The Trial of Tempel Anneke (Pages 1-37) (2023-09-07)

The trial of Tempel Anneke: records of a
witchcraft trial in Brunswick, Germany, 1663

Author(s) Morton, Peter A.; Dähms, Barbara
Imprint University of Toronto [Ontario] Press, 2017
Extent lxxvii, 170 pages
ISBN 9781442634879, 9781442634909
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The Trial of Tempel Anneke
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The Trial of

Tempel Anneke
Records of a Witchcraft Trial in
Brunswick, Germany, 1663
second edition
edited by pe ter morton
translated by barbara dähms

Copyright © University of Toronto Press 2017
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

The trial of Tempel Anneke : records of a witchcraft trial in Brunswick, Germany, 1663 / edited
by Peter Morton ; translated by Barbara Dähms. —Second edition.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4426-3488-6 (hardback).—ISBN 978-1-4426-3487-9 (paperback).
—ISBN 978-1-4426-3489-3 (html).—ISBN 978-1-4426-3490-9 (pdf).
1. Roleffes, Anna, approximately 1600–1663—Trials, litigation, etc. 2. Trials

(Witchcraft)—Germany—Braunschweig. I. Morton, Peter A. (Peter Alan), 1952–, editor
II. Dähms, Barbara, 1954–, translator
KK270.7.R65T75 2017 345.43'59760288 C2016-905907-3
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(previous page) Figure 1. Cityscape of Brunswick from the east by Merian after Conrad Buno,
1641. This engraving shows the city as it appeared at the time of the trial. The municipality of
Hagen, where the trial took place, is on the right side of the cityscape.

For Paul

This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Acknowledgments xii
Preface to the First Edition xiv
Preface to the Second Edition xvi
Introduction xviii
I. Historical Background xviii
II. Understanding the Text xlii
III. Lists of People lii
IV. Historiographical Essay lvii
V. Suggestions for Further Reading lxxv
The Trial of Tempel Anneke (1663) 1

Document A 1
Document B 2
Document C 3
Folio 1 4
Folio 2 6
Folio 3 9
Folio 4 19
Folio 5 20
Folio 6 21
Folio 7 25
Folio 8 29
Folio 9 31
Folio 10 32
Folio 11 37
Folio 12 38
Folio 13 39
Folio 14a 40
vii

viii Contents
Folio 14b 42
Folio 15 43
Folio 16 44
Folio 18 45
Folio 19 50
Folio 20 50
Folio 21 53
Folio 22 55
Folio 23 63
Folio 24 65
Folio 25 66
Folio 26 67
Folio 27 77
Folio 28 79
Folio 29 86
Folio 30 92
Folio 31 93
Folio 32 97
Folio 33 98
Folio 34 102
Folio 35 104
Folio 36 104
Folio 37 105
Folio 38 106
Folio 39 107
Folio 40 109
Folio 41 110
Folio 42 111
Folio 43 112
Folio 44 116
Folio 45 119
Supplementary Civic Records 121

Record 1 Excerpt from the Civic Regulations (Polizeiordnung) of
Brunswick (seventeenth century) 121
Record 2 Marital Agreement between Hans Kage and Anna Roleffes,
June 1620 121

Contents ix
Record 3 Marital Agreement between Jürgen Roleffes and Anna

Marvese, June 1655 124
Record 4 The Licence of Hans Harves (Tempel Hans) for the
Fishery, House, and Beer Sale at the Tempel Hof, 1658 125
Record 5 The Arrest of Tempel Anneke, June 1663: Excerpt from the
Testimony in the Trial of Lücke Behrens for Witchcraft, Brunswick,
1672 127
Record 6 Court Salaries, 1663 128
Record 7 Excerpts from the Prisoner Accounts Books, 1663–64 129
Record 8 Agreement between Hennig Roleffes of Wenden and Jürgen
Roleffes of Harxbüttel, March 1664 130
Record 9 Marital Agreement between Hennig Buhmann and Maria
Kage, and Buhmann’s Tenancy Oath, 1670–71 132
Record 10 The Later Affairs of Hennig Roleffes of Wenden,
1677–78 134
Appendices 139
A. Glossary of Latin Terms 139
B. Index of Herbs and Medicinal Ingredients 144
References 147
Sources 157
Index 159

This page intentionally left blank
Illustrations
figures
2 Cityscape of Brunswick from the east, by Merian after Conrad
Buno, 1641 (detail) xxiv
3 First page of Folio 11: The testimony of Hille Voge 36
4 First page of Folio 23: The medical judgment of Laurentius
Gieseler 64
5 First page of Folio 44: The final judgment 117
6 Second page of Folio 44: The final judgment 118
7 Christmas Rose (helleborus niger) 143
maps
1 The Village of Harxbüttel, 1730 xxi
2 Plan of the City of Brunswick, 1671 xxvi
3 Plan of the City of Brunswick, 1671 (detail) xxviii
4 District of the Duchy of Brunswick, 1715 (detail) xxx
5 The Holy Roman Empire in 1648 xxxii
xi

Acknowledgments
for t h e f ir st e dition
First of all we thank Katharina Dähms and Hans-Dietrich Dähms for their
support and hospitality during research visits to Brunswick. We thank the
Department of Humanities of Mount Royal College for continuous sup-
port and encouragement. For much advice and direction with sources and
historical material, we thank Peter’s departmental colleagues: Tom Brown,
David Clemis, Steven Engler, Debra Jensen, and Scott Murray. Manuel
Mertin, Dean of Arts of Mount Royal College, has also been supportive of
the project from the outset.
The project received financial support, as well as encouragement, from
the Scholarly Pursuits Committee of Mount Royal University. Professor
J.J. MacIntosh of the University of Calgary was enthusiastically helpful in
obtaining financial assistance.
The staff of the Stadtarchiv Braunschweig, especially Herr Krone and
Herr Nickel, have been continuously helpful, both during our initial col-
lecting of documents and with the selection and reproduction of illustra-
tions. We also thank the Landesmuseum Braunschweig, and specifically
Herr Otte, for help with illustrations.
Janet Sisson of Mount Royal College was most helpful with the Latin
translations. We received much good advice and some useful references
from three anonymous reviewers.
Finally, we thank Mical Moser of Broadview Press for her encourage-
ment and patience, as well as her constant good humor.
for t h e se c on d e dition
Peter Dietrich, Historical Custodian for the Municipality of Harxbüttel, first
drew our attention to Tempel Anneke’s marriage agreement. Professor Chris
Friedrichs of the University of British Columbia, and Dr. Manfred Garz-
mann, formerly director of the Stadtarchiv Braunschweig, corrected
our translation of the term Gograf in Folios 2, 3, 7, 10, and 11. Peter would
xii

Ack now l edgm en ts xiii
like to acknowledge the generous assistance of the staff at the Herzog

August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, and especially of Christian Hogrefe. We
thank two anonymous readers of the historiography for their suggestions.
Our final word of thanks is to Natalie Fingerhut of the University of Toronto
Press for her encouragement and advice in preparing this edition.

Preface to the First Edition
This book is a translation of the records of a witchcraft trial that took place
in Brunswick, Germany, in 1663. Our intent has been to make the complete
contents of the original documents available in English, as they exist in
the archive, and occasionally as they can be reconstructed from other
sources. Our decision to translate the records arose from our joint belief
that they offer an unusually close picture of the people involved, especially
of Tempel Anneke herself. Of the trial records in the Brunswick area that
we have read, including some as detailed as the Tempel Anneke case, this
one stands out in its vividness.
The book is organized into three basic parts. In the Introduction, we
give some historical background and describe the legal context of the trial.
The trial records and supplementary archival documents make up the bulk
of the book. In the last section, we have included appendices to assist with
the Latin terms used in the records, and with the identification of the herbs
and medicinal ingredients mentioned in the trial testimony.
The introduction provides background to the trial’s social and histori-
cal context. The first section outlines the situation in Brunswick at the
time of the trial, and presents some key historical background: we detail
here the early modern “composite” nature of witchcraft as consisting of
both maleficium and diabolism, and also the role of the Carolina (the crim-
inal code of the Holy Roman Empire) in the actual structure of the legal
proceedings. The second section of the Introduction describes the archival
documents: of what they consist, who wrote them, and the positions and
responsibilities of the court officials named. This second section also con-
siders some aspects of the translation, such as the choice of specific words
as well as certain conventions we have adopted in reproducing the text.
We wish to emphasize what this volume does not undertake to do. It is
intended as a primary source document, with as much background infor-
mation as is needed to make sense of the text. In this light, the introductory
chapter is not in any way intended as a general introduction to the history
of the witch trials of early modern Europe. The general history of the trials
xiv

P r e fac e t o t h e F ir s t E d iti o n xv
is a large and complex subject, embracing a number of controversial issues,

and we have not attempted a synopsis of it here. For those readers with an
interest in the wider history of the witch trials, we have included footnotes
with references, and a brief section of further readings. Here again, because
the literature is so vast, we have included in this section only those materi-
als that offer an introduction to the topic, rather than attempting any kind
of general bibliography.
We have not included our own interpretation of the records or provided
a synopsis of their contents. While we certainly have our own theories
about the trial, we do not want these to come between the reader and the
text. We adopted the same approach in the translation. In the interests of
providing as direct an experience with the records as possible, this is a
fairly literal translation which preserves the style and character of the orig-
inal, while leaving the result easily readable in English.
a note to t h e se c on d pr i n ti ng
In addition to the correction of some minor errors, we have added a new
entry to the Supplementary Civic Records: Record 4. Testimony from
the trial of Lücke Behrens for witchcraft, Brunswick 1672. This record
contains a description of the arrest of Tempel Anneke at the home of
Christian Loers.

Preface to the Second Edition
This is an expanded edition of the book published some ten years ago. To
this edition we have added new information about Tempel Anneke and
about the circumstances and events in the village of Harxbüttel. The addi-
tions do not change what we know about the trial itself but give us a better
picture of the social and cultural context within which it occurred. To help
form this picture we have expanded the introduction and added some new
documents and illustrations. In addition to the expansion of historical
information, we have included in this second edition some new instruc-
tional material intended to help the reader work with and interpret the
trial records.
The records included in the first edition consisted solely of documents
pertaining to the trial and its legal context. But trials for witchcraft, like
any other, do not occur in isolation. The social situations of the accused
and the witnesses, and the relationships between them, need to be exam-
ined to gain a proper picture. And of course life in the village of Harxbüt-
tel, where Tempel Anneke lived, went on before and after the trial. We
thought, therefore, that it would be of value to provide translations of doc-
uments relating to the people of Harxbüttel that offer the reader material
from which to form a picture of the village and its cultural setting. To this
end we have considerably expanded the Supplementary Documents, add-
ing translations of a number of documents from outside the trial itself.
Most of these records are found in the legal register of the church of
St. Blasius in Brunswick, which owned the land on which the village was
situated.1 Some of these records concern Tempel Anneke herself and her
family. To those we have added records concerning other inhabitants of
Harxbüttel who are relevant to the trial. For an overview of documents
translated in the Supplementary Civic Records, see Section IIC of
the Introduction.
1
Provincial Archive of Lower Saxony Wolfenbüttel VII B Hs 163.
xvi

P r e fac e t o t h e S e c o n d E d iti o n xvii
The historical background to the trial in the Introduction to the first

edition focused primarily on the city of Brunswick, where the trial took
place. We have supplemented that information with a better introduction
to the village of Harxbüttel. Parts of this information are drawn from a
history, by Heinz Klose, of the parish of Schwülper, in which Harxbüttel is
situated (Klose 1986). Together with background about families and pro-
fessions in the parish, Klose draws our attention to the devastating impact
on the parish of the Thirty Years’ War and the consequent economic hard-
ship experienced by its inhabitants in the years following. After publica-
tion of the first edition we discovered a delightful illustration of Harxbüttel
from a map made in the year 1730, which we have reproduced on the cover.2
Klose (1986, p. 336) determined the houses in which the families of the vil-
lage lived, which together with the illustration gives us a good picture of
the physical setting in which many of the events described in the trial doc-
uments occurred. (See Map 1.) We hope that the additional documents and
historical information will give the reader a richer understanding of
the social and cultural context within which the trial of Tempel Anneke
took place.
The principal addition to the pedagogical aids in the book is a brief
historiography of the witch trials of early modern Europe. In this histori-
ography we have been careful only to provide indications of some of the
issues historians have debated, and to avoid prejudicing the reader in favor
of one position or another. The issues covered in the historiography are
only some that pertain to the trial of Tempel Anneke, and they do not form
a comprehensive overview of the literature. The hope, however, is that it
will give readers an idea of where to begin looking in constructing their
own interpretations of the trial events. Another addition to the book is a
list of people who gave evidence or were referred to in the records. This
might help the reader keep track of the various people in the events
described in the records, especially in light of the many similar (and even
identical) names.
2
Provincial Archive of Lower Saxony Wolfenbüttel K 2674.

Introduction
i. histor ic a l backgrou n d
A. Anna Roleffes, Known as Temple Anneke
Sometime in June of 1663, Anna Roleffes, known locally as Tempel
Anneke, of the village of Harxbüttel1 near the city of Brunswick, was
arrested on suspicion of witchcraft and was imprisoned in the munici-
pality of Hagen in Brunswick.2 The earliest written allegations against her
appeared in the summer of 1662, and from these records it seems that
there were already at that time official enquiries into her activities. Her
ultimate arrest stemmed from the charge that she used sorcery to obtain
the return of goods stolen from a roofer, Hans Tiehmann. Following her
arrest, the court investigated a number of other allegations against her,
some from many years earlier, and numerous witnesses were questioned
about their knowledge of her affairs. The trial lasted from 25 June to
30 December. Under torture she confessed to witchcraft, and on the latter
date she was beheaded and her body was burned.
At the time of her trial Anna Roleffes was a widow of 63, living on the
farm of her son in Harxbüttel, a small village some seven kilometres north-
west of Brunswick. She was born and grew up in the village. The home of
the village administrator also housed a pub, and the property was known
as the “Tempel Hof.” Shortly before Tempel Anneke’s birth, her father,
Hans Roleffes, had become the administrator and keeper of the pub and
owned the fishing rights for the village. “Anneke” is a diminutive of “Anna,”
and she was known as “Tempel Anneke” because she lived at the Hof as a
young girl. Her mother was Ilse Lilie. Very little is known about her mother,
but Tempel Anneke says she had worked for a barber in her youth and so
1
The name of the village has a form common to the region: the term büttel is from an ancient
Saxon word for house or farm, to which is added the name of the original family. In this case
the family name was originally “Harckes.” So the name indicates the farm of the Harckes
family.
2
Supplementary Record 5 contains a description of her arrest.
xviii

I n tr o d u cti o n xix
had gained some medical knowledge.3 In 1620 Tempel Anneke married

Hans Kage, a son of one of the neighboring farms, and moved to his house
just across the river. The Kage family had lived in Harxbüttel since the
mid-fifteenth century. Supplementary Document 2 is the contract for
Tempel Anneke’s marriage to Hans. Her dowry suggests that her father was
comfortably off, but we cannot be sure of specifics because it was custom-
ary for much of the dowry to be paid out over time as means became avail-
able.4 They had one son, also Hans, whose birthdate is unknown. Their life
would have been a difficult one. The region of Brunswick suffered great
devastation and hardship during and after the Thirty Years’ War, which
ended in 1648. Soldiers burned houses, demanded food and lodging, and
stole cattle and grain. Many people were forced to leave their homes,
including inhabitants of Harxbüttel.5 Anna’s husband was stabbed to death
by soldiers in 1641 outside the nearby ducal city of Wolfenbüttel. Tempel
Anneke left the village shortly after her husband’s death, “because she had
no more means of support,”6 and worked for five years as a maid for the
mayor of Gardelegen, a town about 90 kilometres east of Harxbüttel. Upon
her return she moved back into her home to live with her son, who had
inherited the lease of the farm. She would have been entitled to the income
from her dowry as part of her marriage settlement. Her son, Hans, married
and had two daughters, Anna Maria (usually just called Maria), born
around 1654, and Ilsebey (usually Ilse), born around 1656. They would
have been nine and seven respectively at the time of the trial. Maria’s mar-
riage settlement refers to a younger brother, but without name or birthdate.
Tempel Anneke’s daughter-in-law is not named in any documents, and for
some reason neither she nor Hans was called as a witness for the trial, even
though great effort was made to find other people. The two of them remain
rather elusive characters throughout the records. The daughter-in-law may
have died before the trial, but some evidence suggests she died shortly
before her husband. Hans continued to live on the farm until his death
sometime before his eldest daughter’s marriage in 1670.
Many of the common social characteristics of those accused of witch-
craft at the time can be applied to Tempel Anneke in the years following
her return to Harxbüttel: she was female, elderly, widowed, and dependent
on her family. The trial testimony indicates that she practiced as a healer
and diviner (a person who can obtain hidden information such as the
3
In the seventeenth century, barbers provided basic medical services in addition to cutting
hair.
4
Klose (1986, p. 349).
5
Klose (1986, pp. 78–82).
6
Folio 3.

xx I n tr o d u cti o n
location of lost goods). She had business in the city, and testimony of her
activities originates from several towns and villages in the area northwest
of the city. She may have portrayed her practice as involving magic,
although she denies this in her earliest statements to the court. There was
a teacher resident in Harxbüttel (the current one was lodging at Anna’s
house at the time of the trial), and Anna learned to read as a child. She
owned a few books and herbals, which was unusual for a farm woman of
the time. In her testimony she says she gained her first medical knowledge
from her mother, and she claims to have obtained additional knowledge
from her books and from the practices of shepherds and other local
people.
B. The Village of Harxbüttel

Most of the houses of the village were on a small island in the Schunter
River. The lands and buildings were owned by the Order of St. Blasius, the
principal church of Brunswick.7 The property comprised three farms, a toll
station, and the Tempel Hof. The residents of farms on the property were
free tenants, and they paid a yearly rent to the Order. The leases were gen-
erally for six years, sometimes three, after which they were customarily
renewed. While the lands and buildings belonged to the Order, the goods
and animals of the farms belonged to the lease-holders (who sometimes
paid for construction of the buildings).
The residents of Harxbüttel are indicated on Map 1. It is important to
note that there were two families with the name Roleffes in the village and
surrounding area, and it is easy to confuse them because there was a Hein-
rich and a Hennig in both families. Tempel Anneke had three brothers,
Heinrich, Hennig, and Valentin, none of whom is recorded as married or
having children. Hennig inherited the positions of administrator and pub-
keeper from his father in 1635, but he seems to have died during the time
that Tempel Anneke was in Gardelegen.8 Heinrich was a soldier who lived
in Wenden, a village just a short walk from Harxbüttel. In Folio 28 Tempel
Anneke says that Heinrich ran away to war because he had seduced a girl,
and if so he returned sometime before the trial. Valentin appears in the
trial records, but we can find no other account of him. The other Roleffes
family had been in the village for a longer time. The parents were Heinrich
Roleffes, who died shortly before the trial, and Magdalena Bösken. They
had three sons, Jürgen, Hennig, and Lüdeke, and a daughter Catharina.
Jürgen, the eldest son, married Anna Marvese in 1655, and they lived on
7
It had been gifted to the Order by the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1414 (Klose 1986,
pp. 326–27).
8
This is stated by Hennig Roleffes of Wenden in Folio 18.

I n tr o d u cti o n xxi
Map 1. The Village of Harxbüttel, 1730

The inhabitants of the village at the time of the trial were
1. Hans Harves (“Tempel Hans”), the pub-keeper, and his wife, Anna Steinmann,
with their children;
2. Jürgen Roleffes and his wife, Anna Marvese, with Jürgen’s mother, Magdalena
Bösken;
3. Hans Vette and his wife;
4. Tempel Anneke; her son, Hans Kage, and his wife and two children; the school
teacher, Hans Isensee, and a shoemender, who both had lodgings in the house;
the Schafmeisterse, widow of the sheepmaster (who is said by Tempel Anneke
in Folio 26 to have stayed at the house);
5. a toll collector named Bahrensdorff, who may have lived in this house.
Note the cross atop the Tempel Hof. The structure of the farm houses is typical
for the region and provided lodging for people and animals under one roof.

xxii I n tr o d u cti o n
the farm in Harxbüttel.9 But within a month of the marriage he became

very ill and unable to tend to the farm.10 Hennig, who lived in Wenden,
accused Tempel Anneke of having caused the illness, and also claimed that
her own brother, Hennig, had some years earlier accused her of bewitching
his cows.
The pub-keeper at the time of the trial was Hans Harves, who is referred
to in the trial records as “Tempel Hans.”11 He is one of the principal accus-
ers in the trial. He gained the license and residence at the Tempel Hof in
1658, just five years before the trial.12 His wife was Anna Steinmann, and
they had two children: Hennig, who was two at the time of the trial; and
Magdalena, with whom Anna may have been pregnant.13 The other inhab-
itants of the village included Hans Vette, whose wife is mentioned in the
trial. A toll collector named Bahrensdorff is mentioned in the trial records,
and Klose indicates a toll house at the edge of the village, possibly to collect
payment for the financing of the bridges.
C. The City of Brunswick in the Seventeenth Century14

Brunswick lies in the eastern region of Lower Saxony in northern
Germany, between Hannover and Berlin. In the twelfth century the Guelph
duke Henry the Lion (1129–95) selected Brunswick as his principal resi-
dence, and he built there a castle and a large cathedral, the Dom of
St. Blasius. Over the centuries Brunswick became an important commer-
cial center, strategically located on principal trade routes between northern
European cities. In the seventeenth century it was a fortified city of some
15,000 inhabitants. Until 1671, Brunswick belonged to the Hanseatic
League of cities, whose members were independent in commerce and local
governance from their surrounding jurisdictions.
At the time Brunswick had an unusual civic structure, and to an extent
this affected the trial’s legal structure and proceedings. From its earliest
days as a settlement on the banks of the Oker River, the city was formed of
distinct and largely independent municipalities or boroughs. By the seven-
teenth century there were five such municipalities: Altstadt, Hagen, Neu
stadt, Sack, and Altewieck. Each had its own town hall, mayors and town
9
Anna Marvese was not called to testify at the trial.
10
See Folio 40.
11
The records do not give any indication that he held the post of administrator.
12
See Record 4 of the Supplementary Records.
13
She gave evidence before the court in June 1663, but was called to the court in July and did not
appear due to illness.
14
For the history of Brunswick in the seventeenth century, we have drawn on Jarck and Schildt
(2000), Monderhack (1977), and especially Spiess (1966).

I n tr o d u cti o n xxiii
council, court, and (except Sack) district church. There were, in addition,
two independent ecclesiastical districts: the cathedral chapter of St. Blasius
in the city center, and the church and monastery of St. Aegidien in the
south. For important matters of common concern the city maintained a
General Council, the Gemeine Rat, composed of representatives of the
individual municipal councils.
The seventeenth century was a harsh time for much of central Europe,
and Tempel Anneke’s trial took place during a particularly difficult period
in Brunswick’s history. An important line of the Guelph dukes, the house
of Brunswick-Lüneburg, had its seat in the town of Wolfenbüttel, just
15 kilometres south of Brunswick, and for a long time the dukes had
claimed their right over the city. They besieged the city several times and
blocked its trade routes for long periods; not surprisingly, this had a serious
impact on the local economy. The dukes gained full control of the city in
1671, and it became part of the duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. A much
larger military engagement, the Thirty Years’ War, raged around Bruns-
wick between 1618 and 1648. The war had a devastating effect on the civil-
ian population. Through the skillful diplomacy of its officials, Brunswick
managed to avoid besiegement, unlike many cities in the region. Its success
in avoiding the conflict, however, brought with it a different cost. As an
island of relative peace, the city was swamped with refugees, both noble
and poor, especially from nearby Magdeburg (which was burned to the
ground in 1631). The resultant overcrowding brought disease and exacer-
bated outbreaks of the plague. To add to these difficulties, the region suf-
fered a series of unusually cold winters. Ironically, the frigid winter of
1657–58 brought to an end the worst plague of the century, in which more
than 5,000 people in the city died.
15
It is difficult to determine precisely the total number of executions. Newer research rejects
early speculation of hundreds of thousands or even millions, and puts the figure at less than
100,000. A useful survey for continental Europe is Monter (2002). For an idea of the geo-
graphical extent of the witch trials, see also the maps at the front of Briggs (1996).

xxiv I n tr o d u cti o n
Figure 2. Cityscape of Brunswick from the east, by Merian

after Conrad Buno, 1641 (detail)
This is an enlargement of Figure 1, showing the municipality of Hagen. The
church on the left side, labeled with the number 20, is St. Catharine’s, the district
church of Hagen. Directly behind the church were the Hagen Market and the

I n tr o d u cti o n xxv
Hagen Municipal Hall. The Wenden Gate, where the execution took place, is on
the right side of the picture. Wenden Street, along which Tempel Anneke was
taken for execution, runs from St. Catharine’s to the Wenden Gate, between
St. Andreas church (number 22) and the city wall.

xxvi I n tr o d u cti o n
Map 2. Plan of the City of Brunswick, 1671

This plan was commissioned shortly after the occupation of the city by the dukes
of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1671. The plan is oriented to the east, so that north is

I n tr o d u cti o n xxvii
on the right. The moat around the city is the Oker River. The Dom of St. Blasius
and the castle square appear in the center of the plan, labeled “A.” The Hagen
Market, labeled Hagen Marckt, is below and to the right of the castle square.

xxviii I n tr o d u cti o n
Map 3. Plan of the City of Brunswick, 1671 (detail)

This is an enlargement of Map 2, showing the municipality of Hagen in more detail.
The municipal hall of Hagen is just in front of St. Catharine’s church, which is labeled “D”
on the plan. Fallersleben Street, where the magistrates took testimony, runs east–west on

I n tr o d u cti o n xxix
the right side of the church. The Wenden Gate (labeled Wende Thor) is clearly marked
on the right side of the plan. Wenden Street is the large thoroughfare between the
Hagen Market and the Wenden Gate. Kaiser Street, in Neustadt, where several events
in the trial took place, is next to St. Andreas church at the top.

xxx I n tr o d u cti o n
Map 4. District of the Duchy of Brunswick, 1715 (detail)

This is a detail from a map of the duchy that shows the areas around the city in
which the trial events took place. Brunswick is in the center, and the Oker
River runs through the center of the map from south to north. As Harxbüttel
does not appear on this map, we have added it beside the Schunter River

I n tr o d u cti o n xxxi
northwest of Brunswick. We have also added Neubrück, where a good deal of

testimony was collected. Gifhorn is at the top of the map, and Campen is
northeast of Harxbüttel. Lehre is just below Campen and to the right.
Wolfenbüttel, where Tempel Anneke’s husband was killed, is the fortified town
to the south of Brunswick.

xxxii I n tr o d u cti o n
Map 5. The Holy Roman Empire in 1648

The Empire was a large collection of principalities under the authority of the
Emperor, but with very little unity. As shown on this map, the principalities were
divided among Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist faiths. Brunswick in 1663 was an
independent city situated within the territories of the dukes of Brunswick-
Wolfenbüttel. Both the city and the duchy were Lutheran jurisdictions.
D. Perceptions of Witchcraft in the Seventeenth Century

The trial of Tempel Anneke is a single instance of a much larger episode in
European history: the so-called witch-hunt of early modern Europe, which
lasted from the middle of the fifteenth century through the first half of the
eighteenth century. During these three centuries thousands of people were
16
This is not always reliable. For example, Kieckhefer (1989) restricts the term “sorcery” to the
misuse of medical or protective magic. We have preferred to use “sorcery” interchangeably
with “magic” because it is the best translation of Zauberei in the trial records.

I n tr o d u cti o n xxxiii
executed for the crime of witchcraft.15 The proliferation of witchcraft trials

was in part a result of the linking together of two very different under-
standings of witchcraft—“maleficium” and “diabolism.” To understand
the context of Tempel Anneke’s trial, we must explore the context of both
maleficium and diabolism, as well as how they were brought together in
early modern legal understanding.
The first conception of witchcraft is that of harmful magic or sorcery.
(We will use “magic” and “sorcery” interchangeably.16) The Latin term for
harmful magic in the Middle Ages and early modern Europe
is maleficium. Although it is difficult to define precisely, in this context we
can describe magic as the use of extraordinary powers within objects,
words, and signs, to achieve some practical end. “Extraordinary” powers
does not imply what today we would think of as “supernatural,” in the
sense of existing outside the natural order altogether. In medieval and early
modern Europe, the tools of the sorcerer were thought to be part of God’s
natural creation and bounded by its laws, and hence “magic” was thought
to rely on powers within the realm of nature. Magical powers are more cor-
rectly described as “preternatural,” that is, as part of the natural world
created by God yet outside the ordinary course of nature.
We can see something of a continuum between what we might call “high
magic” and “low magic.”17 At one end of the continuum, we can identify as
high magic those practices involving sophisticated arts practiced by people
with some degree of education. Two examples of such high magic are the arts
of alchemy (the transmutation of metals) and necromancy (the raising of
spirits and demons). At the other end of the continuum, low magic is the use
of simple spells, charms, and rituals, by people without formal training or
education. In medieval and early modern Europe, many forms of low
magic—for healing and divination, among numerous other purposes—
were passed on between generations or drawn from individual experience.18
Both high and low magic could be used for either benevolent or malevo-
lent ends. Fear of harmful low magic was common in villages and towns in
this period, and this fear was one of the factors leading to the proliferation
of witch trials. Trials often began with accusations of maleficium within a
community. When people suffered unusual losses or injuries, they fre-
quently looked to their neighbors for the cause. For example, people with
magical abilities were believed to be able to kill livestock, to cause human
17
See Levack (2006, pp. 7–8).
18
There were many forms of magic between the two extremes. For an introduction to magic in
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, see Kieckhefer (1989), Jolly (2002), and Peters (2001).
A classic study of magic in early modern England is Thomas (1971).

xxxiv I n tr o d u cti o n
illness, death, and impotence, to prevent a mother’s milk from flowing,

and to bring hailstorms to destroy their neighbors’ crops.
Accusations of maleficium alone, however, would not have yielded the
large numbers of trials and executions that occurred between 1450 and
1750. The second component of witchcraft (which was necessary to insti-
gate a witch-hunt), was the belief that people guilty of maleficium acquire
their powers through a pact with the Devil. In this pact, witches were
believed to abandon God and to give themselves, body and soul, to the
Devil. The term for worship of, or subservience to, the Devil is “diabol-
ism.” In return for their allegiance, the Devil was believed to grant witches
the power to perform magic. In the eyes of theologians and the courts of
law it was the pact with the Devil—rather than maleficium—that was the
real crime of witchcraft. Diabolism is a crime of apostasy—the renuncia-
tion of God and the holy sacraments.
The belief that magicians acquire their powers through a pact with the
Devil was well established among theologians in medieval Europe. This
assertion had been made as early as the fifth century by Augustine.19 In the
thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas argued that all forms of magic involv-
ing signs or symbols require the aid of demons, on the grounds that the signs
are powerless in themselves.20 The practice of necromancy, which spread in
the late Middle Ages, was condemned in the fourteenth century by inquisi-
tors of the Church, who argued that the magicians could not command the
demons as they claimed, but instead offered them worship.21 In the fifteenth
century, the belief that magic requires a pact with the Devil was also applied
to those accused of harmful low magic.22 People accused of maleficium by
their neighbors came to be seen as devil-worshippers and apostates. Thus
the two quite distinct ideas—maleficium and diabolism—became linked,
forming a composite notion of the witch as harmful sorcerer and agent of
the Devil. The linking of diabolism to maleficium provided the grounds
upon which accusations of witchcraft, arising from the general population,
led the legal authorities to conduct investigations and prosecutions.
This composite allowed the crime to be perceived differently by the
legal authorities—jurists and judges—than it was by the witnesses and
accusers. Demonologists and jurists believed that a witch’s magic is
19
See the translations from Augustine in Kors and Peters (2001, pp. 43–46).
20
See the translations from the writings of Thomas Aquinas in Kors and Peters (2001, pp. 87–104).
21
See, for example, the translations from Nicholas Eymeric’s Directorium Inquisitorium of 1376
in Kors and Peters (2001, pp. 120–26).
22
For a discussion of what may have prompted this link, see Bailey (2001), Levack (2006,
pp. 36–37), and also Kieckhefer (1976).
23
On the subject of the inefficacy of magic and witchcraft without the aid of the Devil, see Clark (1991).

I n tr o d u cti o n xxxv
completely ineffective without the aid of the Devil. They argued that the
Devil deceives the witches into believing that their spells and charms work
to bring about their ends, whereas in fact the effect is produced entirely by
him.23 Thus the witch’s purpose is incidental to the real crime of apostasy.
It made no difference to the guilt of the accused whether the magic was
intended for good or for ill. This view was not always shared by the wit-
nesses and the general population, however. The accusations of witnesses
in Tempel Anneke’s trial make no reference to a pact with the Devil, and
they include only the harmful effects that her magic was believed to pro-
duce. Her neighbors were frequently willing to hire her for her magical
abilities without concern about the Devil at all.
The complex understanding of witchcraft that developed during the fif-
teenth century was promulgated by a large number of books and treatises on
the threat and nature of witchcraft, which were subsequently used in ser-
mons and legal tracts. The earliest of these works was Formicarius (The Ant-
hill) by Johannes Nider, written around 1437.24 Certainly the most well-known
of the witchcraft treatises is the Malleus Maleficarum (The Witch’s Hammer)
of 1487 by the Dominican inquisitor Heinrich Kramer,25 but dozens of simi-
lar books were printed and reprinted throughout the early modern period.
A later book (1580) that also had a large impact is De la démonomanie
des sorciers (On the Demon-Mania of Witches) by Jean Bodin (2001). Bodin’s
work was used by jurists at the University of Helmstedt, who served as legal
advisors to courts of law in the region of Brunswick and beyond.26
Based on this composite understanding of witchcraft, certain practices
and signs of witches could be expected of the accused. Witches were
believed to travel at night to gatherings, called sabbaths,27 where the Devil
would be present. There they were thought to engage in an orgy of blasphe-
mous and immoral rites, including cooking and eating infants, and mock-
ing Christian ritual.28 Satan was also imagined to force unnatural sex on
his witches, although the act was supposedly cold and unpleasant. Witches
were believed to give homage to the Devil in disgusting ways, such as kiss-
ing his behind while he appeared as a goat. Once a witch had agreed to a
24
On this book and its author, see Bailey (2003). Excerpts in English are included in Kors and
Peters (2001) and Levack (2004).
25
See MacKay (2009).
26
Kauertz (2001, pp. 90–91).
27
Sometimes “witches’ sabbath” or the French spelling, “sabbat,” is used.
28
The origin of belief in a devil-worshipping society has a complex history. On this subject, see Cohn
(1993). On the subject of witchcraft as the inversion of Christianity, see Clark (1997, pp. 1–134).
29
Not all regions of Europe accepted this complex concept of witchcraft with equal conviction.
In England, for example, belief in the sabbath never fully took hold. Moreover, the different
understandings of aspects of witchcraft were subjects of learned debate throughout the
period of the witch trials. See Clark (1997, pp. 149–311).

xxxvi I n tr o d u cti o n
pact with Satan he placed a secret sign on her body, and an unusual mark
on the body of the accused was often taken as proof of guilt.29
Gender played a key role in the medieval and early modern understand-
ing of witchcraft. Although the percentages varied from region to region, a
significant majority of those accused were women. In addition to the statis-
tical facts about the trials, the demonological literature of the time argued
that women were particularly susceptible to witchcraft. A standardized list
of beliefs about women in support of this conclusion recurs through the
literature. Women were believed to be of weak understanding, and were
hence more likely to be ensnared by the lies and illusions of the Devil. Their
supposed sexual appetite led them to consort with demons. For example, in
a now infamous passage of the Malleus Maleficarum, Kramer writes, “Every-
thing is governed by carnal lusting, which is insatiable in them.”30 Many
other attributes were added to the list, including curiosity, vanity, and greed.
The issues surrounding the relations between gender and witchcraft have
been the subject of considerable debate,31 and research into both early mod-
ern perceptions of gender and the position of women in society at that time
provides key insights into our understanding of witch trials.
This period has been described as that of the “witch-craze.” This term
was first popularized by Trevor-Roper in 1969, reflecting the idea that
medieval and early modern belief in witches was a kind of collective irra-
tionality. Yet it is important to recognize that this was not the case. Clark
(1997) has shown clearly that issues such as the nature of magic, the pow-
ers of the Devil, and the prosecution of witchcraft were the subjects of
extensive scientific, legal, and theological investigation across Europe.
Kauertz’s (2001) study of the University of Helmstedt, mentioned above,
reveals that debates about the nature of witchcraft and its prosecution
were carried out across the three faculties of theology, law, and medicine.
We end this section on a cautionary note. The nature of the trials varied
from one time and region of Europe to another. Issues such as the use of
torture, the relative independence of local jurisdictions, and the judicial
procedures in effect all had an impact on the number of trials and the like-
lihood of execution. Differences of opinion among theologians, jurists,
scientists, and judges, as well as differences in attitudes and belief among
the local people, all contributed to the complexity and variety of people’s
experiences. The trial of Tempel Anneke is a single instance of a complex
phenomenon, and it is as much influenced by local factors as it is by the
general concept of witchcraft.
30
See MacKay (20 09, p. 170).
31
This issue is discussed in the Historiographical Essay below.

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The trial of Tempel Anneke: records of a

witchcraft trial in Brunswick, Germany, 1663

Imprint University of Toronto [Ontario] Press, 2017

Extent lxxvii, 170 pages

ISBN 9781442634879, 9781442634909

Downloaded from Scholars Portal Books on 2023-09-07

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Roleffes, Anna, approximately 1600–1663—Trials, litigation, etc. 2. Trials

We welcome comments and suggestions regarding any aspect of our publications—please

North America UK, Ireland, and continental Europe

orders phone: 1-800-565-9523

This book is printed on paper containing 100% post-consumer fibre.

Printed in the United States of America.

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The Trial of Tempel Anneke (1663) 1

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Supplementary Civic Records 121

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Record 3 Marital Agreement between Jürgen Roleffes and Anna

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like to acknowledge the generous assistance of the staff at the Herzog

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is a large and complex subject, embracing a number of controversial issues,

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The historical background to the trial in the Introduction to the first

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had gained some medical knowledge.3 In 1620 Tempel Anneke married

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B. The Village of Harxbüttel

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Map 1. The Village of Harxbüttel, 1730

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the farm in Harxbüttel.9 But within a month of the marriage he became

C. The City of Brunswick in the Seventeenth Century14

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Figure 2. Cityscape of Brunswick from the east, by Merian

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Map 2. Plan of the City of Brunswick, 1671

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Map 3. Plan of the City of Brunswick, 1671 (detail)

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Map 4. District of the Duchy of Brunswick, 1715 (detail)

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northwest of Brunswick. We have also added Neubrück, where a good deal of