Bamberg witch trials

Supported by the theologian Friedrich Förner [de], the bishop allowed a trial to go ahead that grew out of a family quarrel.

The territory was close to the Catholic-Protestant religious border, and the goal of the new Prince Bishop was to create a "Godly state" in accordance with the ideals of the Counter-Reformation, and to make the population obedient, devout and conformally Catholic.

[5] The Prince-Bishop was aided in this religious cleansing by his assisting Bishop, the theologian Friedrich Förner [de], whose theological work The Splendind Armour of God was recommended in the sermons of the Bamberg churches and who portrayed the souls of humanity caught in the struggle between Good and Evil; Förner believed that Bamberg was not religiously pure, and that the public trusted folk healers such as "cunning women and litte women-witches" more than the church.

[7] Johann Langhans, Mayor of Zeil outside of Bamberg (who would himself later be executed), noted in his diary: Maria Anna Junius, a nun in a convent in Bamberg (whose father would later be executed), wrote in her chronicle that: "a loud cry went up in the city...people where frighetened to death as they awoke to find that an unnatural night frost had killed off all the fruit trees, rendered the ground as hard as stone and put pain to the grain harvest.

[9] Citizens started to send petitions to the authorities demanding to know why witches and wizards had caused the frost, and the Prince Bishop issued an investigation.

[11] When the accused had confessed their own guilt, torture was applied to make them name their accomplices or other people they had seen attending the Witches' Sabbath.

The Emperor protested, but the ongoing Thirty Years' War prevented an intervention in Bamberg,[clarification needed] and the Prince-Bishop ignored the Imperial orders.

[11] In April 1630, the Emperor called upon the Prince-Bishop to defend himself against the accusation made against him and to put an immediate stop to the case against Dorothea Flock.

[11] An Imperial edict was issued by the Hofrat, but the witch hunters learned about its imminent delivery and executed Dorothea shortly before its arrival.

When Dorothea Flock was executed on 17 May, the problem of the ongoing Bamberg witch trials was placed on the agenda of the Imperial Diet of Regensburg on 20 September 1630.

[3] In parallel, Germany was devastated by the Swedish army under king Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who commented that he was willing to intervene against the witch trials of Bamberg.

[17] In Bamberg, the assisting Bishop and theologian Friedrich Förner [de], who was a leading figure in the witch trials, died this year.

[citation needed] Support among the population began to fade as people increasingly realized that everybody was at risk of ending up on the pyre.

[3] In contemporary Germany, the gigantic, parallel mass witch trials of Würzburg and Bamberg were seen as role models by other states and cities interested in investigating witchcraft, notably Wertheim and Mergentheim.