WITCHCRAFT IN BAVARIA. 31 



the repudiation and punishmeut of superstitions as survivals of 

 paganism to their acceptance and enforcement as Christian and 

 Catholic articles of faith is brought out very clearlj by Dr. Sig- 

 mund Riezler in his recent Geschichte der Hexenprozesse in Bay- 

 ern (Stuttgart, Cotta, 1896). This work, which may be regarded 

 as a sort of sequel to the author's well-known Geschichte Bayerns, 

 in three volumes, is the first complete history of witch trials in Ba- 

 varia ever published. In using the epithet " complete " we would 

 by no means imply that every prosecution of this kind within the 

 limits of the duchy, and afterward electorate, of Bavaria is men- 

 tioned. Many protocols of such proceedings have been lost and 

 many others lie hidden in municipal and especially in ecclesiastical 

 archives hitherto inaccessible to scientific investigation; but all the 

 essential features of these trials are here so fully presented and 

 portrayed that no publication of isolated acts or individual instances 

 will add materially to our knowledge of the subject. 



The oldest mention of witchcraft in Bavarian law is the im- 

 position of a fine of twelve shillings (about twenty cents) upon per- 

 sons who injure the harvests by magic arts; in addition to this fine 

 the sorcerer is also made pecuniarily responsible to the owner for 

 loss of property. Penalties of a like character were also inflicted 

 upon such as foretold future events, produced storms, or caused 

 horses and cattle to disappear by means of diabolical machinations. 

 In Arbeo's Life of Corbinianus, the first Bishop of Freising, it is 

 related that as he was one day riding up to the castle he met an old 

 woman reputed to be a witch, accompanied by men bearing meat 

 and one of them leading a live animal. On asking whence they 

 came and what they were doing, he was told that the duke's son 

 had been vexed by demons and that she had healed him. This in- 

 formation so excited the wrath of the bishop that he leaped from 

 his horse and gave the old hag a sound beating; he also took away 

 the gifts which she had received for her services and distributed 

 them among the poor at the gate of the city. This incident occurred 

 between 718 and 724. One of the capitularies of Charlemagne, 

 issued more than sixty years later, soon after the final subjugation 

 of the Saxons and designed to Christianize the conquered people, 

 punishes with death " any one who, blinded by the devil and fol- 

 lowing heathen devices, may believe any persons to be witches and 

 to devour human beings, and who may burn them for this cause or 

 give their flesh to be devoured or devour the same." The capitu- 

 lary also provides that practices of divination and of sortilege shall 

 be handed over to the Church and to the priests in order that they 

 may be turned from the error of their way and instructed in the 

 Christian faith. 



