The document is about the interrogation of Johannes Junius who was accused of witchcraft during the craze of 1628. Junius first was involved in local politics in 1608 and served as a burgomaster starting from 1614. Due to his wife’s execution for witchcraft, Junius had been suspected of being a witch (Apps & Gow, 2018). Georg Neudecker, another burgomaster who had been charged with witchcraft and imprisoned in April 1628, identified Junius as an accomplice, which resulted in Junius’s capture in June 1628 (Zika, 2017). Additionally, Junius was mentioned in the confessions of other alleged witches.
The court document describes how Junius at first denied all charges. He then requested to confront his witnesses and continued to deny his involvement in witchcraft after over a week of torture, which included the use of thumbscrews, leg vises (Beinschrauben), and strappado. On July 5, 1628, he finally confessed, saying that he had traded God for the Devil and that he had seen 27 of his coworkers on a sabbat (Apps & Gow, 2018). One month later, Junius was publicly burned to death.
According to Junius’ confession, he was seduced by a woman in 1624 who later turned out to be a succubus and threatened to murder him if he did not give up his faith in God. At the time, he was in a precarious financial situation (Levack, 2003). Although Junius first resisted, more demons soon appeared and continued to torment him, eventually persuading him to choose the Devil as his god. When he adopted the witch’s name Krix and received the familiar Füchsin (also known as “Vixen”), numerous locals came forward to admit that they were also in league with Satan and offered their congratulations (Levack, 2003). After that, he frequently went to witches’ sabbats and rode a huge, flying black dog. He went to a Black Mass at one of these Sabbats where Beelzebub made an appearance.
The document presents the period of Bamberg witch trials that were between 1627-1632. One of the largest mass trials and executions ever witnessed in Europe, as well as one of the largest witch trials in history, it took place in the autonomous Catholic Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg in the Holy Roman Empire in modern-day Germany (Leeson & Russ, 2018). In Bamberg, around 900 persons were put to death after being suspected of witchcraft over a lengthy period (1626–1632). People of all ages, sexes, and social groups were all burned at the stake, occasionally after being beheaded and occasionally while still alive.
The witch trials were performed by a Catholic Prince Bishop who wanted to bring the Counter-Reformation to his country during the continuing Thirty Years War between Protestants and Catholics. They took place in a region on the religious boundary between Catholic and Protestant lands (Jütte, 2020). The region was near the Catholic-Protestant theological boundary, and the new Prince Bishop wanted to establish a kingdom in line with the Counter-Reformational principles and convert the populace to Catholicism.
Due to inadequate documentation, the precise reason behind the witch trials of 1626–1631 is not known. Frost ruined the entire region’s harvest in May 1626 (Jütte, 2020). After receiving petitions from citizens asking why witches and wizards were to blame for the frost, Prince Bishop launched an inquiry (Jütte, 2020). After being detained, a woman admitted to using witchcraft to bring on the frost. With the responsibility of handling all cases of witchcraft, a special Witch Commission was established. This commission employed professional prosecutors, including the renowned doctor Schwarzkonz of Eichstätt. The use of whipping and expulsion was forbidden for any criticism of the trials after the ban was enforced.
Reference List
Apps, L., & Gow, A. (2018) Appendix Johannes Junius: Bamberg’s famous male witch. In Male witches in early modern Europe. Manchester University Press.
Jütte, D. (2020) “Survivors of Witch Trials and the Quest for Justice in Early Modern Germany.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 50(2), pp. 349-375.
Leeson, P. T., & Russ, J. W. (2018) Witch trials. The Economic Journal, 128(613), pp. 2066-2105.
Levack, B. P. (2003) The witchcraft sourcebook. Routledge.
Zika, C. (2017) The Witch of Endor Before the Witch Trials. In Contesting Orthodoxy in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.