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Suicide by Proxy in Early Modern Germany: Crime, Sin and Salvation Kathy Stuart full chapter instant download
Suicide by Proxy in Early Modern Germany: Crime, Sin and Salvation Kathy Stuart full chapter instant download
Suicide by Proxy in Early Modern Germany: Crime, Sin and Salvation Kathy Stuart full chapter instant download
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WORLD HISTORIES OF CRIME,
CULTURE AND VIOLENCE
Suicide by Proxy in
Early Modern Germany
Crime, Sin and Salvation
Kathy Stuart
World Histories of Crime, Culture and Violence
Series Editors
Marianna Muravyeva
University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland
Suicide by Proxy in
Early Modern
Germany
Crime, Sin and Salvation
Kathy Stuart
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA, USA
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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For Louise
Acknowledgments
My friends and colleagues have been hearing about Suicide by Proxy for a
long time. Now years of research in two dozen archives and libraries across
Germany and Austria have culminated in this book. Throughout, I enjoyed
comradery and intellectual exchange with Duane Corpis, Allyson
Creasman, Alex Fisher, Helmut Graser, Mark Häberlein, Michaela
Schmölz-Häberlein, Christine Johnson, Hans-Jörg Künast, H. C. Erik
Midelfort, Beth Plummer, Ann Tlusty, and Wolfgang Meyer, members of
our longstanding Augsburg Archivstammtisch. Helmut Graser and Helmut
Zäh helped decipher fragmentary Latin passages.
Conversations with Ann Goldberg, David Luebke, Yair Mintzker, and
David Sabean also informed this project. Joel Harrington shared with me
transcriptions of two early suicides by proxy cases in Nuremberg, and
Martin Scheutz alerted me to cases of suicidal iconoclasm in Vienna’s
house of correction. I hashed out a chapter with James Melton and
Jonathan Strom at the James Allen Vann Seminar at Emory University.
Mary Lindemann helped navigate the Staatsarchiv Hamburg. My col-
leagues at the University of California, Davis, Ali Anooshahr, David Biale,
Corrie Decker, Edward Dickinson, Stacy Fahrenthold, Ellen Hartigan-
O’Connor, Bill Hagen, Katie Harris, Kyu Kim, Lisa Materson, Sally
McKee, Lorena Oropeza, Michael Saler, Daniel Stolzenberg, John
Smolenski, and Baki Tezcan provided community and intellectual sup-
port. A special shout-out to Corrie Decker, Ann Tlusty, and Hans-Jörg
Künast for their detailed feedback on the manuscript. Thank you also to
my students Molly Ingram, Hunter Kiley, Pilar Svendsen, Michael Wheeler,
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1 Introduction 1
3 “Fear
God and the Court, while there is still
Time.” Crime and Zealous Prosecution in Early
Modern Hamburg 91
4 “The
Unbelievably Frequent Examples of such Murders
Committed solely out of Weariness with Life.”
Hamburg, 1668–1810139
5 Mary
with the Axe: The Cult of the Injured Icon
in Baroque Vienna209
6 The
Injured Crucifix: The Emperor’s Conscience
and Prisoners’ Defiance263
7 Crime
and Justice in a Sacred Landscape: Vienna,
1668–1786329
xi
xii Contents
8 Conclusion:
The Decline of Suicide by Proxy and its
Historical Effacement395
Bibliography407
Index449
Abbreviations
xiii
List of Figures
xv
xvi List of Figures
Image 6.1 Jüdische neue Zeitung vom Marsch aus Wien… (s.l., s.d).
Vertreibung der Juden aus Wien 1670. Copperplate
Engraving. Photo: Wien Museum. In. Nr. 199198 265
Image 6.2 Emperor Leopold I’s signature under the imperial privilege
founding the house of correction, 1671. Wiener Stadt und
Landesarchiv, Hauptarchivsakten, Privilegien 77, f. 13 266
Image 6.3 Apotheosis of Emperor Leopold I. Frontispiece to 1671
imperial privilege authorizing the founding of the house of
correction. Wiener Stadt und Landesarchiv,
Hauptarchivsakten, Privilegien 77 267
Image 6.4 Vienna’s House of Correction. Water coloring, c. 1850.
Photo: Wien Museum. In. Nr. 15069, C. N. 231 (=
Leopoldgasse Nr. 32) (Das alte Zuchthaus) 272
Image 6.5 Execution of Catherina Jacobin, Vienna, 1769. Engraving.
In Todesurtheil einer ledigen Weibperson, Namens Catherina
J…. Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, C-39975/1769 283
Image 6.6 The ravenstone outside the Scottish Gate, c. 1760.
Anonymous Pen and Ink Drawing. The ALBERTINA
Museum, Inv. 7377, Ansichten (Vues) Wien, äussere
Bezirke 2: Das Hochgericht gegen die Rossau hin 294
Image 6.7 Drawing of instruments of execution included in court
records concerning Joseph Zeitler, executed 1719 in the
territory of the Benedictine Abbey of Lambach for church
robbery. Stiftarchiv Lambach, Criminalia 377, Joseph
Zeitler, 1719 304
Image 6.8 Nicolaus Starck’s signature under his Urfehde of 17
December 1756. Wiener Stadt und Landesarchiv,
Handschriften A 19, fol. 142r 309
Image 6.9 Depiction of blasphemy in Joos de Damhouder, Praxis
rerum criminalium: Gründlicher Bericht und anweisung,
Welcher massen in Rechtfärtigung Peinlicher sachen, nach
gemeynen beschribenen Rechten vor und in Gerichten
ordentlich zuhandeln (Franckfurt am Mayn: Johann Wolfius,
1571), 102v. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, 4
Crim. 41 323
Image 6.10 Depiction of blasphemy in Joos de Damhouder, Praxis
rerum criminalium: Gründlicher Bericht und anweisung,
Welcher massen in Rechtfärtigung Peinlicher sachen, nach
gemeynen beschribenen Rechten vor und in Gerichten
ordentlich zuhandeln (Franckfurt am Mayn: Nicolaus
Basseus, 1581), 92. Staatliche Bibliothek Regensburg,
999/2 Jur.353. 324
List of Figures xix
Introduction
1
Katja Sperling, “Christoph Murers Glasgemälde für den Rat und für Patrizierfamilien der
Stadt Nürnberg.” (Master’s thesis, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg,
1991), 61. On “Images of Justice,” see Wolfgang Schild, “Gerechtigkeitsbilder,” in Recht
und Gerechtigkeit im Spiegel der europäischen Kunst, eds. Wolfgang Pleister and Wolfgang
Schild (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1988), 86-171.
2
Charles Zika, The Appearance of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in sixteenth-century
Europe (London: Routledge, 2007), 233.
old hag, the stereotypical witch, topless, her withered breasts sagging, her
unkempt hair hanging freely. The witch grabs the child by the hair, hold-
ing him prone for the Jew’s knife. Behind the witch, a soldier thrusts his
halberd toward the child. These are the vices of avarice (the Jew), envy
(the witch), and war (the soldier). The Jew represented more than avarice,
of course. To any early modern viewer, the Jew with a knife evoked the
specter of Jewish ritual murder. This was an iconography with which
Murer’s Nuremberg patrons were thoroughly familiar. Perhaps the most
iconic representation of Jewish ritual murder ever created was produced in
Nuremberg just over a century earlier. Schedel’s World Chronicle, pub-
lished 1493, includes a richly detailed image of the alleged martyrdom of
Simon of Trent in 1475, the case after which all subsequent accusations of
Jewish ritual murder were modeled.3
Murer’s work portrays an infernal alliance between the blood-thirsty
Jew and the child-murdering witch. Behind the aggressors to the left, a
crowned figure, a negligent king, shirks his responsibility as ruler by cover-
ing his eyes so as not to see the horrible scene unfolding before him. He
too will be held to account for his dereliction of duty. Truth thrones above
this scene. She holds a book with the words “The Word of God endures
forever” (Isaiah 40:8), the bible verse that became the logo of the
Protestant Reformation.4 This was a declaration of Nuremberg’s Lutheran
identity. Truth is assisted by Justice, sword, scales and orb in hand, and by
Peace, who stand to the left and right of the city’s coat of arms. The
virtues collectively represent the wise governance of Nuremberg’s city
3
Hartmut Schedel, Weltchronik (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1493), fol. 254r. This
image can be viewed in high resolution in color, digitized at the Germanisches
Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg: http://dlib.gnm.de/item/2Inc266/568/html. On the
paradigmatic significance of the Simon of Trent case, see Magda Teter, Blood Libel: On the
Trail of an Antisemitic Myth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2020), 43-151.
Wolfgang Treue, Der Trienter Judenprozess: Voraussetzungen, Abläufe, Auswirkungen
(1475-1588) (Hannover: Hahn, 1996). R. Po-Chia Hsia, Trent 1475: Stories of a Ritual
Murder Trial (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992).
4
F. J. Stopp, “Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum. The Dissemination of a Reformation
Slogan, 1522-1904,” in Essays in German Culture and Society, eds. Siegbert S. Prawer,
R. Hinton Thomas and Leonard Forster (London: Institute of Germanic Studies, 1969),
123-235.
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"But Mike isn't coming back again," said Jack; "he's
going to stay in Calvington all day at his aunt's; aren't you,
Mike? And so you'd just have to toil these weary miles back
again in the heat and dust. Don't be a fool now, Peter!"
"Now come along with me, Peter," said Jack, when Mike
had disappeared round a turning in the road.
"Now," said Jack, "we're all right; that was well done!
But we're only just in time," he said, as there came a vivid
flash of lightning, a loud clap of thunder, and a tremendous
downpour of rain.
"Ay, Peter, my lad," he said, "it's a sad tale, that is; but
I'm glad you've made a clean breast of it, I am, and I'm
very thankful the Lord didn't come to-day and find you
wandering out of His ways. I'll step across and tell our lady,
and see what she thinks had best be done."
He took me in, and Mrs. Bagot was still up, and had a
good supper ready for me on the table. She, too, was more
kind to me than ever; but neither of them spoke much while
I was eating my supper.
"Yes, Jem," she said, "now that he's had his supper, you
had best let him read it."
Then Bagot said, "Poor lad, I'm awful sorry for you, I
am; but cheer up—maybe she'll be better soon."
I thanked her very much, and she crept into the room
again.
CHAPTER XI.
A TERRIBLE TIME.
OF course my going back to Grassbourne, to carry the
infection with me, was out of the question. I wrote to my
mistress, and told her the state of the case, and then I was
able to relieve my poor mother very much, by taking entire
charge of Salome.
She was very ill, and as the days went by she grew
worse. The doctor was proved right in his opinion of the
complaint, for the very day after I arrived Bartholomew and
Jude were both taken ill with the fever, and two days after
that Thomas fell ill, and about a week after, Matthew and
Simon were also smitten.
So few came to the shop, and the till was very empty
during that time of sorrow.
I had much time for thought during the weeks which
followed. As I was sitting up at night, watching beside
Salome and Jude and Simon, my mind was very busy, and
my heart was very much troubled. And yet I could not pray.
I felt as if there were a great wall between me and God,
and if I tried to pray, the words seemed to come back to
me, as if they could not pierce the separating wall. It was
my sin which had come between me and my Master. I knew
that well enough, and I was very miserable when I thought
of it.
If I had not come back to the Lord Jesus that night, and
had the comfort of feeling His presence very near me, I do
not know how I should have gone through the next terrible
week. Sickness and sorrow had been in our home before;
but now the angel of death drew near.
I had felt sure from the very first that Salome would
die. She seemed to me so unlike every one else, and so fit
for heaven, that I had no doubt whatever in my own mind
that the Master's voice would call her to Himself.
CHAPTER XII.
SALOME'S RECOVERY.
"Oh, no!" said little Salome, with all the strength she
had. "Father and mother must come, too; mustn't they,
Peter? Kneel down and ask Jesus to wash their sins away,
and then He won't forget to send the angels for them when
He comes in the sky."
So I knelt down and said a very simple little prayer; and
when I rose from my knees both my father and mother
were crying.
CHAPTER XIII.
GREAT SORROW.
My poor mother said over and over again that she had
nothing to do.
"Oh, Peter," she said one day, "I used to grumble, and
to think I had a hard time of it, with so many to cook for,
and so many clothes to mend, and so many stockings to
darn, and such lots of things to wash and to iron, and so
much to see after. But now, God knows, I would give all I
have to have one of those busy days back again. I didn't
know, till they were gone, how much I should miss them all.
God forgive me if I ever grumbled at having to work for
them!"