Museum Alte Burg Penzlin

Around 800, after conquering Saxony, Charlemagne became a neighbour of the Slavs in Mecklenburg. He tried to work out a "modus vivendi" with the Slavs, since he wanted them to be a bulwark against the hostile Danes and the Saxons, should they rebel.

With Charlemagne's death in 814, his son, Charles the Pious, and his successors began Christianising and Germanising Mecklenburg. In 831,the bishopric of Hamburg was founded. Thereafter, Emperor Otto singlemindedly assimilated the Slavs into the German Empire. He delegated this task to two men: the Markgraf Hermann Billung and Gero. Hermann marched on the Slavs from Lüneburg, his family seat, and Gero from the Harz area.

Bernhard de Mulsan, the first name to be mentioned in the chronicle of the Maltzahn noble family, was made a knight and emigrated to Mecklenburg in order to subjugate the Slavs. The Castle and the Church of Penzlin - both of which have cellars predating 1230 - are results of Greater German colonisation. The connection between (German) power and (Christian) spirit is as close as a 200 metre footpath which leads from the Castle to the Church.

In the early modern period (1500-1700) some 900,000 people were persecuted and burnt as sorcerers and witches throughout Europe, and in Mecklenburg alone, between 1661 and 1691, several hundred people. There are two focuses of attention in the Ticket Area which bring us back to the Christian image of witchcraft and to the legal origins of witch trials in the early modern period.

Persecution of witches from 1500 onwards developed out of the persecution of heretics (carried out by the Inquisition) dating from the 12th century. By the 15th century, the accusations levelled against heretics (sexual congress with the Devil, flying off to an heretical Sabbath, desecration of the "hostia"), were brought against witches - see the sixteenth century woodcuts by the Italian artist, Gorzo, from the "Hammer of Witches" (1487).

The woodcut on the left, the "Infamous Kiss", shows a witch who, instead of kissing the Bishop's hand, is shown kissing the Devil's posterior. Typically in this book, witches are seen inverting Christian rituals. The central woodcut shows witches - and sorcerers - being baptized by the Devil. The woodcut on the right depicts witches desecrating the Cross by treading it underfoot. In 1484, the Church's attitude toward witches underwent a profound change. The ancient canon, the "Canon Episcopi", dating from 906, had denied the existence of witchcraft, ascribing it to pagan superstition. This changed with the Papal Bull of Innocent VIII (in 1484). The Pope issued the Bull under pressure from the German Inquisitor Heinrich Institoris With papal permission, these two Dominicans published the "Hammer of Witches" (1487), which became an official handbook for future persecution of witches in Europe and New England, USA.

The main elements of the "Malleus Maleficarum":

1. Conflating popular pagan magical rites with a pact made with the Devil, thus transforming witchcraft into criminal heresy.
2. From this publication onwards, a pact with the Devil becomes the central accusation in all witch trials.
3. The book authorised secular courts to instigate witch trials.
4. Since the book described witches as organised sects, torture was seen as a means of eliciting further information from several individuals by a domino effect.
5. It reinforced the image of women as having a predilection for heresy and sin, as is evident in Genesis, Book I.
6. It claimed that pacts with the Devil resulted in damage inflicted on neighbours, their animals and the produce they grew and harvested.

You see in front of you at the same time both the instruments of torture and of execution, although the various stages of torture - each instrument representing a different degree of torture - followed a chronological pattern. These instruments embody the idea of justice in the early modern period. Witch trials were meant to follow a predetermined plan which was set down in the "regulations governing capital punishment" enacted by Emperor Charles V in 1532.

The trial went through the following stages:

First, the accused was brought before the court and the charges against her or him were read out. There were three possible responses - "Negat", meaning "No", "Affirmat", meaning "Yes", and "Nescit", meaning "I don't know", which were recorded in the trial transcript. At this stage, there was supposed to be no physical coercion, but this ordinance was often infringed.
In most cases, the next step was the so-called water trial (a legacy of the Old German law whereby justice was meted out by God's will). The accused had to ask for this water trial. Even though university scholars, following Roman legal practice as enshrined in "Regulations Governing Capital Punishment" (1532), objected, this procedure was still adopted by lay courts.

The witch trial judges took the view that witches are lighter than water. They believed that water was a pure element and would reject any impurity. By this means, anyone could be regarded as a witch or sorcerer, since any body would rise to the surface if there were still air in the lungs.
The accused's whole body, including the pubic area, was shaved to reveal any sign of the Devil's baptismal mark - which, it was supposed, would be difficult to see. Then, nails were driven into all scars, birthmarks, etc, and the less painful areas were presumed to be the Devil's baptismal marks. Now, the accused were confronted with other witches' testimony, and they were threatened with torture. At this stage, called "territio verbalis", the instruments of torture were shown to the accused. Then, if the accused did not confess their guilt, "territio realis", full torture, followed.
During the first stage of torture, thumb-screws and leg-screws were applied. Thereafter, limbs were stretched on the rack. Then parts of the body were tortured with heated tongs.
According to Roman law, any confession had to be repeated two days later outside the torture chamber - "extra locum torturae". Without a confession of guilt, no punishment could be carried out. If the accused revoked his or her statement, the torture started again.
The lay trial documents had to be sent to the faculties of jurisprudence at the universities of Greifswald and Rostock, who had the sole right to decide the verdict. Thus, the universities had overall legal control over witch trials.
Charles V stipulated that a confession of guilt had to be the basis for any subsequent punishment, and he gave universities overall legal responsibility. This marks the transition from Old German to Roman law (from 1300 onwards).

"Leniency" was shown if the accused was very young or very cooperative during the trial. In these cases, the accused were beheaded or strangled before being burnt at the stake. The costs of the trial had to be borne by the accused or their relatives.

Down here we see the oldest remains of the Castle, parts of wall dating from 1250-1350, but the vaulting is more recent. The witch dungeons you see in front of you are unique in Europe - documentary evidence confirms this. Structurally, these dungeons correspond to recommendations in the "Hammer of Witches" (1487). Because the earth was seen as the Devil's domain, this book recommended that the accused should not touch the ground with their feet, in case they drew strength from Satan and refused to confess. The heavy oak door was put there to prevent the witch or sorcerer from using their magical powers to fly away. The large stones above it were to stop the Devil from lifting the door up out of its hinges. The topic of witches' flight brings us to an interesting plant out here in the herb garden.

This small display shows us the ingredients which made up the so-called "witches salve" which was meant to enable witches or sorcerers to fly. In themselves these plants: belladonna (deadly nightshade), Bilsenkraut (henbane), Stechapfel (thorn apple), Blauer Eisenhut ([blue] Monk's hood), Mandragora (mandrake) are lethally poisonous, but in a special mixture they produce hallucinations like hallucinogenic drugs. Absorbed by the skin, the drugs in the salve flow through the bloodstream to the brain, and, like opium and hashish, can evoke hallucinations of flight. The "aconiton" in the Blauer Eisenhut ([blue] Monk's hood) makes the skin feel itchy as if a furry pelt were growing on it. Witches or sorcerers believed they were turning into an animal. Mediaeval notions of flight were obviously based on real experiences with poisonous plants. Bilsenkraut (henbane) was a well known poison. Not only did Teuton warriors dip their arrowheads in Bilsenkraut, but the Ghost of Hamlet's father claimed that he was murdered by a distillation of Bilsenkraut poured into his ear. With the development of industrial chemistry in the 19th century, knowledge of plants faded into the background.

The herbs are classified into groups:

"Mother grain" is rye wheat infected by fungus. The black fungus was used to induce labour or to cause abortion. It led to contractions of the womb. Inquisitors often regarded midwives as witches, because they believed that witches used aborted foetuses for magic purposes. Furthermore, the "flight salve" (see above) was thought to contain fat obtained from children.
Parsley was used as a means of bringing on menstruation and as a medicine against sexually transmitted diseases.
The roots of the Alraune plant look a little like the human body. They were thought to inspire erotic desires.

Peasants used to nail bunches of garlic to their byre-doors, in order to protect their cattle from witchcraft.
In time a bunch of garlic will turn black - the belief was that evil penetrated only as far as the garlic by the door and not into the byre, sheep-pen, stable themselves.
Flowering rose-hips were nailed to the doors of the animal enclosures, as each piece of stem was thought to protect one animal.
Waldmeister (woodruff) was also regarded as a protection against witchcraft, and if beaten by birch twigs a witch was said to lose her ability to bewitch.
Before torture, an extract of Johanniskraut (Saint-John's-wort) was sometimes forced into the mouth of the accused, as the juice of a plant associated with John the Baptist was believed to be an antidote to witchery.
Hawthorn bushes grew near all peasants' houses, as the peasants believed that such a bush protected the household from fire and any kind of magic, and that someone in the family would die if the bush were ever felled.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, great store was laid by the so-called "analogy theory", which grew out of popular medicine and was taken up by scholars like Paracelsus. Practitioners of the "analogy theory" drew a parallel between the outer appearance of a plant - its roots, petals, colour, seeds, fruits, etc - and its applicability to specific parts of the body. For example, the spots on the leaves of lungwort were related to the patterning on human lungs, and this herb was therefore used in treating lung disorders. Yellow flowers or plants with yellow juice were used for gall-bladder disorders - the yellow flowers of dandelion, for instance. Spiky leaves - from thistles, for example - were used to relieve shooting pains in the belly. Thistle seeds were steeped in water or brandy, then drunk as a remedy against stabbing pains in the side.
In popular medicine, Maiglöckchen (lilies of the valley) were frequently used to alleviate irritation in the eyes, because the bell-shape of this flower resembles a tear.
According to the "analogy theory", the flowerhead of the grosse Klette (large burr), which looks like a full head of hair, would help cure baldness in men.

The smoking-hood dates from around 1550. When the fire is properly burning underneath, it is impossible to stay here for long - this room was used only for preparing food, which was taken out and eaten in the inner courtyard, in the so-called Knights' Hall, or outside on the Slavonic Ramparts, to which this little door in front of you leads.
The smoking hood, which is 12 metres high from bottom to top, is exceptionally well preserved and is considered a rarity in Germany. The kitchen measures 4 x 4 metres - its extraordinary size leads us to suppose that up to 30 people would be fed from here.

Translated by Anthony Vivis