 40 prisoners. A network of informers was encouraged, and the hunts began afresh in Accusations were not made public, and the accused were denied legal counsel.

Torture was the rule, not the exception, and was rigorously applied to all suspects. No one subjected to torture avoided confessing to attending Sabbats, desecrating the cross, having intercourse with Demons, poisoning per- sons see poisons and other crimes. Victims were put in thumbscrews and vises, dumped in cold baths and in scalding lime baths, whipped, hung in the strappado see torture , burned with feathers dipped in sulphur, put in iron-spiked stocks and subjected to other forms of excruciating abuse.