Witchcraft and Forensic Medicine in Seventeenth-Century Germany

Abstract

On 28 February 1672, the barber-surgeon and bather from the princely court at Langenburg was requested to carry out an autopsy on the body of a peasant woman from the nearby village of Hürden. Anna Fessler, a poor servant who had worked at the court, had died suddenly and mysteriously just a few days before, and alarmed villagers feared that a witch had poisoned her. These court functionaries were not so certain. Fessler’s untimely death puzzled them. The case, they argued to Dr Georg von Gülchen, the Court Advisor, required a physical inspection of the corpse to determine the cause of death. A formal forensic medical examination of Fessler’s body might provide a convincing medical explanation for her untimely death. In the meantime villagers denounced the Hürden miller’s wife, Anna Elisabeth Schmieg, for witchcraft. According to witnesses, Schmieg’s daughter had brought a basket full of cakes to the Fessler house on Shrove Tuesday, and, in a suspicious gesture, urged Fessler to eat one large and appetizing cake in particular. After wondering whether she should accept the gift, Fessler accepted it, and took several bites. The young maid, satisfied, then returned home. Later that evening Fessler began to complain of stomach pains. She paced restlessly about the house, while waves of heat and sweat broke over her body. Intense fears and anxiety overwhelmed her. Her mother and sister, who were present during the terrible ordeal, reported that her torso, neck, and legs swelled to grotesque proportions. When her husband came home late that night, she was writhing in pain in bed, and calling out: ‘Lord Jesus, I must die!’ At midnight she did.¹