Was the Kežmarok witch trial really the last in Central Europe?

31 Oct

It is widely known to the people of Kežmarok that a few centuries ago there was a gallows on the street called Bloody Field, far outside the city gates. Many people's heads ended up separated from their bodies under the executioner's blade, and the blood has long since soaked into the ground under our feet. This led me to think, whether Kežmarok also witnessed the bloody witch hunts in the Middle Ages?

The birth of the witch hunt

We know many stories, especially from the American colony of the town of Salem, where women suspected of witchcraft were mercilessly condemned and burned, but the idea of witch hunting goes much deeper into history, and magic in various forms is a part of every culture.

People believed that witches had a direct connection with the devil, who gave them supernatural powers that allowed them to cast spells, fly on broomsticks, and harm others. Christianity tried to eradicate from our culture the remnants of the previous religion, rituals and traditions that were considered pagan and therefore impure, and at the same time, people tried to clarify inexplicable things or tragic events by pointing to witches. In 906, the Church published the Canon Episcopi and actively began to fight against witchcraft. Subsequently, in 1231-1232, established a central ecclesiastical investigative office whose purpose was to search for heretics and sectarians, and from 1252 it allowed torture during investigations, culminating in accusations of connections with the devil. Heretics were burned at the stake.

In 1486, two Dominicans, Jakub Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer, created a comprehensive guide to the entire process of prosecuting witches and wizards under the name The Hammer of Witches, which started a mass craze. Under the wings of the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, Heinrich Kramer worked as an inquisitor in Europe and from 1500 also in Bohemia and Moravia, where he finally died.

In Europe, 60-80 thousand people died on the borders during more than three centuries between 1430-1780. Although the witch hunt is most often remembered as the period of the Dark Ages, in fact the Inquisition peaked in the early modern period in the 16th-17th century and somewhere even in the enlightened 18th century. That was also the case in our territory.

Inquisition in Upper Hungary

Society already in the period of the early Hungarian state believed that witches had magical powers and could do harm, but in Hungary the Church Inquisition was not established as it was known in the rest of Europe. Cases of witches were dealt with by land and capital courts. In addition, Hungary was struggling with fighting the Ottomans, but as soon as the anti-Turkish wars ended, our borders caught fire. Despite "milder" punishments, people were burned, drowned, buried alive, tortured, flogged, beaten with a broom, expelled from the village, but sometimes it ended with just a warning.

Monarchs established only mild punishments. In the decree of King Steven I. it is written: "If a some witch was found, according to the judicial law, let it be brought to the church and handed over to the priest for fasting and instruction in the faith, after fasting let it return home." If she is found guilty of the same offense a second time, let her undergo a similar fast, but let her burn on her breast and on her forehead and also between her shoulder blades with a church key and let her return home. If (it is) the third time, let her be handed over to the judges.'

It was the same in the decrees of King Ladislav. The Hungarian king Koloman wrote in one of his decrees: "There should be no investigation about witches, since they do not exist." Cases involving witches were thus to be dealt with in the same way as any other crime or misdemeanor.

In the 12th century, a red-hot iron or water ordeal was introduced in Hungary, which was carried out by the county court in the presence of a church representative. If the claim was not confirmed, the plaintiff received the same punishment as the guilty party. The Council of Buda in 1279 forbade the church to participate in ordals.

In the Hungarian city of Budin in 1421, it was established that witches were to be punished first by having to stand on a ladder from morning to noon on the feast day, wearing a Jewish hat and with painted images of angels on their heads. Subsequently, they were supposed to swear that they would improve and give up their delusions. However, if they were caught doing something like that again, they would be put to death by burning, just like heretics.

The first witch trial on the territory of today's Slovakia, which at that time was part of Upper Hungary, took place in Banská Štiavnica in 1520, although the trial in Štítnik from 1506 or in Zvolen from 1509 is also known, where, according to preserved information, a witch Catherine was burned, and in 1517 in Košice, Ján Teriéki was supposed to be subjected to the water test.

The largest number of witch trials in Slovakia took place in Krupina, where around 50 people convicted of magic were gradually executed by beheading or burning. We also have preserved data on processes in Bratislava, Bardejov, Komárno, Šamorín, Trenčín, Štítnik, Košice or Spišská Nova Ves. In Levoča, even a woman who was out on the street after dark (which is my usual time for walking with Wolf, especially in the winter months) could be imprisoned in the cage of shame.

Around 400 witch trials are documented in Upper Hungary, and there were approximately 2,000 accusations of witchcraft in the whole of Hungary. They mostly arose from petty quarrels, envy, revenge or hatred, and half ended with torture, hanging, burning or beheading. These were people who differed physically or mentally, were from a different social, religious or ethnic group, had no children, cursed, gathered herbs and medicine, talked to animals, worked as midwives, or were present when the area a natural disaster or economic crisis has struck. (It is clear to me, as well as to regular readers of my blog, that too many points describe me, and in that century I would probably end up burned at the stake.)

The end of the Hungarian witch trials began to be written thanks to Mary Theresa, who from 1756 requested in the governor's council in Bratislava that the witch trials be stopped. She did not believe in superstitions and blamed the church for the resulting mania. She reformed the outdated judiciary and in 1768 issued a new penal code, the Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana, which banned witch trials, sentencing, corporal punishment and abolished medieval torture. Her son, Emperor Joseph II, issued a definitive ban on the prosecution of witches in 1787.

Witches in Kežmarok

Compared to other Hungarian capitals, there were relatively few witch trials in Spiš. About twenty are known. Samuel Weber, an evangelical pastor and an expert on not only Spiš history, wrote about them in the book Belief in Witches. He states that the people dealt with quacks and witches before the court sat and lynchings took place with the tacit approval of the board.

In Kežmarok, the devil allegedly appeared to the evangelical pastor Georg Buchholtz. He appeared after the evening bell at the Ľubovnian castle and carried the Polish Catholic guard into the room, where he threw him between the beds. Buchholtz concluded that "this is how the devil plays his games with the unbelievers". The second time, the devil went on a rampage for eight days, throwing vessels. Buchholtz was invited together with the cantor to exorcise the devil. With the help of singing, prayer and preaching, there was peace at night, but the next day the antics were even worse. The parish priest repeated everything, but the antics calmed down only after a huge stone fell on his wife's leg. Buchholtz claimed that the cause was the impiety of the master of the house, who had converted to the Catholic faith. Kežmarok was a purely evangelical town for a whole century and the Catholic faith was forbidden here.

When the Catholic Church returned to Kežmarok, in the years 1714-1718 he administered the parish of the Church of St. Cross, Father Augustín Mayer. He sent complaints to the bishop (at that time basically only the provost of Spiš, because the bishopric was established later) Ján Sigray, and he entrusted Ján Peltz and Štefan Loviskovics with the establishment of a church inquisition in Kežmarok, which outraged the predominantly evangelical town. These efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.

I would like to get to that letter, what were the complaints that Sigray allowed the ecclesiastical inquisition. As provost of Spiš, Ján Sigray advocated the elimination of heresies. Štefan Loviskovics, whom Sigray appointed, was a canon in the Spiš chapter, just like Ján Peltz. He was even dean of the chapter and apostolic prothonotary and later provost of Spiš in the mentioned years.

An interesting piece of information is that the Bishopric of Spiš was established in 1776, i.e. just a year before the allegedly last witch trial mentioned by Tünde Lengyelová in her book. She writes that "the last trial in which they pronounced the death sentence took place in 1777 in Kežmarok. In the capital minutes it is noted: "Gurka Maria et Poleczko Johannes propter magiam ad gladium condemnati sunt" (for magic they were sentenced to beheaded). This sentence is considered to be the last in the case of witches in all of Central Europe."

Unfortunately, one article in Korzár says: "It was found that this sentence was pronounced 60 years earlier. Kežmarok thus lost this infamous spot behind the witch trials."

I therefore looked for the truth and found the Annual Report of Historical Science in German, probably from 1893, where in footnote no. 660 cited entry from the book Belief in Witches by Samuel Weber: "In Lublau as early as 1777, Maria Gurka and Ján Poleczko were sentenced to death by beheading for magic." In his book, Apfel translated Lublau as the Polish city of Lublin, but at that time Stará Ľubovňa was known as Lublau. If that is the case, then this witchcraft trial did not take place in Kežmarok at all.

Several cities are vying for a point behind witchcraft trials in Central Europe. One of them is the case of Žofia Durčáková from Pekelník in 1790, who was indicted for "doing sorcery and knowledge and luring people to and against each other with daring words". She received 40 blows with a whip on the market in Trstená and was expelled from the Orava seat.

As I study and research this historical information, I long to be able to go back in time and be a fly on the wall to answer the many questions that cannot be found in any notebook. What were those women like and what did they do to meet such a terrible fate? We won't find out today.