Infanticide and Abortion in Early Modern Germany 2016

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Infanticide and Abortion in

Early Modern Germany
This book is the first work to look at the full range of three centuries of
the early modern period in regard to infanticide and abortion, a period in
which both practices were regarded equally as criminal acts. Faced with
dire consequences if they were found pregnant or if they bore illegitimate
children, many unmarried women were left with little choice. Some of these
unfortunate women turned to infanticide and abortion as the way out of
their difficult situation. This book explores the legal, social, cultural, and
religious causes of infanticide and abortion in the early modern period, as
well as societal reactions to them. It examines how perceptions of these
actions taken by desperate women changed over three hundred years and as
early modern society became obsessed with a supposed plague of murder-
ous mothers, resulting in heated debates, elaborate public executions, and a
media frenzy. Finally, this book explores how the prosecution of infanticide
and abortion eventually helped lead to major social and legal reformations
during the Age of the Enlightenment.
Margaret Brannan Lewis is an assistant professor of history at the University

of Tennessee Martin.
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19 Infanticide and Abortion in Early Modern Germany

Margaret Brannan Lewis
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British Masculinity and the YMCA, 1844–1914

Geoff Spurr
Margaret Brannan Lewis

Early Modern Germany
Infanticide and Abortion in
First published 2016
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lewis, Margaret Brannan, author.
Title: Infanticide and abortion in early modern Germany /
by Margaret Brannan Lewis.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2016. | Series: The body, gender
and culture ; 19 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015045282 (print) | LCCN 2016001139 (ebook)
| ISBN 9781848935549 (hbk) | ISBN 9781315621937 ( )
Subjects: LCSH: Infanticide—Germany—History. | Abortion—
Germany—History.
Classification: LCC HV6541.G3 L49 2016 (print) | LCC HV6541.G3
(ebook) | DDC
364.152083/20943—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015045282
ISBN: 978-1-848-93554-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-62193-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Figures vii
Table ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1 The Baby in the Pig Sty: Defining the Crime 16
2 “Such Barbarous Mothers There Are These Days”:

A Growing Problem 49
3 Beware the Kinderfresser: Violence Toward Children in

Print Culture 82
4 “The Child Was Fresh and Perfect”: The Influence of Experts 115
5 “Sighs of the Poor Sinner”: Sensationalism and Enlightenment 150
Conclusion 185
Works Cited 189

Index 201
This page intentionally left blank

Figures
2.1 Marginalia depicting the execution of Kunigunda

Kelblingerin, Ulm, 1598 62
3.1 Lorentz Schultes, Der Kinderfresser, Augsburg, ca. 1600 83
3.2 Albrecht Schmid, Die Butzen-Bercht, Augsburg, 1701 91
3.3 Georg Kreß, News from Silesia, Augsburg, 1606/7 100
3.4 Hans Rampf, A Shocking, Unheard New Report of
a Gruesome Murder, Augsburg, 1585 103
3.5 Nikolaus Schreiber, News from Louvain: Of a Starving
Woman Who Hanged Herself and Her Three Children,
Cologne, 1591 105
3.6 Wolfgang Richter, A True and Shocking New Report,
Frankfurt, 1626 106
3.7 Hans Sachs and Erhard Schön, The Lament of the
Suffering People, Nuremberg, between 1550 and 1566 108
4.1 Abortifacients supposedly used by Margarete Leonhartin,
Nördlingen, 1621 125
5.1 The innocent Maria Magdalena Bertzin, gruesomely
murdered by her own father at the tender age of 14 weeks,
Augsburg, 1740 159
5.2 Thomas Bäck, Execution of Maria Elisabetha Beckensteinerin,
Augsburg, 1742 161

2.1
Table
1560–1639
Infanticide prosecutions and executions in Augsburg,
52

Acknowledgments
Many people have helped in the creation of this book. I could not have
completed this research without the extensive support of many people and
institutions.
First of all, I would like to thank Erik Midelfort for all of his guidance
and inspiration over the past decade. He believed in my project first, and I
hope it does not disappoint.
There are many scholars and friends from across the globe to whom I owe
thanks for their advice, input, encouragement, and company: Beth Plummer,
Ann Tlusty, Helmut Graser, Mary Lindemann, Tim Fehler, Joel Harrington,
Joy Wiltenburg, David Myers, Duane Osheim, Sophie Rosenfeld, Paul Hal-
liday, Laura Stokes, Laura Kounine, Hannah Murphy, Lindsay Starkey, Erin
Lambert, Ashley Elrod, Jessica Otis, Kristen Lashua, and the Slawik family.
The University of Virginia, the Doris Quinn Foundation, and the John
Anson Kittredge Fund aided in the early stages of research and writing. The
support of the Fulbright Commission allowed me to complete my initial
research in 2009 and 2010. The Central European History Society gener-
ously sponsored later stages of my research in the summer of 2014. The
German Historical Institute has been vital to my development as a historian
through their graduate student seminars and conferences. I would like to
particularly thank the Herzog August Bibliothek for their support and for
the scholarly community they host that allowed me to complete the final
stages of research and writing in 2014 and 2015.
The staffs of the Stadtarchiv Augsburg, Stadtarchiv Memmingen, Stad-
tarchiv Ulm, Stadtarchiv Nördlingen, Staats-und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg,
and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek were also generous with their collec-
tions and guidance.
I want to express deep gratitude for my colleagues at the University of
Tennessee Martin, both in the history department and beyond, who have
been incredibly welcoming and encouraging in my first years on the job.
Additionally, my students at UTM and their enthusiasm for the unusual,
the weird, and the early modern have kept me inspired throughout this long
process.
xii Acknowledgments
I owe a special thanks to Katie and Florian Snow for repeatedly being my
home away from home during several research trips to Germany. My family,
and especially my parents, are the best an academic, or anyone, could ask
for. They have been the ultimate cheerleaders and examples.
Finally, I owe everything to Martin Kane. He has been my primary source
of love, sanity, companionship, encouragement, meals, technical support,
and proofreading for this entire project and for the past several years. I
could not imagine a better partner for life’s adventures. Thank you.
Introduction
In 1532, the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, the newly issued law code of
the Holy Roman Empire, declared infanticide and abortion to be capital
crimes. Women convicted of infanticide were to face “burial and impale-
ment,” or “drowning preceded by tearing with burning pincers,” both decid-
edly harsh and terrifying punishments. The Carolina made clear what sort
of women committed abortion or infanticide: unwed mothers who had hid-
den their pregnancies in order to selfishly cover up their own sinful behavior
and who aimed to further deceive society by disposing of their unborn or
newly born children, avoiding the just repercussions of their wanton ways.
The words of the imperial law code indicate a crime that was perceived by
many to be a growing problem and one that was particularly indicative of
a moral crisis. Indeed, over and over again, young, poor, unmarried women
who faced social stigma, loss of home and job, and even criminal charges if
found pregnant out of wedlock did in fact turn to infanticide or abortion as
their only options for survival.
Over the next three centuries, infanticide and abortion were prosecuted
as severely as possible, resulting in the execution of thousands of women
across the Holy Roman Empire; thousands more were banished from their
homes, consigned to a life of destitution. Despite the stringent laws and
punishments, though, infanticide and abortion continued to occur. To early
modern authorities, infanticide seemed like an ever-growing plague that
needed to be treated ever more harshly in order to ensure that the crime did
not spread. Infanticide had seemingly come out of nowhere to become one
of the most pressing concerns in early modern society, a development that
was often interpreted as a sure sign of moral degradation and coming holy
retribution.
By the end of the eighteenth century, however, social reformers had begun
to question whether prosecuting premarital sex and exercising the death pen-
alty for infanticide and abortion were the most effective ways of addressing
immoral behavior and its consequences. Nearly three hundred years after
the initial writing of the Carolina, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s master-
piece Faust found drama in the plight of an unwed, infanticidal mother. By
the time Faust’s beloved Gretchen faces her own execution, however, she is
2 Introduction
depicted as neither sinful nor selfish, but a victim of the diabolical title char-
acter and herself the recipient of salvation and redemption. And Gretchen
was not unusual: by the end of the early modern period, child-murderesses
were repeatedly held up as victims in both street literature and the highbrow
writings of the early romantics. It was around this time that many European
governments began reevaluating their stances on government involvement
in premarital sex and illegitimate pregnancy in attempts to stem the tide of
infanticide.
In these three centuries, then, legal and social responses to infanticide and
abortion had undergone tremendous change. Before the publication of the
Carolina, these crimes were largely handled locally, even, in many instances,
kept within the family, with execution being very rare. By 1600, women
were regularly prosecuted and executed for these crimes. And by 1800, exe-
cutions had become very rare again. And during these three hundred years,
infanticide had captured the imaginations of Europeans, and particularly
Germans, in ways that no other crime or social woe had managed.
Many early modern cases of infanticide and abortion fit the expectations
of the Carolina and its drafters: poor, unwed mothers in desperate situations.
Yet the complexity of life frequently exceeded the straightforward bounds
of the law. Examining the three centuries of the early modern period reveals
wide variation in both crime and punishment. A few examples follow.
In Nördlingen in 1495, Margarete Höllin killed her newborn child by
pressing it under a barrel. She was made to stand in the pillory and was
permanently banished from the city. In Augsburg in 1568, Walpurga Seitz
was drowned after leaving her dead newborn in a pigsty to be devoured. In
Memmingen in 1569, Judita Wiertin was sentenced to life imprisonment for
the strangulation of her newborn child. In 1571 in Augsburg, fourteen-year-
old Anna Schaidhofin threw her child into a privy and was banished from
the city. In 1608, Anna Weilbächin and Jeremias Bair were both temporarily
exiled from Augsburg after he procured abortifacients for her. In Ulm in
1616, Barbara Bollingerin was caught trying to bury her dead newborn and
was decapitated. In Augsburg in 1621, Matthes Erhart pushed his young
son into a canal, whereupon the boy drowned and Erhart was executed.
In 1637, Ursula Millerin was suspected of giving herself an abortion and
was banished from the city of Augsburg. In 1693 Maria Lucia Thomannin
and Cyprian Wiser each argued before the Augsburg council that the other
was responsible for the termination of Maria Lucia’s pregnancy; both were
released. In 1740, the Augsburg town council sentenced the already suicidal
Jeremias Bertz to death for killing his infant daughter. In 1765 in Augsburg,
Barbara Gruberin suffocated her newborn under her bed and was subse-
quently decapitated.
The criminals and their motivations, methods, circumstances, and pun-
ishments all varied greatly, yet they were all considered versions of infan-
ticide or abortion. When we investigate the entirety of the early modern
period, then, certain questions are raised that belie the simplicity of the
Introduction 3
Carolina: What exactly was considered infanticide and abortion? How did
local courts handle the trials? How did local law interact with imperial law?
How did society react? What social and cultural factors made infanticide
and abortion necessary? Who turned to these desperate measures? How
were the laws gendered, and what impact did this have on prosecution?
How did public and legal reactions change over time? What did infanticide
and abortion mean in early modern Germany, and was this meaning cultur-
ally unique?
When looking at infanticide and abortion in a larger context, it is clear
that both are historically contingent concepts. In early modern Europe,
infanticide and abortion had very particular meanings: these were almost
always crimes associated with illegitimacy and shame. Although even these
particular definitions would be repeatedly challenged, the terminology
remained fairly constant for the three hundred years of the early modern
period, and even beyond. Yet, this particular meaning of infanticide and
abortion was actually fairly new to the early modern period.
Recent scholarship has shown that abortion and infanticide were not
as closely scrutinized or harshly punished in certain places in premodern
Europe, and were instead treated as familial matters and not a concern of
the state.1 In discussions reminiscent of modern debates about personhood
and women’s rights to their bodies, theologians and lawmakers postulated
differing opinions about the definition of life, soul, and legal existence. The
idea of infanticide as a familial concern found perhaps its furthest extension
in the ancient Roman Empire, which viewed children as essentially the prop-
erty of their fathers, to do with as the fathers wished. Unwanted newborns
could thus be legally abandoned to die. Outside of Europe, abortion and
infanticide can take on myriad meaning and purposes, including ritual, the
limitation of family size, and sex-selection.2
Even in early modern Europe, there was quite a variety of motivations,
methods, and reactions to infanticide and abortion.3 Religious confession
and regional culture certainly played a role, as the availability of foundling
houses or other options for unwed pregnant women and cultural expecta-
tions for potential single mothers played a role in the frequency and treat-
ment of abortion and infanticide. Abandonment was, for instance, a greater
concern than infanticide in late medieval Italy, while in Germany, the debate
about whether governments should support foundling houses focused on
whether such institutions encouraged fornication or prevented abortion and
infanticide. More and more research is being done into the story of found-
ling houses and orphanages in Europe and particularly in Germany, illus-
trating the many ways early modern people dealt with unwanted children.4
Abandonment, abortion, and infanticide were linked very closely in the
imperial law code, as they were all crimes associated with unwanted moth-
erhood. The growth of research on motherhood in early modern Europe has
helped to illuminate the complexities of this role. Women were often seen
as potential mothers rather than individuals in their own right, and yet for
4 Introduction
many women, motherhood was not so straightforward. Women who had
given birth were not always mothers, and likewise women were often placed
in mothering roles with children to whom they had not given birth.5
In this book, I consider the crimes of infanticide and abortion together.
The history of abortion entails a much more complex set of questions than
infanticide alone. The legality and morality of abortion has been persis-
tently debated since ancient times, and opinions have never been consis-
tent. Abortion has been legal and illegal at different times and places, with
legality dependent on any number of circumstances and interpretations. The
moment during a pregnancy at which the abortion of a fetus was under-
stood as a crime also varied widely, dependent upon definitions of concep-
tion, murder, and life itself. For much of history, abortion has also presented
the further complication of being difficult to diagnose and prove, making
prosecution an unrealistic proposition. The study of early modern abortion
thus presents many complicated issues, which historians of law, medicine,
and society are still sorting out.6
While connecting abortion and infanticide may appear controversial
in a contemporary context, the early modern perspective was quite differ-
ent. In the eyes of the law, infanticide and abortion were committed by
the same people for the same reason. In fact, there is significant evidence
that women who committed abortion or infanticide often saw the two in
similar terms as well, with parturition being a minor difference. If an abor-
tion did not “work,” then infanticide might be necessary. Infanticide might,
then, be considered a very late-term abortion. Determining whether death
occurred before, during, or after birth was almost impossible, further blur-
ring the lines defining the two crimes. The close relationship between the
two was not universally recognized, but it was close enough at the time that
to exclude one or the other would be a false and ahistorical distinction.
Abortion also speaks to the difficulty of childbirth in the early modern era.
The difference between abortion and miscarriage or stillbirth might be very
slight, if not impossible to determine. Legal distinctions between “unnatu-
ral” and “natural” causes of fetal death were encumbered by the limits of
medical knowledge at the time. Childbirth itself was already a particularly
dangerous time for both mother and child, and any number of actions, pur-
poseful or not, could result in fetal death, or infant death during childbirth.7
When it comes to infanticide in early modern Europe, the research has
been fruitful. Especially prolific is the study of infanticide in early modern
England, and certain aspects of the cultural climate and reaction to infan-
ticide make for a close comparison to the situation in Germany.8 The Eng-
lish fascination with infanticide in certain decades is comparable to that of
the Germans; the popular print literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries was in many ways similar to what was being printed in Germany
around the same time.9 Yet, certain important distinctions remain between
early modern Germany and early modern England, especially when it came
to English and continental legal systems.
Introduction 5
For early modern Germany in particular, there is a large body of impres-
sive research on infanticide. Most of the research on the earlier decades of the
early modern period takes the form of case studies or close regional studies.10
Because the sources can be so bountiful in certain areas, we have some excel-
lent in-depth looks into infanticide proceedings. These works have largely
agreed on certain findings: that infanticide was mostly committed by poor,
unwed women, that these women were for the most part impregnated by
men of equally low standing, that the less chance she had of marriage, the
more likely a woman was to commit infanticide, that infanticide and abor-
tion cases tested the limits of medical forensics and legal procedure, and that
as inherently secretive crimes, infanticide and abortion were not only difficult
to prosecute but also present certain analytical difficulties to the historian.
In terms of a larger picture of early modern infanticide, there have been
several impressive studies. These more sweeping, far-reaching studies of
infanticide in early modern Germany have tended toward the later part of
the period. Due to the early romantic, Sturm und Drang-era obsession with
infanticide, literary scholars and historians alike have devoted tremendous
effort to the study of infanticide in the late eighteenth century. These studies
have uncovered an eighteenth-century preoccupation with infanticide that
reached a fevered pitch around the 1770s and 1780s.11 This was indeed a
vital time of transition in the legal, social, and cultural understanding and
treatment of infanticide, but the transitions of the late eighteenth century
were firmly rooted in ideas that began at least two centuries before. The
proliferation of studies on infanticide in Germany during the Enlightenment
era has been deeply illuminating and incredibly important, yet the very fact
that there has been so much work done on this period draws attention away
from an equally important story to be told about the centuries before, when
the crime of infanticide was first beginning to take on its unique early mod-
ern denotation. It was in the sixteenth century that the social conditions and
laws were generated that eventually led to the impassioned debate over how
to stop infanticide at the end of the eighteenth century.
That is why my book explores the full three centuries traditionally
equated with the early modern period. The work on infanticide and abor-
tion to date has approached the period piecemeal and only tells a portion of
the story. What has been lacking from the historiography is a sustained and
long-term study of infanticide and abortion in Germany that allows for a
broad exploration of the changing definitions of and reactions to the crimes.
Because the discussion of infanticide began to shift around the time of the
Enlightenment, the majority of studies of infanticide focus on this period.
But this ignores the beginning of the story, which starts around 1500 with
the intensification of social discipline following the religious reformations.
To better understand the overwhelming level of attention paid to infanticide
and abortion, the severity of the legal response, and the Enlightenment’s
flurry of discussion, we must look to the formation of the early modern
conception of the crime. A long-term approach is necessary to see the full
6 Introduction
picture and to appreciate the smaller points of interest in the history of early
modern infanticide.
In order to explore three centuries of infanticide and abortion, I have lim-
ited my own research to a narrower geographical reach—focusing mainly
on the southern German cities of Augsburg, Nördlingen, Memmingen, and
Ulm—and relied on the extensive research presented in other secondary
works to confirm the trends my research reveals. This approach facilitates
an examination of the entire period, extending from roughly 1500 to 1800.

The full three centuries of the early modern period tell a story of legal tran-
sition, social development, and cultural reaction, the entirety of which has
only been glimpsed before. The limits of 1500 and 1800 come fairly natu-
rally to this study, with the institution of empire-wide legal reforms early in
the sixteenth century and a new wave of Enlightenment-inspired reform in
the late eighteenth. These legal transitions in turn grew out of larger cultural
and social movements.
In viewing the entirety of the period, we see that the crimes of infanticide
and abortion were much more complex than historians have ever realized—
both in terms of the crime itself and in terms of societal response to it. The
crimes evolved considerably over the three centuries of the early modern
period, and rates of both commission and prosecution varied greatly. Peri-
ods of intense prosecution were followed by entire decades with no recorded
incidents of the crime in certain localities. In the media, infanticide featured
primarily in popular publications, but it would also grow to be a preoc-
cupation of Germany’s educated elite. Infanticide in the early modern era
was unique and distinct as both a crime and a social phenomenon. The
reasons why women and men committed infanticide were peculiarly early
modern—Christian morality enforced by a strict desire on the part of vari-
ous authorities to maintain and protect their godly communities, as well as
a lack of viable alternatives for unwed mothers—as were the ways in which
authorities and citizens of early modern towns reacted to the crime.
With this book, I aim to expand the discussion of infanticide and abor-
tion in the types of sources I have considered. Instead of focusing solely
on court records, I also examine printed popular literature—woodcuts of
violent scenes, gallows speeches, conversion stories, sensationalized crime
reports, and official execution announcements—as well as the more edu-
cated published discourse on infanticide, which included medical, legal, and
theological treatises and reform-oriented philosophical debates. This allows
for a far more comprehensive perspective on abortion and infanticide and
sets them within their cultural context. I will address questions about what
infanticide meant to the various members of early modern society and why,
how they reacted to such crimes, and how both popular and educated dis-
courses evolved over time. Infanticide and abortion were not just crimes
addressed in court but social problems that caught the attention and imagi-
nation of all levels of society and were incorporated into everything from
fantasy to poetry to tabloids.
Introduction 7
My approach also expands on the historiography by considering a wider
range of crimes in order to understand better what infanticide and abor-
tion meant in the early modern period. The imperial law code of the Holy
Roman Empire defined infanticide simply as a crime committed solely by
unwed women. Influenced by this definition, scholars have generally limited
their research to crimes committed by unwed women. The discussion of
infanticide in the context of early modern European history usually operates
under the assumption of this very particular definition, despite the fact that
children were sometimes killed under very different circumstances. I have
looked at closely related crimes that were not always labeled infanticide as a
way to more clearly see where the early modern boundaries were.
While it is irrefutable that infanticide and abortion were most often com-
mitted by single women, they were by no means the only ones to do so. Cases
of men committing infanticide or encouraging their lovers to have abortions
departed from the narrative that prosecuting authorities expected, as did
the multiple cases of married women committing infanticide or abortion,
or even women who had given birth to and raised children before. These
cases complicate the heretofore neatly packaged story. A closer examination
of the murder of children in early modern Germany reveals that infanticide
was actually quite a varied and complex crime and encompassed a range of
actions, motivations, and cultural associations and meanings.
Like the contemporary crime of witchcraft, infanticide was attributed far
more frequently, but not exclusively, to women. Both crimes were defined
and perceived as female crimes in the early modern period, and both crimes
have been interpreted too frequently and too exclusively as female crimes
by modern scholars. But it is crucial—and far more interesting—to examine
the origins of the tendency to associate infanticide exclusively with female
criminality despite the extensive evidence of significant male involvement in
the crime.
The definition of infanticide in the early modern era meant that unmar-
ried women were more likely to be suspected of the crime; such limitations
resulted in early modern authorities being more likely to see the death of an
illegitimate child as a potential crime. Conversely, this also meant that mar-
ried women (or men) who committed infanticide were not nearly as likely
to be suspected. Babies frequently died during or shortly after childbirth,
so the majority of infant deaths were not, in fact, suspicious. What made
an infant death suspicious was its illegitimacy. Therefore, a married mother
might easily smother a child and the incident might well be interpreted as
an accident. Motivations diverged from the expected as well. Women and
men committed infanticide not only to cover up the public shame result-
ing from fornication, as the Carolina so clearly states, but also because of
the financial, physical, and emotional pressures related to raising children,
especially illegitimate children. Many of these were strains that both fathers
and mothers felt, whether married or unmarried. Infanticide was a unique
crime in that, when a dead child was found, the parents’ social status often
8 Introduction
determined whether that death was seen as suspicious. And it was only as
the expectations placed on mothers shifted at the end of the early modern
period that the prosecution of infanticide changed as well. Infanticide and
abortion were thus inherently gendered crimes, as well as crimes shaped by
social and economic status.
Certain questions that arose at the beginning of the project have turned
out to be either nearly impossible to answer or simply not the most interest-
ing or important issues at hand. For instance, there seems to have been no
regard for the sex of the newborn in any of the cases I have found. That
is, these instances of infanticide were not driven by sex-selectivity, as is the
case in other cultures. In most cases, the sex of the child is never mentioned.
So while infanticide is a gendered crime, it was only so on the part of the
perpetrator.
Class was an important factor in determining who committed infanti-
cide, or at least who came before the court. The extreme majority of cases
came from a similar class: women who were poor, unmarried women with
very little family. We do not read about upper-class or even noble women
committing infanticide (outside of dramatic literature), because, I believe,
they had familial support and financial means to either hide unwanted ille-
gitimate children or to quickly marry. The women who resorted to infan-
ticide or abortion could not marry and had run out of all other options.
Likewise, the men involved in infanticide cases largely came from the lower
classes. Infanticide was most often not the story of the nobleman seducing
a poor maid (as would be popularized in literature), or even the master
raping a servant (which likely happened more than is seen in the records),
but rather of a young maidservant having sex with an apprentice or jour-
neyman, essentially her social equal. This also meant that the fathers of the
victims were often not in a position to marry or support the mothers and
were in a much better position to simply skip town and avoid responsibility.
Thus, while class was integral in the question of infanticide, infanticide does
not reveal much about class difference before the court.
Finally, religion certainly played a role in infanticide and abortion, but
not necessarily the one that might have been expected in a time of reli-
gious strife. Religious fervor from all confessions contributed to the stricter
morality of the sixteenth century. Protestants and Catholics alike commit-
ted infanticide and condemned it. Religious confession would actually play
a larger role not in the decades of the reformations but in the eighteenth
century when discussions of penitence and redemption came into play. Yet
religious confession, at least in Germany, largely did not affect who commit-
ted infanticide or abortion or how it was punished.
Instead of these questions, the long span of my research has allowed other
patterns and conclusions to emerge. In terms of legal history, my research
shows how the crimes of infanticide and abortion fit within the narrative
of the inheritance of Roman law in the Holy Roman Empire and how this
transition interacted with the continuation of local practices. The imperial
Introduction 9
law was straightforward but also allowed for its overruling by local courts.
Infanticide and abortion were highly varied crimes that tested preset defini-
tions of imperial and local legal codes.
The long span of my research also shows that the commission of these
crimes was continually far outpaced by the discussion surrounding them.
Even when the debate reached a feverish pitch in the later decades of
the eighteenth century, the court records still demonstrated a crime that
occurred only occasionally. As secretive crimes, officials suspected much

higher numbers than there seems to have been. Indeed, infanticide and
abortion were swept up in a cycle in which social and legal changes made
the crimes more likely but also more expected. The more these crimes were
sought out, the more women (and men) were pushed to the point of need-
ing to commit the crimes. The more the crimes were committed, the greater
the expectation that they would be committed. Once fear of these crimes
was planted, and the legal means to prosecute them were cemented, a panic
of sorts set in. Infanticide, aside from witchcraft, came to be the crime most
associated with women and a sure sign of decaying morality.
Additionally, the story of infanticide across the early modern period
reflects and illuminates the broader story of women and gender. In the ear-
liest part of the early modern period, women in general were thought to be
not simply physically and mentally weaker but also spiritually weaker. This
weakness took the form of uncontrollable lusts and passions, which made
it more likely that women were not only likely to be seduced into immoral
behavior (and which also led them to witchcraft), but also more likely to be
sexually aggressive.12 As such, women held the sole blame for infanticides
and abortion. The role of the father was largely ignored. Women were not
usually seen as victims of seduction but immoral and willing participants
in fornication. These ideas would shift in significant ways by the beginning
of the nineteenth century as women’s weakness was newly interpreted as
rendering them incapable of being fully responsible for their own actions.
The role of the father was now much more significant, and he was much
more likely to be considered a major influence in the crime, if not the one
solely responsible. Women now no longer occupied the role of seductresses
but rather of the seduced victim. By the end of the eighteenth century,
some writers even went so far as to portray women who committed infan-
ticide as simply enacting the desperate and necessary consequences of male
seduction.
Similarly, the study of infanticide and abortion also contributes to our
historical knowledge of children and childhood. Although the theories
of a late-eighteenth, if not nineteenth-century discovery of childhood,
so famously argued by Philippe Ariès13 and later by many others,14 have
largely been dismissed,15 there is disagreement about what childhood actu-
ally meant and how early modern people felt about it.16 Perhaps ironically,
examining crimes against children reveals the extent to which early modern
society cared for its youngest and most helpless members, at least in theory.
10 Introduction
When infanticide occurred, it was not discussed in the same manner as any
other murder. Only the victims of infanticide were totally without blame.
Selfish, wanton, and murderous mothers threatened the very core of society
by killing their children. Yet at the same time the children who were not
wanted by their mothers were not entirely welcome in the same society that
defended them so vehemently. In practice, foundlings were often banished
along with the same parents that tried to abandon them, or were left to die
in the abysmal conditions of foundling houses. In theory, however, children

were loved and protected in a special way, and childhood was acknowl-
edged as a distinctly vulnerable and precious stage in life.
In order to more clearly illustrate the changes over the long scope of my
research, I have organized this book roughly in chronological order and
according to the prevailing patterns that have emerged. The first chapter
spans the sixteenth century, exploring the legal and social developments
of the early part of the period that resulted in infanticide and abortion
becoming capital crimes. This chapter is situated within the larger narrative
of the codification of laws and the inheritance of Roman law in the Holy
Roman Empire.17 With the issuance of the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina,
infanticide and abortion were clearly outlined and established as capital
crimes. At the same time, the religious reformations of the early sixteenth
century ensured that infanticide and abortion were resorted to much more
frequently.
Chapter two explores the height of early modern prosecution of infanti-
cide and abortion. The years between 1580 and 1630 witnessed a distinct
swell in infanticide prosecutions and executions, which likely reflected an
increase in the actual occurrence of infanticide. This chapter addresses the
social and economic motivations behind this increase in commission. As
magistrates investigated and prosecuted the crime more thoroughly in an
attempt to root it out, they ran into more and more complicated cases that
tested their legal definitions and guidelines. Prosecution was difficult and
only ever sporadically successful. This chapter also therefore explores the
trials themselves in detail and the words and defense strategies of the defen-
dants as they tangled with prosecuting authorities.
The third chapter discusses the popular literature of roughly the same
decades around the turn of the century; simultaneous with the upswing in
prosecutions came a dramatic increase in publications that featured various
forms of violence toward children. Broadsides, pamphlets, and other art
forms featured not only mothers, but also witches, monsters, foreigners, and
serial killers attacking infants. These depictions of violence toward children
appear to reflect the very real fears about infanticide felt by the community
at this time. Yet the violence depicted in these publications was often far
more savage than actual infanticide cases, and the frequency of publications
far outpaced the occurrence of infanticide in the court records. This chapter
explores this dissonance and examines how societal concerns might have
manifested in unpredictable ways.
Introduction 11
The fourth chapter explores how, beginning in the mid-seventeenth cen-
tury, the educated debate about infanticide began to extend beyond the
courtroom and how these discussions in turn changed local practices. In
particular, I focus on medical and legal issues that involved judges, phy-
sicians, and university faculties as they sought the most effective means
for investigating infanticide and tried to come to consensus on issues of
evidence, procedure, and punishment. Such discussions tied local cases of
infanticide to a much wider intellectual world. The higher level of expertise

in infanticide and abortion cases also resulted in a greater difficulties with
prosecution, which in turn contributed to legal reform and to wider discus-
sions of procedure, torture, and the use capital punishment.
Finally, in the last chapter, I will explore a time—the late eighteenth cen-
tury—that has been well-trod by historians of infanticide, with good reason.
This period was marked by a popular interest in the crime as a theme of sen-
sationalist popular publications and early romanticism, particularly among
the poets of the Sturm und Drang movement in Germany. Poems featuring
such scenes as insane mothers bashing their newborns’ heads upon bare rock
before committing suicide were written by the most well-respected authors
of the day. This renewed interest in the crime contributed to a changing
public reaction to the crime, eventually resulting in efforts to address it from
a more preventative approach instead of a punitive approach. At the same
time, this new bout of sensationalism revealed changing attitudes not only
toward crime but toward women and sexuality.
By examining a broad period of time and a more inclusive idea of vio-
lence against children, I challenge what early modern thinkers and later
historians have built up: a myth of early modern infanticide. This myth is
defined by the idea that infanticide was a much larger-scale problem than
the sources actually reflect, that this monumental problem came almost out
of nowhere in the sixteenth century, that this supposed plague of infanticide
was also indicative of and connected to further social ills such as witchcraft
and ritual murder, and that the parameters of the crime—who committed
it, under what circumstances, and for which reasons—were somehow stable
and uniform. This myth, as I will show, was largely untrue.
NOTES
1. Wolfgang Müller, The Criminalization of Abortion in the West: Its Origins in

Medieval Law (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012).
2. On infanticide more generally, see Brigitte Bechtold and Donna Cooper Graves
(eds), Killing Infants: Studies in the World Practice of Infanticide (Lewiston,
NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006) and Brigitte Bechtold and Donna Cooper
Graves (eds), An Encyclopedia of Infanticide (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen
Press, 2010).
3. For infanticide in Europe, see Mark Jackson (ed.), Infanticide: Historical Per-
spectives on Child Murder and Concealment, 1550–2000 (Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2002).
12 Introduction
For infanticide and abandonment in Italy, see, among others, Joanne Fer-
raro, Nefarious Crimes, Contested Justice: Illicit Sex and Infanticide in the
Republic of Venice, 1557–1789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2008) and David Kertzer, Sacrificed for Honor: Italian Infant Abandonment
and the Politics of Reproductive Control (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993). On
infanticide in Belgium, see René Leboutte, “Offense Against Family Order:
Infanticide in Belgium from the Fifteenth through the Early Twentieth Centu-
ries,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 2, no. 2 (October 1991), 159–185.
4. On abandonment in European history, see John Boswell, The Kindness of
Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiq-

uity to the Renaissance (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988). On abandonment
and orphanages in Germany, see Anita Obermeier, “Findel- und Waisenkinder.
Zur Geschichte der Sozialfürsorge in der Reichsstadt Augsburg,” Zeitschrift
des Historischen Vereins für Schwaben 83 (1990), 129–162; Thomas Safley,
Charity and Economy in the Orphanages of Early Modern Augsburg (New Jer-
sey: Humanities Press, 1997); Thomas Safley, Children of the Laboring Poor:
Expectation and Experience among the Orphans of Early Modern Augsburg
(Leiden: Brill, 2005); Joel Harrington, “Escape from the Great Confinement:
the Genealogy of a German Workhouse,” The Journal of Modern History 71,
no. 2 (June 1999), 308–345; Joel Harrington, The Unwanted Child: The Fate
of Foundlings, Orphans, and Juvenile Criminals in Early Modern Germany
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).
5. Joel Harrington in his book, The Unwanted Child: The Fate of Foundlings,
Orphans, and Juvenile Criminals in Early Modern Germany (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 2009), traces the networks of childcare in early
modern Germany, which often included step-parents, relatives city or church
sponsored foundling houses and orphanages. On motherhood specifically, see
Naomi Miller and Naomi Yavneh (eds), Mothers and Others: Female Caregiv-
ers in the Early Modern Period (London: Ashgate, 2000).
6. On the history of abortion in Europe, see Sigurd von Pfeil, Das Kind als Objekt
der Planung: Eine kulturhistorische Untersuchung über Abtreibung, Kindestö-
tung und Aussetzung (Göttingen: Verlag Otto Schwartz & Co., 1979); Dieter
Kluge, Eyn noch nit lebendig kindt: rechtshistorische Untersuchungen zum
Abbruch der Schwangerschaft in den ersten 3 Monaten der Entwicklung der
Frucht auf der Grundlage der Carolina von 1532 (Frankfurt: Lang, 1986);
Robert Jütte, Geschichte der Abtreibung: von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart
(Munich: C.H. Beck, 1993); John Riddle, Contraception and Abortion from
the Ancient World to the Renaissance (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1992); John Riddle, Eve’s Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion
in the West (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997); Wolfgang Müller,
Die Abtreibung: Anfänge der Kriminalisierung 1140–1650 (Cologne: Böhlau
Verlag, 2000); Wolfgang Müller, The Criminalization of Abortion in the West:
Its Origins in Medieval Law (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012).
7. Jacques Gélis, History of Childbirth: Fertility, Pregnancy and Birth in Early
Modern Europe, trans Rosemary Morris (Boston: Northeastern University
Press, 1991); Eva Labouvie, Andere Umstände: eine Kulturgeschichte der
Geburt (Cologne: Böhlau, 1998); Ulinka Rublack, “Pregnancy, Childbirth
and the Female Body in Early Modern Germany,” Past & Present 150, no. 1
(February 1996), 84–110; Hilary Marland (ed.), The Art of Midwifery: Early
Modern Midwives in Europe and North America (London: Routledge, 1993).
8. On infanticide in early modern England, see Laura Gowing. “Secret Births
and Infanticide in Seventeenth-Century England,” Past and Present 156,
no. 1 (August 1997), 87–115; Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women,
Introduction 13
Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996);
Peter Hoffer and N.E.H. Hull, Murdering Mothers: Infanticide in England
and New England 1558–1803 (New York: New York University Press, 1981);
Mark Jackson, Newborn Child Murder: Women, Illegitimacy and the Courts
in Eighteenth-Century England (New York: Manchester University Press,
1996); Josephine McDonagh, Child Murder and British Culture, 1720–1900
(Houndsmills, New York: Palgrave, 2003); Susan Staub, Nature’s Cruel Step-
dames: Murderous Women in the Street Literature of Seventeenth Century
England (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2005); Garthine Walker,
Crime, Gender, and Social Order in Early Modern England (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2003).
9. On the relationship between the two cultures, see Joy Wiltenburg, Disorderly
Women and Female Power in the Street Literature of Early Modern England
and Germany (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1992).
10. Martin Scheutz, “Scheiternde Mütter oder reulose Kindsmörderinnen? Geri-
chtsakten in der Frühen Neuzeit als Quelle,” in Martin Scheutz and Thomas
Winkelbauer (eds), Diebe, Sodomiten und Wilderer? Waldviertler Gerichtsak-
ten aus dem 18. Jahrhundert als Beitrag zur Sozialgeschichte (St. Pölten: Verein
für Landeskunde von Niederösterreich, 2005), 13–58; Anton Felber, Unzucht
und Kindsmord in der Rechtsprechung der freien Reichsstadt Nördlingen vom
15. bis 19. Jahrhundert (Dissertation, University of Bonn, 1961); Günther
Häßler, and Frank Häßler, “Infanticide in Mecklenburg and Western Pomera-
nia: Documents from Four Centuries (1570–1842),” History of Psychiatry
22, no. 1 (March 2011), 75–92; Markus Meumann, Findelkinder, Waisen-
häuser, Kindsmord: Unversorgte Kinder in der frühneuzeitlichen Gesellschaft
(Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1995); Richard van Dülmen, Frauen vor
Gericht: Kindsmord in der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch
Verlag, 1991); Franz Irsigler, “Eva Zeihen aus Kenn, verbrannt am 19. August
1572: Kindsmörderin oder Hexe?” in Franz Irsigler and Gisela Minn (eds),
Porträt einer europäische Kernregion: Der Rhein-Maas-Raum in historischen
Lebensbildern (Trier: Kliomedia, 2005), 147–155; Katharina Schrader, Gerda
Mayer, Helga Fredebold, and Irene Fründt, Vorehelich, Ausserehelich, Unehe-
lich—wegen der großen Schande: Kindstötung im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert
in den Hildesheimer Ämtern Marienberg, Ruthe, Steinbrück und Steuerwald
(Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 2006); William Myers, Death and a Maiden: Infan-
ticide and the Tragical History of Grethe Schmidt (Dekalb, IL: Northern Illi-
nois University Press, 2011).
11. Some of the most prominent studies on infanticide in Enlightenment and
Sturm-und-Drang Germany include: Otto Ulbricht, “The Debate about
Foundling Hospitals in Enlightenment Germany: Infanticide, Illegitimacy, and
Infant Mortality Rates,” Central European History 18, no. 3/4 (Sep.–Dec.,
1985), 211–256; Otto Ulbricht, Kindsmord und Aufklärung in Deutschland
(Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1990); Otto Ulbricht, “Kindsmörderin-
nen vor Gericht: Verteidigungsstrategien von Frauen in Norddeutsch-
land 1680–1810,” in Andreas Blauert and Gerd Schwerhoff (eds), Mit den
Waffen der Justiz: Zur Kriminalitätsgeschichte des Späten Mittelalters und
der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1993), 54–85;
Wilhelm Wächtershäuser, Das Verbrechen des Kindesmordes im Zeitalter
der Aufklärung: Eine rechtsgeschichtliche Untersuchung der dogmatischen,
prozessualen und rechtssoziolog (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1973); Ker-
stin Michalik, Kindsmord: Sozial- und Rechtsgeschichte der Kindstötung im
18. und beginnenden 19. Jahrhundert am Beispiel Preussen (Pfaffenweiler:
Centaurus, 1997); Kerstin Michalik, “The Development of the Discourse on
14 Introduction
Infanticide in the Late Eighteenth Century and the New Legal Standardization
of the Offense in the Nineteenth Century,” in Ulrike Gleixner and Marion
Gray (eds), Gender in Transition: Discourse and Practice in German-speaking
Europe, 1750–1830 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 51–71;
Thea Koss, Kindesmord im Dorf: ein Kriminalfall des 18. Jahrhunderts und
Seine Gesellschaftlichen Hintergründe (Tübingen: Silberburg, 1994); Susanne
Kord, “Women as Children, Woman as Childkillers: Poetic Images of Infan-
ticide in Eighteenth-Century Germany,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 26, no.
3 (Spring 1993), 449–466; Susanne Kord, Murderesses in German Writing,
1720–1860: Heroines of Horror (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2009); Georg Pilz, Deutsche Kindesmord-Tragödien: Wagner, Goethe, Heb-
bel, Hauptmann (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1982); Volker Wahl, “Das Kind in
Meinem Leib:” Sittlichkeitsdelikte und Kindsmord in Sachsen-Weimar-Eisen-
ach unter Carl August: eine Quellenedition, 1777–1786 (Weimar: Böhlaus
Nachfolger, 2004); Beat Weber, Die Kindsmörderin im Deutschen Schrifttum
von 1770–1795 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1974); Helen Fronius, “Images of Infanti-
cide in Eighteenth-Century Germany,” in Helen Fronius and Anna Linton
(eds), Women & Death: Representations of Female Victims and Perpetrators
in German Culture, 1500–2000 (Rochester: Camden House, 2008), 93–112;
W. Daniel Wilson, “Goethe, His Duke and Infanticide: New Documents and
Reflections on a Controversial Execution,” German Life and Letters 61, no. 1
(January 2008), 7–32; Fritz Breithaupt, “Anonymous Forces of History: The
Case of Infanticide in the Sturm und Drang,” New German Critique 79 (Win-
ter 2000), 157–176; Michael Schmidt, Genossin der Hexe: Interpretation der
Gretchentragödie in Goethes Faust aus der Perspektive der Kindesmordprob-
lematik (Göttingen: Altaquito, 1985).
On infanticide in later nineteenth-century Germany, see, for example, Peter
Dreier, Kindsmord im Deutschen Reich: unter Besonderer Berücksichtigung
Bayerns im Späten 19. Und Frühen 20. Jahrhundert (Marburg: Tectum,
2006); Regina Schulte, “Infanticide in Rural Bavaria in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury,” in Hans Medick and David Sabean (eds), Interest and Emotion: Essays
on the study of family and kinship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1986) 77–102; Regina Schulte, The Village in Court: Arson, Infanticide, and
Poaching in the Court Records of Upper Bavaria, 1848–1910 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1994); and Jeffrey Richter, “Infanticide, Child
Abandonment, and Abortion in Imperial Germany,” Journal of Interdisciplin-
ary History 28, no. 4 (Spring 1998), 511–551.
12. Heide Wunder, He is the Sun, She is the Moon: Women in Early Modern Ger-
many, trans Thomas Dunlap (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998),
among others.
13. Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood, trans Richard Baldick (New York:
Vintage, 1996).
14. Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (Lon-
don: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977).
15. For a thorough refutation of Ariès’s thesis, see Nicholas Orme, Medieval Chil-
dren (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
16. Margaret King, “Concepts of Childhood: What We Know and Where We
Might Go,” Renaissance Quarterly 60, no. 2 (2007), 371–407.
17. On the inheritance of Roman law in the sixteenth century, see Peter Landau and
Friedrich Schroeder (eds), Strafrecht, Strafprozess und Rezeption: Grundlagen,
Entwicklung und Wirkung der Constitutio Criminalis Carolina (Frankfurt: Vit-
torio Klostermann, 1984); Gerald Strauss, Law, Resistance, and the State: The
Opposition to Roman Law in Reformation Germany (Princeton: Princeton
Introduction 15
University Press, 1986). On women and the development of the law, see Ute
Gerhard (ed.), Frauen in der Geschichte des Rechts: von der Frühen Neuzeit
bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1997); Franz Geyer, Der Kindsmord
im Deutschen Recht unter Berücksichtigung des Französischen, Schweizerischen
und Italienischen Rechts: eine Rechtshistorische Studie (Coburg: Tageblatt-
Haus, 1932). On women and crime, see Ulinka Rublack, The Crimes of
Women in Early Modern Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999);
Joy Wiltenburg, Disorderly Women and Female Power in the Street Litera-
ture of Early Modern England and Germany (Charlottesville: University of
Virginia Press, 1992); Richard van Dülmen, Frauen vor Gericht: Kindsmord in
der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1991).
1 The Baby in the Pig Sty
Defining the Crime
In December 1568, a young maidservant of Altmannshofen was sent to

muck out a pig sty and instead discovered the remains of a dead baby,
including a bit of skull and a fragment of a leg. Although the pigs had all but
obliterated the corpse, it was soon apparent to everyone in the household
what had happened. Shortly thereafter, another maidservant from the same
household, Walpurga Seitz, found herself before the Augsburg city council,
about 100 kilometers away, answering accusations that she had murdered
her illegitimate newborn child. By the end of January, the city council had
sentenced Walpurga to execution by drowning. The executioner most likely
bound her by her hands and feet and threw her into the Lech, the river just
to the east of town.1
Walpurga’s story was one of the most shocking cases of early mod-
ern infanticide. She was only eighteen years old when she was arrested in
December 1568. Originally from Pfaffenhausen, a village roughly 50 kilo-
meters southwest of Augsburg, she had moved to Altmannshofen to find
work. It was there that she became pregnant, gave birth, and killed her
newborn child. She then fled with another woman to Augsburg, where she
was arrested. Walpurga’s case is remarkable not simply because of the dra-
matic conditions under which her crime was discovered but also because she
was one of the first women in the city to be executed for infanticide under
the new law code, the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina (Carolina) of 1532.
Her crime and her fate, while shocking, were not all that unusual by the
late sixteenth century. Across the Holy Roman Empire and, indeed, the rest
of Europe, infanticide seemed to be on the rise. City officials professed that
infanticide and abortions were happening more and more frequently. What
were authorities to do?
According to popular opinion and the legal dictums of the Carolina, self-
ish mothers committed infanticide in order to hide their own “depravity,”
by which it meant their fornication and the hidden illegitimate pregnancy
that preceded the murder itself. Such women encapsulated all that was
wrong with society, and the perceived rise in infanticides and abortions was
interpreted as a sure sign that their communities were in very serious danger.
With the weight of the Carolina behind them, towns like Augsburg were
The Baby in the Pig Sty: Defining the Crime 17
eager to punish these crimes as severely as possible. Women like Walpurga
needed not only to be punished but also to be used as examples to warn
other women who might be tempted by sin. Thus, Walpurga was drowned
for her crime: a horrific punishment for a horrific crime. But what led Wal-
purga to murder and dispose of her newborn in such a seemingly heartless
fashion and to risk her own life by doing so? How could conceiving an
illegitimate child lead a woman to such actions? What had driven Walpurga
to such desperation? And why did this crime seem to appear in the court
records and legal codes so suddenly in the sixteenth century? Why was neo-
natal infanticide now a crime punishable by death?
The supposed rise of infanticide and abortion, which were considered
closely related crimes at the time, in many ways reflected and encapsulated
momentous changes occurring throughout late medieval Europe and espe-
cially in the Holy Roman Empire. A collection of trends emerged around
1500, dramatically altering the way in which abortion and infanticide were
interpreted and treated: a perception of increased criminality in the sixteenth
century, the attempt at codification and homogenization of laws across the
empire, the influence of a stricter reformation morality, the subsequent take-
over of moral enforcement from the Catholic Church by secular authorities,
and the increasing severity of punishments leading to more frequent use of
execution. By 1600 these patterns would lead to decreased tolerance for
unmarried mothers and illegitimate children, the common suspicion that
unmarried pregnant women were potential child-murderesses, and the fre-
quent executions of convicted child-murderesses.
INFANTICIDE AND ABORTION BEFORE THE CAROLINA
Infanticide and abortion predated the codification of laws against them;

there were always women with unwanted pregnancies and children who
lacked other means to address these problems. So why did infanticide seem
to stand out as a fairly new and dramatically increasing crime in the early
modern period? Walpurga Seitz was certainly not the first woman to com-
mit infanticide in Augsburg, so why was she, in 1568, among the first to
appear in the records? Why was she one of the first of a wave of women
executed for infanticide and abortion with increasing regularity? Walpurga,
although not the first to commit such a crime, had done so at a time when
the consequences were becoming more severe. Walpurga’s case can therefore
be seen as a signpost of change.
The greatest difficulty in documenting this evolution is the scattered
nature of criminal records before the sixteenth century. Records of infan-
ticides that predate the Carolina are quite rare. Yet, from what scant evi-
dence we do have, we can see that the crime began to take a specific form
well before official codification. An early example of a recorded case of
infanticide is the 1495 case of Margarete Höllin in Nördlingen. Margarete
18 The Baby in the Pig Sty: Defining the Crime
was impregnated by her cousin Hans Holl; she gave birth in secret, threw
a shirt and a blanket over the baby, and finally set a container of barley on
top of the baby in order to kill him. Margarete was made to stand in the
pillory and then banished.2 Margarete’s case and those like hers would help
shape the developing definition of infanticide leading into the early modern
period: an illicit affair, a secret pregnancy, a hidden childbirth, and a quiet
killing of her newborn. Margarete’s punishment was fairly typical in the
decades before the Carolina, as execution would not have been under con-
sideration for such a crime. Cases of infanticide were largely dealt with on
an individual basis and without capital punishment. Crimes such as Marga-
rete’s occurred before the Carolina, frequently enough to shape expectations
and interpretations into imperial law. Once inscribed as such, infanticide
and abortion became more easily identifiable and punishable.
Before the Carolina, laws regarding abortion and infanticide were
irregular, especially in the decentralized Holy Roman Empire. Expanding
research on infanticide and abortion in Europe during the ancient and
medieval eras has begun to untangle how ideas about infanticide and abor-
tion gradually solidified into one idea, and how the crimes were under-
stood by society at large. The definitions and treatments of infanticide,
and even more so of abortion, were inconsistent and shifting. Much more
than today, the relationship between the two was very closely intertwined:
with less precise medical understanding, the difference between prenatal
and post-natal death could be very unclear. Although there were often
legal distinctions between the two crimes, actually establishing which had
been committed was at times virtually impossible. It also appears that
many women who committed infanticide or abortion did not clearly dis-
tinguish between the two themselves. Abortion and infanticide were both
potential solutions to the problems presented by an unwanted pregnancy.
Early modern court records demonstrate this sometimes-fluid relationship
as abortion suspicions and charges turned into infanticide investigations
or vice versa.
Abortion had traditionally been regarded as the lesser crime, an idea that
survived to be codified in the Carolina and beyond. Historically, this had
little to do with modern notions of a woman’s right to exert control over her
own body and her own reproduction and more to do with notions of pri-
vacy, the complex question of what constituted humanity, and the difficul-
ties presented by actually prosecuting abortion. There is significant evidence
that both crimes, abortion even more so than infanticide, were for much
of the medieval period either overlooked or ignored. Reproduction was a
private family concern, and abortion was used as a means to control repro-
duction in the absence of other reliable methods. Any attempt at prosecu-
tion of abortion, at least as inflicted by the mother, was thus seen by many
as an unwanted intrusion into family life. There is even some evidence that
infanticide committed immediately after birth was seen in a similar light in
certain times and places.3
This does not mean that infanticide and abortion were always seen as pri-
vate matters by the eyes of the law. There is no linear progression of crimi-
nalization leading into the sixteenth century. For much of western European
history, infanticide was indeed illegal, even if sometimes ignored. Abortion
was historically the more difficult crime to label and understand, as inten-
tion was the major distinguishing factor between it and miscarriage—and
intention is a difficult concept to prove. Even aside from the question of
intent, abortion laws also varied much more widely than laws about infanti-
cide. Several cultural factors played into the determination of the legality of
abortion. First and foremost (and quite familiar to abortion debates today)
was the question of whether a fetus ought to be categorized legally as equal
to a person, and if so, at what stage and to what degree. For instance, in
mid-fourteenth-century England, a fetus was not thought to possess human
quality until it had been born and was “in the nature of things”; the label
homicide therefore could not apply to beings not yet born, as they were
not yet human. Others argued that the distinction between a fetus and a
person should be made not at birth but at the moment at which the fetus
could survive outside the womb. Germanic and Celtic legal traditions held,
conversely, that while a woman should be compensated for an abortion or
miscarriage caused by someone other than the mother herself, a woman
could terminate her own pregnancy without risk of repercussions. Abor-
tion in this sense fell under the same system that assessed payments to the
family of the victim of homicide according to the personal value (wergeld)
of the victim. If a fetus was killed by someone other than the mother, the
mother or her family would be compensated, but if the mother was the one
who terminated the pregnancy, then she was only robbing herself. Similarly,
in England, the only form of abortion that saw criminal prosecution until
the fourteenth century was that committed by outsiders against pregnant
women. A fetus was, from this perspective, essentially the mother’s property
until it was born into the world and became “human.”4
The very idea that someone should be punished for abortion was thus
not universally held. The equation of abortion with homicide largely came
through the influence of the Catholic Church. The church was responsible
for initial efforts at criminalization of abortion and the eventual classifica-
tion of abortion as homicide—and therefore as a crime beyond their own
reach. We see the church’s influence in the shape the discussion took during
the medieval period, as the debate about whether a fetus was treated as a
person by the law came to focus on whether the fetus had a soul or not.
Theologians and philosophers deliberated on what a fetus was if it did not
have a soul and what indications there might be that marked the moment of
the reception of a soul. Clearly a difficult designation to make with any sort
of certainty, ensoulment was variously attributed to the moment of quicken-
ing (when fetal movement is first detected), the moment of the articulation
of the limbs, or even a set number of days after conception. Further confus-
ing the debate were opinions that ensoulment did not happen during the
course of the pregnancy but rather at the moment of conception or more
radically, at the moment of parturition.
Medieval philosophers and jurists looked to ancient debates about
ensoulment to inform their opinions. Gratian, the influential twelfth-
century jurist, leaned on the ideas of Jerome and Augustine when he argued
that physical formation of the fetus marked the time of ensoulment. Aris-
totle argued a similar idea in his History of Animals, in which he equated
movement, or quickening, with ensoulment: “in the case of male children

the first movement usually occurs on the right-hand side of the womb and
about the fortieth day, but if the child be a female then on the left-hand side
and about the ninetieth day.”5 By the late medieval period, there was some
level of agreement, although by no means full consensus, on the idea that
ensoulment happened at some point after conception and before birth. For
many, this moment was around the fortieth day after conception. Thus,
abortion of a fetus younger than forty days warranted temporary exile,
while the abortion of a fetus over forty days was equated with homicide and
warranted the death penalty. Others envisioned this happening as the slow
awakening of a fetus through animation and ensoulment was a gradual pro-
cess.6 Abortion was a moving target, inconsistently defined and prosecuted.
The inheritance of these difficulties could be seen in the early modern period
even as abortion was more decisively defined.
These arguments extended into the debates on infanticide. While infanti-
cide was more often clearly criminalized than abortion, this was not always
the case in European history. Most famous perhaps were certain ancient
Roman laws, which allowed for abandonment of a newborn with the explicit
intention that it die. This decision was left to the father of the child, not to
the law. This idea was an extension of the belief that a fetus belonged to the
mother or both parents; if a fetus was considered the parents’ property to do
with as they wished, did anything change with parturition? Such attitudes,
often presumed to have been left behind in ancient times, actually cropped
up again during the medieval period. Wolfgang Müller cites an example
from Brno in 1353 in which the case was made for a mother’s right to infan-
ticidal abandonment, equating a newborn to property: “having delivered
the child and owning it rightfully, she [the mother] can suppress and kill it
at will.”7 Müller argues that these attitudes prevailed in the Holy Roman
Empire, where he finds no board of judges ordered an execution for abor-
tion or newborn infanticide until 1500.8 Even if these crimes were punished
in other ways, there was a clear hesitation to go as far as execution, and by
so doing, to equate infanticide and abortion with homicide.
While there was no consistent legal approach toward infanticide or abor-
tion before the propagation of the Carolina, certain general attitudes can be
discerned. Overall, abortion was difficult to prosecute: it was a crime that
often left very little evidence, and it was also a crime that was inconsistently
defined, if classified as a crime at all. There was often more evidence for
infanticide, in that there was likely to be a corpse, and it was also more
frequently equated with homicide, but there were limits to its prosecution
as well. Both offenses crossed into territory long considered private or sub-
ject to church law. These attitudes would be directly attacked in the early
decades of the sixteenth century, as law codes became more regularized and
the definition of what constituted criminal behavior expanded.
EARLY MODERN LEGAL TRANSFORMATIONS
The publication of the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, also known as the

Peinliche Halsgerichtsordnung Kaiser Karls V, in 1532 was the result of
several trends developing by the end of the fifteenth century. Across Europe,
centralizing governments sought to unify disparate medieval law codes. This
was particularly true of the Holy Roman Empire, which attempted to bring
some sense to the diverse and inconsistent laws of the over three hundred
constituent entities within its borders. This effort would result in the firm
establishment of the Roman legal tradition within the Holy Roman Empire,
replacing church law and attempting to unify local customs. A second trend
was the expansion of what was considered criminal behavior in order to
ensure consistent treatment of crime and the maintenance of peace within
and between jurisdictions.9 These moves were also closely linked with efforts
to bring more and more criminal matters under the jurisdiction of secular
authorities and away from the Catholic Church.10 At the same time, a per-
vasive concern with strict enforcement of morality followed in the wake of
the Protestant Reformations, leading to the criminalization and prosecution
of a greater range of moral indiscretions and the equation of sin with crime
across the empire, no matter the ruling religious sect of a particular region.
The legal changes in the early decades of the sixteenth century allowed
for more methodical and consistent prosecution of all crime, leading to a
regular pattern of crime and punishment by the end of the century. These
developments also allowed for a new system of interrogation by local gov-
ernments. These changing legal attitudes and practices meant that some
medieval Germanic traditions—such as monetary compensation for injury—
were superseded by a system of trials in front of judges, stricter standards
for convictions and the corresponding use of torture during investigations,
and standardized, systematized, and harsher guidelines for punishments.11
However, the diversity of the empire’s members ensured that reforms were
not adopted evenly, and old procedural practices still held sway in many
places.12 Even under the new law code, individual territories retained con-
siderable discretion regarding criminal procedure.13
Criminal procedure was now defined by the Inquisitionsprozess, a com-
mon set of Roman law–influenced criminal procedures that spread across
the continent of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Inqui-
sitionsprozess included the new idea of state-prosecuted crime as well as
new procedures for establishing facts in a criminal investigation.14 These
changes had a significant impact on abortion and infanticide. The first of
these reforms was a change in how criminal trials were instigated. The pros-
ecution of a criminal had until this time largely depended on a complainant
lodging an accusation against a defendant, seen in the medieval treatment of
abortion above. In the case of a murder, the accusation might be made by a
family member on behalf of the deceased. Crimes such as infanticide would
have been more difficult to prosecute because the victim likely had no fam-
ily willing to press charges; a family who did not want the child in the first
place would not bring any attention to its illegal disposal. By contrast, in the
late Middle Ages civic authorities had begun to initiate investigations them-
selves based on reports of crimes from a network of informers composed of
residents in the town.
The procedures for interrogating criminals in custody and determining
guilt also began to undergo major transformations beginning in the late
Middle Ages. In earlier centuries, torture was generally reserved for special
cases, such as heresy and treason.15 The use of torture spiked in parallel
with the spread of the Inquisitionsprozess. Under this new system, a judge
or a panel of judges ruled on cases, not a jury, resulting in a strict standard
of proof for conviction. Full proof for a capital conviction required two
eyewitnesses or a confession of guilt to warrant a death sentence. As eyewit-
nesses to the actual crime were extremely rare in cases of infanticide and
abortion, investigations generally centered on obtaining a confession. Tor-
ture became therefore a vital part of an investigation, and its use increased
as a means to obtain these necessary confessions, especially in notoriously
secretive crimes like abortion and infanticide.16 The official codification of
the new procedures in the empire occurred with the publication of the Caro-
lina, as did a firm definition of infanticide and abortion.
INFANTICIDE AND ABORTION IN THE CAROLINA
The Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire met in Augsburg in 1530 to
address a variety of pressing problems, from the Lutheran Reformation to
the looming threat of Turkish invasion, in addition to agreeing upon the
creation of a new, imperial-wide law code. Two years later, this new law
code, the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina was ratified at the Diet of Regens-
burg. The Carolina introduced an empire-wide set of laws, both civil and
criminal, procedural instructions, and recommendations for punishment. It
is with the Carolina that the Inquisitionsprozess came fully into effect across
the empire. Despite its clause deferring to local tradition, the Carolina came
to be the law of the land and remained thus until the nineteenth century,
only replaced by the warfare and legal restructuring wrought by Napoleon.
The Carolina itself was based heavily upon the 1507 law code for
the bishopric of Bamberg, the Bambergische Halsgerichtsordnung, or
Bambergensis. The Bambergensis was drafted by Baron Johann von
Schwarzenberg, one of the preeminent jurists of late medieval/early mod-
ern Germany. He drew on both Italian and Germanic legal traditions in
his efforts to reform the law code. It is from the Bambergensis and the sub-
sequent Carolina that the definitive early modern formula for abortion and
infanticide arose. The words of the Bambergensis and the Carolina became
the standard for identifying the crime, determining proof, and deciding on
the proper punishment.17
The law codes carefully laid out laws for the use of torture regarding
these crimes, and in so doing, set down specifics about what the crimes
actually entailed. In an effort to forestall infanticide and abortion, the codes
permitted the use of torture on women suspected of concealing pregnancy.18
They also defined what constituted a threshold of evidence to proceed to
torture when infanticide or abortion were suspected.19 In a section entitled
“Von heimlichem kinderhaben und todten durch ir mutter/ gnugsam anzei-
gung,” (Of secret childbirth and killing by the mother/ sufficient indication),
the Bambergensis lays out definitions and guidelines that would be used for
the next three centuries. The text outlines when a suspect should be ques-
tioned under torture for the crime of infanticide:
If a girl (who claims to be a virgin) is held in suspicion that she has given
birth to a child in secret and has killed it, one should investigate if she
was seen with an abnormally large body; further if her body became
smaller and she was pale and weak; if such is found and the same girl is
a person who is suspected of the deed, she should be inspected in secret
places by the experienced women . . . if she is then found suspicious and
will not confess to the deed, she should be questioned painfully [i.e.,
torture].20
Further instructions state that the “experienced women,” or municipally

registered midwives, should milk the breasts of a suspect to determine if she
had been pregnant recently. If she produced milk, she must have recently
given birth, and must be questioned under torture.
The punishment prescribed for women who killed their children is severe:
they should be buried alive and impaled. This was a very rare form of execu-
tion in reality and was considered especially harsh. Both law codes provide
for another option: in order to prevent despair in the condemned, execution
could, on the discretion of the judges, be “reduced” to drowning. However,
it suggests that in those localities where infanticide is found to be a frequent
occurrence, the harsher penalty should be enforced, or at least drowning
should be preceded by tearing with hot pincers, a gruesome and painful act
that would instill fear in others who might feel tempted to commit a simi-
lar crime. It is unclear, however, what exactly would constitute a frequent
occurrence.
The next paragraph clarifies precisely who committed infanticide and why.
A woman committed infanticide “um jr geübte leychtfertigkeyt verborgen zu
halten”: in order to keep hidden her practiced depravity. It was presumed
that the woman must also have hidden the pregnancy all along, lied when
questioned about it, and given birth in secret, all of which added to her guilt.
From this early date, what would become the major factors in infanticide
investigations were apparent: the hidden pregnancy, the secret birth, and
the desire on the part of the murderess to cover up her shameful behavior.
This was an early codification of a specific, narrow definition of infanticide,
limited to mothers killing illegitimate newborns; presumably anything else

would fall under ordinary murder.21
The Carolina adopted these definitions and addressed infanticide, abor-
tion, and the related crime of abandonment in three consecutive articles,
staying close to the language of the Bambergensis: infanticide in article 131,
abandonment in article 132, and abortion in 133. Infanticide, addressed
in the article titled “Punishment of women who kill their children,” is
described as the murder, “secretly, wickedly, and willingly” of a newborn by
its mother. As in the Bambergensis, it allows only for a narrow definition of
infanticide. It specifies the punishment should be burial while alive followed
by impalement, with the proviso that when water is nearby, drowning could
be used as an alternative. Again, it is noted that the harsher punishment
should be adopted in places where the crime is prevalent. Article 131 then
outlines methods to use in uncertain cases. A main concern of the Carolina,
and thus of later investigations, was determining whether or not the woman
had kept her pregnancy secret and then also given birth in secret. Having
hidden a pregnancy or childbirth was interpreted as a certain indication of
infanticidal intentions, and was punishable on its own even if a corpse was
never discovered or a confession never extracted from the mother. Such a
woman’s motivation in hiding her pregnancy is made clear:
So there is, therefore, no more believable reason, than that the same
mother through malicious forethought, intended, through the killing
her innocent child, of which she is guilty either during or after the birth,
in order to keep hidden her practiced depravity.22
Women believed to be hiding a pregnancy were similarly mistrusted. Typi-

cally, only single women were suspected of hiding pregnancies, for married
women would were assumed to have no reason for secrecy. Hiding and/or
denying a pregnancy was considered the first indication of intended infanti-
cide or abortion. If a woman were not planning to terminate her pregnancy
or to dispatch the child shortly after birth, she would not have hidden her
pregnancy and instead would have sought help. A pregnant woman might
see things very differently, of course. She might be hoping that she was not
pregnant despite the signs, or that she might miscarry, the chances of which
were high. Yet hiding a pregnancy was risky, because even if her child died
of natural causes, the hidden pregnancy would be interpreted as proof of
long-standing intention to kill the child.
Giving birth in secret was construed as a certain indication of infantici-
dal intent in part because it was so antithetical to what was considered safe
and healthy. When giving birth, a woman normally sought help from other
women among her family, friends, and neighbors. Perhaps more impor-
tantly, she was also supposed to enlist the help of one of the city’s midwives.
Midwives were appointed officials of the city and were obligated to help
the women of the town in their deliveries, regardless of economic or social
status.23 Under normal circumstances, childbirth was not a private matter

but an important social function at which several women might be present.
A woman who gave birth in secret instead of making use of these communal
resources would have appeared highly suspicious. What legitimate reason
could a woman have for not wanting any help during the most difficult and
dangerous experience of her life? The hidden pregnancy was, therefore, a
crucial aspect of infanticide and abortion. When it came to the prosecution
of these crimes, whether or not the pregnancy had been hidden was key to
defining the crime.
Article 131 also introduces phrases that emphasized the perceived grue-
someness and unnaturalness of the crime and the revulsion felt by both those
who wrote the laws and those who enforced them, phrases that became
familiar in investigations into and discussions about infanticide. The victim
is described as an “innocent little child” (“unschuldig kindtlein”), and as
the very flesh of its mother. The mother is always a “depraved woman”
(“leichtfertige weib”), with “malicious” (“bosshafftig”) intentions. These
words would be repeated throughout the legal literature and court records,
always setting the innocent child and guilty mother in opposition to each
other, highlighting the evil of the crime: a fallen woman who killed her own
innocent little child, her very own flesh, to protect her own selfish interests.
Article 132 of the Carolina addresses the abandonment of infant chil-
dren by their mothers. In the terms of the Carolina, it was assumed that
abandonment was essentially a less severe alternative to killing a fetus or an
infant. Again, the presumption of an unmarried mother lay behind the Car-
olina’s description of the crime. The placement of abandonment between
infanticide and abortion demonstrates the relative legal equivalency of these
crimes. Article 132 makes a single distinction among cases of abandonment:
if the child lived, then the punishment was left to the discretion of the local
authorities, but if the child died, then the mother was to be punished “am
leib oder leben” (corporally or with death). As in article 131, this article
only considered the possibility of the mother as the malefactor, making no
provision, for example, for fathers who abandoned children. While paternal
abandonment was also punishable, it did not fit in the framework of these
particular three articles of the Carolina, which sought mainly to address
mothers and their unwanted children. Men were hardly ever actually
accused of abandoning their children; rather, they were accused under other
circumstances of abandoning or neglecting their entire families. Again, it
was presumed that married women and men did not have the same need
to abandon their children. For that matter, abandonment by the father cre-
ated a fundamentally different tableau; if a father abandoned a newborn,
the narrative of an unmarried woman selfishly escaping responsibility no
longer held, and the crime was left open to alternative interpretations and
punishments.
The final article in the set, article 133, deals with the complicated issue of
abortion, or “Kinder abtreiben.” Abortion, while considered to be a crime
roughly equivalent to infanticide, was much more difficult to prove and

therefore presented greater complications when prosecuting. The Carolina
defines abortion as the act of the mother, or some other person, killing a
“living” fetus, but the law does not clarify what that actually means. “Liv-
ing” could mean several different things, recalling medieval debates about
abortion. The Carolina established an empire-wide legal procedure for
abortion, but the commencement of life remained a fraught and fluctuating
matter. A woman who aborted a fetus that was “not yet living” would still
face punishment but usually only a lesser punishment, such as exile, while
the termination of a “living” fetus was punishable by death. Further com-
plicating the matter was the inclusion of the crime of purposefully making
oneself or another infertile (“unfruchtbar”), also punishable by death.
For these crimes, the Carolina prescribed drowning for a woman and
decapitation for a man, acknowledging that abortion was something that
could be caused by someone other than the pregnant woman. Men, not
wanting to be trapped in an undesired marriage or with an unwanted child,
were sometimes accused of having forced or tricked their pregnant lovers
into consuming an abortifacient. As a result, men could be, and were, pros-
ecuted for abortion in the same way that women were.24 Court records sup-
port this idea: fathers are far more frequently involved in cases of suspected
abortion than in cases of suspected infanticide.
Neither the Bambergensis nor the Carolina originated the era’s concep-
tion of infanticide or abortion. The phrasing in the Bambergensis and the
Carolina presumes the general acknowledgment that these crimes were a
serious, preexisting problem. As we have seen, infanticide and abortion
were not unknown in the Middle Ages. The law codes reflected a reality
and ideas about that reality that were already well established. In turn, the
precise legal definition presented in the Carolina influenced the early mod-
ern understanding of the crime. The Carolina’s specificity placed bounds
on interpretation and action. When magistrates prosecuted infanticide and
lawyers and doctors discussed abortion, it was with this narrow conception
of the crimes in mind. The Carolina did not invent a new crime but rather
established consistent and permanent regulations that pertained throughout
the empire.
While these new set definitions of abortion and infanticide would have
made it easier for magistrates to prosecute the crimes, they do not explain
why there was a perceived increase in the occurrence of these crimes in
the decades after the appearance of the Carolina. Nor do they explain the
changed attitudes toward the crimes, the transition from a private family
matter to an issue for communal concern and control. Larger forces were at
work as leaders agitated for harsher punishments for all sex-related crimes,
including fornication, prostitution, and sodomy, as well as abortion and
infanticide. The severity of penalties, especially for fornication, in turn
drove more women to infanticide and abortion as terrible exigencies. A new
focus on morality was sweeping across Europe, and especially the German
lands, in the wake of the Protestant and later Catholic reformations.
REFORMATION MORALITY
The reformations of the early sixteenth century—whether Lutheran, Zwing-

lian, Calvinist, or even Catholic—led civic authorities to focus more intently
on the enforcement of morality. The Protestant churches sought to spread
their ideas through strict and demonstrative morality and to distance them-
selves from Catholic (or rivalling Protestant) degeneracy and corruption.
The Catholics, in turn, imposed similar regulations to reaffirm their spiritual
authority and reclaim souls lost to the Protestant cause. Territorial authori-
ties throughout the Holy Roman Empire desired to build and defend godly
communities, theologically correct and purged of sin. This rigid enforce-
ment of morality has been described by some historians as “social disciplin-
ing,” which entailed more severe punishments for crimes and an expansion
of what constituted criminal behavior and the equation of sin with crime.
The expansion of the concept of criminality, combined with a preexisting
trend toward conservative sexual mores in the late medieval period, resulted
in courts ruling on a wide range of sexual behaviors and punishing them
more frequently and severely. Now included among punishable criminal
behaviors were all forms of illicit sex: prostitution, marital infidelity, and of
course, fornication.25
In Augsburg, for instance, the institutionalization of the Reformation
solidified in 1537 (only a few short years after the issuance of the Carolina)
with the election of two Protestant mayors and the establishment of the
Discipline Lords, who oversaw the enforcement of the new Discipline Ordi-
nance. This development allowed the city council to usurp the enforcement
of marriage and sexuality regulations from the church and to exert stricter
control over personal lives than ever before. The values of the reformation
insisted on a stringent restriction of sexual behavior and the bolstering of
the patriarchal system within the family and throughout the city.26 This pro-
cess tightened pressure on Augsburg’s inhabitants while showcasing Augs-
burg as a godly community and reformed city.
The new relationship between sin and crime also heightened the associa-
tion between illegal behavior and a deep sense of personal shame. Shame was
a powerful enforcement tool, especially when it came to sexuality. The shame
associated with fornication became public knowledge when an unwed woman
was obviously pregnant. Early modern authorities regularly claimed that a
woman committed infanticide “out of shame” for her behavior; an illegitimate
child was a clear sign that a woman was no longer honorable or virtuous, and
undetected infanticide or abortion could hide that shame. The avoidance of
shame was a strong motivation in the early modern world, one that was not
just personal but also communal, experienced by guilds, associations, families,
and entire communities, which further worked to enforce the morality of indi-
viduals. But shame on the personal and communal level cannot be separated
entirely from the more tangible consequences of shameful behavior, such as
loss of employment or penal action. Shame, in and of itself, therefore, was not
generally the only motivation behind infanticide. People feared both shame
and the physical and material punishment associated with it.
The tensions and pressures of the reformations, both Protestant and
Catholic, brought a further complication to the issue of infanticide, and that
is concern over baptism. While Protestants debated the function and impor-
tance of infant baptism, the prospect of a newborn child being killed before
it could be baptized frightened most Christians in the sixteenth century. It
made the actions of the murderous mother all the more reprehensible, that
she would not only kill her child but would also potentially deny it a chance
at salvation. This very question—whether an unbaptized infant could pos-
sibly be saved—plagued early modern consciences even without the added
problem of intentional death caused by the mother.27 As the debate about
baptism continued, it only further proved to early modern authorities how
sinful and selfish infanticidal mothers were.
What shame and stricter punishments for sinful behavior led to was not
just severer consequences for child murderesses and women who committed
abortion but at the same time, increased motivations for unmarried preg-
nant women to choose those very crimes. Authorities wanted to stamp out
infanticide and abortion, as it was not only considered a horrific crime but
also a sign of declining morals. Yet the same stricter enforcement of moral-
ity meant that women were driven further to hide inevitable slips. A woman
who did slip and became pregnant out of wedlock faced depressingly few
options to preserve not only her honor but her livelihood and her very life.
What was the unmarried expectant mother to do?
THE UNMARRIED MOTHER
The prevalence of fornication in court records shows that it was quite

common even in this era of close social control. Fornication was prevalent
enough to suppose that the concept of shame associated with it was not
as strong among individuals as civic and religious authorities would have
liked, or at least not strong enough to overcome sexual urges. While mag-
istrates were eager to punish fornication—with fines or corporal punish-
ments—new laws and systems of enforcement in the era of social control
did little to actually prevent it. To the chagrin of those authorities trying to
stop fornication and resultant crimes like abortion and infanticide, shame
was not the preventative force that they hoped. In these cases, the concept
of shame had actually backfired.
The best efforts of reformers did little to bring a halt to premarital sex,
yet the consequences of fornication became much more severe. The conflict
between expectations and a practical reality led to an impossible situation
for many young people. Premarital sex was now a crime that could be pun-
ished by two or three weeks’ imprisonment, public flogging, or time in the
pillory, exposed to the whole town. Women accused of adultery or fornica-
tion might have to stand in front of the entire town on the pillory or in the
town square holding a placard naming her crime or holding a Lasterstein
(“burdening-stone”). Everyone would therefore know what she had done,
and her shame would continue to follow her.28 Women (and occasionally
men) also faced the scorn and derision of their neighbors, who were quick
with gossip and accusations of sexual impropriety. Such accusations could
very well also negatively impact a young person’s employment and marriage
opportunities.29
The consequences of fornication weighed more heavily on young women
than on young men: both men and women could be prosecuted for fornica-
tion or an illegitimate pregnancy, but only women bore the physical proof.
A woman did have the option to denounce the father of her child in the
hopes of persuading him to marry her or to obtain some sort of financial
support from him. This happened frequently enough; not all illegitimate
pregnancies ended in murder trials, after all. However, men could easily
deny paternity, and young men, especially journeymen and apprentices,
faced with such an accusation could easily enough simply leave town, espe-
cially if they lacked citizenship or any other social attachments to the town.
Many women who attempted to rid themselves of an illegitimate child tes-
tified they had tried to find the father of the child but that he was no longer
in town. One woman from Augsburg traveled 270 kilometers to Strasbourg
and back again in the (unsuccessful) search for the father of her illegitimate
child.
If she could not find the father, or if the father denied paternity or refused
to marry her, her very survival could be at stake. A woman on her own,
even if she were childless and had a source of income, would have faced
a struggle making ends meet. An illegitimate pregnancy would very likely
ruin any chance she had to continue in a legal and honorable existence. A
young, single woman on her own in a city most likely worked in domestic
service and would therefore lose her position, and with it her home, if she
were found to be with child. And a young woman with an illegitimate child
would have had an extremely difficult time finding a new position.30 Most
of the women accused of infanticide and abortion worked in domestic ser-
vice; a closer look at this life is a necessary component of understanding the
crimes.
Domestic servitude, the most common employment for women in Europe
until the twentieth century, was already a precarious existence. The life of a
house maid was unstable; a woman had little choice in employer and type of
service, relying on whatever family connections could find. In a bigger town,
she might get a position in a guild workshop, doing whatever menial tasks
were assigned to her, from laundry to cooking to cleaning. Serving maids
often had multiple employers over the course of their working years, which
could last from their early teens to their mid-to-late twenties. Some lucky
women might have the chance to save up a small dowry during their service.
These women would most likely marry into a guild and eventually reach the
respectable position of a guild master’s wife. For others, who never married,
servitude was a more permanent condition. Some women served into their
forties and fifties. Most unmarried women working in domestic service had
no means of support beyond their room and board and whatever additional
small wages their masters agreed to.31 Maids were subject to the whims of
their employers, with limited avenues for assistance. Court records reveal
the difficult nature of their existence: they often complained about unpaid
wages and slander, as well as far more serious mistreatment, such as beat-
ing, starvation, and rape. Although women could bring their employers to
court over such abuses, many women opted to stay in horrible situations
rather than trying to find another position and being labelled as a difficult
employee and someone who brought trouble with her.32
Single women living alone, especially those originally from elsewhere,
were considered a potential threat to the stability of society. Single women
had no one to answer for them or to ensure their survival and were thus
considered dangerous to themselves and the community as a whole. With no
father or husband to hold responsibility for them, they might be too easily
led or lead others astray, they were a potential drain on resources, and they
simply did not fit into the neat patriarchal system so central to reformation
morality. Their lack of social ties likewise made the women themselves espe-
cially vulnerable.
Domestic servants’ livelihoods were subject to the whims of their employ-
ers. If they were dismissed from a job, they could not fall back on family
for support. Such women could be and were dismissed from domestic posi-
tions very easily and without any recourse, frequently leading to destitution.
Domestic servitude was often a very transient life, and frequent changes of
employment were thus an expected aspect of domestic servitude. A woman
might have half a dozen or more different employers in multiple cities or
towns throughout her working life. Women often moved to larger cities
from surrounding villages looking for work, moving on to other cities when
work ran out or when they ran into legal troubles.
Court records reveal some typical examples of the women accused of
infanticide and abortion: Catharina Feslerin, twenty-six years old in 1592,
named four employers over ten and a half years, the first of which accounted
for six of those years; the second and third were two years apiece, and the
last only half a year. Barbara Höflerin, a woman of uncertain age in 1592,
gave the names of three employers for lengths of time adding up to only
three years: one and a half years with one, one year with the next, and half
a year with the last. Appolonia Heringin, twenty-two years old in 1601,
reported four employers over nine years: four years with the first, then two
years each for the second and third, and one year with her final employer.33
City magistrates often viewed such transience as problematic and asso-
ciated it with criminality and disrepute. From their perspective, a woman

who moved from job to job and town to town had no roots in the town,
no one responsible for her, no reputation to maintain, and no social con-
straints to moderate her actions. As such, she was more likely to fall into
criminal behavior. In an effort to promote stability, governments attempted
various means to limit when and how servants, especially female servants,
changed positions. In many places, servants could only change employers
on certain days, once or twice a year; they were sometimes bound to a
position for a set period, often six months or a year. Violating these regu-
lations could result in fines or banishment.34 Ideally, a good servant was
one who had served for ten years in no more than two or three positions.
Serving maids, already the target of mistrust and careful regulation, came
under even more intense suspicion if they changed positions and moved
more frequently.35 Such intense suspicion only hurt a woman’s chances of
establishing a stable life and ensuring her future. A woman working in
domestic service was already very poor, and one misstep might find her out
of a job, and therefore out of a home. If that misstep involved a pregnancy,
her chances were dire indeed.
In addition to the economic and social consequences of her pregnancy,
she also faced the possibility of being brought before the town magistrates
and punished for both the sex and the pregnancy. Unwed mothers were
seen as a drain on the community, both economically and morally; as such,
one of the most frequent punishments was outright banishment from the
town. Expulsion was thought to purify the godly community and became
a favorite tool of the reformation-era city councils.36 Expulsion was often
combined with shaming punishments, such as public whipping at the pil-
lory, in order to both punish and send a message of deterrence.37 For those
expelled, the results could be disastrous: those banished from town faced
the bitter prospects of a life on the road or as a stranger in another town.
The difficulties would have been much worse for a single woman with an
illegitimate child to support. When a town expelled a pregnant woman or a
new mother, their concern lay with the greater good of the community, not
the well-being of the child. Beyond the dangers of the road, the chances that
she would find work again were very slim. Only a lucky few may have been
able to return to their home village and to the support of a family.
Regardless of whether such a woman was banished or remained in the
city, she often had to resort to begging to survive. Some women could
rely on familial support, but many were already far from home, having
moved in order to find work in the first place. In her vulnerable position,
she might subsequently fall afoul of the town officials’ struggle to enforce
restrictions on public begging. If a woman, or anyone, were found beg-
ging without the proper permissions too often, she again faced the pos-
sibility of banishment, especially if she was not a citizen of the town.
For some, this led to a life of vagrancy, traveling from town to town in
search of work or merely something to eat, all the time with a child in
her arms. Barred from rejoining acceptable society, her only other option
might be prostitution, which was also illegal and led to an additional set
of problems.38
Concepts of honor and shame conspired to throw such difficulties at
unwed mothers. As attributes that could be transferred, shame and dis-
honor could be transferred from an unmarried woman with an illegitimate
child to those in close contact with her, including neighbors, employers,
and landlords. As the women were aware, the shame and dishonor of ille-
gitimacy could color their children’s lives as well: for instance, illegitimate
boys might be barred from guild employment to protect the guild’s status,
and illegitimate girls would face dismal marriage prospects. The early mod-
ern guild system operated on a complex system of honor and dishonor. The
reputation of a guild depended not just on their production but also on
their honor. A craftsman who lost his honor might also lose his position
in the guild to protect the body as a whole. Employers of the dishonorable
faced economic and social threats to their own families. The honor system
developed partially as a response to difficult economic times toward the
end of the medieval period, as a means for restricting membership in guilds.
Among its regulations, an honorable guild would not employ anyone of
illegitimate birth.39 The city of Augsburg, for instance, decreed in 1541
that guilds would no longer be forced to allow illegitimate members.40 By
insisting on the legitimacy of all its members, a guild not only limited the
pool of possible members and maintained its honor but upheld a reformed
vision of the guild as a reflection of an idealized familial structure, with
the father/master at the head over the wife and children/journeymen and
apprentices.41
Guilds also dictated many parts of individuals’ life cycles within the city.
To become a member of a guild and a full member of society, a young man
needed to complete the required years of service as an apprentice and a
journeyman, become engaged to an honorable woman, pass the require-
ments for masterhood, marry, and set up his own workshop. These require-
ments meant that marriage occurred relatively late, especially for men. Their
wives tended to be younger but mostly well out of their teenage years. For
both men and women, this meant that there was a space, potentially, of
several years between sexual maturity and marriage, an extended period in
which they were expected to be abstinent. Additionally, sixteenth-century
Germany experienced a population surge and a declining economy. This
combination meant that more men were vying for fewer positions within
guilds, resulting for many in an even longer delay until marriage and the
start of a sexually active adulthood.42
At the same time, Protestant reformers insisted that young people marry
as soon as possible after sexual maturity in order to divert urges to sin into
the proper framework of marriage. In the guild system, marriage demon-
strated financial maturity and security, while religious reformers emphasized
the role of marriage in preventing fornication and promoting good morals.
Religious reformers acknowledged that sexual impulses were too strong to

ignore, while branding any sort of sexual activity outside of marriage as
increasingly unacceptable. Quick marriage was thus the obvious solution. In
earlier decades and centuries, young, single men between the ages of sexual
maturity and eligibility for marriage could satisfy their natural desires in city-
run brothels. Medieval cities viewed these brothels as a necessary evil that
protected the honor of respectable women, saving them from the advances
of young men. But among the tide of reforms, cities now began closing their
brothels—Augsburg closed its brothel in 1532—as well as cracking down
on other forms of prostitution. These new laws also meant that young men
who had formerly enjoyed a legal outlet for their sexual energies now had
none, a strain that was intensified by the lengthening wait for marriage. As
if determined to compound these difficulties, magistrates began restricting
marriage and citizenship rights based on the ability of a man to provide for
himself and his family; if a couple could not support themselves, they might
be refused permission to marry.43 In such a morass of rules and restrictions,
it is no wonder that couples turned to fornication, despite the attendant dan-
gers, and illegitimate pregnancy was the frequent result.
The system of honor even extended to the charitable institutions of the
time. The administrators of poor relief distinguished between those worthy
and unworthy of aid. Most of the poor relief and charity in early mod-
ern cities was intended only for the so-called deserving poor, otherwise
respectable citizens who happened to fall upon financial difficulties. The
“undeserving,” by the same token, were in one way or another the cause
of their own plight. For instance, religious and civic leaders assumed that
the able-bodied poor were willfully lazy and therefore, undeserving of aid.
Those who were poor because of their own sinful behavior, such as unwed
mothers, fell on the same side of the divide.44 Those who were not both
respectable and physically incapable of work were frequently denied access
to most forms of relief. Anyone even suspected of criminal or otherwise
dubious behavior could have very little hope of any help from the city
council or other charitable institutions. A woman with an illegitimate child
carried with her the evidence of her crime, her bad reputation, and her
previous moral lapses; in no way did she fit the category of “deserving.”
Her poverty was the direct result of her own uncontrolled lust and folly,
and even the providers of charity had little pity for such a woman. Her
situation was entirely a result of her own doing, and she deserved whatever
consequences might result.
THE UNWANTED PREGNANCY
All of these factors together resulted in an illegitimate pregnancy that was

not only unwanted but left the pregnant woman in an impossible position.
Any action the woman took to avoid further repercussions was now illegal,
having been carefully designated as such in the Carolina and also, increas-
ingly, criminalized in localities across Europe. The woman could not, legally
or without acute danger to her own health, terminate her pregnancy; she
could not even legally conceal her pregnancy while searching for another
option. She also could not easily or legally abandon her child in hopes that
someone else might provide a better future.
Of the crimes of abandonment, abortion, and infanticide, all linked by
the Carolina, abandonment was considered the least repugnant. And many
women indeed chose abandonment. It was, however, far from an ideal
solution. The secret abandonment of an illegitimate child still required the
mother to conceal her entire pregnancy and childbirth. When possible, offi-
cials tracked down abandoning mothers, returned their children to them,
and punished them with time in the tower or pillory, in addition to exile.
Sometimes local laws recognized a distinction between abandonment with
the intention that the child be found and abandonment with the intention
that the child die. Most cases of abandonment were dealt with relatively
quickly, banishing the culprit and her child from the town. This punish-
ment reveals certain early modern attitudes toward illegitimate children:
civic authorities were not necessarily concerned with the protection of these
children but instead with the defense of communal morality. Thus, a child
was given back to the mother who had already tried to get rid of him or her.
Despite their efforts to find and punish those who abandoned children,
cities still recognized the need for an institution to house foundlings. Augs-
burg city chronicler Paul von Stetten records that in 1471, the “council
ordered that henceforth fines should be reserved for the purchase of a house
for orphans and foundlings.”45 This institution was designed to replace the
old system of farming out foundlings and orphans to foster mothers all over
the city. The Augsburg council thought that the more centralized institution
would be more cost-effective and safer for children; towns across the empire
came to similar conclusions. When children were abandoned in a found-
ling house, just as when they were abandoned anywhere else, the parents
were immediately sought. The foundling house was forever running short of
money, help, space, and supplies and therefore, sought to limit the number
of children it took in. Thus, when the parents could be found, they were
sent away again with their child. Most often this was the mother; only rarely
was the father found and held responsible. To accept a foundling would add
to the strain on the resources of the foundling house and would encour-
age immorality among the city’s young, single women. Thus, banishment of
abandoning parents was seen by many as the only effective means to protect
morality and finances.
To the parents who abandoned their children, the foundling house must
have seemed like their only option. Yet the conditions in foundling houses
were so atrocious that one might wonder how parents who theoretically
wanted their children to survive could relegate their children to such a place.
Foundling houses were a source of controversy throughout the early mod-
ern period, and they would also come under attack not only from those who
believed that having the option actually encouraged immoral behavior by
giving women an opportunity to escape punishment for fornication but also

because of their squalid conditions and the well-known low survival rates.46
In all foundling houses, disease ran rampant; the children suffered from
a wide range of afflictions, such as smallpox and tuberculosis. Foundling
houses seemed to serve more as a temporary stay against death rather than
an effective means to produce thriving adults.47 One eighteenth-century pro-
fessor in Göttingen would describe foundling houses as “death-camps for
infants and morals.”48 Mortality rates were often two to three times the
rates of the general population. Very young children, especially babies still
nursing, were sent out to wet nurses, where their chances of survival were
horrifyingly low. In Augsburg, those who lived in the foundling house did
not fare much better: 5 percent of girls and just under 7 percent of boys
survived until adulthood.49 Joel Harrington, in his study of the Nuremberg
foundling house, reports horrific statistics: one-half of all infants under six
months of age died within the first month; two-thirds of all children admit-
ted died before they reached adolescence. Elsewhere in Europe, foundling
house mortality rates were not much better.50 Despite efforts both to edu-
cate the children and to find them employment once they were old enough,
the future for most foundlings, even if they survived, was still bleak. Follow-
ing concerns over the welfare of the children of the city’s more upstanding
citizens, cities across Germany began to build orphanages in addition to
foundling houses. Orphanages only accepted true orphans (those children
who had lost both parents), and only legitimate children whose parents were
citizens, while the foundling houses accepted a wider array of children.51
The orphanage, therefore, was not a place where infants were abandoned
in secret. The distinction between a foundling and an orphan only further
reinforced the differences in the lives of illegitimate and legitimate children
in sixteenth-century Germany.
For many abandoning parents, the foundling house must have been a
last resort, a decision not taken lightly. Even among these parents, many
believed, or at least asserted, that they would return for their children when
their fortunes changed. It is also possible that a few parents knew the risks
of abandoning their children and saw the foundling house as a more indi-
rect way of accomplishing what they did not wish to do themselves. The
foundling house was, in fact, just one of many places where infants were
abandoned. Desperate parents often chose alternative locations to abandon
their children, where they would not be caught in the act. If their intent
was that the child should be found, then they might leave him or her in a
high-traffic location, such as in front of neighbors’ houses, on the steps of
a church, near the city gates, or in at least one Augsburg case, in a tavern.52
In these situations, the parents might leave a note with the child, indicating
the child’s name and religious confession, and occasionally whether he or
she had been baptized. If the abandoning parents simply wanted to be rid
of the child, and did not want to risk being tracked down by officials, they
might leave the child in a field or in the woods, far outside the city’s gates,
where he or she would likely die from exposure. Occasionally even these
unfortunate children were found, often too late, sometimes frozen in the
snow or mauled by wild animals.
Abandonment was, in practice, much more complex than simply leaving
a child at a foundling house or to die. Parents might intend to return or leave
some sort of provision for the child. One parent might leave a child with the
other parent, or with a relative or friend. These relatives and friends might
later discover that they, too, could not care for the child and then abandon
the child yet again. As Joel Harrington has found, early modern children
could find themselves passed around networks of friends, family, and neigh-
bors, rather than simply abandoned outright.53 Yet even children who were
in some way wanted could fall through holes in these networks.
On July 18, 1541, Barbara Ganserin was arrested in Augsburg, brought
before the council, and asked about the child she had allegedly abandoned
while trying to leave town. Barbara admitted that the child was hers, born
out of wedlock. The father was the tailor Friedrich Leupolt, who she claimed
was separated from his wife and with whom she had been living for a year.
When asked why she had moved away in secret, without providing for the
care of her child, she replied that she had neither done it secretly nor failed
to provide for care. She had left the child with a neighbor, who presumably
then passed the child on to the foundling house. Barbara claimed that the
father of her child had moved to Strasbourg in the meantime, and she had
gone to find him. Perhaps she was gone for too long, leading the neighbor
to believe she had no plans to return. Barbara failed to find Friedrich and
claimed she had been surprised to find her child in the foundling home.
The town council banished Barbara from the town, along with her child.
Without Friedrich, Barbara and her child’s future was likely very dire.54 A
woman like Barbara who discovered she was pregnant had very limited
options. If she could not persuade the father of her child to marry her, or
could not find him, no choices remained that did not hold the possibility
of legal, social, economic, or physical repercussions. If she carried the child
to term, she could be punished for fornication—which she could not have
denied—and for the illegitimate pregnancy. She would likely have lost her
job, and both she and her child would face a bleak fate.
Despite all these challenges, not every woman with an illegitimate child
was destined to crime and/or total destitution. Some women took on the
risks of raising their illegitimate child publicly. While the law had little toler-
ance for misbehavior, and communal retribution could be severe, the reality
of enforcement by the courts and by the community was at times much
more flexible and inconsistent. Evidence of this flexibility can be found in
court records of criminal cases, which often included, among other personal
information, the suspect’s occupation and employer, age, marital status, and
sometimes even whether or not they had children. This information reveals
that unwed mothers did occasionally find work, though exactly how often
cannot be determined. It is also uncertain how often single mothers were
dismissed from their positions upon discovery of their pregnancy or birth

of a child. Maria Weisschoferin, one of the first women to be prosecuted
for infanticide in Augsburg (1555), had already borne illegitimate children
after the death of her husband. While it is not known if she faced punish-
ment for these illegitimate children, she survived and found work after the
children were born.55 Maria is not entirely atypical, either. The women who
found themselves entangled in infanticide trials were often those living on
the margins of society, constantly in and out of legal trouble and employ-
ment and respectability. Nevertheless, it was sometimes possible for women
with illegitimate children to find work, revealing a discrepancy between the
stated beliefs, behavioral codes, and laws of this society and actual practice.
While one family might dismiss a woman upon discovery of an illegitimate
pregnancy, another, perhaps in another village or town where the woman’s
reputation was less well known, might well be willing to take her on. Such a
woman might also be able to return to her own family in her hometown. In
reality, illegitimacy was much more common than many wished, and unwed
mothers were not always completely ostracized. Statistics from across
Europe also bear this out. Jan de Vries has estimated a rate of illegitimacy
between 4 and 10 percent for the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries across
Europe.56 A high proportion—up to one-third—of all brides were pregnant
at the time of marriage, although their marriage quickly legitimized their
pregnancies in those cases.57 It was this seemingly unstoppable tide of ille-
gitimacy that resulted in strict laws in the first place. But if illegitimacy
did not always lead to total ruin, what, then, drove some women to more
extreme ends?
What we see with most women who were accused of infanticide or
abortion is that there were multiple factors that compounded an illegiti-
mate pregnancy to lead them to these more dangerous actions. Upper-class
women, for example, do not appear in the records accused of such crimes.
This is most likely due to their better chances of marriage despite an ille-
gitimate pregnancy. A substantial dowry could overcome such problems,
and they were also more likely to live with or near familial support. An
upper-class woman was also likely to be impregnated by a man close in
social rank to her, which likewise improved the odds that she could marry.
Alternatively, most of the women accused of infanticide and abortion at
this time were away from their home and the support of their family, work-
ing in low-paying jobs. Most of these women were impregnated by men
of equivalent social standing: journeymen, day laborers, and servants of
various sorts, who did not have the means to support a family. These men
were often not allowed to marry, were also poor, and had looser ties to the
community, meaning they could easily move on from an allegation of pater-
nity. While the statistics for premarital pregnancy were high, such pregnan-
cies only rarely resulted in intentional abortion or infanticide; it was not
the illegitimate pregnancy itself that was so dangerous, but frequently, the
inability of women to then marry after conception that led to the potential
for further crimes.

Facing destitution and despair, what was the unwed mother to do? The
financial and practical consequences of illegitimate pregnancy were dire
indeed; the women most likely to give birth out of wedlock were also the
most vulnerable members of society. These women faced new social and
religious pressures, weakening economic prospects, no social or legal pro-
tection, no acceptable sexual outlet until years after maturity, and dire, last-
ing consequences for any mistake. Infanticide and abortion were bound to
happen. Reformers across Germany called for a tightening of morals, and
instead of seeing the increase in infanticide and abortion as a reflection of
the difficult situation new laws placed unwed women in, they interpreted
these crimes as further proof of the immorality and dangers threatening to
destroy society. Severe recriminations against abortion and infanticide were
the only way they saw to take control in this precarious time.
THE BEGINNINGS OF PROSECUTION
Despite the legal and cultural developments occurring at high levels of state
and society, increased regulation required broad societal acceptance of the
reforms. Enforcement of these new laws depended on the cooperation of
the entire community in order to bring potential crimes to the attention of the
proper authorities. With the development of the Inquisitionsprozess, crimi-
nal charges no longer depended solely on accusations brought by a victim
or his family. Neither did early modern cities have the equivalent of a police
force patrolling the streets who might come across crime. The town guard,
however, could report crimes, and they were often in the best position to
find abandoned infants, who were frequently left in oft-patrolled areas, such
as the city gates. For the most part, though, the reporting of crimes was left
to the community and the criminal’s immediate neighbors, who were in
a better position to discover remains or suspicious behavior. Laws clearly
stated now that anyone with knowledge of a crime was required to report it,
and historians have found that citizens proved eager to denounce each other
for transgressions. This new process resulted in the institution of a commu-
nal system of social control, not one simply imposed from above.58 When
it came to women with bad reputations or illegitimate children, the com-
munity was only too glad of the opportunity to drive them out. To avoid
further problems, the community felt driven to denounce such women.59
Neighborly social control was aided by the closeness of living quarters
in an early modern city. Maidservants would not have had their own bed-
rooms, and even a bit of space to be alone would have been difficult to find.
In such conditions, it was difficult to hide something as physically telling
as pregnancy and childbirth, never mind the act of murder or a corpse. A
maidservant might be denounced for pregnancy if a coworker noticed that
she had not menstruated for too long of an interval—sharing a bed with a
fellow maidservant left nothing private—or if she had been getting a bit fat-
ter around the middle, or if she had been acting strangely. She might be sus-
pected by employers or neighbors if she had been gaining weight and then
became suddenly much thinner. Childbirth itself would be difficult to hide,
requiring a woman to be absent from work and to find a secluded place for
several hours. Indeed, many women who were accused of infanticide were
discovered immediately after giving birth, either unconscious or asleep, with
blood and/or afterbirth as telltale signs of what had taken place. Such mark-
ers would have instigated an immediate search for the body of the baby. The
searchers would check under the mattress, among her bedclothes, and in the
immediate surroundings of the suspected young woman.
Occasionally an investigation would start upon the discovery of a dead
infant, and then the search for a mother would ensue, as happened in the
case of Walpurga Seitz at the opening of this chapter. These discoveries hap-
pened when someone cleaned out a privy or trash heap, when wild animals
uncovered a shallowly buried corpse, or even when a shocked fisherman
pulled a body out of a river or canal. Hiding places for corpses were limited
in a crowded early modern city. The search for the mother would focus on
women whose behavior or reputations were already suspect, such as those
who had been rumored to be pregnant or to be having an illicit affair. When
such a connection was made, the woman in question was taken into cus-
tody, as the presumed mother and child-murderess.
At this point in the investigation, the goal of city officials was to deter-
mine if the suspected woman was indeed the mother of the child. The easiest
way to do this was to discover whether the woman in question had recently
been pregnant. The prosecution generally requested the aid of midwives,
who would examine the woman’s body for signs of recent pregnancy, includ-
ing pressing the breasts to see if they produced milk, a procedure outlined
in the Bambergensis and the Carolina. They also questioned the woman’s
family, friends, and neighbors, asking if she had been acting strangely, or
if she had recently gained weight, only to lose it quickly and then appear
sickly. Bloody clothes or bedclothes were regarded as sure signs of a hidden
childbirth. Once a woman had been identified as a potential child-killer, she
was subjected to further interrogation, often under torture.
Under the new legal regulations, a criminal could not be executed unless
she had confessed, without torture, that she had indeed committed the
crime. The use of torture and execution would become increasingly com-
mon by the end of the century, as is explored in the following chapter. In the
early decades after the publication of the Carolina, however, there was some
hesitation to both use torture against suspected child-killers and to execute
those convicted. Early cases rarely resulted in punishments as severe as exe-
cution. Execution in the early sixteenth century was indeed fairly rare, and
there was certainly also discomfort at the thought of executing women. The
association of women with such severe crimes and punishments was new
and disturbing. Indeed, that the Carolina prescribed the death penalty for
women who committed infanticide or abortion is of particular note because,

prior to the mid-sixteenth century, the execution of women for crimes other
than witchcraft was very rare. No more than a handful of women were ever
executed in Augsburg before the proliferation of infanticide investigations, a
pattern recognizable across Germany.60 Executions of both women and men
rose dramatically with the advent of the Carolina.
When it came to actually convicting women of infanticide, it was not just
a hesitancy to execute that posed a challenge to magistrates; instead, infan-
ticide and abortion cases proved to be very difficult to prosecute. The new
regulations of legal procedure, while they allowed torture, still demanded a
high standard for conviction. Thus, even at the height of infanticide prose-
cutions around 1600, most localities only ever achieved around a 50 percent
conviction (and thus execution) rate. Cases of infanticide or abortion from
the early decades after the Carolina reveal these difficulties. The earliest
case of a suspected infanticide recorded in Augsburg’s records was that of
Maria Weisschoferin in 1555, whose case demonstrates the complications
that could arise in the new Inquisitionsprozess. Her entry in the Strafbuch, a
chronological record of all crimes and punishments in the city of Augsburg,
reads:
Maria Weisschoferin was pregnant with a little child . . . and she is also
under suspicion of not only intending to do away with this little child,
which she strongly denied, but earlier also doing away with two other
little children, which she did not want. For this she was brought into the
jail; because she confessed neither under benevolent [without torture]
nor painful [with torture] questioning, she is banished from the city and
surrounding area.61
Weisschoferin was brought before the council on the fifteenth of February,

1555. During her interrogation, Maria reveals the complicated and difficult
life a poor unmarried (in her case, widowed) woman might face in an early
modern city. Maria named George Jacob, a house servant, as the father of
her child, but she also denied that she even knew with certainty that she was
pregnant. Maria further explained that, although she did not realize in this
instance that she was pregnant, she had been pregnant four times before.
When she explained these four pregnancies, she stated that the first two
were legitimate, fathered by her late husband. The third and fourth children,
she claimed, were fathered by men named Hans and Peter, respectively. One
of the “ehelich,” or legitimate, children was still living, as was her child by
Peter. The council automatically suspected that she might have killed the
two other children. She asserted that she had done nothing of the sort, but
she admitted to being unhappy about her first pregnancy, which it seems
she may have aborted. The other three she carried to full term, but the
third child had died at five weeks of age. She insisted that she did not “take
anything” to abort her children her “whole life long.” The council pressed
her on this issue, and again she denied killing a child or aborting a fetus.
Finally, the council inquired whether or not she had ever told the father of
her latest child, presumably George Jacob, that she was pregnant; she said
she had not told him, that she was afraid of what he would do. Maria was
then questioned again, this time under torture, specifically the thumbscrews.
But this did not draw out any new information from her.62
Because she did not confess to aborting or murdering her last child, even
under torture, Maria was not executed. Instead, she was exiled. Exile was
a common punishment, especially when guilt in a capital case could not be
determined. The city council of Augsburg decided that Maria, even if she
had not killed her child, was still a burden on the community. She had, after
all, admitted to five pregnancies with four men, only two of which were
legitimate, and one of which she aborted. Maria had run afoul of the law
and of societal standards multiple times. While they could not pin infanti-
cide on Maria, her previous behavior implied a certain level of guilt and a
likelihood of further recidivism. Past behavior was a reflection on current
inclinations, morals, and presumed future actions. Whether or not she com-
mitted the latest infanticide of which she was accused, Maria was still an
unwanted member of society, having repeatedly proved to be trouble and
showing no reason to anticipate more respectable conduct in the future.
In Maria’s case we see the difficulties of prosecuting crimes like infanticide
and abortion. Abortion and infanticide left little evidence besides a corpse,
and even a corpse was not a definitive indication of a crime. Newborn life
was already highly precarious at this time; any number of misfortunes could
have caused fetal or newborn death. The prosecution had therefore to rely
on the interrogation—and of course torture—to gain further information
about the potential crime. As Maria’s case demonstrates, the prosecution
might still not get all the answers it wanted. In later cases, the Augsburg
town council would intensify their use of torture, both in frequency and in
severity of methods, in order to address these difficulties. The conviction
rate would nevertheless remain relatively low. The civic authorities’ troubles
were compounded by the disparity between the Carolina’s definition of the
crimes and the realities uncovered by investigations. While the Carolina
sought to regulate and assimilate legal practice, its limited scope challenged
local governments to find a balance between flexibility and enforcement,
between official definitions and practical necessity.
As governments attempted to enforce the new law codes, fitting crimes
into the now clearly defined categories could prove difficult. Illegitimate
pregnancies were not the only ones aborted; illegitimate children were not
the only ones killed or abandoned. Pregnancies often ended in miscarriage,
and newborns often died of natural causes. All of these legal and moral gray
areas presented challenges. Difference in intention was the important dis-
tinction, yet one that could never be established definitively. Despite these
complexities, however, it becomes apparent even early in the period that the
courts’ understanding of the situation reflected the Carolina’s assumptions.
It was assumed in the wording of the Carolina that infanticide was com-
mitted by unwed mothers. It was also therefore assumed that the death of a
legitimate newborn must have had a natural cause, since the mother would
not have had a reason to kill the child.
Such assumptions have necessarily shaped the records documenting these
crimes. Historians have long recognized only a fraction of infanticides and
abortions were ever discovered and recorded, and a significant portion of
the larger whole was very likely those crimes that went unnoticed because
of who perpetrated them. In this way, abortion and infanticide might have
been used by married women, women beyond suspicion, and even men, as
a method of limiting family size.
This sort of immunity granted by marriage was particularly at issue in
to the specific phenomenon of Kindserdrücken, or the crushing or suffoca-
tion of a child by a parent sleeping in the same bed. These cases, on the
rare occasions they were brought before a court, were often ruled to be
accidents rather than infanticide. However, some have theorized that par-
ents may sometimes have intentionally resorted to smothering a child in
bed. In a time when other means of birth control and abortion were not
reliable or effective, Kindserdrücken might have been a means to lessen
the strain of raising another child without attracting suspicion. Because of
societal expectations and the wording of the law, married women were not
thought to have any motivation to kill their own children. Married moth-
ers generally did not make any attempt to hide their pregnancies. Thus,
what might appear to be an accidental suffocation within a legitimate
family might draw little attention or suspicion. An unwed mother could
not make the same claim, especially if she had kept her pregnancy hid-
den. Kindserdrücken was largely ignored by authorities until the eighteenth
century; authorities took so long to recognize the possibility of intention
behind Kindserdrücken because of firmly held early modern conceptions
about infanticide and familial structure. In this way, married mothers could
potentially restrict family size without drawing the ire typically reserved
for such crimes.63 While married parents could hide behind claims of acci-
dental suffocation, an unmarried woman could not expect the same indul-
gence. The same would hold true for abortion and miscarriage. A married
woman was assumed to have had a miscarriage while an unmarried woman
was assumed to have purposely caused an abortion. Unmarried women
were thus in general presumed guilty of infanticide and abortion, while
married women were presumed innocent.
Accidents and other uncertain cases formed part of a vast gray area of
violence toward children. Excepting abandonment or death, what entailed
lawful behavior of parents toward their children was ambiguous, with sig-
nificant leeway for physical discipline. A certain amount of violence toward
children was expected and a part of everyday practice as a method of disci-
pline and of enforcing parental authority. Yet occasionally officials investi-
gated a parent for his or her severe treatment of a child. The most common
offenders were fathers who were failing in their role as head of household
and provider for their family. Men who had abandoned their families with
no provision were a common complaint; others drank too heavily; others
were too violent with their wives and children. But it was only when the
natural hierarchy broke down or the violence was too severe or frequent
that authorities got involved. However, in very few cases were men accused
solely of the physical abuse of children. The accusation of abuse toward
their children usually appeared along with a specific set of other accusa-
tions: beating wives too severely, drinking too heavily, wasting money, and
“evil living” in general. It was always a man’s role as head of household
that was questioned, and when he ignored that role, or abused the con-
cept, he faced consequences. Thus, on October 12, 1538 Hans Drechsel was
brought in before the Augsburg council, accused of “handling his wife and
his children completely evilly and dishonestly, hitting, kicking.” Drechsel
was sentenced to time in jail.64
These gray areas help us understand fuzzy legal boundaries post-Carolina.
As the sixteenth century progressed, when and how certain crimes were
prosecuted in much of the Holy Roman Empire began to coalesce and to
become more uniform, coming into line with the Carolina. Again and again
complications to these neat definitions arose. In the end, all of these compli-
cations and variations came down to how the criminal or suspected criminal
was punished. Punishments reflected the final judgment, not just on guilt or
innocence but on what the judge determined had actually happened.
Though stricter enforcement of the new imperial law demanded stricter
punishments, these were often mitigated in practice. The punishment pre-
scribed in the Carolina, live burial, was apparently only used on extremely
rare occasions, if at all.65 Even the secondary punishment, drowning, was
used infrequently. In fact, Walpurga Seitz, whose child’s remains were found
in a pig sty, was the only woman ever sentenced to drowning for either
infanticide or abortion in Augsburg. Most women, throughout the Holy
Roman Empire, who faced execution were beheaded with a sword. Drown-
ing was used more frequently in certain areas of the empire, but beheading still
remained the primary method for executing convicted child-murderesses.
Indeed, in many locations that did use drowning, this practice had largely
ended by the seventeenth century.66
The choice of method of execution involved several layers of meaning. To
an extent, execution, like any public punishment, was intended to be a deter-
rent to all who witnessed it. But this was not the only purpose: execution
also purified both the criminal and his or her society of the sin of the crime.
Finally, execution was also a powerful means by which the state could dem-
onstrate its adherence to the law or even its sovereignty to exercise its own
law. The state could use an execution to showcase its right to judge in capi-
tal cases, and therefore, its authority over life and death. The method chosen
might also reflect the condemned criminal’s place in society. In early modern
Germany, burial alive and drowning were almost exclusively reserved for
women; men more often faced hanging or breaking on the wheel. Other
regions regarded certain punishments as reflecting the honor or status of
the condemned, and these were not necessarily consistent across borders: in
England and elsewhere beheading was generally reserved for higher-ranking
individuals, while it was the most common form of execution for all ranks
in the much of the Holy Roman Empire.
Burial alive, drowning, and burning (reserved mostly for heretics and
witches) were designed specifically to destroy any trace of the sinner/crim-
inal but became much less frequent following the sixteenth-century legal
reforms. These forms of execution were coming to be considered antiquated
and were reserved only for the most horrific crimes. Drowning, although the
prescribed punishment for infanticide and certain other crimes, was thought
to be one of the more severe methods of execution (although not as severe
as live burial and burning). The milder form of execution by decapitation
with a sword became much more popular, as the emphasis on the meaning
of execution shifted from purification to deterrence. Milder punishments
also allowed authorities to appear more merciful and righteous: they could
claim to have acted “out of mercy” by decreasing a sentence from drowning
to decapitation.67 Increasingly, beheading was recommended in order “to
avoid despair” on the part of the victim, who was ideally to go to her execu-
tion with confidence that she would be redeemed after her death. Beheading
was also a much quicker and more certain death than burial or drowning.68
So why was Walpurga drowned and not beheaded (or buried alive)?
And why was hers the only case in which this particular council chose this
punishment for a child murderess? Walpurga’s case is unique because she
was perhaps the first recorded child murderess to be executed in Augsburg.
Although drowning was the prescribed method of execution, all other child
murderesses in Augsburg were executed by decapitation with the sword. Not
much about Walpurga’s case seems to indicate that she deserved a harsher
punishment than the later cases (that is, she committed no additional crimes
that might have compounded to increase her punishment). Rather, it is pre-
cisely because she was the first that she received a harsher punishment. Wal-
purga found herself at a tipping point of the complex legal transitions as
they played out in Augsburg. As one of the first child murderesses under
the newly increased efforts at social control and prosecution, Walpurga fell
victim to the desire of the magistrates’ efforts to stem infanticide, perhaps by
making a memorable example with her execution. In Walpurga’s case, the
council chose to abide by the Carolina; by ordering her to be drowned, the
council showed that they followed carefully the dictates of that law code.
Augsburg only later reverted to the milder method of decapitation, choosing
to make a show of mercy rather in addition to a show of force. Augsburg,
like localities across the Holy Roman Empire, was growing worried about
the perceived rise in fornication and infanticide. Armed with permission
from the Carolina, magistrates were eager to demonstrate that these crimes
were not tolerated in their communities, initiating a pattern of severe behav-
ioral codes and recriminations that would grow into the next century.
CONCLUSIONS
With Walpurga’s drowning, we see that the major legal and social transi-
tions of the early sixteenth century had started to play out in individual
locales in the Holy Roman Empire. The Carolina itself was the result of
movement toward unification and centralization of the law in the empire
and the simultaneous crackdown on moral laxity, initially sparked by the
Protestant Reformations. Societal expectations of what was public and
private were changing. Social discipline was enforced by magistrates and
neighborhoods alike. Collective honor hung in the balance, and communi-
ties could no longer abide any behavior that might undermine morality and
reputation. Fornication could not be tolerated, and any sign of such behav-
ior or its consequences must therefore be reported and punished.
The synthesis of these developments resulted in new patterns of prosecution
and punishment. By the end of the sixteenth century, women were regularly
prosecuted and executed for infanticide and abortion throughout the empire.
These new patterns led contemporaries (and some later historians) to perceive
a rather sudden increase in these particular crimes. It would appear, how-
ever, that prosecution and documentation of the crimes are what increased in
the mid-sixteenth century, in addition to the actual occurrence.69 It was these
changes that led to the perception of infanticide and abortion appearing in
the records almost as if out of nowhere. These were not new crimes, but they
were now being sought out more thoroughly than ever before.
It was the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth that saw a defini-
tive peak in infanticide cases and executions across much of the empire.
Several decades removed from the beginnings of legal and social reform, this
crescendo cannot be explained only by novel procedures. This increase was
caused in part by the continuation and the intensification of patterns already
apparent by mid-century: more careful communal control, increasingly dire
consequences of illegitimacy for mother and child, and a greater push for
prosecution. But it was also caused by factors unique to the decades imme-
diately around the turn of the century, including difficult and uncertain eco-
nomic and political conditions. The explosion of court records in the late
sixteenth century allows us a detailed view into the lives of the supposedly
heartless child-killers and their zealous prosecutors.
NOTES
1. Stadtarchiv Augsburg (StadtAA), Urgichten, Walpurga Seitz, 22 December

1568.
2. Stadtarchiv Nördlingen, Kriminalakten 1495, Margarete Höllin; Plutbuch fol. 89.
Anton Felber, Unzucht und Kindsmord in der Rechtsprechung der freien
Reichsstadt Nördlingen vom 15. bis 19. Jahrhundert (Dissertation, University
of Bonn, 1961), 98.

Medieval Law (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012), 15–16.
4. Müller, The Criminalization of Abortion, 1–75.
5. Aristotle, The History of Animals, Book VII, Chapter 3, 583b; from Jonathan
Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle The Revised Oxford Transla-
tion, Volume One Bollingen Series LXXI–2 (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1984).
6. Ibid., Criminalization of Abortion, 100–109.
7. Ibid., 15–16, 129.
8. Ibid., 131.
9. Ibid., 20.
10. Ibid., 17.
11. Gerald Strauss, Law, Resistance, and the State: The Opposition to Roman
Law in Reformation Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1986), 56–65.
12. John Langbein, Prosecuting Crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany,
France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 140–141.
13. Gerd Kleinheyer, “Tradition und Reform in der Constitutio Criminalis Caro-
lina,” in Petter Landau and Friedrich Schroeder (eds), Strafrecht, Strafproz-
ess und Rezeption: Grundlagen, Entwicklung und Wirkung der Constitutio
Criminalis Carolina (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1984), 9.
14. Langbein, Prosecuting Crime, 129–139.
15. Winifred Trusen, “Strafprozeß und Rezeption. Zu den Entwicklung im Spätmit-
telalter und den Grundlagen der Carolina,” in Peter Landau and Friedrich
Schroeder (eds), Strafrecht, Strafprozess und Rezeption: Grundlagen, Ent-
wicklung und Wirkung der Constitutio Criminalis Carolina (Frankfurt: Vit-
torio Klostermann, 1984), 42.
16. John Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof: Europe and England in the
Ancien Régime. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 4.
17. Kleinheyer, “Tradition und Reform,” 7–12.
18. Müller, Criminalization of Abortion, 186.
19 Ibid., 157.
20. Johann von Schwarzenberg, Bambergische Peinliche Halsgerichtsordnung,
Josef Kohler and Willy Scheel (eds), accessed January 4, 2011, http://www.
uni-mannheim.de/mateo/desbillons/bambi.html, 16r–16v.
So man ein dirn (die fur ein junckfraw get) jn argkwon hat/ das sie Heimlich
ein kindt gehabt/ und ertödt habe/ sol man sunderlich erkunden/ Ob sie mit
einem grossen ungewonlichem leib gesehen worden sey/ me rob ir der leib
kleiner worden und dar nach bleich und schwach gewest sey/ so sölchs und
der gleichen erfunden wurdet/ wo dann die selbig dirn ein person ist/ Darzu
man sich der verdachten tat versehen/ mag sol sie durch verstendig Frawen an
heymlichen steten . . . besichtigt werden/ wirdet sie dann doselbst auch argk-
wenig erfunden/ und wil der tat dannocht nit bekennen/man sol sie peynlich
fragen.
21. Ibid., 16r–16v.
22. Gustav Radbruch (ed.), Die Peinliche Gerichtsordnung Kaiser Karls V. von
1532 (Carolina) (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam, 1962), 84–86.
23. Merry Wiesner-Hanks, Working Women in Renaissance Germany (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986), 55–57.
24. Carolina, 84–86.
25. Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation, Central Europe
1550–1750 (New York: Routledge, 1989), 122–145.
Merry Wiesner-Hanks, “Disembodied Theory? Discourses of Sex in Early
Modern Germany,” in Ulinka Rublack (ed.), Gender in Early Modern German
History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 157–161.

Joel Harrington, Reordering Marriage and Society in Reformation Ger-
many (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 215–273.
26. Lyndal Roper, The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation
Augsburg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 22.
27. Susan Karant-Nunn, “Babies, Baptism, Bodies, Burials, and Bliss: Ghost Sto-
ries and Their Rejection in the Late Sixteenth Century,” in Marion Kobelt-
Groch and Cornelia Niekus Moore (eds), Tod und Jenseits in der Schriftkultur
der Frühen Neuzeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), 11–22. Susan Karant-
Nunn, “‘Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me, and Forbid Them Not.’
The Social Location of Baptism in Early Modern Germany,” in Robin Bast and
Andrew Gow (eds), Continuity and Change: The Harvest of Late-Medieval
and Reformation History (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 359–378.
28. Ulinka Rublack, The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999), 78.
29. Ibid., 134–138.
30. Wiesner-Hanks, Working Women.
31. Olwen Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western
Europe, 1500–1800 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 78–89.
32. Wiesner-Hanks, Working Women, 90.
33. StadtAA, Urgichten, Catharina Feslerin, 14 March 1592.
StadtAA, Urgichten, Barbara Höflerin, 1 August 1592.
StadtAA, Urgichten, Appolonia Heringin, 1 March 1601.
34. Wiesner-Hanks, Working Women, 83–92.
35. Roper, The Holy Household, 55.
36. Rublack, The Crimes of Women, 141.
37. Jeffrey Tyler, “Refugees and Reform: Banishment and Exile in Early Mod-
ern Augsburg,” in Robert J. Bast and Andrew C. Gow (eds), Continuity and
Change: The Harvest of Late Medieval and Reformation History (Leiden:
Brill, 2000), 80–81.
38. Robert Jütte, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994); Jason Coy, Strangers and Misfits: Banish-
ment, Social Control, and Authority in Early Modern Germany (Leiden: Brill,
2008).
39. Kathy Stuart, Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollu-
tion in Early Modern Germany (Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Roper, The Holy Household.
40. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg (SStBA), LS Aug 10–1, Paul von Stetten,
Geschichte der Heil. Röm. Reichs Freyen Stadt Augspurg (Frankfurt: Merz
und Meyer, 1743), 185.
41. Stuart, Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts, 33–45.
Roper, The Holy Household, 37–39.
42. Roper, The Holy Household, 15.
43. Ibid., 16–20, 57–58.
44. Jütte, Poverty and Deviance.
45. Von Stetten, Geschichte, 208.
46. Otto Ulbricht, “The Debate about Foundling Hospitals in Enlightenment Ger-
many: Infanticide, Illegitimacy, and Infant Mortality Rates,” Central European
History 18, no. 3/4 (Sep.–Dec., 1985), 211–256. John Boswell, The Kindness
of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late
Antiquity to the Renaissance (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988).
47. Joel Harrington, The Unwanted Child: The Fate of Foundlings, Orphans, and
Juvenile Criminals in Early Modern Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2009), 257–264.

48. Ulbricht, “Debate,” 214.
49. Anita Obermeier, “Findel- und Waisenkinder. Zur Geschichte der Sozialfür-
sorge in der Reichsstadt Augsburg,” Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereins für
Schwaben 83 (1990), 160.
50. Harrington, The Unwanted Child, 235, 273.
51. Thomas Safley, Children of the Laboring Poor: Expectation and Experience
Among the Orphans of Early Modern Augsburg (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 17.
Harrington, The Unwanted Child, 154.
52. Ann Tlusty, Bacchus and Civic Order: the Culture of Drink in Early Modern
Germany (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001), 162.
53. Harrington, The Unwanted Child.
54. StadtAA, Urgichten, Barbara Ganserin, 18 July 1541.
55. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Maria Weisshoferin, 16 February 1555.
56. Jan de Vries, “Population,” Handbook of European History 1400–1600:
Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, Volume 1 Structures and
Assertions, Thomas Brady, Heiko Oberman, James Tracy (eds.), (Leiden: Brill,
1994), 34.
57. Harrington, The Unwanted Child, 37.
58. On this Inquisitionsprozess and local procedure in Augsburg, see Carl Hoff-
mann, “Strukturen und Quellen des Augsburger Reichsstädtischen Straf-
gerichtswesens in der Ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift des
Historischen Vereins für Schwaben 88 (1995), 57–108.
59. Coy, Strangers and Misfits, 88.
60. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verzeichnis der Maleficanten.
Rublack, The Crimes of Women, 81.
61. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Maria Weisshoferin, 16 February 1555.
Maria Weisschoferin ist ains kindlins schwanger gewest, darfur sie zum
hochsten geleugnet . . . daher nit geringer arkhwan entstanden, als hab sie nit
allain dis kindlin verthun wollen, sond das sie hivor auch zway kindlin, deren
sie nit erfreut worden, verthan, darumb sie venkhlich eingetzog aber dieweil
sie solchs weder gutlich noch peinlich gesteen wollen ist sie der stat unnd Etter
verwisen worden.
62. StadtAA, Urgichten, Maria Weisschoferin, 16 February, 1555.
63. Simone Winkler, “Kindserdrücken” Vom Kirchenrecht zum Landesrecht des
Herzogtums Preußen (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2007), 1–10.
64. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Hans Drechsel, 12 October 1538.
65. Wolfgang Müller in Criminalization of Abortion in the West cites examples of
live burial from the sixteenth century, 206.
67. Richard van Dülmen, Theatre of Horror: Crime and Punishment in Early
Modern Germany (Oxford: Polity Press, 1990), 85–89.
68. Rublack, 83.
69. Müller, The Criminalization of Abortion, 221.
2 “Such Barbarous Mothers
There Are These Days”
A Growing Problem
In 1590 Augsburg city chronicler Georg Kölderer lamented a miserable state

of affairs:
Around this time, and for a while now, very many children died, and
very few old people. It was found that the young women, because of
lasciviousness, wanting neither to marry nor have an honorable house-
hold, neglected many children out of carelessness, so that here and there
children were found suffocated and dead. Such barbarous mothers there
are these days.1
By 1590 the Augsburg city council and governments across Germany had
begun to focus more and more on cases of infanticide, abortion, and aban-
donment, as they understood these crimes to be on the rise. The “barbarous
mothers” appeared to be everywhere. Any unwed woman was a potential
child killer. What were city officials to do about this terrible situation? The
harder they tried to root out the problem—through harsher punishments
and more thorough investigations—the more infanticide seemed to occur.
The more cases there were, the more feverishly magistrates pursued pros-
ecution and conviction, and the more difficult these objectives became.
Yet when we examine the court records of Augsburg and other loca-
tions around Germany, the total numbers are not terribly striking. Around
1590, when Kölderer wrote of this terrible situation, Augsburg only experi-
enced a case of infanticide about every other year. While the numbers were
sometimes higher elsewhere, frequency of infanticides around Germany was
never astounding. Yet it seems that in the later decades of the sixteenth
century and the early decades of the seventeenth, infanticide came to be a
primary concern of law enforcement. Why did a handful of cases garner
such attention? Why was infanticide in particular seen as not only a grow-
ing problem, but a sure indication of the decline of morality? And if there
was indeed a rise in infanticide cases, what had caused it? Why were there
so many “barbarous mothers” at this time?
50 “Such Barbarous Mothers There Are These Days”
GROWING NUMBERS
During the period from the end of the sixteenth century through the early
seventeenth century, many regions of the Holy Roman Empire experienced
several decades of major turbulence. It was a time of religious turmoil, as the
German lands recovered from one bout of religion-fueled warfare, only to
devolve into the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War, in 1618. When the Thirty
Years’ War came to Augsburg and surrounding Swabia, it was particularly

devastating. War combined with plague, killing thousands.2 In between peri-
ods of open conflict, many parts of Germany experienced severe economic
and social stress. The population was growing, creating increased competi-
tion for jobs. Inflation increased, and real wages decreased. Food prices
rose, exacerbated by harvest failures likely brought on by the Little Ice Age,
resulting in starvation and the spread of disease. The pressure on those who
were already poor was exacerbated, and the most vulnerable members of
society could only scrape by.3 Chroniclers across Germany noted the wors-
ening economic climate.
In Augsburg, for example, the situation was particularly dire. The cost
of living exceeded the average in the Holy Roman Empire. The citizens of
Augsburg felt the pressure, complaining that their income was not keeping
up with the cost of living. Food prices rose dramatically in the 1580s, and the
burden fell disproportionately on the city’s youngest residents. The number of
children per marriage sank, and the death rate of infants and young children
spiked dramatically, even apart from any increase in infanticide: by 1585, the
city suffered 3,000 deaths, twice that of average years.4 Yet the population
overall was still growing, with the city of Augsburg increasing from 35,000
to 45,000 inhabitants between 1500 and 1600, a jump of nearly 30 percent.
These numbers might help explain Kölderer’s account of high infant mortal-
ity, which, despite his hyperbole, could not be explained by infanticide alone.
During such times of economic crisis, women suffered more than
men. Given the guilds’ restrictive policies, the few available jobs more
frequently went to men, as guilds shut out women. Women had to work
harder, when they could, to earn less. Regardless of gender, wages did not
begin to catch up to prices until the 1630s.5 If women felt these pressures
more acutely than men, poor and unmarried women felt them perhaps
most of all. Their wages plummeted, as did their likelihood of finding
jobs or husbands. And if they found themselves pregnant, unmarried
women faced a terrible future in this already uncertain economic time.
They would also be well aware of the life that awaited their unborn chil-
dren: severely limited employment opportunities and most likely, a life of
poverty and hardship.
Given the greater societal pressures on unmarried mothers, a noticeable
increase in actual occurrence of infanticide likely did take place. While it
would be impossible to determine the actual number of infanticides, women
more frequently faced punishment for fornication, adultery, and illegitimate
“Such Barbarous Mothers There Are These Days” 51
pregnancy. As seen in the last chapter, these civic punishments would have
been augmented by societal punishments such as shame and loss of status,
often compounded by loss of economic stability. It is, therefore, likely that
more women more frequently felt driven toward an extreme action such
as infanticide or abortion. In all likelihood, a disproportionate amount of
the city’s 30 percent growth was in the lower classes—those more likely to
commit infanticide—as people flocked to the city looking for work. Greater
pressure on women to commit infanticide or abortion could easily have

combined with a larger population to result in higher criminal numbers.
Kölderer and the city officials were witnessing an uptick in crime, though
not the epidemic they perceived.
It also seems that an increase in infanticide and abortion trials fits into
a much larger general increase in criminality in the late sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries.6 In particular, theft and violent crimes were becom-
ing more frequent.7 The greater association of sin with crime and a growing
preference for public punishments and executions further compounded pub-
lic perception of a violent, lawless society.8 This public perception of crime
would have been heightened by the more frequent public punishments, par-
ticularly executions. As communities witnessed more executions, so would
their concerns have risen that they lived in a crime-ridden age. This aware-
ness may have also fed into criminality as well as citizens were called upon
to report crime wherever they saw it. This pattern of much-increased pros-
ecution and execution has been observed all across late sixteenth-century
Germany: studies of Nuremberg, Zurich, Breslau, Ulm, Danzig, and Frank-
furt all reveal similar developments.9
Incidence of infanticide cases in particular as much as doubled in parts
of Germany. In Augsburg, an examination of the case files shows that the
dramatic jump in infanticide cases began around 1580, reaching a peak in
the first decade of the seventeenth century. Augsburg witnessed between
two and five trials for abortion or infanticide per decade between 1550 and
1590. Between 1590 and 1600, however, there were six cases, half of which
ended in execution, an unprecedented rate. As seen in the previous chapter,
the first execution for infanticide in Augsburg did not occur until 1568. Fol-
lowing this case, there were no more executions for infanticide or abortion10
in Augsburg until 1592, when Barbara Höflerin was decapitated. The 1590s
experienced a total of three executions out of six cases, a stunning contrast
with zero executions in eleven cases from 1570 to 1590. Between 1600 and
1610, there were eight cases and four executions. The execution rate fell
and remained low after this, hovering at or below 25 percent for the rest of
the period. The result is a distinct peak in both prosecutions and executions
between 1590 and 1610 (see table).
These decades saw similar increases elsewhere in Germany. According
to Richard van Dülmen, in Danzig, infanticide executions rose from three
or fewer per decade to ten between 1628 and 1637; Nuremberg reached
its height of seven women executed for infanticide slightly earlier, between
Table 2.1 Infanticide prosecutions and executions in Augsburg,
1560–163911
Decade Prosecutions Executions
1560–1569 4 1
1570–1579 4 0
1580–1589 7 0
1590–1599 6 3
1600–1609 8 4
1610–1619 4 0
1620–1629 4 1
1630–1639 3 1
1573 and 1582.12 Joel Harrington provides more detailed information on

Nuremberg’s statistics, showing that Nuremberg experienced an initial swell
of both infanticide prosecutions and executions in the 1570s, followed by
similar peaks around 1590 and again around 1620.13 Ulinka Rublack has
also described growing prosecution of infanticide cases by the mid-sixteenth
century and increased executions for infanticide by the late sixteenth century
in Memmingen and several towns in the duchy of Württemberg.14 Maria
Boes describes how infanticide listings “increased dramatically by the latter
part of the sixteenth [century]” in Frankfurt. Boes and others have also cited
the harsher circumstances of the late sixteenth century as the likely cause of
these growing numbers.15
Alone, the prosecution and execution numbers for infanticide might seem
unimpressive, but when compared with execution rates for women overall,
they stand in stark relief. At most, the city of Nuremberg executed thirteen
women in a single decade, from 1573 to 1582. Of those thirteen, seven were
for infanticide. From 1503 to 1743, the years for which Richard van Dülmen
provides statistics, infanticide accounted for 67 of the 136 women executed
in Nuremberg. Likewise in Danzig, out of 148 executions between 1558 and
1731, sixty-two were for infanticide; in Ulm, ten out of twenty-five between
1594 and 1636; in Memmingen, five out of twenty between 1551 and 1689.
Finally, in Frankfurt, the proportion was a striking eighteen out of twenty-
five. Execution rates for women were always low, but infanticide increased
those numbers dramatically.16 Compared with the numbers of men facing
execution in these years, only a small number of women were ever con-
demned to death. Thus, a handful of women executed for infanticide or
abortion would have been remarkable and memorable. In many places,
executions for infanticide made up the majority of female executions, with
the exception of witch panics.17 People living in early modern cities would
have been used to witnessing the execution of men on a regular basis, but
the increase in numbers of women would have been shocking.
But execution rates also did not reflect prosecution rates. The rate at
which women who were accused of infanticide were actually convicted and
executed remained consistently under 50 percent for most localities, only
reaching this mark at the very height of prosecutions. Considering cases
of abortion in addition to infanticide renders the situation even murkier.
Although women could be executed for abortion, and sometimes were, the
numbers are much lower than for infanticide. Abortion by its very nature
left little evidence and encompassed a far less clear-cut set of circumstances
than infanticide, rendering conviction difficult at best. For most instances,
and across Germany, this meant that execution for abortion hardly ever
happened.18
Van Dülmen and others also cite evidence for renewed swells in infanticide
prosecutions and executions in the last decades of the seventeenth century
or even later in the eighteenth century.19 It is difficult to isolate consistent
patterns across all of Germany, or even on the more local level. Indeed, the
numbers remained low enough throughout the early modern period to hin-
der statistical analysis. It is clear, though, that infanticide prosecutions had
reached unprecedented heights by the end of the sixteenth century. While
1600 might not have been the high water mark for all localities, it was cer-
tainly a pivot point at which infanticide prosecutions became commonplace.
The sharp rise in prosecution reflected the legal and social changes that
led to the initial issue of the Carolina. The Carolina’s standardization of
practices in turn resulted in an increase in trials and executions for all crimes.
When it came to infanticide in particular, the rise in numbers of prosecu-
tions also reflected a greater impetus to commit the crime. Women were
economically in a much worse position at the end of the sixteenth century
than they had been mere decades earlier. Economic troubles disproportion-
ately fell on poor women, the group most likely to commit infanticide. Eco-
nomic woes also exacerbated the new pressures facing women following the
religious reformations of the early decades of the sixteenth century. Never
before would a woman have faced such severe consequences—physically,
socially, and economically—for having an illegitimate child.
Public and official perception of infanticide and abortion can be difficult
to parse. It is apparent that many thought infanticide was on the rise, being
committed far more frequently than ever before—and more frequently
than it likely ever occurred in reality. What drove the perception of an illu-
sory epidemic? Officials in early modern cities were convinced of an addi-
tional and mysterious “dark number” of infanticides and abortions—those
instances that surely happened but went undiscovered. Yet it appears that
the early modern imagination inflated this number wildly beyond the few
uncovered cases. In his examination of infanticide in Cologne, Gerd Schw-
erhoff argues convincingly that the intimacy of life and difficulty of hiding
evidence in an early modern city actually kept this “dark number” low.20 If
indeed the number of unknown cases was negligible, then the discrepancy
between infanticide hysteria and the actual crime was even more extreme.
The very secretiveness of infanticide was fundamental to why the crime
was so worrisome to early modern authorities.21 Known child-murderesses
must therefore be made examples of in public view so that potential child-
murderesses would be frightened into chastity or honesty about illegitimate
pregnancies. Officials therefore became more intent on fully convicting and
executing women of infanticide, with allowance granted by the Carolina,
instead of resorting to simple banishment. In order to do so, courts required
a full confession of the crime. What resulted from these needs was another
distinct pattern: as prosecutions became more frequent, investigations
became much more thorough and lengthy. The prosecution sought to root
out every detail of the crime. Case files in Augsburg and elsewhere grew in
length and detail, and interrogations expanded from fewer than ten ques-
tions to multiple rounds of more than twenty. These more detailed trials in
turn reveal significant information about the process of prosecution, the
thoughts and assumptions of city officials, and even the lives of the defen-
dants. In following the question-and-response of the interrogations, we can
see how the story of infanticide was constructed one case at a time, and how
the accepted narrative was constantly challenged, bent, and reshaped by the
unexpected.
THE TRIALS
Maria Blaicherin was executed for infanticide in Augsburg in March 1601.

Her case file is short, containing only one round of interrogation and her
final condemnation. Her case illustrates exactly what the Augsburg town
council would have considered an ideal investigation, trial, and outcome,
a sharp contrast to most other defendants, who proved more difficult. The
line of questioning, her actions, her answers, and the final results were all
sadly predictable. She confessed to everything her interrogators asked in
the first round of questioning and did so “gütlich,” without torture. She
faced only one round of interrogation because they were satisfied with her
answers and had met the Carolina’s standards for conviction.
Her case allows a quick walk through the key components of an infan-
ticide investigation. The prosecution started by asking her name, her place
of origin, and her age. Maria responded that she was uncertain of her own
age and came originally from Immenstadt. She was then asked what she did
for work, to which she responded that she had served as a maid for at least
ten different weavers over the course of about seventeen years. They asked
if she had ever been imprisoned before, and she replied that she had not.
Then the prosecution turned its attention to the crime at hand. Had she not
been pregnant? By whom? Did she carry the child to full term? How did she
hide her pregnancy? Did she give birth to a child? Where? How long did it
take? Did she give birth alone or was someone else there? How did she do
this without anyone noticing? Maria responded that she had known that
she had been pregnant but had never told anyone. Neither had she denied
being pregnant, explaining that she “had not lied about it, but when some-
one talked to her about it, she only laughed about it.” A weaver’s appren-
tice named Leonhard Mair was the father of the child. Maria told how she
gave birth in alone in her chamber to a living baby boy; she was in labor
the entire morning and gave birth after lunch. Her master was not in town
and her mistress was not at home, so she was all alone when she gave birth.
Regarding the infanticide itself, Maria was asked whether she threw the
living child into the privy, if she could hear it crying from down in the privy,
if she had intended to kill the child, if anyone had helped her to do so, and
had she previously done anything to abort the child in utero. She said that
after the birth she kept the child by her side for about half an hour, during
which it cried out twice. Afraid that it would cry out more, Maria wrapped
it in blankets and rags and then threw it, still living, into the privy. She heard
it cry out one last time and then no more. Maria claimed she did not know
why she had done it, and that the “bös feind” (evil enemy, Satan) must
have given her the idea. If anyone else had been home, she asserted, surely
she would not have done it. She maintained that no one else had given her
the idea that she ought to kill her child, nor had anyone helped her do so.
Finally, Maria was asked if she had ever done this before and about what
other crimes she may have committed. In response, Maria stated that she
very much regretted what she had done and her whole life long had never
done anything else bad or illegal. Accordingly, on the very same day as her
interrogation, Maria was beheaded.22
Given the nature of the crimes, questions were intensely personal, prod-
ding into the defendants’ sexual behavior and bodily functions. Such ques-
tions would have unsettled the already nervous defendant. A group of
high-ranking men posed intimate questions about the sex life of a poor,
single woman, who may never have talked about these things with anyone,
and in any other circumstances would certainly not have discussed them
with men of a higher station. The questions that Maria answered would
likely have made her uncomfortable, and she would have felt from the start
the imbalance of power in the proceedings. Other defendants were asked
even further private questions: a defendant might be asked if she knew who
the father was, she might then be asked how many times, when, and where
she had had intercourse with that man. Defendants were also sometimes
asked how many other lovers they had had, and about the details of those
relationships. Questions about the defendants’ sex life accomplished several
important goals. First, intention to commit infanticide or abortion could be
established; second, the exact circumstances of the pregnancy that the pros-
ecution believed led to the crime could be confirmed; finally, the defendants’
reputation and past behaviors could be settled.
The questions then turned to the crime itself. The interrogators had
already formed an idea of the events based on preconceived notions of
infanticide and information from witnesses and physical evidence—such as
a corpse found under a bed or in a privy, or bloodied bedclothes. The ques-
tions were often leading, presuming that a crime had been committed and
hoping to point the defendant’s answers toward a particular, detailed, and
full confession. The Augsburg council asked Maria Blaicherin, for example,
“If she had not thrown the child, while living, into the privy?” and then,
“had she not intended, therewith to despicably murder and kill the child?”
Such leading questions guided Maria in formulating her confession.23 Pros-
ecutors occasionally revealed their presumptions even more heavy-hand-

edly, asking a defendant why she wanted to kill her child, how she could
murder the fruit of her womb, and how she intended to get away without
punishment.
With the suspicion of guilt for a crime such as infanticide came a presump-
tion of additional infractions—fornication and hidden pregnancy—as well
as a general will to disobey authority and rebuff society. Interrogators often
asked when, where, and why the suspect had been imprisoned before. Some
would admit to having been punished for fornication; for these women,
infanticide may have been the only way to escape the escalating punish-
ments meted out for repeated infractions. One of the last questions the pros-
ecution often asked was how many times a woman had previously been
pregnant, and of those children, how many she had killed. Maria Blaicherin
was, therefore, asked, “whether she had done such a thing before?”24 Most
defendants, of course, replied that they had not.
In the end, infanticide trials came down to the question of intention. Had
the woman intended to harm her fetus or her child? Considering the defini-
tion of infanticide in the Carolina, it is clear that intention was the key. A
hidden pregnancy and childbirth were taken as clear indications of a long-
standing intention to commit infanticide. Establishing a suspect’s character
and activities, both sexual and otherwise, in the months leading up to the
suspected crime, could lay the foundations for a full confession of guilt.
After ascertaining intention, determining whether direct action had been
taken to harm the fetus or child was of high importance. These two concepts
often worked with each other: it was difficult for a woman to deny intention
if she took clear action to kill her child. The task of proving intention and
action occupied the remainder of an interrogation.
Unambiguous intention and action often remained elusive, though. In
contrast to Maria Blaicherin’s clear, straightforward answers and lack of
excuses, most defendants scrabbled for answers that would exonerate them
and evaded full confessions often enough to keep execution rates below 50
percent. Looking at more complicated cases than Maria’s, then, can be quite
revealing. Although each case presented its own complexities, it is possible
to identify patterns: details of the crime and responses likely to doom or
liberate a defendant. As execution depended upon the prosecution obtain-
ing a full confession from the accused, how a defendant crafted her answers
over multiple rounds of interrogation determined her ultimate fate—and
revealed something of her story.
Women accused of infanticide were always asked about the father of the
child, and their answers showed that these relationships varied. Some were
impregnated by an employer who was likely already married, and therefore,
they could not have hoped to marry the father. More common, however,
were those who were impregnated by a man from their own social class,
another servant or an apprentice, who had few connections to the commu-
nity and often could no longer be found by the time the child was born. If
he knew of the pregnancy, he might have wanted to avoid a paternity suit

and punishment for fornication. Pregnant women frequently tried to track
down the fathers, sometimes chasing rumors and news of their whereabouts
hundreds of kilometers. For instance, Barbara Ganserin (see previous chap-
ter), traveled the 270 kilometers from Augsburg to Strasbourg and back,
with no success (and returned to face charges of child abandonment).25 If
the father could be identified and found, he might be interrogated as well,
with the assumption that he had played a role in the abortion or infanticide.
Fathers were more frequently implicated in abortions, accused of suggesting
or providing abortifacients. Men most often sought to defend themselves by
denying paternity, despite the claims of the mother. This usually involved
questioning the mother’s character and the nature of their relationship.
Margaretha Fichtlin, for example, named Hans Bäumeister as the father of
the child she was accused of abandoning. Hans in turn attempted to bring
Margaretha’s character into question and deny personal responsibility by
saying that he did not really believe that he was the father of the child: he
said he knew that Margaretha was not a virgin when they were together, so
the father could have been anybody.26
An unknown proportion of women accused of infanticide or abortion
must have been pregnant as the result of rape, pressured either physically or
mentally into unwanted sex. Yet claims of rape are extremely rare in infan-
ticide trials. Rape was a crime for which men could be severely punished,
even with death.27 But rape would not have excused the defendant’s actions
in killing her child, and neither was it easy to prove. Further, actually defin-
ing rape was highly problematic. The relationship between Anna Weilbächin
and Jeremias Bair, for example, was clearly unequal—he was her employer
and twenty years her senior, and she was apparently simple-minded—and
their sexual relations might thus be classified as rape, but it is likely that nei-
ther thought of it as such, and neither did the town council.28 Unless he was
directly named and blamed by the defendant, the trial usually proceeded with
very little information about the father or his involvement in the crime.
The major hurdle for defendants to overcome was the assumption of
long-standing intention. Defendants were often asked if they had known
they were pregnant and if they had informed anyone about the pregnancy.
If a woman had told someone, it proved to the prosecution that she had
not harbored plans long-term to harm the fetus or child. A woman with
innocuous intentions would naturally have wanted the help of family and
friends through the pregnancy and childbirth. If she had not told anyone,
however, then her intentions appeared more suspect; this would lead many
localities to classify concealing a pregnancy itself as a crime. The responses
to this question ranged widely. Most denied such purposeful concealment.
They claimed they had told someone, such as the father, a female employer,
a friend, or a family member. According to the women’s testimonies, these
confidants offered all manner of advice. Some advised procuring an abor-
tion while others warned the unfortunate mother about the danger of com-
mitting an abortion or infanticide. Some women explained that although

they had not told anyone about their pregnancy, they were nonetheless sus-
pected of being pregnant, and a well-meaning—or perhaps simply nosy—
acquaintance warned them not to try to harm the child. Some tried to skirt
the question, claiming that they had not lied about being pregnant, but nei-
ther had they told the entire truth: no one had ever asked them. Very few
claimed that they had denied their pregnancy outright, well aware of the
dangerous implications of such an answer.
Surprisingly common, however, was the explanation that the defendant
had not known she was pregnant, or at least that she had been uncertain.
This claim excused an apparently hidden pregnancy; no one in such a situa-
tion would admit to a pregnancy if she was unsure. Given the limits of medi-
cal knowledge and the difficulties of pregnancy diagnosis, women could
very credibly claim to be unaware of their pregnancy.29 Usual indicators,
such as a lack of menstruation or weight gain, could be read as signs of sev-
eral other afflictions, especially before quickening. Even a definitive medi-
cal diagnosis of pregnancy by a midwife was nearly impossible, especially
during the early stages of pregnancy. Though concealment of a pregnancy
was a crime, only time could tell if a woman had actually been pregnant.30
Many women even claimed to have been caught by surprise by the onset of
labor pains, unaware for the entire gestation that they had been pregnant,
or ignorant of how long it had been since conception.
Agatha Rüeffin presented this defense 1610. At the time she gave birth,
she had been in a hospice,31 suffering from dropsy and other ailments.
Dropsy and pregnancy were, in fact, thought to present similar symp-
toms, and each was frequently misdiagnosed as the other.32 Agatha was so
extremely ill—swollen and feverish, as both she and a doctor asserted—that
she did not realize she had been pregnant or even that she had given birth.
The town council thus determined that the death of her newborn could not
be attributed to any direct action on Agatha’s part, and it merely banished
her.33 Ignorance worked in Agatha’s case. In very rare circumstances, igno-
rance of another sort was a mitigating factor, as with women who were very
young or thought to be mentally deficient. Because Anna Schaidhofin was
only fourteen or fifteen when accused of infanticide, the Augsburg council
found her truly ignorant and banished her. Anna Weilbächin, suspected of
abortion, was only banished temporarily, partially because of pleas on her
behalf that she was simple-minded. Without compelling proof of incapacity,
though, excuses of ignorance were rarely effective.
Women often reinforced the idea that they had not known they were
pregnant with the way in which they talked about their pregnancies. They
spoke of experiencing some sort of illness but did not connect this to a
pregnancy. Ulinka Rublack has described the criminalization of pregnancy
concealment as imposing “a unified meaning upon a deeply ambiguous situ-
ation, in which subjective interpretation could apprehend a physical change
as either the beginning of human life or a growth which had to be expelled
from the body.”34 Rublack’s interpretation is supported by the words of

female defendants themselves. When a defendant claimed ignorance of a
pregnancy, she tended to describe the fetus not as a child but as a thing,
without life or human form. In 1637, Ursula Millerin described what was
either an abortion or a miscarriage, delivering “a thing, a knot about the
size of a fist, that shot from her, all red and bloody,” and later reiterated
that, “the pains started, and she felt how something about the size of a
goose egg came from her.”35 Susanna Reutter in 1665 described that she
heard “something” fall into the privy after she had gone to relieve what she
thought was an upset stomach. She knew she was pregnant but claimed it
was not yet her time, so she did not think that the “etwas,” the “something”
that she heard fall could have been a child.36 Agatha Rüeffin claimed that in
her feverish state she did not know that when “etwas” came out of her, she
was actually giving birth.37 By avoiding reference to the fetus’s humanity,
defendants not only distanced themselves from clear intention or action but
asserted a narrative that contradicted the one pushed by the prosecution.
This narrative was one in which a pregnancy was not recognized as such but
rather a bodily affliction and the fetus, or thing, was what caused it.
After concealing a pregnancy, the next clear indication of intent to com-
mit infanticide was giving birth in secret and alone. Giving birth without
anyone noticing was thought to require careful planning. Only highly
unusual circumstances could explain why a birth went unnoticed. Thus,
how women managed questions about the delivery became a key compo-
nent of their defense. The natural explanation was that the child had died
in childbirth or immediately thereafter without any action to cause it harm.
But the defendant had to account for how this might have happened. With-
out assistance, childbirth was extremely dangerous. Mothers giving birth
alone had no one to help deliver the child or to provide care for either the
newborn or themselves. Frequently this meant that no tied off the umbilical
cord, which would result in the newborn bleeding to death. Traditionally,
the cutting and tying of the umbilical cord was the job of the midwife,
so even a woman who had given birth before might not necessarily have
known what she needed to do or have been capable of doing so.38
In 1630, Magdalena Wickhöfin, a thirty-three-year-old widow, gave
birth to a child alone and in secret. The child bled to death, after which
Magdalena wrapped it in a bed sheet and hid it under her bed, intending
to bury it later. The child was discovered before Magdalena could do so.
Although she had not laid violent hands on the child, she was found guilty
of infanticide. A vital difference in Magdalena’s case, however, was that she
had had several children from her marriage to her late husband. Her interro-
gators declared that she should have known how to care for the child—spe-
cifically, how to deliver and how to ensure the child did not bleed to death.
They said that because “she had borne several children, she well knew what
was required in such situations.” As Magdalena could not plausibly claim
ignorance, the prosecution therefore suspected her intentions.39 Under these
circumstances, Magdalena was forced to admit that it had been her inten-
tion to let the child die, and she was executed on February 23.40
The child might also be injured during the birth itself, especially if it hap-
pened quickly or took the mother by surprise. Judith Pfeifferin, for example,
asserted that her child had hit its head on the floor as she gave birth, and this
claim, confirmed by physicians, was the deciding factor in her trial; Judith
was banished, not executed.41 These excuses only worked if the woman had
not had assistance with childbirth. Regardless of what she claimed had hap-
pened to the child, though, the defendant still had to explain why she had
given birth alone and had not called for help.
Almost without exception, women claimed to have gone into labor while
no one else was at home, and therefore they gave birth alone because no
one had been around for them to call. Others sought out isolated or private
places to give birth, such as the privy, although they would have never admit-
ted doing so deliberately. They claimed that childbirth had caught them by
surprise and happened so quickly that they had no time to move to a better
location or call for help. Barbara Beurin gave birth to what she claimed
were stillborn twins in 1585 and was suspected of double infanticide. When
asked why she had given birth in secret, she claimed that the births had
happened too quickly and that “although she had cried out fiercely, no one
came.”42 Many claimed to have given birth at night, another possible cover
for why no one was around—or at least awake—to help.
Long-standing intention aside, accounting for how the child died was
perhaps the most treacherous part of an interrogation. The best result a
woman could hope for was that the prosecution believed her story that
the child had been stillborn or that its death immediately after birth had
been inevitable and not a result of any action on her part. In 1604, Barbara
Stempflerin claimed that she had given birth to a dead child. She stood by
this assertion even after enduring the strappado. The court recorder even
noted that Barbara was especially weak, making her resistance all the more
remarkable. Barbara was not executed, only banished, because she never
strayed from her story that the child was stillborn.43 If a woman could main-
tain her assertion that the child had been stillborn without any effort on her
part to harm it, she could not easily be convicted on a charge of infanticide.
A similar principle applied to newborns who died very shortly after birth
through no fault of the mother. There was a legal differentiation between
the child dying on its own, simply allowing the child to die, and actively and
violently killing the child—through strangulation, smothering, stomping,
cutting, etc. Neglect resulting in the death of a child was a lesser crime
than active killing. For example, Catharina Linderin gave birth alone and in
secret, after which she dropped her child into an empty barrel. She returned
to her work, and others eventually found the child, but it nevertheless died
several hours later. Although Catharina’s actions were likely responsible for
the death of the child, she did not “kill the child with her own hands,” and
was not found fully guilty of infanticide.44
Even if the defendant convinced her interrogators that the child was still-
born, she also needed to ensure, if possible, that the infanticide investigation
did not become an abortion investigation. If they believed the defendant’s
claim that the child had been stillborn, they needed to understand why that
had happened. Had the mother done anything to cause the death of the
fetus? Intention was key here as well. If she had not intended to kill her fetus,
why had the mother concealed her pregnancy? When a hidden pregnancy
was ended, either through miscarriage or abortion, the intention of harm
was assumed. The prosecution then pressed: had the mother done anything
to cause fetal death? More specifically, they would ask about abortifacients.
Appolonia Heringin, for example, was asked “if she had not, through a
drink, or other means, aborted and killed the child? And what kind of drink
did she take?” Appolonia replied that she had taken a drink, but only once,
and “not for aborting the child, because afterward the child still moved,”
adding that she had not even known she was pregnant. She said she had
taken the substance, not to abort her pregnancy, but because “something
was not well with her.”45 Other defendants also provided details of some
particular ailment, such as headaches, upset stomach, or stopped menses.
Such claims made it almost impossible for the prosecution to link a particu-
lar substance with intention to abort.
Abortifacients were very difficult to investigate for numerous reasons.
The inconsistent understanding of the effectiveness of various substances
meant that pinpointing a particular substance as the cause of an abortion
was almost impossible. Compounding these difficulties was the inability
to definitively prove whether a defendant had actually ingested anything
at all. These problems contributed to the generally low prosecution and
conviction rates for abortion. Additionally, there were seemingly endless
possible factors that could result in fetal death, according to midwives
and physicians, which made determining intention in abortion even more
challenging.
Defendants’ actions and intentions were further complicated when the
women expressed remorse or when their actions might be interpreted as
repentant. Women frequently expressed regret for their actions during inter-
rogation, yet it is generally impossible to determine whether their remorse
was genuine or an attempt to undermine the assumption of ill intent.
Expressions of remorse were often paired with the excuse that the child had
died suddenly, that the mother had not known what she was doing or that
she had other plans for her child but panicked in the moment. Defendants
Figure 2.1 Marginalia depicting the execution of Kunigunda Kelblingerin, Ulm,

1598, Courtesy of Stadtarchiv Ulm
claimed that they were sorry, saying, for example, when they did admit to
infanticide, that they “unfortunately killed the child,” or describing their
actions as “unfortunate” or “regrettable.” Regardless of the form their
remorse took, however, it rarely won them exoneration.
In some instances, remorse was demonstrated by action. In Ulm in 1598,
Kunigunda Kelblingerin killed her living child immediately after giving
birth. She attempted to bury the child but was discovered as she did so and
was executed.46 In the same city in 1616, Barbara Bollingerin gave birth
near a privy and threw her living child into it. The next morning, Barbara
returned to retrieve the corpse and buried it behind a barn. Shortly there-
after, a dog dug the corpse up, revealing Barbara’s crime.47 Although burial
was generally a means to hide the evidence of the crime of infanticide, it
might also be interpreted as a demonstration of affection and attachment to
a newborn. Barbara’s actions—pulling the corpse out of the privy in order
to bury it—could reveal either an attempt to give the child a proper burial
or to better ensure that the body was not found. Yet retrieving the corpse
also seems to indicate a level of attachment not found in all cases. Consider
Walpurga Seitz’s child lying in a pigsty (chapter one), or Appolonia Herin-
gin’s floating in the Lech, or any number of children left to die in privies.
The 1582 case of Agnes Breslerin demonstrates much clearer inten-

tions. Agnes gave birth to a stillborn child and then tried to have her
dead newborn buried in a cemetery. After keeping the dead child in a
chest for fourteen days, she took it to the cemetery by St. Stephan’s and
asked the caretaker to bury her child. The caretaker, recognizing the situ-
ation as a possible infanticide, alerted the Augsburg council, whereupon
Agnes was arrested. She insisted, even under torture, that the child was
stillborn, and she was banished from the city.48 Perhaps Agnes kept the
child until she could decide what to do with it—many women expressed
worry over what to do with their dead child and chose seemingly odd
places to hide it. If Agnes’s child was actually stillborn, perhaps she did
not foresee any danger. Even when subjected to the strappado, Agnes
still insisted that she had not killed the child, nor had she ever intended
to do so. To further demonstrate her good intentions, she explained that
she had planned on taking the child to the foundling house after it was
born. When the child was stillborn, she might have felt relief, but she
clearly also felt some sort of attachment to and affection for the child. By
trying to follow proper burial procedures, Agnes demonstrated remorse
and devotion to her dead child.
How women disposed of corpses provides insight into how they felt
about their children, as well as the difficulty they faced in trying to conceal
them. Many tried hiding their children under their beds, under pillows and
blankets. All sorts of containers—chests, barrels, jars, and boxes of various
kinds—appear in the records. A few opted to put the child in a container
and then drown it in a river or canal, or deposit it directly into the water.
These expedients suggest a desire above all else to get rid of the evidence
of the crime, but also, in some instances, to distance themselves from any
motherly bonds. If many of these women regarded infanticide as a form of
birth control, a means of regulating the number of children they had and
comparable to abortion, they might not regard the body as anything more
than potential evidence of their crimes. Leaving it in a privy or throwing it
out with the trash implies either a lack of recognition or a will not to recog-
nize the pregnancy or the child. On the other hand, burial—which probably
carried higher risks of being caught in the act, as it took time—implies a rec-
ognition by the mother of the corpse as having been her child, and a desire
to help it depart the world in a more humane fashion. A proper Christian
burial meant something far different from trying to hide the meaningless
“etwas” that some women spoke about.
After determining the actions and intentions, the prosecution turned
to questions regarding the defendants’ motivations. They operated under
certain assumptions—that the woman was wicked and trying to avoid the
consequences of her actions—but the defendants gave other explanations.
When asked, many women did not say why they had done it. Any admission
of motivation would be understood as admission of intention, potentially as
dangerous as proof of direct action. Many women thus refused to acknowl-
edge any motivation. When they did respond, defendants most often denied
that they themselves understood why they had done it, or they tried to claim
that they had been out of their senses—or even entirely unconscious—while
it happened. This excuse underlined earlier claims of ignorance of their
pregnancies. Such reasons could allow the defendant to avoid admitting
intention and planning or even sometimes guilt in action. But it was a dif-
ficult point to defend. Barbara Höflerin explained that when she threw her
child into the privy, “she should have called for help, but she did not have
her senses with her,” but she was nonetheless executed.49 Unless the defen-
dant was indeed completely unconscious, like Agatha Rüeffin, this excuse
did not often prove effective.
A few who admitted they had done it sought to shift the motivation
to a being more powerful than themselves: the Devil. Indeed, assertions of
diabolical inspiration recurred across all manners of early modern criminal
trials. Without going so far as to say that they were possessed, defendants
could still claim the Devil influenced their actions. Maria Blaicherin above
claimed the “bös feind” had given her the idea to kill her child.50 In 1586,
Maria Zollerin killed her child at the suggestion of the “evil enemy” as
well.51 Barbara Höflerin, in addition to claiming that she was out of her
senses when the child died, also said that the evil enemy had “continuously
put the idea [of killing her child] in her thoughts.”52 This claim did not
exonerate the defendants, but was nevertheless a common refrain in their
answers and gave them a response to the precarious question of “why?”
Claims of demonic influence might bring to mind crimes of witchcraft,
especially given other associations between witchcraft and infanticide in the
early modern imagination, but these claims actually appear in the court
records for crimes of all sorts. From theft to murder, criminals regularly
claimed the Devil told them to act. From the perspective of early modern
magistrates, sin and crime were closely related and were both influenced by
Satan, but this did not mean every crime was a sign of a demonic pact, nec-
essary for witchcraft accusations. For defendants, it provided a convenient
evasion of questions they could only answer to their detriment: if the Devil
had guided their hand, they could not be blamed for premeditation. In the
early modern mind, the Devil was ever-present and ever-threatening, and
leading good Christians into sin and crime was evidence of that. Despite the
acceptance of demonic influence, magistrates generally were not impressed
with this excuse.
Desperate claims of devilish thoughts also reveal the panicked state of
mind of women who had gone through childbirth completely alone and ter-
rified; they may well and truly have been bereft of their senses or felt truly
influenced by something beyond the human world. Infanticide and abor-
tion trials were battles, with extraordinarily high stakes, for control of a
narrative about violence, sexuality, reproduction, motherhood, and guilt.53
That so many sought to adopt the same evasive approaches throughout all
parts of their testimony reveals that it was well known to the defendants
that denying intention, planning, and direct action was their best option
for surviving an infanticide trial. Yet all of the explanations and excuses, no
matter how common or effective, were challenged by the ever-present threat
of torture.
THE ROLE OF TORTURE
Despite their careful maneuvering, the intermittent ability of defendants

to maintain their innocence was endangered by the continual threat and
application of torture. Torture was believed to be a necessary tool in any
criminal trial, and in infanticide investigations, torture was considered an
integral component. With scant evidence and no eyewitnesses in most cases,
investigators were reliant upon the information they extracted during inter-
rogations, and ultimately upon a confession. The discovery of an infant’s
corpse was generally considered to meet standards for half-proof, or the
official designation of sufficient evidence to legally proceed to torture. The
Carolina also encouraged the use of torture in cases of suspected infanti-
cide when no corpse was found, threatening the automatic submission to
torture of women who had hidden pregnancies and clarified that a woman
suspected of secret childbirth should also be tortured. Not every woman
accused of infanticide was tortured, but the threat of torture was always
present. Torture was thus a major factor in shaping both sides’ approach to
interrogation and the eventual outcome of the trial.
The first round of interrogation always took place without torture but set
the stage for torture in future rounds. The decision to proceed to torture, or
“painful” questioning, once legal requirements were met, depended on how
satisfied the prosecution was with the defendants’ answers in this round. If
the prosecution decided to proceed with torture, the defendant would be
shown the torture implements and commanded to respond truthfully. Only
after this threat proved unsuccessful was physical torture used. Torture was
applied by the city executioner, whose physical presence and even touch
brought further dishonor to the defendant. This dishonor could last beyond
the trial itself and even in cases of exoneration.54 In most scenarios, torture
took one of three forms: the thumbscrews, considered the lightest form of
torture, leg screws, which were not as commonly used, and the strappado,
the most severe form of torture, which pulled the defendant’s arms together
and up behind her back, eventually dislocating her shoulders.55
Despite the injunctions of the Carolina, torture was used fairly infre-
quently in infanticide cases. This moderation might be surprising, given the
horror with which early modern authorities reacted to infanticide. Yet the
use of torture in infanticide investigations was a precarious practice, fraught
with concern about women’s bodies. Women who had recently given birth
were recognized as being physically weakened—even more than women

were thought to be already—and not in a fit state for the full application of
torture. In such a vulnerable state, the prosecution may also have expected
fragile individuals to concede the truth without much exertion. Unlike
witches, women suspected of infanticide were thought to be incapable of
withholding the truth under torture.
Thus, in typical cases of infanticide, torture was extremely limited. Many
infanticide investigations never resorted to its use, and those that did might
see its use restricted to a single round of only a handful of questions. Because
it was used so sparingly, an examination of torture’s use can reveal what was
most important to magistrates in infanticide investigations. They focused
on understanding precisely what happened and why, especially in more
unusual cases. When the evidence or circumstances were unexpected or did
not align with the common understanding of infanticide, torture might be
employed to tease out the abnormalities. In determining the extent of guilt,
torture also played the crucial role of uncovering long-standing intention.
Torture thus helped to define exactly what the crime was in addition to
eliciting a confession.
In the more predictable cases of infanticide, torture was rarely used.
In “typical” infanticide cases, more often than not, the expectation of a
quick, uncoerced, confession was met; women who had recently given
birth often confessed to at least some portion of the accusation with-
out torture. In 1601 Maria Blaicherin, seen above, admitted to hiding
her pregnancy, giving birth in secret, wrapping her newborn in blankets,
and throwing it into the privy, all without the official and explicit threat
of torture. The mere threat of torture also proved sufficient in many cases.
The defendant was “spoken to earnestly,” or “seriously warned,” to tell
the truth. Appolonia Heringin admitted in 1601 to consuming abortifa-
cients after being threatened with the use of torture, but not physically
tortured. An entire round of questioning might be labelled “peinlich,”
meaning “painful”—a distinction that meant that torture might be used,
but it would still only be applied after an extra warning. If after the warn-
ing, the defendant continued to deny accusations or would not provide
the particular information that the prosecution sought, then and only then
would they proceed to physical torture. In the infrequent cases in which
torture was actually applied, it was limited to a small number of ques-
tions. The prosecution usually repeated less than half of their original
list of questions and sometimes asked no more than one or two. Torture
was used to procure very specific answers, not for a reiteration of the entire
original interrogation. For example, in 1582, Agnes Breslerin was interro-
gated with eighteen questions, but only nine were repeated under torture.
In 1611, Catharina Linderin faced twenty-seven questions without torture,
then fourteen with.
The use of torture was focused on those questions that helped to define
the crime: those that determined the suspect’s actions, motivations, and
above all, intentions. Agnes Breslerin claimed that her child had been still-
born and that she had not killed it. Her interrogators focused their use of
torture on whether or not Agnes had done anything directly to harm the
child and whether or not she had ever intended to do so. In the case of Cath-
arina Linderin, who left her newborn child in a barrel, where it died several
hours later, the strappado was employed to elicit her intentions, in order to
determine her level of guilt. The council concluded that her actions resulted
in her child’s death, but only indirectly: Catharina insisted repeatedly, even
under torture, that she had not intended that the child die. For Catharina,
torture never elicited a confession to direct intention or causation, and as a
result, she was simply banished.
Unusual circumstances also demanded a clarification of intent, and in
these situations torture was frequently used. Most infanticides were com-
mitted by the mothers of infants, but in rare cases, fathers and even non-
relatives killed a child. The Carolina’s definition of infanticide made little
allowance for the commission of the crime by someone other than an unwed
mother, which could leave the prosecution uncertain how to proceed. In
these unique situations, then, if half-proof was met, torture was used to
understand intent and to assign a label to the crime committed. In cases
involving a killer besides the mother, the Augsburg city council invariably
used torture. Questions under torture in these cases also centered on the
issues of motivation and intention. An integral part of the legal definition
of infanticide was the assumed motivation that an unwed mother would kill
her illegitimate child to avoid shame. The prosecution needed to understand
why anyone else would be motivated to kill an infant, and thus how they
should define the crime. This thinking is why the Augsburg city council, as
detailed below, struggled so much over with the case of Matthes Erhart—a
young man who killed his own son.
While torture was used in court proceedings to clarify, torture ultimately
obfuscated the defendants’ testimony for modern historians. It feels easier to
believe, even for modern readers, a defendant who stuck to her story through
the pain of torture. Yet we know from witchcraft trial records how torture
elicited what the torturer asked for, not an objective “truth.” How reliable
were answers given under torture? Many women were able to stick to their
original story during torture. Yet this does not mean that their story was
any closer to “reality” or “truth.” Sometimes the defendants seem to have
followed the lead the interrogators presented them during torture, using the
leading questions to know precisely what to deny. Others seemed to grasp
desperately for any acceptable answer. Catharina Linderin, accused of leav-
ing her newborn child into an empty barrel to die, scrambled for explana-
tions for her actions. Under the torture of the strappado, her interrogators
asked Catharina why she put the child in the empty barrel instead of waiting
for someone to come for help. Catharina responded, perhaps improvising,
that “four pigs were running around the stall and if she had left the child
lying there, they could have easily done the child harm. That is why she put
the child in the barrel.” This was a bizarre story, which did not explain why
she had gone back to work after the birth and never called for help. Catha-
rina had nothing more to say though, and the council stopped the torture.56
When confronted with her actions, she could not admit to the intention of
letting it die, so she may have concocted this confused story about protect-
ing it, which she may have thought would demonstrate her good intentions.
Torture helped the prosecution to define motivations, intentions, and
the crime itself. In the prevailing legal thought of the day, torture revealed
truth, and these were the issues about which the prosecution most needed
to uncover the truth. But the defendants’ testimony reveals that torture may
have helped to shape the crime in their minds as well. While we cannot know
the actual thoughts of defendants, it is possible to follow changes to their
stories over the course of interrogation and torture. On some occasions,
defendants’ responses changed from confusion, ignorance, and disarray to
clearer, more concise answers. Their answers started to match the questions
being asked. Under torture, the defendants changed their responses even
more quickly. With startling suddenness, confusing narratives of mysterious
pains, lost consciousness, muffled cries, and delirium became the expected
story of a woman who, through her own poor decisions, found herself preg-
nant, concealed that pregnancy, and killed her newborn child. Although
torture in infanticide trials was strictly restricted, it might still be possi-
ble that the story shaped through the councils’ questions and the women’s
responses, especially under torture, indeed became a sort of reality for them.
The words of defendants subjected to torture, even filtered through the
pen of a court recorder, reveal their pain and confusion. Matthes Erhart was
strung up with the strappado, yet continued to insist with “moaning, shout-
ing, and wailing” that the story he had given was true. Barbara Stempflerin
also endured the strappado without confessing, but “with great howling and
crying prayed for mercy.” Maria Durnerin, upon being shown the torture
implements, “remained by her given testimony through constant crying and
lamentations.” The records are full of defendants who “cry and scream,”
both during torture and otherwise. Their cries and screams indicate the hor-
rors of even the mildest forms of torture as implemented in infanticide cases.
In 1629, Barbara Algin prayed that her torture might end:
She said that did not know what to say, she said she was not guilty, and
that she would die willingly and obediently; she pled most fervently,
because she was a poor, abandoned orphan . . . then she was bound,
pulled up with the strappado, and spoken to, all of which she bore will-
ingly and patiently, with many pleas and prayers . . . she prayed again
for God’s mercy . . . and that for her sins she would keep and bear
enough regret, pain, and repentance.57
Despite the suffering seen in these records, torture in infanticide cases might
often be deemed “unsuccessful.” While defendants did change their stories
and were perhaps more willing to respond while under torture, the use of
torture did not guarantee that the requirements for conviction would be
met. For a full conviction, the confession had to be made “gütlich,” or with-
out torture. This procedural requirement provided an opportunity for the
defendant to retract a confession and to change her story yet again. Very
few took the chance to do so, though, as it could result in further torture.
Even at times when the council resorted to more frequent, longer-lasting,
and more severe torture, conviction rates remained relatively low, with no
significant variation between cases with and without torture. The records
in many cases reveal frustration as the two sides jostled back-and-forth,
contesting the narrative of the crime. This narrative might change as the
questions progressed, and it could change as torture was applied and then
again as the torture was ended and the questioning resumed.
With the defendants’ own words glimpsed only through the filters of
structured interrogation, torture, and the recorder’s pen, what can be said
of what “really” happened? Certain facts are fairly clear from the witness
statements, physical evidence, and their corroboration by the defendants’
testimonies; when these accounts coincided, some level of accuracy might
be assumed. In Walpurga Seitz’s case (see chapter one), for instance, there
was no question about the ultimate fate of her child—multiple witnesses
confirmed Walpurga’s confession that she had thrown the child in a pigsty.
What is less clear is what really mattered to the prosecution, and therefore,
to the defendant: whether it was her intention to kill her child and whether
she directly brought about the death of her child. The prosecution knew
how to determine signs of intention according to their own definitions: a
hidden pregnancy and secret childbirth—which they could confirm through
witness statements—were indications of long-standing intention, and indeed
were explicitly labeled in the Carolina as such.
But only the woman in question could know her actual intentions in the
moment. Her reality was shaped by the prosecution’s understanding of her
intention, which determined the questions it asked her and therefore, her
responses. It was her confessed intention within this framework of meaning
that ultimately decided her fate. With enough witness statements, it might be
determined that the defendant had never revealed her pregnancy to anyone,
but as many women claimed, their intentions in hiding a pregnancy could
differ from those expressed in the law. Did she intend to attempt abortion?
Did she plan all along to carry the child to term and then kill it? Or did she
intend, as some claimed they did, to give birth to the child and abandon it?
Did she intend to commit infanticide and then give birth to a stillborn child?
Did her intentions change, or did circumstances that affected her intentions
change? There were many iterations of the crimes that the defendants must
have experienced and/or used in their defenses that did not meet the terms
of the Carolina or the expectations of the prosecution.
Four short case-studies follow, each of which explores a more unusual
criminal case in which abortion or infanticide was initially suspected. These
four cases, however, tested the legal boundaries and definitions of the crimes
in the Carolina. While not all were in the end prosecuted as infanticide or
abortion, these cases all highlight important facets of legal thought and are
inherently connected to and revealing of the early modern understanding of
infanticide and abortion. These cases reveal a contrast between expectation
and reality, a contrast set up by the narrow criminal definitions of the Caro-
lina. Several essential aspects of the crimes are examined here: the pressures
on unwed mothers-to-be, the place of intention in trials, the relationship
between abortion and infanticide, the role of the father, and the authorities’
attitudes toward the victims of such crimes.
MARGARETHA BAUMÜLLERIN
On August 20, 1591, Margaretha Baumüllerin, an eighteen-year-old serving

maid from the small village of Todtenweis (twenty kilometers north of Augs-
burg), was permanently banished from Augsburg, accused of attempting
to kill her illegitimate child. Margaretha threw her fourteen-day-old child
into a millstream, with, in the words of the court recorder, “the intention
that she kill it (which God immediately and miraculously prevented).” The
child was pulled out of the water by nearby fishermen. Margaretha readily
confessed to having thrown her child in the water and claimed that she was
very sorry for what she had done. When asked why she would do such a
thing to her own child, she freely replied that she “had not known where she
could go with the child,” and that “the poverty pushed her to it.” After the
child was rescued, she took it to her aunt in Gersthofen, a few kilometers
north of the city. She also had the child baptized by the name Anna in the
church of St. Anna. Margaretha was banished on August 20. Two days later,
Margaretha was caught trying to return to the city. She claimed that she
was simply trying to pick up some clothes she had left with a neighbor, but
the council whipped Margaretha out of the city again that very same day.58
Margaretha failed to commit infanticide, an unusual circumstance in and
of itself, but her frank answers during her interrogation are also particularly
revealing. Perhaps because she had not actually killed the child, she might
have felt that she could be more open about her intentions and motiva-
tions. Only eighteen, she had already moved away from home and gotten
pregnant. She claimed that she had only had sex with the child’s father three
times, and with no one else. The father, a servant named Hanns Fischer, had
promised her marriage. But now Margaretha no longer knew where he was,
and she could only guess that he might still be somewhere in the city. She
was poor and had no means to provide for a child. In despair, she threw the
child in the water but claimed to be sorry for what she had done. It is likely
that she said this to gain the pity of the court, but it might also have been
true. Perhaps she was just a young mother who made a rash decision and
felt regret almost immediately. She may have been relieved that the child had
lived or distraught that she had not succeeded, but she stated clearly why
she had attempted to kill it. She said nothing of shame over her fornication
with Hanns but only of her despair over the resulting situation.
In many cases of abandonment, the child was returned to the abandon-
ing mother or parents and they were banished from the city. Such a woman
was often “whipped out with the child in her hand.” The records do not
indicate in this case exactly what happened to the child, though given simi-
lar cases and circumstances, it is most likely that the council returned the
child to Margaretha to take with her. City leaders had no interest in add-
ing to the city’s population of unwanted children, further burdening the
foundling house or adding another beggar to their own streets. Despite the
council’s consistent use of language about “innocent little children,” its first
priority was not to protect the children of the community but to protect the
community as a whole. Disreputable people threatened the city’s morality,
reputation, and prosperity, so the council sought first and foremost to drive
them out. For all the discussion of how infanticide threatened the youngest
members of society, the prosecution of abandonment and attempted infan-
ticide reveals that the victims were less important than the common good.
By banishing Margaretha, Augsburg rid itself of a troublesome element; but
Margaretha now faced an even more difficult situation than before, with no
home and a child in her arms. Margaretha’s record reveals that she actually
attempted to return to the city two days after her original banishment and was
yet again sent away. Her failed attempt to return despite a clear injunction
not to do so likely indicates that Margaretha had nowhere else to go. If the
child was indeed given back to her, its fate was also in danger. The children of
women like Margaretha must have suffered worse than their mothers. Given
already high infant mortality rates, the likelihood that an infant in the arms
of a mother cast out of society would survive must have been abysmal. One
might even be able to say that in protecting their communities through banish-
ment, magistrates were actually indirectly committing infanticide themselves.59
MATTHES ERHART
The case of Matthes Erhart surprised the town council of Augsburg. In

1621, Matthes pushed his one-year-old son, Ulrich, into the Lech River,
drowning the boy. Ulrich was the illegitimate child of twenty-one-year-old
Matthes and twenty-six-year-old Maria Hirschlerin. The uniqueness of this
case, though, extends beyond the fact that the father was the murderer. The
child was illegitimate, but he was neither newborn nor secret: Maria and
Matthes’s families and neighbors knew about the child, and there is no evi-
dence that Maria had concealed her pregnancy or had given birth in secret.
They had already been incarcerated for fornication (Maria for fornication
and illegitimate pregnancy with another man as well as with Matthes), so
they feared no further punishment. And Matthes, far from disappearing,
was helping to raise the child. Why, then, did he push the boy into the
water?
Indeed, the Augsburg city council first suspected Maria in the child’s
death and proceeded as if this was a typical infanticide case. Maria was
arrested and questioned, resulting in her own entry in the court records.
This record makes clear that their child was born in “unehe,” or illegiti-
macy, explaining the council’s interest in her. Even when it was clear that
Maria was not the one to kill little Ulrich, the Augsburg council still sus-
pected her of influencing Matthes’s actions. Maria insisted that she had
not known anything about it: she had not helped plan to kill the child,
she had not done it harm in any way, she was not involved in the actual
murder, and she did not know that Matthes would do it. She did explain
how Matthes was ordered by the consistory to help Maria support the
child, hinting at trouble between the two parents. Maria was released by
the council in September of 1620 after convincing its members that she
had had no role in the crime.
Matthes was then brought in for questioning, and he readily confessed to
the murder, even without being tortured. He explained in his two interroga-
tions that Maria had brought him the child while he was working at a mill.
It seems he was not sure what to do with the child, and even when Matthes
left the house with him, he had not yet planned to kill him. When he got to
the bridge, he said, he simply set his son down on the bank of the river and
pushed him in with his foot. Matthes declared that he immediately regretted
what he had done. The prosecution did not believe that he had not in some
way harmed the child previously—the child’s head appeared to have some
sort of injury—and tortured Matthes with the strappado. Matthes confessed
to nothing further—no premeditated intent to kill his child or to inflict any
other injury. He insisted with “moaning, shouting, and wailing” that the
story he had given was true.
The case against Matthes carried on until January of 1621. In October,
Matthes’s father wrote a letter to the council asking for mercy; the council
received two other letters on his behalf from his friends. The final letter
in Matthes’s case file was from Maria, who had written to the council on
Matthes’s behalf. She claimed in her interrogation that she was naturally
upset about the death of her child and that she had had no part in Mat-
thes’s actions. Yet in this letter she demonstrated forgiveness: she not only
begged for leniency for Matthes but also offered to marry him if the coun-
cil would spare his life. Maria’s offer was not entirely unusual. By offering
to marry Matthes, she showed she was willing to conform to the stable
structure of married life and pledged to reform their demonstrated poor
behavior—a fairly common tactic when asking for leniency.60 Despite this
offer and all the pleas on Matthes’s behalf, the council showed no mercy.
After a four-month-long process, the council finally decided to execute
Matthes. On January 23, 1621, the miller’s apprentice from Füssen was
decapitated.
Matthes’s motivations remain mysterious. According to his testimony,

he had not given the act any forethought, and he immediately regretted
what he had done. All of his testimony and actions undermined any idea
that he had long-standing intentions to kill his child. There seems to have
been some sort of misunderstanding or disagreement between Matthes and
Maria about what to do with the child, and it is possible that this drove
him to his sudden action. It is possible, since it seems Maria had to sue
Matthes in the consistory for child support, that Matthes never wanted the
child and saw Ulrich as a burden. But the council gave no indication of their
ideas about his motivations, especially as the expected motivation of hiding
shame did not seem to apply. Yet the records still emphasize Matthes’s and
Maria’s single status, and the fact that the child was a bastard, presupposing
a certain level of guilt. Matthes had already shown himself to be irrespon-
sible and of low morals in the eyes of the city council.
Did Matthes suffer under the same social or economic pressures as single
mothers? Did the burden of helping to care for Ulrich become too great?
The records are simply too spare to draw any conclusions. What is appar-
ent, however, is that the burden of raising an illegitimate child did not
always fall solely on the mother. Ulrich was also proof that not every poor
unwed mother was driven to abortion or infanticide. Maria had served her
punishment for fornication and pregnancy out of wedlock, had success-
fully sued for paternal support, and had apparently done what she could
to raise the child and function in society. Matthes had to be sued, and,
therefore, had not offered to marry her or wanted to care for the child.61
Cases in which the fathers were involved demonstrate that the societal
stigma of illegitimate children could affect fathers as well. Despite the fact
that fathers could duck responsibility more easily, it could not always be
avoided entirely. They also show that the crime of infanticide, although
clear in its legal definitions, could present complexities that forced pros-
ecutions to adapt and improvise. Matthes’s actions were nonetheless rather
unusual. Efforts to avoid unwanted fatherhood were common, but most
men ran away or denied paternity. Many others procured or caused abor-
tions for their pregnant lovers. In the end, Matthes was executed for the
killing of his “aigen kindt.” Although the records do not use the exact
word Kindsmord, the references to his own child, his flesh and blood, the
importance of the fact that the child was illegitimate and the suspicion of
the child’s mother’s involvement certainly all recall the phrasing used in
more typical cases of infanticide.62
ANNA WEILBÄCHIN AND JEREMIAS BAIR
In August 1608, Anna Weilbächin and Jeremias Bair found themselves

before the Augsburg city council, charged with adultery and abortion.
Jeremias was a sixty-four-year-old married goldsmith, and Anna was
his forty-four-year-old servant. Both readily admitted to having had an
affair and to her pregnancy. They both also acknowledged that Anna
had taken laurel berries—a commonly used abortifacient—in order to

induce an abortion, and that this had proven successful. Beyond these
preliminaries, the former lovers disagreed on every account, even on the
paternity of the fetus. Anna claimed that Jeremias was most certainly
the father, as she had had sex with no one else. Jeremias claimed that he
did not believe he was the father: in his words, “he committed adultery
with Weilbächin . . . and he supposedly impregnated her, but because of
his age it did not seem possible.”
Anna said further that Jeremias had given her the laurel berries and told
her what dosage to take and how. She said that he had even told her to let
him know if the laurel berries did not work, so he could find something else.
He said he had done no such thing; he said that he had only told her that
if she were pregnant then she should try laurel berries, but that he had not
provided them to her himself. He eventually admitted to loaning her the one
Kreuzer63 she used to buy the berries but averred that he did not know what
she had intended to do with it. Anna claimed, like many others had, that she
had not been sure that she was pregnant. She had not had “her time”—men-
struation—for a while and Jeremias had noticed that she had gotten bigger,
so she thought that she might be pregnant. Upon Jeremias’s instructions, she
took the berries every morning for eight days, five or six berries at a time, in
order to promote her menstrual flow. According to Anna, Jeremias had told
her that she should take the berries even if she was not certain that she was
pregnant, because they would not harm her; he even claimed that he would
take them himself, in order to show her that they were harmless. About the
alternate remedies he said he would offer, she knew nothing; they had not
been necessary.
Anna was asked to estimate when she would have given birth had she not
aborted. She replied that she calculated the birth would have been around
Michaelmas, at the end of September. As seen in the last chapter, the point
in the pregnancy when the abortion was committed was of utmost impor-
tance. If her estimation of a Michaelmas birth was correct and assuming
that the trial happened fairly quickly after the abortion (as no date for the
supposed abortion was provided), this would mean that Anna was seven
to eight months pregnant at the time of the abortion. This would have put
the abortion well past quickening, however it was defined. If the prosecu-
tion could have determined guilt more clearly, Anna (or, technically, but not
likely, Jeremias) could have faced execution. But Anna and Jeremias contin-
ued to exchange contradictory accusations.
The prosecution questioned both Anna and Jeremias twice; after Anna’s
second interrogation, Jeremias was brought in to face Anna. Jeremias was
asked if he had told her to take the laurel berries; he replied that he had given
her money to go shopping but that he did not know what she bought with
it—she would know more than he. Anna replied that he had instructed her
to do so. He denied it again. Anna stuck to her story, restating that Jeremias
was the father because she had been with no one else. He replied that he was
not the father, that he could not have been the father. After this exchange,
both Anna and Jeremias were led away. Jeremias was then also questioned a
second time. He still denied that he had told her to take the berries. He even
claimed that he had not been sure she was pregnant. If he had known she
was pregnant, he would have dismissed her, he asserted, and she could not
have been pregnant by him. He denied trying to induce the abortion in order
to cover up his adultery, because he had already admitted to the adultery
and therefore had no reason to try to terminate the pregnancy.
As with many abortion cases, physicians provided their expert opin-
ions, weighing in on the question of whether laurel berries could cause an
abortion. In this case, they declared that small doses of laurel berries by
themselves would not cause an abortion, but in bigger doses and in certain
concoctions, they could. They added that women commonly used the ber-
ries to cause abortions. The value of this report lay in the confirmation of
the laurel berries as a plausible, oft-used means of abortion. It also con-
firmed that whichever of the two made the decision to use the berries must
have known and intended that an abortion would result.
Jeremias’s family and fellow goldsmiths wrote two letters to the council
on his behalf. They claimed that he was very sorry for committing adultery
but that it was very unlikely he had fathered the child, due to his age. The
other goldsmiths were defending their friend but also defending their guild’s
honor; as discussed in the first chapter, an illegitimate pregnancy and/or a
conviction of abortion could have tainted the honor of the whole group.
Anna’s friends also wrote a letter on her behalf. They begged for leniency
for Anna based on her simple-mindedness. Letters such as these were very
common, as families and friends tried to persuade the court to mitigate a
sentence.
After two rounds of interrogation each, the confrontation with each
other, the report from the medical doctors, and three letters requesting
leniency, the council was ready to pronounce on the case. Neither Anna
nor Jeremias had confessed to full responsibility for the abortion. Because
the prosecution persisted in its interrogation of Jeremias, they must have
thought Anna’s account credible; indeed, they eventually decided to punish
him more severely than her. On the fourth and fifth of September, respec-
tively, Anna and Jeremias were both banished from Augsburg. Anna was
banished only temporarily, but Jeremias was banished indefinitely. Perhaps
her interrogators believed Anna’s friends that she was simple-minded and
easily led into an affair and abortion by her master. Perhaps the council
members also had some sympathy for a poor, simple maid who had been
taken advantage of, even if such sympathy was not always consistently
demonstrated.
Anna’s banishment proved short-lived. Banished on the fourth of Sep-
tember, she was pardoned and allowed back into the city by the second
of December of the same year. What she did during the three months she
was not allowed in the city is unknown. Jeremias, banished on the fifth of
September, returned to ask permission for reentry on the eighth of January.

The city granted this and pardoned him on account of his age, but he was
sentenced “out of mercy” to another four months “ins Haus,” presumably
a sort of house arrest.64
Many cases of abortion ended with banishment instead of execution,
because little physical evidence of the crime remained: accusations gener-
ally depended on rumors and finger-pointing.65 The effectiveness of abor-
tifacients was limited and uncertain, their use left few traces, and the
same substances were often used by women to treat other ailments, or at
least euphemized as such. It was in the procurement of abortifacients that
fathers were more often involved. Such was the expectation that almost
every woman suspected of having an abortion was asked if the father had
convinced her to do it, told her how to do it, or provided the means with
which to do it. It is also apparent that fathers were more frequently involved
in abortions when they could not leave town, as a journeyman or a day-
worker might. Jeremias Bair was a man of standing, the married head of a
household, and upon impregnating a maid, could not just move on to the
next village or town. Abortion was inherently secretive but not so much
that knowledge about abortifacients was not easily obtained. Abortion and
abortifacients were more or less open secrets, a well-known option for men
who impregnated the wrong women. In comparison, women who commit-
ted infanticide often claimed that the father was no longer to be found, as
Margaretha Baumüllerin (above), who claimed she did not know where the
father was when she had attempted to drown her child.
CYPRIAN WISER AND MARIA LUCIA THOMANNIN
Accusations of paternity and abortion were the most complicated cases that
the courts faced. In 1693, for example, the town council of Augsburg found
itself interrogating Cyprian Wiser, a thirty-one-year-old merchant from
Geneva. Wiser was accused of impregnating one Maria Lucia Thomannin
from Lindau, promising her marriage and then breaking that promise, bor-
rowing money from her without paying it back, and more seriously, provid-
ing her with abortifacients and kicking her in the stomach, causing her to
give birth to a dead child. The records of the case against Cyprian run for
hundreds of pages, and involve letters from witnesses from far and wide—his
father in Geneva, an apothecary in Salzburg, an innkeeper in Munich—as
well as doctors’ and midwives’ reports, multiple rounds of interrogation,
a confrontation between Maria Lucia and Cyprian, and even physical evi-
dence provided by the defendant—the supposed abortifacients and a ring.
The climax of this investigation was the arranged confrontation between
Maria Lucia and Cyprian. The two argued in front of the city council over
all the points of accusation. Of particular interest to Maria Lucia and the
prosecution was the nature of the relationship between the two. Maria Lucia
testified that she would not have slept with him if he had not promised her
marriage: “by giving her the ring, he promised to keep her as his love.” The
ring in question is preserved in the case file, wrapped in paper. Symboli-
cally, reflecting Cyprian’s broken promises (or merely the damages of three
centuries), the ring is now broken into two halves. Cyprian responded to
these accusations by agreeing that they had had sex, but he had “each time
treated her like a whore,” negating the possibility of a marriage promise.
As for the rings, he claimed “he had 3 or 4 poor rings in a paper, which she
knew, and she took one from him, and the others he gave to her.” Later on
he maintained that “the ring he gave her as a whore, and not as a promise
of marriage.” Maria Lucia and Cyprian argued back and forth over whether
she was in fact a whore or his fiancée.
In the end, the prosecution was unable to extract a confession from
Cyprian, even under torture, of causing an abortion, and it had to release
him. The corpse of the child had indications of trauma, but Maria Lucia
had given birth in the presence of other women, who could testify that the
child had been born that way and not received the wounds postpartum.
Thus, Maria Lucia herself was not suspected of infanticide.66 In the end,
most abortion cases came down to this scenario, of one person’s testimony
against another’s and the will of the defendant in refusing to confess to the
crime. Very seldom did cases end in this result, with the father bearing the
brunt of the guilt. Yet authorities did recognize that fathers could play a
significant role in the commission of abortion and infanticide. Trials like
that of Maria Lucia and Cyprian also demonstrated just how complex these
crimes could be and how troublesome they could be to prosecute.
CONCLUSIONS
When Georg Kölderer wrote about the overwhelming number of “barba-

rous mothers” in Augsburg in 1590, he was responding perhaps not only
to a rise in infanticide prosecutions in Augsburg, but to the general soci-
etal perception of infanticide as an urgent problem across Germany. This
was a crime, as Kölderer’s words hint, that reflected greater issues of moral
decay. What sort of time was he living in, we can imagine him thinking, that
women would kill their own precious children? Adding the wording seen in
the Carolina, these were women who not only killed their own children, but
did so in order to cover up their own sin.
Kölderer seems to have been correct in his perception of a growing num-
ber of infanticide trials by 1590. Indeed, the incidence of infanticide rose
not only in Kölderer’s Augsburg but in many places throughout the empire.
As economic conditions declined, crime rates—and the perception of crimi-
nality—rose. Worsening economic conditions compounded the already
stricter enforcement of morality, leaving more women with the dilemma of
an unwanted pregnancy. At the same time, law codes and municipal judicial
practices had developed in the preceding decades so that cases of infanticide

and abortion were prosecuted more readily and thoroughly. The conjunc-
tion of these patterns generated more frequent prosecutions.
Yet working against the legal systemization of the sixteenth century, and
confounding attempts to stem what seemed like a relentless tide of fornica-
tion and infanticide, were the difficulties presented in securing convictions.
Individual circumstances proved much more complex and confusing than
the Carolina allowed for. Additionally, defendants proved on occasion fairly
adept at confounding their interrogators. Women and men gave excuse after
excuse, testing their prosecutors and manipulating the system as much as
they could. Many found strategies to avoid admitting intention and direct
violent action in the death of their children. Although defendants in these
trials were caught in a terrible position, even those who might have long-
planned intentions of infanticide often refused to concede their crime. They
fought and found a limited space in which to cast their story in the best pos-
sible light. Their stories sometimes defied the prosecution’s expectations by
telling of actions committed not only out of shame but also out of poverty,
of complete ignorance, of helplessness, of youth, of disease, and because of
the actions of fathers. The killers were not always the young, unmarried
mother that the Carolina anticipated. Fathers were sometimes the driving
force behind abortions or the actual child-killers themselves, often for rea-
sons very similar to those of unwed mothers.
With such complications being all too frequent, most localities were only
ever able to reach a conviction—and, thus, execution—rate for the crimes
of infanticide and abortion of around 50 percent. Those who were executed
were the women and men who could not withstand torture or for whom the
evidence was too clear or the pressure too heavy. Some approached death
willingly, seemingly tired of a life full of regrettable actions and eager for
the trial to reach a conclusion one way or another and at any cost. Most
of the 50 percent who did survive their trials were nevertheless banished
from their city, from their homes, from their jobs, and from their family and
friends, not exactly a victory or an end to their troubles or even a guarantee
of survival.
In banishing child-murderesses and child abandoners from their towns,
authorities displayed the complex attitudes that they had toward these
crimes and their victims. Banishing children along with the mothers who
abandoned them, cities essentially condemned these children as well as
their mothers to lives of penury and struggle if not death, reflecting the
conflicting attitudes toward children, infanticide, and its related crimes.
These crimes were considered among the more terrible crimes because they
simultaneously hurt the youngest members of society, those who city fathers
and their own mothers were supposed to protect, while also reflecting self-
ishness and a degraded morality. This turmoil over youth and victimhood
was apparent in the words of the court recorders in infanticide cases: the
prosecution spoke often of the “little child,” the “Kindlein,” or the “armes,
unschuldiges Kind”—the “poor, innocent child,” and emphasized the con-

nection between the mother and child, referring to the defendant’s “own
child”—her “eignes Kind,” or even “her own child, flesh and blood,” “ihr
eignes Kind, Fleisch und Blut.” At the same time these conflicted concerns
were becoming an increasingly prominent theme in popular culture. Fears
on behalf of society’s youngest members took new and peculiar forms in
print as infanticide prosecutions ramped up. While cities cracked down on
murderous mothers, printers explored monsters, witches, and all manner of
other threats to babies and children.
NOTES
1. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg (SStBA), 2° Cod. S. 39–44, Georg Köl-

derer, Chronik, f. 141.
“Umb dise Zeitt (Wie auch Jezt langhero) Starben alhier seer vill khinder,
und gar wenig Allter Leüth. Und befandt man, ds die Jungen weibsbilder,
so mehr umb der Geilhait willen heüraten weder das Ehrlich haushalltens
willen, vill khinder aus unfleiß vorwarlossten, das man da und dortt kinder
erstickht, und sonnst auch Todt gefunden. Solche Unmenschliche müettern
gabs Jazt.”
2. Geoffrey Parker, The Thirty Years’ War (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1984), 211.
3. Joy Wiltenburg, Crime & Culture in Early Modern Germany (Charlottesville:
University of Virginia Press, 2012), 5.
4. Bernd Roeck, Als wollt die Welt schier brechen: Eine Stadt im Zeitalter des
Dreißigjährigen Krieges (München: Verlag C.H. Beck, 1991), 64–71.
5. Joy Wiltenburg, Disorderly Women and Female Power in the Street Literature
of Early Modern England and Germany (Charlottesville, VA: University of
Virginia Press, 1992), 10, 36.
6. Robert Jütte, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994).
7. Richard van Dülmen, Theater of Horror: Crime and Punishment in Early
Modern Germany (Oxford: Polity Press, 1990), 82–84.
8. Wiltenburg, Crime & Culture, 6.
9. Gerd Schwerhoff, Köln im Kreuzverhör: Kriminalität, Herrschaft und Gesell-
schaft in einer frühneuzeitlichen Stadt. (Bonn: Bouvier, 1991), 468.
Wiltenburg, Crime & Culture, 34–35.
Joel Harrington, The Unwanted Child: The Fate of Foundlings, Orphans,
and Juvenile Criminals in Early Modern Germany (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2009).
Joel Harrington, Reordering Marriage and Society in Reformation Ger-
many (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 249.
Jason Coy, Strangers and Misfits: Banishment, Social Control, and Author-
ity in Early Modern Germany (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 23.
Van Dülmen, Theatre of Horror.
Jütte, Poverty and Deviance.
10. This is excepting Rosina Bantz, who was executed for primarily for incest, but
her crimes also included adultery and abortion in 1580.
11. StadtAA, Strafamt, Strafbücher, Verzeichnis der Maleficanten, Malefitzbuch,
Todesurteile.
12. Van Dülmen, Frauen vor Gericht, 49–63.
13. Harrington, The Unwanted Child, 55.

14. Ulinka Rublack, The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999), 165.
15. Maria Boes, Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Germany: Courts and
Adjudicatory Practices in Frankfurt am Main, 1562–1696 (Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2013), 158.
16. Van Dülmen, Frauen vor Gericht, 49–63.
18. Schwerhoff, Köln im Kreuzverhör, 418.
19. Van Dülmen, Frauen vor Gericht, Schwerhoff, Köln im Kreuzverhör, Rublack
Crimes of Women and Otto Ulbricht, Kindsmord und Aufklärung in Deutsch-
land (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1990).
20. Schwerhoff, Köln im Kreuzverhör, 416–417.
21. Ibid., 408.
22. StadtAA, Urgichten, Maria Blaicherin, 22 March 1601.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. StadtAA, Urgichten, Barbara Ganserin, 18 July 1541.
26. StadtAA, Urgichten, Margaretha Fichtlin, 16 January 1592.
27. Julius Ruff, Violence in Early Modern Europe 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2001), 98.
28. StadtAA, Urgichten, Jeremias Bair, 4 September 1608.
Stadt AA, Strafbücher, Jeremias Bair, 4 September 1608.
29. Cathy McClive, “The Hidden Truths of the Belly: The Uncertainties of Preg-
nancy in Early Modern Europe,” Social History of Medicine 15, no. 2 (2002),
209–227.
30. Ulinka Rublack, “The Public Body: Policing Abortion in Early Modern Ger-
many,” in Lynn Abrams and Elizabeth Harvey (eds), Gender Relations in
German History: Power, Agency and Experience from the Sixteenth to the
Twentieth Century (London: University College London Press, 1996), 59–61.
31. Agatha was in the Pilgerhaus, or Pilgrim House, a hospice for the ill. Thomas
Safley, Charity and Economy in the Orphanages of Early Modern Augsburg
(New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1997), 5.
32. Rublack, “The Public Body,” 60.
33. StadtAA, Urgichten, Agatha Rüeffin, 7 July 1610.
35. StadtAA, Urgichten, Ursula Millerin, 16 May 1637.
36. StadtAA, Urgichten, Susanna Reutter, 5 December 1665.
38. Otto Ulbricht, “Kindsmörderinnen vor Gericht: Verteidigungsstrategien von
Frauen in Norddeutschland 1680–1810” in Andreas Blauert and Gerd Schw-
erhoff (eds), Mit den Waffen der Justiz: Zur Kriminalitätsgeschichte des Späten
Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag,
1993), 81.
39. StadtAA, Urgichten, Magdalena Wickhöfin, 23 Februrary 1630.
40. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Magdalena Wickhöfin, 23 February 1630.
StadtAA, Urgichten, Magdalena Wickhöfin, 23 February 1630.
41. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Judith Pfeifferin, 15 March 1625.
42. StadtAA, Urgichten, Barbara Beurin, 26 March 1585.
43. StadtAA, Urgichten, Barbara Stempflerin, 6 June 1604.
44. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Catharina Linderin, 30 April 1611.
45. StadtAA, Urgichten, Appolonia Heringin, 1 March 1601.
46. StadtAU, Urgichtbuch, Kunigunda Kelblingerin, 1598.
47. StadtAU, Urgichtbuch, Barbara Bollingerin, 1618.

48. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Agnes Breslerin, 28 August 1582.
StadtAA, Urgichten, Agnes Breslerin, 28 August 1582.
49. StadtAA, Urgichten, Barbara Höflerin, 1 August 1592.
50. StadtAA, Urgichten, Maria Blaicherin, 22 March 1601.
51. StadtAA, Urgichten, Maria Zollerin, 4 June 1586.
52. StadtAA, Urgichten, Barbara Höflerin, 1 August 1592.
53. Natalie Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-
Century France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987).
54. Allyson Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order in Reformation Germany,
1517–1648 “Printed Poison & Evil Talk” (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 48.
Ancien Régime (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977).
56. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Catharina Linderin, 30 April 1611.
57. StadtAA, Urgichten, Barbara Algin.
Undest khönde und wisse sie nit zureden, und sich unschildig, wölle darübert
bis in Todt willig und gehorsamb sein, Bittet höchst flehentlich, weil sie ein
Armer verlassner Wais . . . Jst darauf gebundten, ufgestöllt, und Über beweg-
lichs zuesprechen, mit der klainen lähren scheiben ufgezogen worden, welche
sich alle geduldig und wilig, mit vilen bitten und betten darein ergeben . . . die
bittet nachmals durch Gottes barmherzigkheit willen . . . sie wölle über ihre
sündt genuegsambe reu, layde, und bues haben und tragen.
58. StadtAA, Urgichten, Margaretha Baumüllerin, 20 August 1591.
Stadt AA, Strafbücher, Margaretha Baumüllerin, 20 August 1591 and note
from 22 August 1591.
59. Coy, Strangers and Misfits.
60. Van Dülmen, Theater of Horror, 1–5.
61. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Maria Hirschlerin, 12 September 1620.
StadtAA, Strafbücher, Matthes Erhart, 23 January 1621.
StadtAA, Urgichten, Maria Hirschlerin and Matthes Erhart, 2 September 1620.
62. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Maria Hirschlerin, 12 September 1620.
StadtAA, Strafbücher, Matthes Erhart, 23 January 1621.
StadtAA, Urgichten, Maria Hirschlerin and Matthes Erhart, 2 September 1620.
63. One Kreuzer equaled 3.5 Pfennig, and 60 Kreuzer equaled one Gulden. See
Thomas Safley, Charity and Economy, viii.
Stadt AA, Strafbücher, Jeremias Bair, 4 September 1608.
65. See, for example, David Myers’s Death and a Maiden, in which a woman was
accused of infanticide or abortion with actual corpse ever having been found.
66. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Cyprian Wiser, 26 September 1693.
StadtAA, Urgichten, Cyprian Wiser, 26 September 1693.
3 Beware the Kinderfresser
Violence Toward Children
in Print Culture
Look at the Child-devourer Schaw da den Kindelfresser an

How hideous a man he is . . . Wie er ist so ein scheutzlicher Mann . . .
Such a whining child, will he snap up Solchs greinet Kindlein mög erschnappen
So he then snatches So er dann eines thut erhaschen
he stuffs him quickly in his big sack Steckt ers bald in sein grosse Taschen
See how the child’s head reaches Wie den Kopff eins dann ausser
out reckt
Soon he takes them back to his house Das er bald in sein Hauß heim tregt
And rips them all apart Und thut es von einander reissen
With his teeth he grinds them. Mit seinen Zänen auch zerbeissen.1
This text appeared in an Augsburg woodcut from around the turn of the
seventeenth century (see figure 3.1). The woodcut featured a grotesque giant
who gobbles a small child; another awaits his fate in a bag slung from the
monster’s hip, and a third pleads for help from his mother. It is a fairy tale
of sorts and serves as a warning to children: “Behave, for the Kinderfresser
is watching.” Such admonitions were not unique to early modern culture.
But a further exploration of contemporaneous literature and the historical
context reveals something far more sinister than a silly story intended to
intimidate children into obedience. The Kinderfresser was just one expres-
sion of very real fears about the dangers that faced children in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries.
Indeed, it was only about a decade earlier that Augsburg city chronicler
Georg Kölderer noted in his record that “around this time, and for a while
now, very many children died,” blaming these deaths on infanticidal moth-
ers. It was also at this time that prosecution and punishment of infanticide
accelerated across Germany. Infanticide was by 1600 a regularly occurring
crime that authorities zealously attempted to stamp out. At the very same
time, printers all across Germany (and even across Europe2) started churn-
ing out an impressive body of literature featuring the death of infants at
the hands of their parents, gangs of murderers, Jews, witches, Turks, and
other dangers. In these publications, infants were murdered, mutilated, and
cannibalized. While these crimes were far more gruesome and bizarre than
Figure 3.1 Lorentz Schultes, Der Kinderfresser, Augsburg, ca. 1600, Courtesy of
Kunstmuseum Moritzburg
the offences chronicled in court records, the simultaneous rise in infanti-
cide prosecution and infanticide in popular literature was more than a mere
coincidence. Concern about infanticide had turned into a near-obsession
with violence toward children, and this was expressed in outrageous news
reports of all sorts.
The focus on violence toward babies and children belied the actual occur-
rence of infanticide in that it far outpaced the actual commission of the
crime. Reports of brutal attacks on children were far more frequent than
criminal trials against child-killers. Yet, there was a cultural connection, and
the two patterns fed into each other. These patterns can better be understood
in the context of a world that was obsessed with unnatural and extreme vio-
lence toward children, including mass murder and satanic or magic rituals.
PRINT CULTURE IN EARLY MODERN GERMANY
Most popular literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was

printed in short, reasonably cheap form. The works discussed here were
either single-page broadsides featuring woodcut pictures and an accompany-
ing text (often in rhymed verse) or multipage pamphlets. In terms of printed
material, these broadsides and pamphlets, or Flugschriften, were relatively
cheap and affordable. Beyond those who could afford a few extra Pfennig,
this sort of literature was also shared, read aloud, and passed around, allow-
ing a much larger portion of the population to learn the news or hear the
story.3 Germany, especially in urban areas, had higher than average rates
of literacy for both men and women. Women, the lower urban classes, and
peasants were less likely to be literate, but until the ravages of the Thirty
Years’ War, Germany still compared favorably with the rest of Europe. Lit-
eracy was commonplace among the elites and artisans, and not unusual
even among the lowest classes.4 In large cities and centers of printing, the
combination of wealth and the importance of printing led to literacy rates
well above even the German average.5
A significant portion of pamphlets and broadsides focused on news
reports, unusual stories, and crime literature. This was a genre that grew
toward the end of the sixteenth century and remained popular until the
Thirty Years’ War. Stories of crimes, monsters, witches, and various hor-
rifying events were extraordinarily popular at this time; several hundred
examples survive from these few decades. These stories were meant to elicit
surprise, horror, and sympathy. Printers sought to make money by stimulat-
ing the fear of danger and violence potentially coming from many directions.
Violence committed against children and babies soon became a particularly
popular and well-suited theme for this genre. In the late sixteenth century,
infanticide was increasingly a subject of legal and civic discussion—why it
was happening, what it meant, how to punish it, and how to stop it—and
because it was already a prominent topic at the time, the theme of violence
Beware the Kinderfresser 85
toward babies and children naturally came out in the popular literature of
the day.
The parallel patterns of rising persecution and publication of infan-
ticide contributed to broader patterns both of growing criminality and
growing taste for crime literature. After 1550, printers began publishing
a tremendous volume of broadsides and pamphlets depicting all man-
ner of violence and crime, reflecting an increasing concern with crime
and punishment. Crucially, this pattern of increased criminality has been

found in the cities that also served as major printing capitals, such as
Augsburg and Nuremberg.6 As crime increased, publication about crime
also increased, which likely fed back into the perception that criminality
in general was on the rise. This cycle was particularly true with infanti-
cide and depictions of violence toward children, and these themes proved
incredibly popular.
Yet the publication of crime-focused literature served an important pur-
pose outside of profit for the printers: according to Joy Wiltenburg, this
popular crime literature helped to cultivate and build public attitudes
toward political and religious authorities. Through reading and seeing the
swift justice of authorities in cases of terrible crimes, the audience could
both be assured and warned of the political power of the proper figures. The
public was reminded to trust and obey the system. They were also reminded
to keep the proper faith in order to avoid the path of sin and crime and to
be ensured of salvation even if they falter.7 In a time of uncertainty and tur-
bulence, such reminders of authority were especially important.
Printers profited from depicting violence toward infants and children by
drawing on the inherent fascination of these ideas. In fact, printers seemed
to relish the opportunity to indulge in the particularly gruesome and taboo
while reporting the news or warning society about potential or advancing
dangers. Broadsides depicting the horrific deeds of roving bands of murder-
ers might dwell upon gory, exaggerated detail, such as carving a fetus out
of a mother’s womb and then eating its heart. News reports told of fathers
who killed their whole families, often smashing their children’s heads as
they cried for mercy. Drawings and descriptions of old, gnarled witches at
their sabbath rituals frequently featured cannibalism, sometimes even with
infants roasting on spits. Savage Turkish soldiers were depicted impaling
naked children on their long, curved scimitars.
The innocence and weakness of children contributed to the popularity of
such stories.8 Children were vulnerable to attacks from without and within,
at risk from any threat, from Turks to their own mothers. They were vic-
tims of openly brutal attacks and also secretive, hidden rituals and crimes.
Children were blameless victims that everyone could pity. In a culture pre-
occupied with crimes natural, unnatural, and supernatural, the regularity
with which attacks on children came before actual courts was frightening.
If so many crimes found their way to court, what more horrible atrocities
remained hidden?
That the victims were children, and particularly infants, made the atroc-
ity of such acts all the worse, and this innocence came to be the focus of
many publications. Children were often shown naked, emphasizing their
youth and their lack of any protection from the teeth, claws, or weapons of
their captors. An account of the murder of a family might provide lengthy
descriptions of the youngest child begging for mercy, promising not to cause
any trouble, even to never eat again, the innocence and goodness of the
child a stark contrast to the evil of the murderers. Additionally, the chil-
dren’s youth is often exaggerated to emphasize the point. There are hardly
ever any children that appear to be older than one or two years of age;
their swaddling clothes and baby fat prominently displayed, they were the
ultimate helpless victims. Children are always in the most vulnerable posi-
tion of a society, and this perception was exacerbated in an era in which life
was already precarious. They were often seen to be the innocent victims of
adult greed and selfishness, unable to fend for themselves, sometimes even
betrayed by their very own flesh and blood. Publishers of popular prints
played up these contrasts to the fullest extent.
Fears about the well-being of children in the early modern period occu-
pied a sliding continuum from the imaginary to the all-too-real. Yet the
distinctions between the real and the imaginary as understood in the early
modern period are difficult to trace. While a bogeyman such as the Kinder-
fresser might have been frightening only to children, witches were very real
for the majority of society. Children were foremost among witches’ sup-
posed victims, conflating sorcery with the real crime of infanticide in the
early modern imagination.9 The alleged crimes of the Jews, another popu-
lar subject, were, if anything, more fantastic; women did occasionally kill
children in reality, while Jews, as a group, did not.10 But to place modern
distinctions of reality and fiction on early modern people is to deny what
was real to them, and therefore their own version of reality. Elements real
and imagined became muddled in accounts of all such crimes, revealing
deep-seated fears in society, but the expression of these fears varied over
time. For example, prosecutions of Jews for ritual murder peaked around
1500, but the concept lingered in the European imagination.11 Accusations
of witchcraft, on the other hand, peaked much later.12 Yet all of these crimes
featured in the literature around 1600.
DER KINDERFRESSER
The Kinderfresser, or child-devourer, was a popular image in the six-

teenth and seventeenth centuries. Broadsides of the Kinderfresser, such
as the example by Lorentz Schultz from about 1600 (figure 3.1), almost
always depicted a larger-than-life, hairy man carrying a bag filled with
frightened children while stuffing another child whole into his mouth.
The monster is generally depicted standing in front of a doorway in which
more children cower, pleading with their mothers for protection. The
rhyme of the Kinderfresser reinforces his fearsomeness, as he threatens
to kidnap and eat disobedient children: “I am called the child-devourer,
well known to mothers, who use me to quiet their children, when they
cry, scream, and whine.” The Kinderfresser’s song continues in the text
below the image:
Look at the Child-devourer Schaw da den Kindelfresser an

How hideous a man he is Wie er ist so ein scheutzlicher Mann
He has a rough, wild, and shaggy hair Hat ein grob/ wild/ gestroblet Haar
His beard is coarse and bristly Sein Bart ist rauch/ und zottet gar
He has two giant cheeks and a huge jaw Hat zwen groß Backen/ ein groß Maul
And feeds just like a farm horse Und frißt recht wie ein Ackergaul
He runs around swiftly in his boots Laufft mit sein Stiflen gschwind
herumb
To all houses/ both sinful and pious Zu allen Häussern/ loßt ob fromb
If there are children or not Die Kinder seyen oder nit
And when he then finds one Und wann er eines dann betrit
Who whines/ and stubbornly will not Das greint/ und schlecht nit schwei-
be still gen will
So then he creeps up very quietly So schleicht er dann hinzu ganz still
And sees if he can/ as he sneaks around Und schawet/ ob er mit sein dappen
Such a whining child, will he snap up Solchs greinet Kindlein mög
erschnappen
So he then snatches So er dann eines thut erhaschen
And he stuffs him quickly in his big Steckt ers bald in sein grosse Taschen
sack
See how the child’s head reaches out Wie den Kopff eins dann ausser reckt
Soon he takes them back to his house Das er bald in sein Hauß heim tregt
And rips them all apart Und thut es von einander reissen
With his teeth he grinds them Mit seinen Zänen auch zerbeissen
If you will not be still So du dann nit wilt schweigen eben
I will give you to this man So will ich dich dem Mann auch geben
Therefore be quiet, and come inside Drumb schweig sein still, komb in
das Hauß
So that he will not find you outside Das er dich nicht find greinend
whining. drauß.13
The Kinderfresser was a folkloric character, a bogeyman, used to con-

vey behavioral and moral lessons to children. The basic message of the
Kinderfresser was that children ought to be quiet and pious and heed their
parents’ direction. In early modern society, these qualities were expected
of children; obedience and piety were the pillars of a patriarchal system
that defined the structure of both the community and the family. This mor-
alistic message of obedience was common in the literature of the day, when
the family-centered rhetoric of reformations permeated many genres. Chil-
dren were to obey their parents just as their parents were to obey their civic
and religious authorities. Prayer and repentance were especially promoted,
and parents were encouraged to instruct and enforce these behaviors in
their families.14 The Kinderfresser was a particularly vivid embodiment of
this message.15
The Kinderfresser, however, was not just a simple bogeyman used to
teach children a lesson. Such monsters also embodied layers of both real
and imagined fears about the well-being of children. This particular depic-
tion reflects a lasting fascination with similar images; the idea of a bogey-
man, like the Kinderfresser, who kidnaps children and carries them away
in a sack, can be found in many cultures dating back hundreds of years
across Europe.16 These child-eating men belong to the wider genre of wild
men, popular in medieval art and literature. Wild men were usually human
in form but entirely savage. Covered in hair instead of clothes and lacking
normal human behavior and mentality, the wild man lived on the edge of
society, part human, part animal. The idea of these wild men held fascina-
tion for early modern society, blurring boundaries between the known and
unknown, the civilized and uncivilized.17 The image popped up frequently
in early modern culture. A carnivorous wild man frequently appeared in
carnival floats, most famously in Nuremberg, as the Narrenfresser, or
Devourer of Fools: “the fool who devoured other fools, a symbol for mor-
alizing reformers of the all devouring and destructive characteristics and
consequences of sin, and a more general symbol of the bodily excesses and
violence associated with the celebration of carnival.” The Narrenfresser—
a grotesque giant who shoves screaming children or fools into his drool-
ing mouth, and whose depictions clearly drew on the same themes as the
Kinderfresser—demonstrates how familiar this almost comical interpreta-
tion of a cannibal would have been, turning fears upside-down in the spirit
of carnival, while also carrying its own message about morality.18
The woodcuts of the Kinderfresser can be quite gruesome, as a hairy
ogre stuffs children whole into his salivating mouth. Several artists depicted
very similar scenes, all with the same themes. In all of these images, other
children flee to the protective embrace of their mother. The innocence of
the children is contrasted with the monstrousness of the ogre, the fate that
awaits them if they misbehave. Albrecht Schmid of Augsburg printed his
own Kinderfresser, warning children to be quiet and obedient:
Still, still, und werdet fromm, ihr gar zu böse Kinder,

Springet und brüllt nit so, als wie die dumme Rinder.
Still, still and be obedient, you very bad children,

Do not jump and bellow so, like stupid cattle,
This Kinderfresser then goes on to explain that he has captured too many
children already, since there are so many disobedient children these days,
and he will have to take some home to his companions. He then reminds the
children yet again not to misbehave:
So mache ichs auch euch, wann ihr wollt bös verbleiben,

Faul seyt, und nichts thun, denn nur Muthwillen treiben;
So I will do this to you, if you remain bad,

if you are lazy and do nothing, and make mischief.
This Kinderfresser then explicitly details exactly what he will do to each

child if he captures them:
Ich steck euch in mein Sack, und beiß ab Füß und Aerme,
Händ, Ohren, Naß und Kopf, zernage das Gedärme,
Herz, Leber, Lung und Bauch. Wolt ihr mir gleich entfliehen,
So hab ich Strick genug, womit ich kann euch zu mir ziehen,
I will put you in my sack and bite off your feet and arms,
Hands, ears, nose, and head, gnaw away your bowels,
Heart, liver, lungs, and stomach. If you want to run away from me,
I have rope enough, that I can pull you back to me,
He then finishes off his speech with a final reminder to be obedient:
Drum seyd gehorsam, still, gesellt euch zu den Frommen,

Daß ihr nicht dörft in Bauch des Kindleinfressers kommen.
Therefore be obedient, quiet, join the pious ones,

So that you may not end up in the belly of the devourer of little children.19
Hans Weiditz of Augsburg printed a particularly exaggerated version of a

Kinderfresser as early as 1520. The creature in this particular version is even
more hideous, with distorted proportions, an oversized, wrinkled, and warty
face; he drools copiously while the seven very young children he has within his
grasp cry, writhe, and even defecate out of fear. The inability of the child to
control his bowels emphasizes his youth, as does what seems to be a teething
necklace around his neck.20 Another very similar publication, Der Kindlein
Fresser, printed in Augsburg by Abraham Bach, even shows a warty-faced man
gnawing on the hand of a child slung over his shoulder, as if he cannot wait to
start devouring his prey.21 Bach also printed a depiction called Der Mann mit
dem Sack (the man with the sack), which is somewhat less grotesque but fea-
tures the same scene as the others, of a man with a sack of children and a child
reaching out for his mother to save him from the monster. Children’s writhing
limbs poke out in all directions, and their faces are contorted with panic and
tears.22 Bach’s pictures, from almost a century after Weiditz’s, demonstrate the
prevalence, longevity, and popularity of the image. Similar images and stories
have recurred almost continuously throughout history.
In many ways, depictions of the Kinderfresser were meant to be in-
terpreted with a bit of humor: is the child in the bag in figure 3.1 wav-
ing out at the viewer with a smile on his face, or is he calling for help?
In Weiditz’s image, the cartoonish proportions of the monster, a theme
for which Weiditz was well known, and a defecating child also seems
purposed to elicit laughter. However, the gruesome details of the texts
and the implications and mental connections of the images for the early
modern viewer hint at a darker reality. All of the prints linger on grisly
descriptions of torture, disembowelment, and dismemberment. While in-
tended to teach children lessons, these images also embodied very real
fears of the parents as well. Though we can imagine parents reading
these texts to their children while showing them the pictures, connec-
tions to other dangers that were very real and present in the early mod-
ern world would have been obvious.
In the early modern period, the association between the Kinderfresser
and witches would have been easily made. Witches were believed to
snatch away and cannibalize children as part of their diabolic rituals.
The threat of witches was immediate in the early modern period, to such
an extent that even denying a belief in their actions and powers could
be risky. This particular connection is clear in Albrecht Schmid’s female
version of a bogeyman, called die Butzen-Bercht (see figure 3.2). This fe-
male monster was perhaps the most grotesque depiction of all. The scene
is very similar to those of the male Kinderfresser, with several children
trapped in the monster’s basket while others flee towards a doorway.
There are some interesting differences, however: the children are all fe-
male, as opposed to the mixed-gender groups in the other pictures, and
there is no protective mother figure in the doorway toward which the
girls run. More so than her male counterparts, the Butzen-Bercht very
clearly echoes contemporary images of witches: she has a hunchback, a
raggedy, patchwork dress, a hooked, warty, and dripping nose, wrinkled
face, and rough, disheveled hair. Fittingly, she carries a broom, with
which she claims that she “will beat you until you bleed red.” The But-
zen-Bercht comes for the girls crowded in the doorway, asking: “Why
do you hide? Why do you flee from me? I will not touch the good, but
I will plague the bad.” Her rhyme describes the frightful things she will
do with the bad children, with actions far more violent than those of her
male counterparts:
Ich will euch Händ und Füß/ Creuzweiß zusammen binden

Und werffen in den Koth/ und will ich euch anzünden
. . . So will ich haspeln Die Därme aus dem Bauch23
I will bind you together, across your hands and feet

And throw you in dung, I will set you on fire
. . . then I will wind up your intestines out of your belly.
Figure 3.2 Albrecht Schmid, Die Butzen-Bercht, Augsburg, 1701, Courtesy of

Germanisches Nationalmuseum
The Butzen-Bercht was particularly frightening because of her depiction as

a witch. She blurred the line between folk tales and more present fears of
the spread of Satan’s influence. Though purported to instruct naughty chil-
dren, the Kinderfresser’s displays of cannibalized children called to mind
real crimes and much more serious concerns about children’s safety. Popular
literature bombarded the early modern imagination with the cannibaliza-
tion of innocents; witchcraft was the easiest and most present association,
but witches were far from the only offenders. The frequency with which the
consumption of the flesh of children was seen in popular prints of this era
was indeed significant.
WITCHCRAFT
The Butzen-Bercht draws on one version of the early modern witch: an

old, haggard crone, which could be seen in almost any late medieval
and early modern depiction of witches. With her wrinkles, stringy hair,
and unkempt clothes, she recalled descriptions of real women accused of
witchcraft, who were most often aged and impoverished, on the margins
of society. The Butzen-Bercht’s cannibalism likewise closely resembled the
iconography of witchcraft. Among other demonic rites, feasting on babies
was often depicted as a central aspect of the demonic sabbath. Witches
were shown kidnapping young children, chopping them up, and boiling
their body parts. Both these attacks on the very young and the witches’
sexual perversions were drawn from the belief that witches specifically
attacked reproduction. Attacks on reproduction were seen not just in fic-
tional depictions of witches but also in actual witch trials, which reached
their zenith in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Witches
were often accused of harming or killing children, frequently in the course
of their work as healers and midwives. The death or injury of a child was
in many situations the spark that ignited a witch trial or even a full-blown
witch craze.24
The focus of witchcraft accusations on attacks on children connects
witchcraft closely with infanticide. Both crimes focused on fetuses and
infants as their victims, both crimes were in large part perpetrated by
women, both were associated with secrecy, and both crimes were seen
as being particularly widespread by the sixteenth century, warranting
the strictest punishment. When women murdered their newborns, witch-
craft may not have been brought to mind, and witchcraft accusations and
rumors did not always include infanticide, but the cultural associations
existed. Though the two crimes functioned very differently, witches were
nevertheless still frequently linked to attacks on babies and children, and
the two crimes were permanently and inextricably linked in the early mod-
ern imagination.
The cannibalization of children by witches was not purely fiction,
either. The Swabian city of Nördlingen witnessed a particularly brutal
witch craze in which these beliefs had very real consequences. This craze
lasted only a few years, but in those years the city executed thirty-five
supposed witches and tortured many more. What was especially notable
about the Nördlingen witch trials were the repeated acts of cannibalism
to which the women confessed under torture. Even more, they confessed
in particular to cannibalism of dead babies they had dug up and cooked.
Tortured women confessed to “cooking infant flesh in copper pots and
banqueting in their quiet parlors, in cellars beneath the town, on the Wine
Market Square or even in the town hall.”25 For the people of Swabia in the
sixteenth century, witchcraft was closely associated with cannibalism, and
specifically with the cannibalism of children. Lyndal Roper connects the
confessions of cannibalism to Reformation-era concerns about the Eucha-

rist. She describes cannibalism as a “sixteenth-century preoccupation,”
which had direct links to debates about the sacrament of communion.
Certain details of the supposed witches’ confessions make this association
clear: they claimed to process the dead children’s bodies and bake them
in ovens, almost like a loaf of communion bread. Nördlingen was a very
strongly Lutheran town by the early sixteenth century, and for its citizens,
the comparison between cannibalism of infants to the Catholic doctrine of
the consumption of the true flesh of Jesus during communion would have
been apparent.26
Alongside stories of witches cannibalizing the flesh of the cannibal-
ism of the Kinderfresser and Butzen-Bercht become much more real and
threatening. Nördlingen was just one severe example of popular beliefs
about violence toward children coming alive. If we look further into the
theme of cannibalism of children, it does not end with witch trials but
appears over and over again in many different forms. The ritualistic con-
sumption of infant flesh and its connection with concerns about the con-
secrated host in particular would also have recalled another crime that
was present in the early modern imagination, that of ritual murder com-
mitted by Jews.
RITUAL MURDER
In medieval and early modern Europe, anti-Jewish sentiment took a pecu-

liar form in the belief that Jews practiced ritual murder of young Christian
boys. The belief held that Jews murdered Christian boys in order to use
their blood or flesh in rituals, often inverted Eucharists in which the boys’
blood was baked into communion bread. Accusations of ritual murder were
most prevalent in the middle ages, but the belief survived past the early
modern era and was prominent enough that associations with witchcraft
and infanticide would have been ingrained in the early modern imagination.
Indeed, the connections among all of these forms of child murder and can-
nibalism ran deep. Images of the Kinderfresser drew upon elements of the
ideas of Jewish ritual murder, lending sinister connotations to a scary story
for children. The Kinderfresser would kidnap young Christian children, par-
ticularly boys, and carry them off to devour them in secret, much like Jews
were believed to do.27
Further connections between the Kinderfresser and ritual murder can be
found in the physical characteristics given to the monsters. Dating back
at least to St. Augustine, who described Saturn as a god of the Jews, Jews
were often described as having traditionally Saturnine characteristics, such
as miserliness, stubbornness, deceitfulness, and general degradation. Eric
Zafran argues that, beginning in the fifteenth century, the reverse came to
be true as well: Saturn began to take on stereotypically Jewish physical fea-
tures. Depictions of Saturn—and the Kinderfresser—came to bear a sharp

nose and pointed beard, and sometimes even a hat similar to those Jews
were required to wear. The most powerful connection, Zafran points out,
is to the depiction of Saturn as Cronos, the god who devoured his own
children, linking directly to the charge against Jews of infanticide and can-
nibalism. Zafran also argues that the Kinderfresser is essentially a bogey-
man that developed from this notion of Saturn as a child eater.28 Charles
Zika has also found connections among various early modern depictions
of cannibalism, including witches, “savages” of the New World, Jews, and
Cronos. Supposed Amerindian cannibals—frequently shown cooking and
eating children—and cannibalistic witches were depicted as “children of
Saturn.”29 As such, these cannibals were then connected to the idea of Jew-
ish ritual murder.
In Bern, Switzerland, a mid-sixteenth-century fountain presides over
the Kornhausplatz, a square in the center of town. This statue is called
the Kindlifresserbrunnen, or Child-eater fountain in the local dialect, and
depicts a large, monstrous man stuffing a naked child head-first into his
mouth. He holds a bag containing several more children who reach out
from the opening in desperation. His appearance very closely resembles
Schultes’s, Bach’s, and Schmid’s Kinderfresser. He wears a hat, which Zika
argues is very similar to a Jewish hat, and the visual cultural connections
between Saturn and Jews would have recalled accusations of ritual mur-
der. The Bern fountain may even be related to a specific ritual murder trial
in the same city in 1294 that resulted in the expulsion of local Jews. As the
fountain was not erected until 1545, however, the connection to that much
earlier incident seems tenuous. Popular feelings about Jewish infanticide
had more recently been stirred by the story of the supposed ritual murder
of Simon of Trent in 1475, which spread rapidly across Europe. The story of
Simon likely influenced the creators of the Bern fountain. Zafran argues
that it is likely that the imagery of this fountain reflects the interchange-
ability in the early modern imagination of Jews and Saturn as cannibals
of children.30
Though Simon’s was only one of several late-fifteenth-century ritual
murder stories circulating in the sixteenth century, his was by far the most
famous incidence. The tale of Simon’s martyrdom spread far and wide, and
a cult of veneration even developed around him. Simon’s father claimed that
his two-year-old son was kidnapped and murdered by a group of local Jews,
who used his blood to bake Passover bread and perform various rituals.
31
Many of the local Jews implicated in this crime faced execution. Accusa-
tions of ritual murder were not frequent in the early modern era, but such
ideas remained active in the popular imagination well into early modern
Europe and spanned the entire continent. The fountain in Bern would have
been a daily reminder of the supposed despicable deeds of Jews and of the
threat facing the children of the town.
Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia has shown that the early modern period wit-
nessed a decline in cases of blood libel from the late medieval period. Hsia
proposes that charges of standard infanticide took over the role of ritual
murder in popular imagination during the early modern period.32 Witch-
craft also filled a similar role. Yet the idea of ritual murder remained active
enough in the European imagination to be recalled and reused decades
and even centuries later, resurfacing occasionally in the most remote of
areas, as late as 1900 in Poland,33 and eventually in Nazi propaganda.
The idea that Jews might kidnap and murder Christian children to per-
form ghastly rituals was alive and well in Germany at the same time that
infanticide prosecutions were growing in frequency. A handful of ritual
murder cases produced a great number of publications in the sixteenth
century, and given the excitement surrounding such events, these cases
would have been fresh in people’s minds for decades afterward. Each
reprint would call to mind connections with infanticide and witchcraft,
compounding the sensationalism about violence toward children that was
already popular.
The idea of ritual murder evidently survived in the Holy Roman Empire
and could rear its head in unexpected ways. In 1560 Anna Peurin, a serv-
ing maid in Augsburg, was brought before the Augsburg town council
to answer charges that she had kidnapped her employer’s four-year-old
son and taken him to Oberhausen, a small village on the outskirts of
Augsburg. Once they arrived, she had tried to sell him to a group of Jews
living there. Luckily, Anna and the boy encountered two neighbors who
recognized the boy and brought both back to Augsburg, whereupon Anna
was arrested. After three rounds of interrogation, one of which was under
the torture of the thumbscrews, Anna was whipped out of town and ban-
ished for life.
The council members were certain they understood why Anna thought
the Jews would buy a Christian child, and they focused on this motivation
during their interrogation. She admitted that “she brought the boy into the
Jews’ house and said that the Jew should give her something for him.” To
all appearances, Anna believed that Jews had reason to buy a Christian boy
and saw an opportunity to make some money. But she denied repeatedly
that she had heard such information from anyone, and it is left unclear what
exactly she expected the Jews to do with the boy. The Jews had refused to
buy the boy, though, before Anna was spotted by her neighbors. The coun-
cil, however, clearly believed Anna was familiar with the concept of ritual
murder and banished Anna from the city.34 The event was bizarre enough
to draw the attention of city chronicler Paul von Stetten, who described it
in detail. Von Stetten seems to presume that his readers would also know
why Anna would try to sell a child. He records this news alongside that of
dramatic murders, reports about the doings of the emperor, and important
official town business.35 Even a potential ritual murder warranted a place
among the major events of the period.
Over the next two hundred years, the council of Augsburg dealt with sev-
eral other accusations of what could be called the attempted instigation of

ritual murder. In 1572 Susanna Schönin, only twelve years old, apparently
attempted to sell a young boy to the Jews and was banished.36 Even as late
as 1742 Veronica Obermüllerin was arrested on similar charges.37 The ideas
behind the blood libel survived throughout the early modern period, still occa-
sioning accusations into the eighteenth century. The idea of the cannibalism of
children by Jews was still prevalent enough in the culture to motivate attempts
to profit from the imagined atrocity. Although there is no evidence that this
form of cannibalism ever took place, the horror of the image lingered strongly
enough to shape other imaginary monsters, like witches and the Kinderfresser.
Depictions of these monsters in popular literature would also have, in turn,
continued the existence of these ideas in the popular imagination.
CANNIBALISM IN WARTIME
The idea of murder and cannibalism of children was ever present, espe-
cially in times of disaster and stress. The year 1618 saw the start of the
Thirty Years’ War, the most destructive war Europe would witness until
the twentieth century. The war was fought almost entirely on German soil
and resulted in the death, through battle, disease, and famine, of perhaps as
much as a half of the German population. The devastation and starvation
following in the wake of the war inevitably sparked rumors of people resort-
ing to cannibalism. Such rumors had started by 1629 and became more
frequent in the mid-1630s.38
The city of Augsburg suffered particularly, and soon there was talk that
this grand city, too, had been forced into cannibalism:
There were times, when the Augsburg gravediggers knew not where
to dispose of the victims of a plague. When gravediggers started to dig
a new grave in the cemetery, it was so full that half-decayed bodies
surfaced . . . sources from the war credibly report that during a siege
people turned to cannibalism, or nourished themselves with cowhide
and animal carcasses.39
One of the most famous records of the war, from Hans Heberle of Ulm,
recorded specifically the cannibalism of children in the southern German
town of Breisach:
Almost all the dogs and cats in the city were eaten, and some thou-
sands of horses, cattle, oxen, calves, and sheep were also eaten. . . .
On November 24 [1638], a captured soldier died in the jail, and when
the provost went to bury him, [he found that] the other prisoners had
taken his body, cut it up, and eaten it. . . . Two dead men in the bury-
ing ground were carved up, and the entrails were extracted and eaten.
Three children were eaten in one day. . . . The soldiers promised a pie-
maker’s son a piece of bread, if he would come into the barracks. When
he entered, they butchered and ate him. On December 10 in the Fisch-
erhalden [a neighborhood in Breisach] alone, eight prominent citizens
lost children, probably eaten, because nobody knew where they’d gone
to. This doesn’t count the strangers and beggars’ children, of whom
nobody knew anything. In the square alone ten deaths occurred, not
counting those found in the manure piles or in the alleys.40
Whether or not they actually happened, these records at least reveal that such
acts were described as the culmination and consummation of all the horrors
witnessed during the war. For the authors of such reports, cannibalism, and
particularly the cannibalism of children, might have been the darkest pos-
sible consequence of conflict. Cannibalism in these cases was not something
that the wicked or one’s enemies were accused of, an accusation that, as we
have now seen, was common enough, but a demonstration of the extremes to
which good people had been forced to resort. Worse than one’s enemies can-
nibalizing children was those enemies forcing others to resort to such horrors.
A fascination with cannibalism, particularly the cannibalism of young
children, soon made the leap from war accounts and witchcraft accusations
to printed accounts of supposedly true crimes. Themes of cannibalism along
with other forms of extreme violence toward children became enormously
popular in true crime accounts by the late sixteenth century. In addition to
the consumption of infant flesh, these publications reported bludgeonings,
stabbings, stranglings, and serial or mass murders. They formed part of a
new genre of short pamphlets featuring criminal narratives, and violence
toward children played a central role.
TRUE CRIME REPORTS
Starting in the later decades of the sixteenth century, printers began pub-
lishing both written and pictorial accounts of crimes. These publications
depicted specific events that were reported as news, purporting to tell of
“true crimes” and “shocking news reports.” The genre as a whole was
meant to titillate, amaze, and alarm. Printers reported stories of men who
killed hundreds of people, of gangs of thieves who made pacts with the
Devil to escape discovery, of grave-robbers who cannibalized the dead,
and of men who slaughtered their whole families. Curiously, they seldom
printed stories of women who killed their own children. The genre seems
to have focused on the most outrageous reports, and perhaps infanticide
had become too commonplace by this time. They chose instead to write the
stories with the most blood and violence, and often those with some sort of
magical or demonic influence. Yet the murder of infants featured heavily in
these reports; almost every account of a murderer included the murder of a
young child or of a pregnant woman.
The exaggerated reports of supposed “true” crimes confuse further any

line between “reality” and fiction. As crime increased from the mid-sixteenth
century, so did the reporting of crimes, thanks to advancing printing tech-
nologies and more efficient pursuit of criminal justice.41 But accurate report-
ing of specific crimes was less important than public appeal. Reports were
presented as if the author had actually been at the scene and somehow knew
both the criminals’ thoughts and actions, even when there had been had
no witnesses. The woodcuts included alongside the text showed the crimi-
nals’ secret and hidden misdeeds. Fictional details were frequently added
to increase the horror of the crime and arouse public outrage or sympathy.
And in order to maximize this outrage, the authors of these reports chose,
out of the many violent acts depicted, to focus particularly and repeatedly
on those acts committed against children and babies.
ROBBER-MURDERERS
Perhaps the most intriguing accounts to appear in these true crime reports
were those of the robber-murderers. Reports of gangs of or individual rob-
ber-murderers were dramatic, filled with violence, magic, and strict justice.
These accounts told stories of gangs, ranging from two men to dozens, who
roamed the countryside robbing and murdering all manner of people. Some
publications even claimed that such criminals murdered hundreds of people,
listing their supposed victims individually. One account printed in Augs-
burg in 1570 reported that two men, Martin Farkas and Paul Wasansty,
together committed 124 murders. The majority of the report details their
various crimes. For example, an excerpt from the list of crimes as told by
Paul Wasansty reads as follows:
Then near Solowitz, I and Lepssy [presumably a nickname for Martin]

killed two farmers, and took 2p [Pfennig]42 from them. Then a half mile
from Solowitz, I and Lepssy killed two more farmers and took 10gr
[Groschen] from them. Further in a field we killed two women and took
20gr from them and dragged them from the path. Not far from there
we killed two girls and cut off their breasts and took 10gr. Further, by
Rothenberg, we killed two pregnant women, cut the children out, and
immediately ate the hearts of the children, we found only 3gr on them,
and afterwards we dragged them into the woods.43
The account continues in a similar vein for three pages (a great length for
such publications), giving the details of all 124 murders. The list of crimes is
followed by a graphic description of the murderers’ executions: Martin was
broken on the wheel, and Paul burned alive.44
Among their many crimes, the focus of such stories was often the gangs’
targeting of pregnant women. Almost every account of such serial or mass
murderers included some description of the murder of pregnant women
or newborn infants. Martin and Paul confessed to killing several pregnant

women. The inclusion of these sorts of victims was likely done at least in
part as a way of building drama and eliciting an emotional response from
the readers. A murderer who violently slaughtered a pregnant woman and
the child growing in her womb was clearly a depraved individual. From a
literary standpoint, such crimes made the payoff of a gruesome execution,
like seen with Martin Farkas and Paul Wasansty, all the more satisfying and
just for the audience.
But the inclusion specifically of the murder of pregnant women actually
drew on something more than just drama. In some reports, the authors
claimed that the robber-murderers killed pregnant women specifically in
the search for male fetuses to use in various magical practices. The belief,
attributed to these criminals by the pamphlets’ authors, was that these gangs
drank the blood or ate the hearts of male fetuses in a ritual used to make a
contract with the Devil. The Devil then provided supernatural help to the
killers to resist confessing their crimes if they were caught, assuring that they
would be freed again to continue their criminal activities.45 The pact with
the Devil was clearly reminiscent of witches’ satanic pacts: in exchange for
some special power, the criminals offered up the life of a fetus or infant. The
ritualistic cannibalism in some sort of secret ceremony also recalls the rituals
that were the focus of Jewish ritual murder accusations.
The line between demonic or satanic influence and actual witchcraft in
stories like these is blurry at best. As with child-murderesses who claimed
that the Devil told them to kill their children, many criminals explained,
when asked why they had committed the crime, that the Devil made them
do it. In most cases, such a statement meant simply that they had done
wrong. In a world in which both God and the Devil were highly active and
influential, crime was certainly considered the Devil’s work. Early moderns
might talk about how there was much evil about or how the Devil was at
work in a time, such as the end of the sixteenth century, when crime rates
were perceived as being unusually high. However, they did not necessarily
mean that witchcraft was occurring, nor did their anxieties always escalate
into a witch hunt. Devilish influence was clearly different from, and far less
dangerous than, a diabolic pact.
Yet, in these more extreme crimes, devilish influence could become an
actual satanic pact, and supernatural powers could come into play. With
stories like Paul Wasansty and Martin Farkas, supernatural or satanic forces
could have served not only to heighten the drama for the audience but also
serve as an explanation for how they could have committed so many murders
before they got caught. Michael Kunze’s work on the subject of murderous
highwaymen highlights one example of how these connections were made
and played out. A family of petty criminals was rounded up for the purposes
of making an example to scare straight the growing masses of thieves and
murderers on Bavaria’s roads. Charges against this family escalated quickly
into charges of witchcraft, and the entire family was eventually executed.46
The distinction then, between witchcraft and other crimes was often slippery.
Similar themes can be seen in broadside accounts of grave-robbers canni-
balizing the corpses of children.47 One such broadside, printed in Augsburg
in 1606 (see figure 3.3), features two panels depicting the crimes of these
grave-robbers (six men and two women) as they murder, steal and assault
various people. The second panel shows them digging up corpses, and then
depicts how they cut out the hearts of the corpses, with one biting directly
into the flesh an infant’s corpse. Two further panels depict the fate of the
grave-robbers once they were apprehended, as they were tied, torn with hot
Figure 3.3 Georg Kreß, News from Silesia, Augsburg, 1606/7, Courtesy of
pincers, and burned alive. The accompanying text describes these unnatural
deeds and cruelties, which numbered many:
Then in Franckenstein in Silesia, eight grave-robbers, amongst them six

men and two women, were arrested. These during painful questioning
related: that they prepared a poisonous powder, and in Franckenstein,
spread it hither and thither in the houses, and smeared it on the thresh-
olds, knockers, and door handles and thereby many people were poi-
soned and wretchedly died. Additionally, they stole many things from
the houses. They also robbed the dead . . . they cut open the pregnant
women and took the fruit out of their bodies and devoured raw the
hearts of the young children: they robbed the churches themselves of the
altar cloths and two clocks . . . and these they pulverized for use in their
magic; one new grave-robber . . . fornicated with a virgin in the church
and undertook many other shocking and outrageous acts.48
Again, the eating of the children’s hearts was done as part of magical rituals.
The image of the child’s corpse being eaten is featured front and center. The
crimes specifically against children only further demonstrate just how dis-
turbed and evil these grave-robbers truly were. The report then goes on to
say that these criminals were responsible for over fifteen hundred additional
murders. In almost every instance, these reports took fantastical turns, with
fifteen hundred murders stretching credulity. One might imagine that such
accounts were far removed from reality, with whatever crimes had actu-
ally occurred representing a minute kernel of truth. Yet occasionally simi-
lar stories actually appeared in the court records, lending the sensational
accounts a note of truth, authority, and gravity, especially for those readers
who might live in the vicinity of the trial. The relationship between popular
publications and crimes actually brought to trial was especially complex in
this early era of printing. Printers molded stories to fit public expectations
and beliefs, which in turn also influenced which crimes were prosecuted and
how.49 As with early modern witch trials, the cultural representations of
the crime seem to have influenced the actual trials, as authorities forced the
accused to confess to crimes that defy belief. When such crimes do appear
in court records, the role of active belief in the supernatural and torture
becomes crucial.
The case of Michael Schwarzkopf in Augsburg is one such example. Much
like in witch trials, Michael’s arrest showcased the role of beliefs in the
supernatural in the early modern legal system. Michael was brought before
the Augsburg city council in February 1568; he was perhaps the most noto-
rious and violent criminal early modern Augsburg ever witnessed. When
his final sentence was read, the list of his crimes was astounding. Michael,
described first as a “Mordbrenner,” or a murderous arsonist (arson being
among the most heinous crimes in early modern Europe), was also con-
victed of committing twenty murders in addition to repeated acts of arson
and robbery. Michael, unsurprisingly, was sentenced to death on the wheel,
the most gruesome and harshest execution method available.50
The abhorrence expressed toward Michael in the court records came as
a reaction not only to the number of crimes he supposedly committed but
also to the kinds of crimes. Among the twenty murders were a pregnant
woman and her “living fruit” that “he cut from the womb.” A separate
record of executions also specifically mentions this mother and her fetus:
“he also cut the child from the womb of a pregnant woman, thus despicably
murdering both mother and child.” In both of these records, the murders
of mother and fetus are the only crimes singled out for special description
from the long list of his deeds. A small detail from one of these records
indicates Michael’s connection to popular ideas of the supernatural: after
cutting the fetus from the mother’s womb, Michael supposedly amputated
its right arm and used it for “horrid magic.” This detail connects him to
the belief in dark magic performed by bands of murderers. With cases like
that of Michael Schwarzkopf, belief in supernaturally powered violence
toward children featured heavily. His case and others demonstrated that
even legal authorities earnestly believed in the most unbelievable elements in
true crime reports. That Michael existed and was actually convicted of these
crimes lends further credence to sensationalized crime reports and popular
beliefs about the supernatural and crime.
FAMILY MURDERS
In other true crime stories, it was not the use of magic or the role of the
supernatural that made the reports sensational. For a whole genre of pam-
phlets, the drama came primarily from the relationship of the victims to
their killers and the multitude of victims. Sensationalized reports featuring
murder and mayhem were popular across Europe, but in Germany stories
of brutal murders within families were especially popular. Joy Wiltenburg
has found such murders were “by far the most common theme” of crime
reports and that two-thirds of these familial murders included the murders
of children. Accounts of familial murders were extremely grisly, usually
reporting that one family member, often the father, killed his or her entire
household—children, parents, siblings, servants, and all. When children
were among the slain, which they inevitably were, the reports focused on
the innocence and helplessness of these victims. The children, placed front
and center in images, plead with their parents, begging for their lives and
promising to behave and cause no more trouble if only they were spared.51
In many reports the children were killed while sleeping in their “little beds,”
highlighting their sweetness and innocence. In comparison, the older victims
were almost always depicted as already dead.
Blasius Endres, whose story was reprinted multiple times across the
German-speaking lands, allegedly murdered his whole household in Wangen,
Figure 3.4 Hans Rampf, A Shocking, Unheard New Report of a Gruesome Mur-
der, Augsburg, 1585, Courtesy of Zentralbibliothek Zürich Graphische Sammlung
in far southern Germany. One version of his story from 1585 (see figure 3.4)
displays how Blasius killed his wife, three children, and three servants. The
report explains how “within about an hour, he wretchedly, miserably . . .
martyred, murdered, and killed all seven innocent people, and each at his
place: namely, his wife in the kitchen . . . the little boy in the threshold of
the chamber,” and each of the others in his or her bed. His ten-year-old son
Philipp asked, “what had he done to the Mother?” and Blasius in return
struck Philipp in the head. Blasius’s final act was to murder his two-year-old
son Jacob in his cradle.52
Another example reportedly took place in 1589 in Erlingen. This broad-
side addresses the case of a merchant named Hanns Aleweckher, who
murdered his pregnant wife Christina and his four children—ten-year-
old Annalein, five-year-old Thomas, three-year-old Aphra, and two-year-
old Merthin. The text explains that “the Devil’s influence gave him evil
thoughts,” and “in forgetting his marital vows and fatherly love and fidel-
ity,” he committed the murders. The report emphasizes the cruelty of his
actions toward his children, “including the innocent child in the womb.”
Hanns then ran off and hanged himself. Upon discovery of his crime, his
body was burned in a posthumous execution. The accompanying woodcut
depicts a house with Hanns’s wife and four children dead in their beds,
tucked in as if sleeping. Onlookers display gestures of shock and sorrow
as they take in the horror of the scene. Outside can be seen Hanns hanging
from a tree and his body being burned.53
The accounts of Blasius Endres and Hanns Aleweckher are typical of
family murder crime reports. These accounts might have had some origin
in actual incidents, but by the end of the sixteenth century, familial murders
had developed into their own literary genre, and the cases of Blasius and
Hanns were used as springboards for fantastical productions. The reports
include many small details, which provide a sense of truthfulness and imme-
diacy, as if the writer had witnessed the events; quoted dialogue, such as a
child begging for his life, must have heightened both the sense of the author
as witness and the overall drama of the scene. It is such details that the writ-
ers lingered over, painting a vivid image for the audience and drawing upon
their pity. Much of the pathos comes from the use of multiple innocent chil-
dren as victims. Indeed, the woodcuts often focus on the children, centering
on one crying child begging for his life as the murderer holds some terrible
weapon aloft. The tragedy of the event is further highlighted by the depic-
tions of friends and neighbors discovering the dead children’s bodies and
taking in the gruesome scene.54
These family murders might seem unrelated to infanticide as tradition-
ally understood at the time, with the multiple victims and especially with
the father as the killer. A handful of similar pieces did feature female killers,
however. These stories brought to mind the more everyday sort of infan-
ticide, despite the obvious differences. Like other sensationalized crime
reports, those featuring female killers had exaggerated and extreme vio-
lence. Thus, the mothers in these pamphlets murdered not just one illegiti-
mate child but several legitimate children, if not their entire families. These
publications also explored and played with the concept of motherhood in
order to produce a dramatic story of violence and tragedy. In three exam-
ples, we see that the motivations of murderous mothers were more varied
than those of fathers. Mothers in these stories murdered out of desperation,
because of satanic influence, or as expected, to keep hidden their out-of-
control and shameful behavior.
In one account from Marburg in 1551, a mother murders her four
children. This story closely resembles those of father-perpetrated family
murders. The author, Burkhard Waldis, uses this story to convey a pro-
Lutheran message about being vigilant against the Devil and maintaining
proper faith. As in other stories of family murder, the audience reads the
words of the children as they beg for their lives. The accompanying image
shows the evil mother wielding an ax, chopping her children to pieces.
Children’s body parts are scattered about the foreground. This pamphlet,
with its religious message, might recall unwed child-murderesses. Both
were signs of the work of the Devil in society and the consequences of
unchecked sin. Yet the corpse-littered scene, the parent who murders
seemingly for no other reason than satanic influence, the multitude of
victims and the thoroughness of the murderer in killing the entire family
all recall not typical child-murderesses but rather the rampaging fathers
of fiction.55
A pamphlet from 1591 Cologne (see figure 3.5) depicts yet another, and
quite unusual, take on the theme of family murder. Unable to feed her fam-
ily, and facing the demands and taunts of a cruel overlord, a mother hangs
her three children and herself. When the lord is confronted as the cause of
the family’s demise, he remains unmoved until the earth suddenly trembles
and swallows him up.56 While the text does not defend the mother’s deci-
sion to murder her children, it places the blame on the lord and not on the
mother. This mother, an honorable, married woman, was to be pitied and
Figure 3.5 Nikolaus Schreiber, News from Louvain: Of a Starving Woman Who
Hanged Herself and Her Three Children, Cologne, 1591, Courtesy of Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek
the evil lord to be scorned. The key distinction, of course, was that this
woman was married, and her commission of infanticide could only have
had honorable motivations.
The starving mother stands in stark contrast to the mother in a 1626
broadside from Frankfurt (see figure 3.6), which shows yet another ver-
sion of the story of a mother murdering her children. In this story, Catha-
rina, a young, unmarried baker’s daughter from Limburg, successively
gave birth to and murdered seven illegitimate children. Separate panels

illustrate the locations and methods of each murder, including throwing
a baby into a privy and burying one in a field. Curiously, she murdered
each child in a unique way, allowing for an extended comic-strip style
depiction of the story. The last panel illustrates the discovery of her deeds
upon the seventh murder, and her subsequent punishment, mutilation fol-
lowed by burning.57
Figure 3.6 Wolfgang Richter, A True and Shocking New Report, Frankfurt, 1626,
Courtesy of Germanisches Nationalmuseum
While this incredible story addresses something closer to the more
typical form of infanticide growing in court records across Germany, it
is still a far cry from the unwed mother who secretly kills her newborn
child. For a woman to commit more than one infanticide without being
caught would have been highly difficult, to the point of disbelief. Details
of the story were certainly exaggerated and fabricated for effect. So while
this pamphlet depicts the crime of newborn infanticide, it goes beyond a
realistic account of an actual crime. In the story of serial infanticide, the

audience is yet again taken into the realm of the strange and spectacular.
On the one hand, this particular broadside addresses directly the fears of
magistrates who could never seem to stem the tide of fornication, illegiti-
mate pregnancy, and infanticide. Such immoral and shameless women, if
they could not be stopped, might very well continue to repeat the same
horrible crimes. On the other hand, this story also appealed to the sen-
sationalism of the period around 1600. One infanticide was perhaps not
enough to sell copies; multiple infanticides and a gruesome execution bet-
ter fit the trend for over-the-top accounts. For many authorities in early
modern Germany, infanticide was, while not frequent, a well-known
problem. Those who wanted something unusual to shock them perhaps
required more gruesome fare.
FOREIGN ATROCITIES
Other broadside themes allowed printers to explore more extreme forms

of violence. Printers reached new heights in terms of graphic imagery in
depictions not of isolated “true crime” stories but in stories from fur-
ther afield in time and space. Drawing on war stories and scripture, art-
ists found ample opportunity to depict grisly scenes of violence and often
chose violence perpetrated against children. In these cases, the murder of
children was a popular theme because it highlighted the inhumanity or
foreignness of the enemy.
In the German-speaking lands, depictions of “Turkish atrocities” were
particularly popular.58 Capturing Constantinople in the fifteenth century
and pressing inward into the European continent, the Ottoman Turks were
an immediate and pressing threat to western Europe. The German-speaking
lands in particular feared the Turkish threat, as Vienna itself was besieged
in the early sixteenth and again in the late seventeenth centuries. Depictions
of Turkish attacks usually featured snarling, dark men in turbans attacking
innocent European-looking victims. In many of these images, their horrific
mutilation of children is the focus. One woodcut (see figure 3.7), reprinted
several times in Nuremberg in the 1550s or 1560s, depicted scenes from the
1529 siege of Vienna. In it a Turk shoves a baby, bottom first, onto a jag-
ged spike; another impaled baby dangles next to it. A second Turk grasps
a baby by one foot while holding his curved sword aloft, having sliced the
Figure 3.7 Hans Sachs and Erhard Schön, The Lament of the Suffering Peo-
ple, Nuremberg, between 1550 and 1566, Courtesy of Zentralbibliothek Zürich
Graphische Sammlung
child down its middle. Two women lie dead on the ground. A short song
reads:
Ah, Lord God on your highest throne Ach Herr Gott in dem höchsten thron
See this horrible misery Schaw disen grossen jamer an
How the Turk, angry tyrant, So der Türckisch wüten Tyrann
In the Viennese forest, Jm Wiener walde hat gethan
Horribly murdered virgins and women, Ellendt ermördt junckfraw und frawen
Hacked the children into two, Die kindt mitten entzwey gehawen
Trampled them and tore them into Zertretten und entzwey gerissen
two,
And skewered them on pointy pikes. An spiezig Pfäl thet er sie spissen
Oh our shepherd Jesus Christ, O unser hirte Jhesu Christ

You who are gracious and merciful, Der du gnedig barmherzig bist
Turn away your anger at the people Der zoren von dem volck abwende
And rescue them from the Turks’ Erredt es auß der Türcken hendt.59
hands.
The victims are all women and children. The women are already dead, and
it is the children who feature more prominently, as the scene depicts the very
moment of their assault. In these ways, the staging is not dissimilar from
other mass murder scenes. Another reaction to the 1529 Turkish invasion
of Austria was printed in that very same year. “A song written about what
happened in Austria” similarly highlights violent acts committed against
infants: a Turk stabbing one infant through with a sword while another lies
decapitated on the ground. Other figures lie dead and tangled, jumbled into
the small frame of the picture among the Turks and their swords. A telling
excerpt from the text reads:
The thing seems to me not very pretty, for he [the Turk] caused the
Christians great pain/ he stabbed man and woman, and also little child
in the mother’s womb/ God will judge him, indeed, judge. He has laid
waste to Austria, he cut off the breast of the young woman/ threw the
children back and forth/ Oh God, when will this punishment be at an
end/ he [the Turk] drives many into misery, indeed, misery.60
The cruelty of the Turks is heightened by the innocence of their infant—and

prenatal—victims. The babies are mostly naked and completely unprotected,
and their contorted bodies convey the pain they suffer; they are portrayed
as the diametrical opposite of their Turkish oppressors. Mass infanticide as
depicted in illustrations of “Turkish Atrocities” supported what Europeans
already believed to be true of the Ottoman Turks: they were godless and
bloodthirsty heathens who took joy in their violent attacks upon Christians.
Printers published many such themes in which some sort of foreign or
historical enemy raped and murdered, with the focus always on the very
young. One of the most popular themes in this genre was the Massacre of
the Innocents as told in the Gospel of Matthew, and depictions of it were
very similar to those of the attacks by the Ottoman Turks. Although biblical
stories of all sorts figured prominently in the popular literature of the day,
the Massacre of the Innocents was a particular favorite of various literary
and artistic genres. In an era that sensationalized violence toward infants
and children, the Massacre of the Innocents was a particularly tantalizing
topic. The artists of these depictions packed many figures into these depic-
tions, with Roman soldiers attacking dozens of writhing infants—usually
nude like the victims of the Turks—and their mothers. As with the depic-
tions of Turkish attacks, the infants contrast sharply with the brutal, heav-
ily armed and armored soldiers. The soldiers stab, bludgeon, strangle, and
trample the children while roughly shoving aside or injuring the mothers
who stand in their way. Every space in these depictions overflows with these
violent acts. The artists seem to revel in the opportunity to show off their
skills in depicting human anatomy and extreme actions. In one early six-
teenth-century example, a baby impaled on a sword is held high as mothers
try unsuccessfully to pull the other children to safety. The Roman soldiers
commit these acts with expressionless faces, cruelly going about their duty.61
In an example from 1550, a soldier holds the head of a newborn aloft.62

This theme appeared repeatedly in the sixteenth and early seventeenth cen-
turies, and even a few exceptional examples were printed in the eighteenth
century.63
The Massacre of the Innocents provided artists a medium to explore vio-
lence toward children in a context that would have been familiar to early
modern audiences and gave both artists and audiences a means to inter-
pret their own fears through a well-known historical-scriptural context.
The Massacre of the Innocents and various Turkish attacks were perfect
opportunities to showcase their artistic abilities as well as to use the popular
theme of violence toward children, appealing to their audiences’ natural
sympathies. By using these particular stories, such artists also drew on the
appeal and familiarity of biblical stories in a highly religious age and the
anxiety and immediacy of relatively recent major political events.
CONCLUSIONS
Reports of violence toward children and babies abounded in the print cul-
ture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Monsters gobbled
up misbehaving children, witches and Jews used infants in their cruel rituals,
murderers chopped up fetuses to make diabolic pacts, mothers and fathers
went on killing sprees against their whole families, and Turks slaughtered
thousands of innocent babes. At the same time, the prosecution of infanti-
cide intensified across the empire, and unwed mothers were held in greater
and greater suspicion of harboring violent intentions toward their unborn
and newborn children.
Infanticide by unwed mothers occupied a peculiar space in early mod-
ern thought in that it was an unnatural but unsurprising crime all at once.
Unwed pregnant women were naturally expected to want to commit abor-
tion or infanticide in order to avoid the shame and legal consequences that
would result from bearing an illegitimate child, yet it was still considered
“unnatural” for a mother to kill her own child—her own flesh and blood,
as so many records put it. Infanticide as committed by mothers was there-
fore left in many ways ambiguous—both expected and abhorred. At the
turn of the seventeenth century, printers more often chose less ambiguous
characterizations to explore violence toward children. Witches, Jews, mon-
sters, mass murderers, and Turks were always evil and expected to be so.
Perhaps it was easier to produce prints on these subjects because they were
less personal—the killers in these wild stories were not otherwise within the
acceptable ranks of society. At the same time, they were threats that were
nevertheless very real and present, even if outlandish. Or perhaps by 1600
the more commonplace infanticide was so ordinary that it held no shock
value for the general public, who needed ever more violence and horror.
The simultaneous rise in infanticide prosecutions and child-murder-
themed publications bear perhaps less a cause-and-effect relationship than

one of growth out of the same culture, in which women’s sexuality, repro-
duction, societal and economic instability, shifting moral codes, and grow-
ing crime rates were prominent concerns for everyone. These concerns found
expression and outlet in a cracking down on crime, particularly infanticide
and abortion, and in the print culture of the day. The legal attention devoted
to infanticide in the early modern period, which far outweighed the commis-
sion of the crime, reflected larger concerns about threats to society and fears
for society’s most vulnerable.
It is this attention that led early modern authorities to try to improve
their prosecutorial practices in order to ensure conviction and to stamp
out further crimes. Beginning in the seventeenth century, the conversation
about infanticide would turn away from unnatural and supernatural reports
toward a more educated debate. In order to better manage the crime, early
modern authorities more and more frequently began to rely on the input of
experts, both legal and medical. The discourse of infanticide, while it had
a steady grounding in early modern ideas of sex and shame, changed quite
dramatically at this point, and was elevated to a Europe-wide and university-
based discussion of legal limits and medical knowledge.
NOTES
1. Lorentz Schultes, Der Kinderfresser, Augsburg, ca.1600. My translation.

2. Frances Dolan, Dangerous Familiars: Representations of Domestic Crime in
England, 1550–1700 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 126.
3. Joy Wiltenburg, Crime & Culture in Early Modern Germany (Charlottesville:
University of Virginia Press, 2013), 9.
4. Gerald Strauss, Luther’s House of Learning: Indoctrination of the Young in
the German Reformation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978),
39.
5. Hans Künast, Getruckt zu Augspurg: Buchdruck und Buchhandel in Augs-
burg zwischen 1468 und 1555 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1997).
6. Wiltenburg, Crime & Culture, 1–19, 34.
7. Ibid., 64–66.
8. Ibid., 143.
9. Lyndal Roper, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).
10. Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, The Myth of Ritual Murder: Jews and Magic in Refor-
mation Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).
11. Ibid.
12. Roper, Witch Craze.
13. Lorentz Schultes, Der Kinderfresser, Augsburg, ca.1600. My translation.
14. Lyndal Roper, The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation
Augsburg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
15. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg (SStBA), Einblattdrucke nach 1500, Nr.
458, Der Kindlein Fresser, (Augsburg: Boas Ulricht, ca.1680).
Schultes, Der Kinderfresser.
16. Hans Mödlhammer, Der Kinderfresser und andere Beiträge zu Volkskunde
und Symbolik: eine Reise in die Vergangenheit (Munich: Solon, 2001).
17. The literature on wild men is vast. See, for example, Richard Bernheimer, Wild
Men in the Middle Ages: A study in Art, Sentiment, and Demonology (New
York: Octagon Books, 1970).
18. Charles Zika, “Cannibalism and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Reading
the Visual Images,” History Workshop Journal 44 (Autumn, 1997), 93.
19. Albrecht Schmid, Der Kinderfresser, (Augsburg, unknown year).
20. Hans Weiditz, untitled, probably Augsburg, c.1520. Reprinted in Max Geis-
berg, The German Single-Leaf Woodcut, 1500–1550 (New York: Abaris
Books, Inc., 1974), vol. 4, 1482.
21. Abraham Bach, Der Kindlein Fresser, Augsburg, unknown year. Reprinted in
Dorothy Alexander and Walter Strauss, The German Single-Leaf Woodcut,
1600–1700 (New York: Abaris Books, Inc., 1977), vol. 1, 62.
22. Abraham Bach, Der Mann mit dem Sack, Augsburg, unknown year. Reprinted
in Alexander and Strauss, Woodcut, 1600–1700, vol. 1, 63.
23. A. Schmid, Die Butzen-Bercht, (Augsburg, 1701).
24. Roper, Witch Craze.
25. Ibid., 69–71.
26. Ibid., 71–74.
27. Zika, “Cannibalism and Witchcraft,” 95–96. Eric Zafran, “Saturn and the
Jews,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 42 (1979), 16–27.
28. Zafran, “Saturn and the Jews.”
29. Zika, “Cannibalism and Witchcraft,” 77–105.
30. Zafran, “Saturn and the Jews,” 27. Zika, “Cannibalism and Witchcraft,”
93–95.
31. Hsia, The Myth of Ritual Murder.
32. Ibid.
33. Helmut Smith, The Butcher’s Tale: Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German
Town (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2002).
34. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Anna Peurin, 23 July 1560.
StadtAA, Urgichten, Anna Peurin, 23 July 1560.
35. SStBA, LS Aug 10–1, Paul von Stetten, Geschichte der Heil. Röm. Reichs
Freyen Stadt Augspurg (Frankfurt: Merz und Meyer, 1743), 538.
36. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Susanna Schönin, 19 January 1572.
37. StadtAA, Strafamt, Consultanda Criminalia, Veronica Obermüllerin, October
1742.
38. Peter Wilson, The Thirty Years’ War: Europe’s Tragedy (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2009), 611.
39. Bernd Roeck, Als wollt die Welt schier brechen: Eine Stadt im Zeitalter des
Dreißigjährigen Krieges (München: Verlag C.H. Beck, 1991), 19–20. “So
gab es Zeiten, wo die Augsburger Totengräber nicht mehr wußten, wo sie die
Opfer einer Pestepedemie verscharren sollten, kamen doch auf dem Friedhof,
wo man auch den Spaten ansetzte, halbverweste Körper zum Vorschein. . . .
Quellen der Kriegszeit bericht glaubhaft, daß es während einer Belagerung zu
Kannibalismus gekommen sei, wie man sich von Viehhäuten und Tierkadav-
ern ernährte.” My translation.
40. Hans Heberle, Zeytregister, 1638, trans. Thomas Brady, German Historical
Institute, accessed 30 October 2011, http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/
sub_document.cfm?document_id=3709.
Es sind vast alle hund und katzen in der statt verspeiset worden. Es sind
etliche tausendt roß, kie, ochßen, kälber und schaffsheiten verspeißet und
gefreßen worden. . . . Den 24 Novembris [1638] ist in dem stockhhauß ein
gefangner soldat gestorben, und als in der profoß wol begraben laßen, haben
in die andere gefangne genomen, in verschniten und gespeißet. . . . Es sind
zwen toden menschen in dem grab auffgeschniten worden, das eingeweid
heraußgenomen und gefreßen worden. Es sind auf einen tag drey kinder
geßen worden. . . . Es haben die soldaten eines pastetenbeckhen knaben ein
stuckh brot versprochen, er soll mit inen in das leger gehen. Als er aber
dahin komen, haben sie in gemetzget und gefreßen. Den 10 Christmonet
sind allein in der Fischerhalden 8 namhaffte burgers [kinder] verlohren und
vermutlich gefreßen worden, weil niemand gewust, wo sie hinkomen, ohne
der frümde und betlerskinder, davon niemand kein wissenschafft hatt. Es
sind auff dem platz allein zehen todte, ohne die andere so uff misthauffen
und gassen gefunden worden.
41. Joy Wiltenburg, “True Crime: the Origins of Modern Sensationalism,” The
American Historical Review 109, no. 5 (December 2004), 1381–1393.
42. The text refers to two units of currency, one with “p,” presumably for Pfennig
and the other with “gr,” perhaps for Groschen. A Pfennig would have been
one of the smaller units of currency; a Groschen would have been a larger unit,
worth about 12 Pfennig.
43. SStBA, 4° Kult 186 Flugschriften No. 25. Michael Manger, Erschröckliche
Zeytung von zweyen
Mördern mit namen Martin Farkas unnd Paul Wasansty, welche in die hun-
dert und vier und zweintzig Mörd gethan, Unnd in disem 1570. Jar, den ersten
Martii sind gerichtet worden, zu Eybetschitz im Lande zu Märhern, zwo Meil
wegs von Brünn gelegen (Augsburg: Manger, 1570).
Darnach bey Solowitz/ Jch und Lepssy haben 2 Bawren todt geschlagen/ von
ihnen 2 p genommen. Darnach ein halbe Meil von Solowitz/ Jch und Lepssy
haben wide rumb zwen Bawren erschlagen/ ihnen 10 gr. genommen. Weitter
im feld haben wir 2 Weyber todt geschlagen/ und denen 20 gr genommen/
und sie auß dem Weg geschleifft. Nit weit darvon haben wir 2 Mägdlein Todt
geschlagen jnen die Brust abgeschnitten und 10 gr genommen. Weiter auff
dem Rotenberg/ haben wir 2 schwangere Weyber todt geschlagen/ die Kinder
außgeschnitten/ unnd die Hertz von den Kindern bald geessen/ bey ihnen nur
3 gr gefunden/ sie darnach ins Holz geschleifft.
44. Ibid.
45. Joy Wiltenburg, “Family Murders: Gender, Reproduction, and the Discourse
of Crime in Early Modern Germany” Colloquia Germanica 28, no. 3–4
(1995), 361–362.
Joy Wiltenburg, Disorderly Women and Female Power in the Street Litera-
ture of Early Modern England and Germany (Charlottesville, VA: University
of Virginia Press, 1992), 178–179.
Wiltenburg, Crime and Culture, 96–97.
46. Michael Kunze, Highroad to the Stake: A Tale of Witchcraft, trans William
Yuill (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
47. Zika, “Cannibalism and Witchcraft,” 96.
48. Georg Kreß, Nie erhörte/ abscheuliche/ und unnatürliche Thatten/ und mis-
shandlungen/ in dem Fürstenthumb Schlesien/ von etlichen Todten gräbern
begangen/ wie sie auch/ wegen ihrer Mißhandlungen/ in disem 1606. Jar den
20. des Monats Septembris/ hingerichtet worden, Augsburg, 1606/7.
Dann zu Franckenstein in Schlesien/ hat man acht Todengräber/ darunder 6.
Manns/ und 2. Frawen Personen/ gefängelich eingezogen/ Welche an peinlicher
frag bekandt: daß sie ein vergifftes pulver bereittet/ solliches zu Franckenstein/
hin und wider in der Häuser außgestrewet/ die thürschwöllen/ Klopffer/ und
handhebenen an den Thüren darmit bestrichen/ und beschmirt/ darvon vil
leut vergifft worden/ und jämerlich dahin gstorben. Zum anderen haben sie
in den häuseren vil gelts gstollen/ Jtem die Todten beraubt. Jhnen die Rüttel/
oder den uberthon außgezogen: Ja die Schwangere Frawen auffgeschnitten/
die Frücht auß den leiberen genommen/ unnd die hertzen der Jungen Kinder
roch gefressen: die Kirchen daselb der Altär tuecher beraubt: und zwen Säger/
oder Reiß uhren ab den Cantzlen genommen/ dieselben Pulverisiert/ und zu
irer Zauberey gebraucht: Ein newer Todern gräber/ so von Strigge hat daselb/
mit einer todten Jungkfrawen/ in der Kirchen/ unzucht getriben/ und haben
sonsten andere mehr unerhörtte und erschröckliche thatten für genommen.
49. Wiltenburg, Crime & Culture, 21.
50. StadtAA, Urgichten, Michael Schwarzkopf, 15 May 1568.
StadtAA, Strafamt, Malefitzbuch, Michael Schwarzkopf, 15 May 1568.
StadtAA, Strafamt, Verzeichnis der Maleficanten, 15 May 1568.
StadtAA, Strafamt, Todesurteile (Handschrift), 15 May 1568.
51. Wiltenburg, “True Crime,” 1387–8.
Wiltenburg, Disorderly Women, 225.
52. Hans Rampf, Ein Erschröckliche unerhörte Newe Zeyttung/ von einem
grausamen Mörder, Augsburg, 1585.
53. Hanns Schultes, Ware Abcontrafectung ainer erbärmlichen/ und erschröckli-
chen Newen Zeytung/ so sich zu Erlingen . . . alda ein Jnwonder und Brott
Kauffer/ mit Namen Hanns Aleweckher, 1589. Reprinted in Walter Strauss,
The German Single-Leaf Woodcut 1550–1600, (New York: Abaris Books,
1975), vol. 3, 948.
54. Wiltenburg, “Family Murders,” 357–374.
55. Wiltenburg, Crime & Culture, 93–95.
56. Nikolaus Schreiber, Warhafftige newe Zeittung von einer Frawen sampt
dreyen Kindern wie sich selbst durch hungers noth erhangen (Cologne, 1591).
57. Wolfgang Richter, Eine Warhafftige und erschröckliche Newe Zeittung . . . mit
eines reichen Becken Tochter/ mit Nahmen Catharina/ welche Sieben Kinder in
der Unzucht getragen/ und sie alle ermördet und umbgebracht hat (Frankfurt,
1626).
58. Charlotte Colding Smith, Images of Islam, 1430–1600: Turks in Germany and
Central Europe (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2014).
59. Hans Sachs, and Erhard Schön, Der armen Leut Klag (Nuremberg: Hans Wei-
gel, between 1550 and 1566).
60. Jörg Darpach, Ein Lied gemacht/ wie es im Osterlandt ergangen ist/ Als man
schreybt 1529 Jar, Gotha, 1529. Reprinted in Geisberg, Woodcut 1500–1550,
vol. 4, 1550. Die sach dünckt mich nit gar fein, den Christen thut er grosse
pein/ thut man und weyb erstechen, darzu das kindlein in mutter leyb/ Gott
wirtz noch an im rechen/ ja rechen. Das Osterlandt hat er verwüst, den wey-
blein schnydt er ab die prüst/ schlug die kinder umb die wende/ ach Gott wenn
hat die straff ein endt/ fürt jr vil in das elende, ja elende.
61. Albrecht Altdorfer, Slaying of Children at Bethlehem, Munich, 1511. Reprinted
in Geisberg, Woodcut 1500–1550, vol. 1, 17.
62. SStBA, Graphiksammlung, 30/68, Marco Dente, Bethlehemischer Kinder-
mord, Rome, 1550.
63. SStBA, Graphiksammlung, 11/61, Martin Engelbrecht, Kindermord bethlehe-
mischer, Augsburg, 1743.
4 “The Child Was Fresh
and Perfect”
The Influence of Experts
In May of 1692, city physician Lucas Schröck examined Anna Barbara

Hauin’s dead newborn. Upon completion of his inspection, Dr. Schröck sub-
mitted the following report to the Augsburg city council:
On the head and the shoulders [the corpse] has big reddish stains . . . the
skull on the right side appeared depressed and somewhat lower than the
left . . . the redness came from the supposed suffocation . . . the stomach
contained some water, the lungs were fresh, and when I had them laid in
water, they floated high. Therefore I conclude that this child came into
this world living and drowned in the water.1
Schröck’s conclusions that the child died at some point after its birth and
that it died an unnatural death were instrumental in shaping Anna Barbara’s
trial and confirmed the prosecution’s suspicions that she had purposefully
given birth over a privy in order to ensure the newborn’s death. Following
this report, Anna Barbara’s confession, conviction, and subsequent execu-
tion were almost inevitable. Even though she initially protested that she had
done nothing to harm the child and that the child had been stillborn, the
court had what it considered to be firm evidence to the contrary. They per-
sisted for almost two months with their interrogation of Anna Barbara until
her confessions matched Doctor Schröck’s description of what happened.
Having thus admitted to causing the death of her newborn, Anna Barbara
was executed on July 31, 1692.
Physicians like Schröck and other medical and legal experts became
increasingly involved in infanticide and abortion investigations through
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and dramatically altered the shape
of these trials. Courts grew to depend on these experts to investigate the
evidence, confirm suspicions, advise on procedure, and ensure the proper
legal handling of complex cases. Infanticide investigations, which had previ-
ously involved at most two rounds of interrogation with around forty ques-
tions total and one or two witness statements, now easily stretched on for
months as the court repeatedly questioned defendants, called for witnesses,
requested testimony from various experts, and reexamined the defendant in
116 “The Child Was Fresh and Perfect”
light of new information. Family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers,
and employers had always been called upon as witnesses, but now, physi-
cians, midwives, barber-surgeons, lawyers, and even the legal and medical
faculties of universities might all contribute to and influence these trials.
As authorities pursued infanticide more fervently toward the late six-
teenth century, as seen in chapter two, the role of professionally trained
experts grew. Courts consulted legal experts on matters of criminal pro-
cedure to ensure that the court’s practices adhered to the guidelines of

the Carolina, especially when it came to the use of torture. The question
of when torture could be applied and to what extent was crucial to the
prosecution of infanticide. Lawyers might also be asked to intervene when
the crime defied expectations or did not adhere to the specifications of the
Carolina. Medical experts, on the other hand, were consulted on matters
of evidence. The quality of evidence might determine whether the pros-
ecution had sufficient grounds to continue on to torture, for example.
Physicians, as well as midwives, barber-surgeons, and even apothecaries,
weighed in on the physical evidence. Because the corpse was often the
sole evidence available to the investigators, the examination of the body
was pivotal. Examining physicians were expected to, and often were able
to, provide more information as to when and how the fetus or infant
had died. This information determined what crime had been committed:
whether death occurred before or after parturition distinguished between
an abortion and an infanticide. It also determined if a crime had been
committed, if the death was the result of natural causes or of violence. It
was an era in which legal procedure required increasing specificity and
accuracy and infanticide investigations were unlikely to advance very far
beyond the initial interrogation of the suspect without the input of trained
lawyers and physicians.
Legal and medical concerns were closely intertwined, especially when
it came to physical evidence. So much depended on the physical evidence
provided by the corpse that the imperial Carolina mandated expert medi-
cal examination of the corpse in cases of infanticide. This investigation of
the corpse was particularly important in helping the prosecution to reach
the all-important designation of half-proof, the minimum legal basis for
proceeding to torture, and that could be established by one reliable witness
or sufficient physical evidence that a crime had indeed been committed.
Torture was, in turn, often necessary to procure a complete confession, the
only legal basis for conviction.2 In infanticide and abortion cases, for which
eyewitnesses were exceptionally rare, half-proof could be reached by the
medical determination that a suspected woman had been pregnant and now
had no child to show for it, or with the discovery of a corpse and the medi-
cal ruling that it had met an untimely and violent end.3 These experts there-
fore shaped infanticide and abortion investigations from start to finish and
in the process helped to refine criminal procedure and test the boundaries of
medical and legal knowledge and influence.
“The Child Was Fresh and Perfect” 117
THE MEDICAL EXPERTS
At the local level, the medical experts charged with investigating cases of
abortion and infanticide included the entire range of early modern medi-
cal practitioners: physicians, barber-surgeons, apothecaries, and even mid-
wives. Each official had his or her own special role in these investigations,
depending on their area of expertise. In Augsburg, like in many localities,
a group of physicians called the Collegium Medicum oversaw all of the

medical practitioners in the city and issued and enforced strict regulation
of their activities.4 The Collegium Medicum in Augsburg and their counter-
parts elsewhere were deeply involved in medical forensics, and especially in
infanticide and abortion cases.
Physicians were consulted the most frequently in these cases, and their
advice was sought on a wide variety of issues, from a visual examination
of the corpse to ruling on whether certain substances could have caused an
abortion. Barber-surgeons are mentioned very rarely in the records but were
occasionally consulted about wounds. Apothecaries were also rare in the
records, but their particular expertise was needed in cases involving aborti-
facients; apothecaries might supplement the observations of the physicians
on the efficacy of a particular mixture and on the dosage necessary to abort
or cause harm to a fetus.
Midwives, however, testified almost as frequently as physicians. In the
early modern era, midwives were recognized as having a certain amount
of expertise that physicians did not have, stemming from discomfort at the
idea of a male physician examining a woman’s body or being in any way
involved in the birthing process, a thoroughly female realm. Indeed, the med-
ical knowledge that midwives possessed could be quite extensive. Midwives,
especially in urban Germany, often had extensive training through appren-
ticeships and were professionally licensed and regulated by city governments.5
Relying on more than just traditional ideas handed down from midwife to
apprentice midwife, midwives wrote and consumed medical texts about con-
ception, pregnancy, delivery, and newborn care. Such texts were published
both by midwives and physicians and could be very extensive indeed, detail-
ing every imaginable ailment, problem, or circumstance. Many of these texts
were simply republications or translations of earlier works: one of the earli-
est and most famous works, Eucharius Rößlin’s Der Schwangeren frawen
und Hebammen Rosengarte or The Rose Garden for Pregnant Women and
Midwives, was republished many times after its original date of 1513 and
translated into English, Dutch, Czech, French, and Latin.6 Throughout the
early modern period, the corpus of midwife knowledge grew dramatically,
albeit a knowledge based mostly in the repetition of anecdotal evidence.
When it came to infanticide and abortion investigations, while male phy-
sicians examined the corpses of fetuses or newborns for signs of trauma,
midwives weighed in on the process of birth and the complexities of preg-
nancy, areas thought to be within their special realm of knowledge. They
provided their opinions, for example, about whether the particular signs of
trauma discovered on a corpse might be produced during a normal child-
birth, or if these injuries were the result of violence. Based on their extensive
knowledge of female anatomy and pregnancy, midwives were also periodi-
cally asked to examine the bodies of mothers, looking for signs of pregnancy
or parturition as part of the process of uncovering secret pregnancies and
identifying mothers. Such an examination was a particularly intimate
and invasive process, involving prodding of the abdomen and an external

and internal examination of the mother’s genitals.
In a somewhat ironic contradiction, midwives and apothecaries were at
once valued for their expertise and held in suspicion and close regulation
for the very same. Midwives’ knowledge and their unique access to pregnant
women’s bodies made them potentially dangerous, and the regulation of
their practices through city ordinances was strict. City governments across
Germany issued and reissued midwife regulations frequently and estab-
lished a strict system of examination and supervision by physicians. Mid-
wives were required to take an oath agreeing to the regulations. They swore,
for example, to attend to rich and poor women alike, without delay and
without charging more than the fixed fee.7 Aside from adhering to proper
medical procedure, midwives’ behavior in regard to unwed mothers was
another primary concern. Midwives were regarded as a sort of first line
of defense against fornication, abortion, and infanticide. An Ulm regula-
tion from 1737 instructed midwives to watch for “signs and indications
. . . of pregnant single women,” and to “seek the opportunity to earnestly
warn such illegitimate girls against harming their fruit through purgative
medication, leeching, by tightly binding their bodies, or other methods, and
against other murderous means, as their duty and conscience necessitates.”8
Elsewhere midwives were required to report unmarried pregnant women to
civic authorities if the women had not yet done so themselves.
Midwives were also highly suspect for involvement in the very crimes they
were asked to prevent because of their specialized knowledge and experience
as well as their intimate access to women before, during, and after child-
birth. Oft-repeated ordinances prohibited midwives from directly facilitat-
ing or aiding in infanticide or abortion. Midwives suspected of ill intentions
could face criminal charges themselves. Most abortions and infanticides
were committed in private, however, and if a midwife was involved, any
actions would have been difficult to prove and midwives were only rarely
charged. Nevertheless, investigators often asked whether a defendant had
received any advice from a midwife. Even though this question was hardly
ever answered in the affirmative, the fact that it was asked so consistently
demonstrates the presence of suspicion about midwives.
Midwives could also face charges of malpractice in the suspicious death
of a newborn, illegitimate or not.9 These investigations frequently stemmed
from accusations of negligence or mishandling from bereaved parents.
In Augsburg in July 1645, for example, Zachariah Zimmerman accused
midwife Anna Maria Pierlerin of killing his child during delivery. After an
examination of the child’s body, the doctors concluded that the child’s inju-
ries and deformities indicated death had occurred before the birth. Because
the doctors agreed with Anna Maria that the child died in the womb—by
their estimate, one or two days before the delivery—she was released with a
warning to be more careful in the future and to abide by the proper regula-
tions.10 But midwives could and sometimes did face severe punishment for
malpractice. Away from the presence of physicians, the actions of midwives,

in terms of both legitimate and illegitimate pregnancies, remained mysteri-
ous and potentially dangerous in the eyes of physicians and other city offi-
cials. Their minimal but specialized expertise—at least as far as physicians
saw it—allowed midwives exclusive access to women before and during
childbirth but kept them always under a shadow of suspicion.
Apothecaries were also potentially suspect in cases of abortion or infan-
ticide because of their knowledge of abortifacients and other potentially
dangerous substances, and likewise fell under strict civic regulation. These
dictates required them, among a variety of other regulations, to submit to
annual visitations and inspections.11 They were not authorized to prescribe
medicines on their own and were repeatedly reminded of regulations against
distributing dangerous substances.12 For example, apothecary ordinances in
Augsburg declared that they were not to deceive anyone by selling tainted
goods or poisons; among banished substances were arsenic, opium, and any
bug, mouse, or rat powders or poisons. More to the point, apothecaries
were not to sell anything “strong, purgative, or expulsive, or things that
serve the promotion of the womanly monthly cleansing or for expulsion of
a fetus and afterbirth, without the orders of a Herrn Medicinae Doctoris.”
Ordinances particularly forbade them from selling any such substances to
“strangers or suspicious people, those traveling from long distances, vag-
abonds, mountebanks, surgeons, foreign doctors, Jews, old women, mid-
wives, unmarried women, the unlearned, barbers, barber-surgeons, artisans,
and others.” This warning carried the threat of physical punishment for
disobedience.13
This long list of proscribed customers includes those who were always
regarded as suspicious, such as foreigners, Jews, and vagabonds, and who
were, therefore, generally banned from a wide range of activities. But the
others on the list were regarded with suspicion because, among other con-
cerns, they were thought to be more likely to seek abortions. Unmarried
women were clearly the most suspicious, but midwives and old women
might also help unmarried pregnant women procure abortions. Artisans—
often as young, single males—were also not to be trusted because they
would likely have been seeking to acquire abortifacients for pregnant lovers
and were thought to have no legal, acceptable use for such substances.
Infanticide and abortion were intrinsically linked to medical concerns.
The Collegium Medicum of Augsburg and their equivalents across Ger-
many in their position of overseeing the entire local medical hierarchy
played important dual roles in both forestalling infanticide and abortion
and investigating the evidence when those crimes occurred. The preventa-
tive role of medical experts seems to have been not terribly effective, as
cities continuously published and republished orders to apothecaries and
midwives reminding them of their oaths, and punishment for neglect of
duty or involvement in these crimes escalated in many places. Nevertheless,
city magistrates also depended on the input of physicians and midwives for
the prosecution of infanticide and abortion in order to shape the course

of investigations through their interpretation of the primary—and often
only—physical evidence.
THE INVESTIGATIONS
When it came to infanticide or abortion investigations, physicians were

required to examine the corpse in each case, and other medical experts were
consulted as needed. The investigations were usually assigned to one or two
physicians and/or midwives, and occasionally surgeons, who had the task
of answering a specific question or questions regarding the cause of death
or injury. The reports of medical experts took on many different forms,
depending on the particular crime that was suspected and the state of the
evidence. In rare cases, there was no corpse to examine, and the sole physi-
cal evidence was the examination of the mother in order to determine if she
had ever been pregnant. In other cases, such as that of Walpurga Seitz in
chapter one, who threw her newborn’s corpse with other trash into a pigsty,
the evidence was mostly destroyed and difficult to examine. An investiga-
tion was best served by the fully intact corpse of an infant. In such a situa-
tion, medical experts believed it was possible to determine both the timing
and the cause of death. If both of these pieces of information could be con-
firmed, then the investigators had the most vital information in the entire
case: whether a crime had been committed and precisely what crime it was.
The first step was the visual examination of the external features of the
corpse. The physicians looked specifically for wounds and bruising, any-
thing that would indicate some sort of trauma. They particularly checked
the head and neck for signs of strangulation or beating. The physicians also
measured the size of the body to obtain an approximation of the age of the
fetus or child. In many instances, the physicians then proceeded to an inter-
nal investigation to determine if there were any injuries that were not exter-
nally apparent and also for evidence of internal organ function or failure.
In Augsburg, the examiners submitted the conclusions of their investiga-
tions to the city council in reports either as a group of physicians in more
complicated cases or just one or two physicians in cases that appeared more
straightforward. Considering the extent and detail of their investigations,
physicians’ reports were often quite short, usually a very short missive, con-
sisting of only a few sentences. This can be explained by the precise role their
investigations played in criminal trials. They were tasked to answer specific
questions presented to them by the court. Sometimes these reports took the
form of a list of opinions from a group of physicians or midwives. Others,
particularly those in more complex cases, were much more elaborate, citing
the latest in medical knowledge and revealing extensive thought and debate
over the issues at hand. The physicians wrote these reports in a combination
of German and Latin; a report about suspected child killer Agatha Rüeffin
reads, for example (with the Latin text in italics): “. . . daraus genugsame
signa und anzaigungen haben können, das sie, Febre continua putrida et
maligna angestockt seye,” and translates as: “. . . and from that there are
adequate signs and indications that she is infected with a continuous, putrid,
and malignant fever.”14
Medical reports played a vital role throughout the entire process of inves-
tigation and trial. The reports determined when and how the child died
or if, indeed, the mother had ever been pregnant; such conclusions helped
to define the crime—whether it was an abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth, or
infanticide—and to clarify procedural questions, such as what to ask the
defendant or other witnesses, and when to apply torture. If a doctor con-
cluded, for example, that a child had been strangled to death, the prosecu-
tion would push specifically for a confession of murder by strangulation.
Although physical evidence and the reports of medical experts alone could
not convict a defendant, they could be used to put further pressure on the
defendant and to justify further rounds of interrogation and torture. If the
defendant’s description of events did not correspond to the conclusions of
the physicians and midwives, further questioning was necessary, for the goal
of the investigation was not only to extract a confession but to extract the
truth as they understood it. The interrogators might bring up obvious signs
of intentional harm in order to apply further pressure on a stubborn defen-
dant. The defendant might be asked how she could account for certain find-
ings, such as cuts or bruises on the body. Or details of her defense might be
more directly challenged, such as if physicians found the child to have been
born living when the defendant had claimed that it was stillborn. Medical
inspections were thus crucial to the course of the investigation and in many
cases could directly affect the confession and the final outcome.
From the start of the investigation, the primary question that medical
experts sought to answer was what crime had occurred. Although abortion
and infanticide were closely related, the crimes were not usually handled
equally in the end: abortion was more difficult to prosecute, and therefore
conviction and execution for abortion was extremely rare. At the same time,
however, the line distinguishing infanticide from abortion, medically speak-
ing, was fluid at best, much like it was for mothers who committed these
crimes. Given the limits of medical knowledge, there would be little to dis-
tinguish a late-term abortion from a premature stillbirth, for example. If a
child was found to have been born too early to survive outside the womb, or if
it was found to have been stillborn, for example, an infanticide investigation
could easily shift to an abortion investigation. Although the line between
these two crimes was unclear and shifting, there were certain patterns of
significant difference. Early-term abortion generally left little physical evi-
dence, and the medical evaluation was often limited to an examination of
the mother’s body, centering on questions of whether the mother had been
pregnant and the effectiveness of abortifacients. Infanticide investigations,
on the other hand, were often sparked by corpses, which doctors and mid-
wives could examine. In many cases the line was less distinct, however, and
almost every corpse was treated as a possible victim of both infanticide and
abortion, with the difference being the focus of medical examination.
ABORTION INVESTIGATIONS
Because early-term abortion left so little physical evidence, investigations

were often sparked by rumors of hidden and illicit pregnancies instead of
the discovery of a dead child. The medical experts in such cases needed to
determine if the woman concerned had even been pregnant and if she had
given birth. Furthermore, they needed to determine if she had attempted or
succeeded at aborting the fetus, what method she had employed, and how
far into her pregnancy she had been when she had terminated it. Pregnancy
was extremely precarious in the early modern period, and women might
miscarry for a vast number of reasons, according to medical thought at the
time. Medical experts described the consumption of a wide array of foods
or drinks as either helpful or harmful to a pregnancy, often with some sub-
stances being described variously as both. The experts also noted how cer-
tain behaviors might harm a fetus and recommended that pregnant women
avoid dancing too vigorously, getting too angry or too excited, and even to
avoid anything that might shock or surprise them.15 Most of these behaviors
would not be grounds for an abortion trial; however, any such behavior on
the part of an unmarried pregnant woman, especially the consumption of
potentially harmful food and drink, would have been closely scrutinized.
The prosecution often first broached the subject of intentional abortion
by asking the mother “whether or not she ingested a drink or something else
in order to abort the child, also what this was and from whom she got it.”16
Women described a wide variety of substances that they consumed, always
with the stated intention not of aborting a pregnancy but of returning their
stopped menstruation. The mysteries of menstruation in the early modern
period connected an irregular or halted menstrual cycle to any number of
reasons and maladies besides pregnancy.17 The uncertainties surrounding
pregnancy and conditions with similar symptoms meant that women took
potential abortifacients for a range of symptoms, such as cessation of men-
struation, regardless of the actual cause of the ailment. Because of this, the
extent to which abortifacients were consciously ingested with the intent
to abort cannot be determined.18 Women, midwives, and apothecaries,
according to some theories, seem to have shared a coded, secretive manner
of discussing such substances. In their testimony, women spoke of “promot-
ing” their menstruation, “starting her monthlies,” or “returning her natural
cycles,” instead of abortion. Any number of afflictions might have actually
disrupted her cycle, but these phrases were likely in some cases thinly veiled
terminology for an abortion. Women told of how they went to apothecar-
ies asking for “something to return [their] monthly time” and were given
substances that subsequently caused abortions, a convenient way for defen-

dants to assert their own ignorance and pass blame to apothecaries or other
parties.19 In 1601 Appolonia Heringin, for instance, consumed a concoc-
tion of “a half liter of beer with parsley and three black seeds,” which she
eventually admitted were laurel berries she had purchased from an apoth-
ecary.20 Both parsley and laurel had been prescribed for thousands of years
as ingredients in many concoctions used for abortions and were well known
as abortifacients. An apothecary would have certainly known their exact
uses.21 What the consumers of such concoctions knew about their effects
might remain a mystery, but one might imagine that a sort of understanding
could have passed between Appolonia and the unnamed apothecary.
Laurel berries were by far the most common abortifacient to appear in
court records. The leaves of various plants in the laurel family were also well-
known abortifacients in early modern society.22 In 1608 Anna Weilbächin
took “5 or 6 laurel berries in vinegar,” every morning for eight mornings.23
In 1594 Anna Nilgin had “no more than two spoons” of some sort of drink
made with the berries.24 In 1637 Ursula Millerin “took two knife-points of
smashed laurel berries three times in a glass of beer.”25 Ursula described in
great detail what happened to her after she ingested the laurel berry concoc-
tion, revealing the effectiveness of the berries and also just how terrifying
this experience of a self-induced abortion must have been:
On the Sunday of St. George [in late April] in the evening around eight
o’clock, the pains started, and she felt how something about the size of
a goose egg came from her, without any force from herself; the thing
had a head . . . it was all mutilated, but she did not see any life in it, but
it did have the look of a child, namely the little hands, little feet and the
head . . . she wrapped it in a white cloth, and on the following Tuesday
she herself threw it in the Lech [river] by the lower slaughterhouse; fol-
lowing that on Thursday on St. George’s eve in her rope maker’s store,
more stopped blood came from her, an entire pan full . . . the stopped
blood was a round ball about the size of a fist, and she turned it back
and forth and found nothing other than it was clotted blood, which had
clotted together in her body because of the long-absent monthly time;
she had her maidservant throw this blood in the Lech at night.26
In many abortion investigations, the role of physicians and midwives was

to provide their official opinion as to whether the particular mixture in
question was capable of causing an abortion or harming the fetus in any
way, and what amount would be necessary to do so. In the case of Jeremias
Bair and Anna Weilbächin in 1608, physicians declared that laurel berries,
which Anna had supposedly taken on the advice of Jeremias, her master and
the father of her child, would not cause abortions in small doses but might
do so in larger amounts.27 In the case against Ursula Millerin, eight physi-
cians all provided their individual opinions, and all agreed that laurel ber-
ries could not induce an abortion alone but could do so as a part of certain
concoctions or in large amounts. In Ursula’s case, the physicians’ opinions
were listed individually, and a separate paper addressed to the council sum-
marized their opinions. First, one physician asserted that the effects of laurel
berries alone cannot be determined but rather that it depended on the indi-
vidual’s interaction with the berries. Three other physicians all agreed. The
record then shows that a fifth physician stated that the laurel berries alone
could not have such an effect, and three more physicians concurred. The
final report submitted to the council summed up these opinions, in Latin
(italics) and German:
We report that the laurel berries not by themselves, but in immoderate

quantities only in hot-tempered natures, could really work to abort a
fetus, in consideration of a woman of these characteristics, when taken
often and in large quantities, could strongly and heavily purge the wom-
an’s regular time [menses], and could easily abort the fetus.
The physicians could not determine that Ursula’s concoction had definitively
caused the abortion, but her actions nevertheless betrayed the intention to
do so. As with many abortion cases, there was a great deal of uncertainty
remaining at the conclusion of the investigation and trial, and like many
other women suspected of abortion or infanticide, Ursula was simply ban-
ished from the city.28
Remaining intentionally vague, defendants more often told of concoc-
tions of beer or wine mixed with some “Kreitter,” or herbs, without naming
specific ingredients, hiding when they could behind ignorance.29 Abortifa-
cients frequently went unnamed. In one extraordinary case from Nördlin-
gen, the city council actually obtained the substance that it believed the
defendant had used to cause an abortion and preserved it within the case
records (see figure 4.1).30 Margarete Leonhartin was twenty-one years old
when she was arrested in Nördlingen on suspicion of infanticide or abor-
tion. Margarete claimed that her child, a son, was stillborn, but the council
suspected her of attempting an abortion. Margarete admitted to drinking a
concoction made with brandy and “a yellow thing . . . a powder,” which a
neighbor bought for her, and which she had taken twice three weeks earlier.
Margarete added that “she had not given it a thought, that with it she could
hurt the child.” The court recorder noted in the margins that the powder
could be umber or turmeric. This substance is likely the contents of the
Figure 4.1 Abortifacients supposedly used by Margarete Leonhartin, Nördlingen,

1621, Courtesy of Stadtarchiv Nördlingen
first bundle of abortifacients, which contains a reddish-yellowish powdery

substance, while the second bundle contains what appears to be dried plant
matter. Both substances remained unidentified, only recognized as poten-
tially having caused the death of Margarete’s child.31 In these cases we see
that medical testimony was inexact when it came to abortion and at best,
only could demonstrate whether abortion in a particular situation was likely
or possible.
Although defendants admitted to trying many different abortifacients
and abortion methods, no one method or substance was guaranteed to
work. As might be expected, many were not effective at all. Women often
experienced painful side effects, and many discovered that they were still
pregnant after the abortion attempt. Women in such a situation then had to
decide if they would attempt an abortion again, continue to carry the preg-
nancy and then commit infanticide, abandon their newborn, or keep their
child. A thorough interrogation (and the use of torture and leading ques-
tions) sometimes, therefore, led some women to admit to both attempted
abortion and infanticide. Maria Grueberin, for example, admitted to eating
laurel berries in an attempt to abort her child. When she gave birth anyway,
in April 1674, she killed the child. Maria eventually admitted that “in the
night she bore her illegitimately conceived child living into the world, and
[after the birth] the child moved several times in her lap; about a quarter
of an hour after the birth, she pressed with her hands on the child’s neck or
throat, and thus maliciously murdered and killed it.”32 Such circumstances
further demonstrated the sliding definitions of these crimes and the difficult
task facing the medical experts who were to determine what that crime
really was.
INFANTICIDE INVESTIGATIONS
Infanticide investigations most often were easier to prosecute, largely

because of the physical evidence left behind and the ability of physicians
and midwives examining that evidence to reach definitive conclusions. In
Augsburg in 1692, Anna Barbara Hauin—whose case opened this chapter—
was found guilty of infanticide and executed. As noted earlier, crucial to her
case was the examination city physician Lucas Schröck performed on the
corpse of her child. Schröck described in his report several indications pres-
ent on the corpse that pointed to suffocation, including a depression and
discoloration on one side of the skull. More importantly, Schröck reported
the results of a lung test that he said demonstrated that the child had indeed
lived after parturition. In Anna Barbara’s case, the physician’s examina-
tion of the corpse helped to determine whether a crime had been commit-
ted—the external signs indicated that the body had experienced some sort
of violence—and precisely which crime it was—the lung test showed that
the infant had been born living, and had not been aborted or miscarried
before parturition. Anna Barbara thus faced charges of infanticide instead
of abortion.
Such evidence was damning and would have been difficult for Anna Bar-
bara to defend herself against. Through several rounds of interrogation, the
prosecution returned again and again to the question of whether the child
had ever lived. In the first round of questioning, they asked her, “whether or
not the child had come from her living, and whether or not she then heard
it cry?” Anna Barbara replied, “she might believe that it was living, but she
did not hear it cry, and could not say.” Several days later, the prosecution
asked her again, “Whether after the birth she could not hear the child cry-
ing, or could see it moving?” She replied that “she neither heard it crying
nor saw it moving.” The prosecution pressed the issue. They asked her soon
after “whether she brought the child into the world living, and then threw
it into the privy?” Anna Barbara responded to this, “Ah protect me God, ah
no . . . she knows that she should not have sat on the privy, but would not
acknowledge that she did the child any harm.” Immediately, the prosecution
once more demanded, “whether after the birth she could not hear the child
crying, or could see it moving?” She replied that “she neither heard it crying
nor saw it moving.”
The findings of the physicians and midwives were considered to be defin-
itive and final, so when Anna Barbara’s denial left a discrepancy between
her words and the findings of the physicians, this discrepancy needed to be
resolved. Thus the prosecution pressed on through further rounds of inter-
rogation, continuing to return to this point. They did so by framing their
questions based on the physicians’ findings that the child had lived and
breathed. They asked if she had had the intention to kill her child when she
gave birth over the privy, or if she had the intention that it die when she left
it in the water and waste. In response to these questions, Anna Barbara con-
tinued to deny any responsibility for the death of her child but did not have
an opportunity to repeat her claim that the child had never lived. The physi-
cians’ testimony thus determined the progression of the eventual ninety-two
questions that comprised Anna Barbara’s interrogation; it prolonged her
interrogation despite her repeated and consistent testimony, and resulted in
Anna Barbara eventually “freely confessing” that she “had the intention to
kill the child.”33
Similarly, in the 1609 case of Margareth Tröstin, surgeons and midwives
testified about the newborn found under Margareth’s mattress. The two
surgeons declared that the child’s neck had been pressed, and that it had
two cuts or tears on its head and armpit. More importantly, they decided
that the child had been “vollkommen und zeittig,” or “perfect [whole] and
timely,” meaning that it was neither born too early, nor with any apparent
preexisting defects—that is, any injuries were inflicted after birth. Two mid-
wives supported this conclusion, also stating that the child was “frisch and
vollkommen,” meaning “fresh and perfect,” and that the neck had indeed
been pressed, causing its death. Thus, the child should have been healthy
and viable, and Margareth was responsible for its death. When the pros-
ecution confronted Margareth with this evidence during her interrogation,
Margareth admitted to pressing the child with her left foot, and thus to
killing it.34
The role of medical forensics could be even more extensive than exam-
ining an infant’s corpse in some cases. Augsburg physicians and midwives
were required to examine the mother in the case of Maria Dottweiler in
1665. A dead infant was found in a small canal “next to the herb garden in
Oberhausen,” just to the north of Augsburg. Maria was soon suspected of
being the mother and having either aborted the child or killed it after giving
birth near the canal. Maria explained that labor had taken her by surprise
while she was traveling from Kriegshaber to Oberhausen, villages about
two kilometers apart from each other. According to her testimony, labor
had come on so quickly that the baby fell into the canal. Both the corpse
of the child and Maria’s body were inspected by doctors and midwives in
their attempt to determine the cause of death and what had happened. The
city midwives examined Maria’s body for signs that she had been pregnant,
inspecting closely the “wrinkly skin” of her stomach. It seems that they
were instructed to look for signs of multiple pregnancies because the pros-
ecution suspected Maria of aborting her pregnancy and perhaps of having
done so on previous occasions as well. The midwives, perhaps not surpris-
ingly, reported that they could not determine by their examination if she
had been pregnant more than this once. They also inspected the corpse of
Maria’s child for signs of abortion. Their report stated, “on the part of the
child there was marked suspicion that it had been aborted from the woman
from Oberhausen; but the child was found all white, perfect, and had all
its members, and unharmed. Therefore, it is determined, that it suffered
no harm in the womb.” The prosecution could therefore find no crime in
Maria’s actions toward the child and simply banished her for her illegiti-
mate pregnancy.35
Forensic reports could also sometimes actually exonerate the accused.
In the 1693 case of Maria Lucia Thomannin in Augsburg, seen in chapter
2, an examination of the corpse combined with witness testimony entirely
changed the course of the investigation and led to the release of the mother.
The physicians’ examination did not point to infanticide or abortion by the
mother but toward the guilt of the father. The child’s corpse had indications
of trauma, which corresponded well with the testimony of several of Maria
Lucia’s friends, who claimed that Cyprian Wiser, her former lover and the
father of her child, had beaten her often. Others who were present at the birth
supported Maria Lucia’s claim that the child had been stillborn. The physi-
cians agreed that the trauma on the corpse matched the women’s and Maria
Lucia’s descriptions of Cyprian’s abuse. The court seems to have believed
Maria Lucia’s story that Cyprian had “beaten her with his hands and feet”
while she was pregnant, resulting in fetal death. The court thus considered
the crime to be an abortion, and then proceeded under the assumption that
it had been caused by Cyprian and not the mother. The prosecution, how-
ever, could not extract a confession from Cyprian and eventually had to
let him go. Yet the physicians’ reports certainly helped Maria Lucia also
escape punishment; without this testimony, the court would have continued
to prosecute her instead of Cyprian.36
In these examples we see that local physicians and midwives shaped the
course of the trial in significant ways. Although the prosecution still required
a confession from the defendant, and that was certainly a significant set of
concerns, medical examinations provided an extra layer of certainty. With
medical testimony, the prosecution had a more specific goal to work toward
if they thought they knew exactly what crime had been committed and how.
The hope was to achieve a higher level of certainty and confirmation from
a source other than the defendant, and to work with a particular truth in
mind that they wished to extract from her.
BEYOND LOCAL EXPERTISE
The hope for certainty, however, might be qualified by inconclusive or con-

flicting results; for such reasons, many cases left the prosecution wanting
for further information and expertise. Although the physicians and law-
yers tasked with forensic examination were official city-appointed experts,
they were likely minimally qualified, with perhaps only a few years’ formal
education.37 Despite possessing less-extensive educations than physicians
and lawyers sitting on university faculties, local experts could and did still
remain abreast of the medical and legal debates of early modern Germany.
These debates, particularly those in the seventeenth and the eighteenth cen-
tury, came more and more to focus on infanticide and abortion, as crimes
that presented unique challenges to the fields of law and medicine. The trea-
tises produced on these subjects were published, republished, and translated

all over Germany and Europe, bringing diverse and scattered experts into
closer contact with each other and with the local professionals who were
applying new ideas to individual cases.
In fact, the dilemmas of infanticide captivated the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries’ most influential thinkers. Benedict Carpzov, perhaps the
most prominent German jurist of the seventeenth century, is a prime exam-
ple. In his 1635 Practica Nova Imperialis Saxonicae Rerum Criminalium,
an examination of proper criminal procedure and justice, Carpzov devotes
three chapters to the closely related crimes of infanticide, abortion, and
abandonment. He addresses the same legal questions that concerned law-
yers and judges in local infanticide and abortion investigations. Carpzov,
like the local prosecutors, focused on legal gray areas; he was particularly
concerned, for example, with the question of intent. His chapters on abor-
tion and abandonment demonstrate how important, but complicated, the
concept of intention could be. In cases of abortion, Carpzov clearly states
that courts needed to determine if the defendant had knowingly caused an
abortion. He explained that a woman was fully guilty only if she had know-
ingly drunk a concoction mixed with the intent of inducing an abortion, or
if she had otherwise acted explicitly to force an abortion. Such ambiguities
may be seen in the case of Ursula Millerin, for instance. If someone else
had given the pregnant woman something to drink to induce an abortion,
and it could be determined that this was done without the mother’s knowl-
edge, that person—and not the mother—should be executed. Likewise, if
a child was abandoned with the intention that it be found and taken in
by someone, then the punishment should be milder than if a child was left
to die somewhere less visible, such as a privy or a trash heap.38 Influential
jurists like Carpzov in many ways added more complexity at the same time
they attempted to help clarify. The question of intention, after all, required
gaining insight into the defendant’s mind and made determining guilt more
difficult. Yet it was this interaction between local functionaries and the uni-
versity faculties that helped to shape and define the crimes.
The debates over the nature of such complex crimes often grew heated;
jurists argued over fine points of definition and procedures, and they fre-
quently came into direct conflict with each other. Even Carpzov had his
detractors, and they battled over the crimes in theory and in practice. In one
particularly famous case, analyzed by David Myers, a student of Carpzov,
Johannes Strauch, and Justus Oldekop, a lawyer working on behalf of a
suspected child murderess, Grethe Schmidt, in Braunschweig, fought over
Grethe’s rights during her trial, the validity of her confession and the struc-
ture of the appeals process. This scuffle brought Grethe and her case to the
forefront of the German conversation about infanticide for several years.39
Clarifying procedures and establishing guilt were issues that were especially
troublesome during local investigations, and these particular issues often
forced local investigators to consult the works of more prominent experts.
The legal faculties of the major universities, especially those of Witten-

berg and Tübingen, contributed greatly to this growing discussion, publish-
ing their opinions frequently. Their treatises on abortion and infanticide
dealt with all aspects of the crimes, with a heavy emphasis on clearly defin-
ing the crime and intention. Individual treatises worked out finer points
of criminal law. For instance, Johann Karl Naeve of the University of Wit-
tenberg in his De Parricido & Infanticidio (“On Parricide and Infanticide”)
places infanticide within the greater framework of homicide of family mem-
bers, examining how degrees of relation change the definition and pun-
ishment of the crime.40 Wolfgang Adam Schoepf of Tübingen in his 1737
Dissertationem Inauguralem de Infanticidio Praesumto focused on defining
the specific crime of infanticide and identifying when a homicide should be
labelled infanticide.41 As seen in chapter two, there was frequently a disso-
nance between the technical definition laid out in the Carolina and the prac-
tical application through prosecution. Clarifying exactly what constituted
infanticide was a preeminent concern for many of these lawyers, as they
attempted to bridge the gap between the crime in theory and the nuances of
the actual crimes regularly facing local courts across Germany.
However, the definition of the crime also depended on the rulings of med-
ical experts. Legal studies of infanticide and abortion, therefore, came to
focus more frequently on issues of medical forensics. By the mid-eighteenth
century, the genre of medical forensics was a well-established and distinct
field of study. Physicians and lawyers produced dozens of medical forensic
studies of infanticide and abortion in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies, more than almost any other topic. The growth of publication in this
field allowed for a more unified approach to medical examination across
the various territories in Germany. The questions that were of the utmost
importance in infanticide cases challenged the most advanced medical
thought of the period: where and how life began, what constituted life, how
to determine when and how a person had died. These medical forensic texts
explored what physical signs of infanticide might be found on a corpse,
the efficacy of various methods of abortion, causes of fetal death, when
caesarean sections might be necessary, and how to determine the difference
between infanticide, abortion, and miscarriage. Medical forensic titles were
sometimes classified as both medical and legal dissertations, illustrating
further the growing close interactions between the two fields.42 Individual
works addressed general subjects such as identifying abortion and infan-
ticide43 or how to detect and punish the crimes,44 as well as more specific
and particular issues such as when bruising on an infant’s corpse indicated
infanticide45 or how to distinguish between a miscarriage and an abortion.46
By the eighteenth century, the medical forensic conversation happening in
Germany came to incorporate experts from further afield. Take, for instance,
the works of Peter Camper, a Dutch physician whose work in medical foren-
sics would help to transform the field. His scholarship was published not
only in his native Dutch but also in Latin, German, French, and English.
French, English, and Italian works were also readily available in Germany.
By the second half of the eighteenth century, most works published in Ger-
many were available both in German and in Latin, still the shared language
of European scholars. In their treatises, lawyers and physicians were now
citing their colleagues from all across Europe, comparing their findings,
and proposing new ideas. The conversation was growing more inclusive,
more extensive, more detailed, and more unified, with scholars from across
Europe focusing on the same details.
AKTENVERSENDUNG
Local experts kept abreast of this vast body of literature and cited these
works in their official reports. In addition to extensive publications available
all throughout Germany, the practice of Aktenversendung, or the forward-
ing of complicated cases to legal and medical faculties at universities, aided
the circulation of ideas and elevated the level of expertise in local proceed-
ings. This practice was laid out in the Carolina, which instructed localities
to seek advice from higher authorities—usually university legal or medi-
cal faculties—in certain cases.47 For legal concerns, some localities would
consult university experts on most capital cases, while others would only
consult on particularly complicated or unusual cases. Given the complexity
of infanticide and abortion and the stakes for the accused, these crimes were
frequently forwarded to legal faculties. Faculties responded to these inqui-
ries with responses called Consilia in which they ruled on both procedural
questions, especially regarding the use of torture, and on sentencing and
assignment of punishments. The legal faculty at the University of Tübingen,
for example, produced twenty thousand Consilia between 1602 and 1879,
when the practice was ended throughout the newly formed German empire.
By 1800, this particular faculty had read over two hundred cases of infan-
ticide and abortion. Civic authorities wrote to the Tübingen faculty from
across Germany, but most frequently they helped with cases closer to home
in the small towns and villages of the Duchy of Württemberg.48
When localities consulted the Tübingen legal faculty, it was generally
over the same handful of questions regarding procedure and extenuating
or unusual circumstances. In various cases, for instance, the faculty argued
that extreme youth in a defendant was cause for a milder punishment,49
and that the youth of a witness also brought into question the legitimacy
and acceptability of that witness’s testimony.50 In another case, they ruled
that the loss of one’s senses could, in certain circumstances, allow for a
mitigated sentence.51 The question of intent was, as always, central, and
the faculty especially emphasized the importance of obtaining a confes-
sion of intention in addition to action.52 They also addressed more compli-
cated cases that involved multiple crimes, such as infanticide or abortion
combined with witchcraft,53 infanticide and repeated adultery,54 and even
dealt with one man accused of adultery with multiple women, including
incest with his sister-in-law, and of procuring an abortion for the same.55
Suicide by proxy or indirect suicide, cases in which a person killed a child
in order to intentionally receive the death penalty,56 were frequently sent
for consultation, as they dealt with multiple crimes—attempted suicide and
infanticide—as well as complex motivations and questionable intentions
and states of mind. The Tübingen faculty above all weighed in on the use
of torture—when it could or should be used, for what ends, and with what
level of severity.
While cities in the Duchy of Württemberg consulted on almost every case
of infanticide, some places, such as Free Imperial Cities like Augsburg, did not
often request the aid of university legal faculties. More frequently they exer-
cised their right as sovereign entities to adjudicate difficult cases themselves.
These cities were not ultimately responsible to any overlord other than the
emperor himself and thus were not required to seek counsel. The Augsburg
council, therefore, rarely felt that cases exceeded its grasp, as magistrates in
other regions frequently did.57 However, even the free imperial cities occa-
sionally encountered cases that baffled them. Augsburg did sometimes consult
the legal faculty at the University of Tübingen but never for cases of infanti-
cide. Suits involving money, property, or complicated marital issues, especially
those that involved other jurisdictions, were common causes for consultation.
For local issues in infanticide and abortion cases, Augsburg had its own legal
consultants, who provided direction in particularly complex cases, addressing
one or two questions and making recommendations about how to proceed
further, either with the interrogation or with a specific punishment. These
missives were very similar to those produced by local physicians.
The paucity of consultations from imperial cities like Augsburg may
reflect the fact that, by the time that Aktenversendung and consultation
became a regular practice, after 1600, infanticide and abortion were already
well-established and fairly commonplace crimes and considerable precedent
existed for their prosecution. Additionally, legal consultations were an
arena in which localities could affirm their independence. The free cities
in this study asserted their sovereignty by not consulting an outside legal
faculty for crimes like infanticide. While such crimes occurred frequently
enough, they were still serious, capital offenses and when Augsburg ruled
on infanticide and other serious crimes, the city council exercised a level of
authority that the small towns and villages (which did consult universities)
could not legally claim.
Notable exceptions did occur, such as a case from Nördlingen—also a
free imperial city—in 1738. This case of infanticide involved four suspects,
including a young woman named Anna Magdalena Schröpplin, the mother
of the supposedly aborted fetus, and her parents. All of the defendants con-
tradicted each other in their individual testimonies, so it was unclear to
the Nördlingen council members exactly whom they should investigate and
charge with the crime. The Tübingen faculty did not offer advice about the
final verdict but gave instructions about how to proceed with the investiga-
tion. They suggested further interrogation of each suspect on certain central
questions—the method of abortion and who was considered responsible.
They especially encouraged further interrogation of the dead fetus’s mother
and grandmother. The jurists stated that they could not provide any further
insight because the defendants’ testimony was “so very contradictory.”58
Local physicians might also choose to take advantage of consulting a more
educated authority. For much of southern Germany, this was again the privi-
lege of the University of Tübingen.59 The medical faculty would read a pre-
pared brief about the case, which outlined what the examining physicians had
observed and on which issues in particular they needed further advice. The
faculty would then respond with succinct answers to these questions based
on their own, much more extensive, education and experience. Localities con-
sulted university physicians on complex cases where the evidence was not clear
or conclusive. Like local physicians, the majority of their focus was on deter-
mining the moment and cause of death; these were, after all, the two most
crucial questions in infanticide and abortion cases. Generally when consulta-
tion was required, however, these questions were even less clear-cut than usual.
The publication of such medical consultations came to be commonplace by the
late eighteenth century, allowing for physicians across Germany and Europe to
compare notes and cases and to keep abreast of the latest findings in forensics.
We see the same pattern of consultation between free imperial cities and
other localities in legal consults and in medical consults. Augsburg’s physi-
cians did not often exercise this right; as a free imperial city, Augsburg was
answerable to no higher authority. Physicians in other localities, such as the
cities within the Duchy of Württemberg, because they were answerable to
multiple levels of authority, consulted the medical faculty much more fre-
quently. For many of the cases in which physicians chose to do so, the concern
came down to whether the findings on the corpse actually constituted enough
evidence of murder to count as half-proof, and to thus proceed to torture.60
LIMITS OF AUTHORITY AND KNOWLEDGE
The process of Aktenversendung was a key part of an overall movement in

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of professionalization of the medi-
cal and legal fields as well as a reevaluation of sorts of the limits of authority
and knowledge. Particularly within medicine, the early modern period saw
major developments in thought about who and what constituted expertise
and what questions could actually be answered. On the local level, physi-
cians were able to overrule the findings of midwives, as they were considered
to have more professional training, in addition to their superior authority
granted them by virtue of being male. As women, midwives were assumed
to hold lesser powers of reason, and physicians tended to disdain their infor-
mal training. For these reasons midwives needed to be supervised and regu-
lated by male physicians. Toward the end of the early modern period this
desire for oversight would transform into a process of professionalization
of the medical field, and the replacement of midwives with formally trained
male midwives and physicians.61 By privileging the testimony of physicians
over midwives, city magistrates contributed to this professionalization.
As medical investigations grew more complex, a higher level of certainty
and authority was expected and required. Consultation grew more popular
and also came to be more necessary. By the late eighteenth century, physicians
had begun taking over roles previously left to female midwives. University
physicians now, for example, published the results of their examinations of
mothers suspected of abortion and infanticide. In one collection of medical
examinations published in 1792, Christian Loder, a prominent physician in
Jena, described his intimate and detailed inspection of an unmarried serving
maid who was suspected of being pregnant. In his report, he describes the
appearance of her breasts and how they reacted to pressure applied to them,
the appearance and feel of her abdomen, and even the state of her cervix
and vagina.62 Such a close and personal examination of a woman’s body by
a male physician had been out of the question in earlier centuries, with such
knowledge and access formerly left to female midwives.
As medical-legal knowledge grew, the questions physicians and lawyers
sought to answer became more complicated and necessitated, they felt, a
higher level of education and training. Now, in addition to medical-forensic
treatises, physicians also were publishing collections of their own forensic
examinations to share their findings. These reports were much longer and
far more detailed than the reports for the same purpose issued by local
physicians in earlier decades. Where the local physicians generally answered
one or two specific questions relating to the physical evidence, the reports
published starting in the eighteenth century presented complete narratives
of thorough autopsies, including detailed examinations of the exterior of
the corpse, step-by-step descriptions of the dissection and inspection of the
viscera, and conclusions about the significance of each observation with
references to support those conclusions.
In many ways, the introduction of this new meticulousness cast doubt on
the accuracy of earlier findings and meant that more problems arose when
determining the timing and cause of fetal or infant death. As the medical-
forensic field grew and anatomical knowledge increased, assumptions of
diagnostic certainty in some areas faltered. Cases that might have appeared
clear-cut in the seventeenth century became less so in the late eighteenth.
This problem was also closely connected with legal expectations and reform.
As diagnostic certainty decreased, the likelihood of presenting sufficient evi-
dence to constitute half-proof requirements decreased. Confidence in the
interpretations and conclusions of individual physicians was undermined
by the impact of ongoing debates and vital discoveries in the medical field.
Despite the growing knowledge base of the medical-forensic field, physi-
cians largely remained dependent on centuries-old understandings about an
extensive array of medical questions, especially those questions concern-

ing the mysteries of conception, pregnancy, abortion, childbirth, and death.
There was nothing close to consensus as to how to define these terms and
even less on the implications of those definitions in infanticide cases. Physi-
cians possessed limited anatomical knowledge about the female body; in par-
ticular, the uterus and its functions remained perhaps the greatest unknown.
Until dissection of humans became a more acceptable practice toward the
end of the eighteenth century, the functioning of the female reproductive
system, hidden and inaccessible as it was inside the body, would remain
highly mysterious.63
Pregnancy itself was, therefore, difficult to definitively diagnose, espe-
cially during its first months. Because of the wide array of symptoms associ-
ated with pregnancy, and the similarity of these signs to the progression of
several diseases, diagnosis could be problematic even in the later months of
gestation. This uncertainty made it plausible for a woman to claim that she
had not known she was pregnant, or that she had at least been uncertain
of her pregnancy or its duration, hence the pleas of ignorance discussed in
chapter two. In 1572 Anna Schaidhofin, for example, denied that she knew
of her pregnancy, claiming, when asked how she had hidden her growing
body, that she “was never of large body,” by which she meant that she was
already of small stature and had not gained much weight during her preg-
nancy.64 In 1725 Theresia Seizen explained how “she has always had a thick
and fat stomach,” and that this had not changed during pregnancy, making
it less noticeable both to herself and to others.65
In diagnosing pregnancy, physicians and midwives alike had to rely on
external observation of the potential mother. They looked for signs in the
skin or in the shape of the body and the mother’s own reports of symp-
toms.66 Medical guides offered advice: one 1735 publication, illustrating
the continued difficulty with diagnosis, warned that the cessation of men-
struation was not always a sure sign of pregnancy, and should be corrobo-
rated by other indications, which might include a heavy or dizzy feeling in
the head, the appearance of “a blue, yellow, or other color in the eyes,”
“head-, eye-, and tooth-aches,” a change in the appearance of the face, a
noticeable dullness in the limbs, a propensity to fainting, a shortness of
breath, the stomach rejecting normal foods and desiring unusual ones, the
breasts growing larger and harder, and weight gain.67 Taken separately these
symptoms could point to a variety of other causes. Even physician Christian
Loder, whose thorough examination of a woman described above included
a hands-on inspection of her breasts, abdomen, and genitalia, was unable to
definitively conclude whether or not the woman he examined was pregnant:
“Judging by all of these circumstances, I cannot identify this person as preg-
nant, nor do I want to insist with certainty, that she is not [pregnant].” He
added that if he examined the woman again in four to six weeks, he would
be able to provide a definitive answer.68
Symptoms of pregnancy were usually confirmed by the discernible move-
ment of the fetus in the womb in the fourth or fifth month of pregnancy—a
moment known in this era as quickening. But, many physicians warned,
the pregnancy might still go unnoticed, mistaken for something as simple
as intestinal gas; alternatively, they also warned against false positives.
While the fourth or fifth month was the most commonly cited timeframe
for quickening, physicians and other experts widely acknowledged that a
mother might experience quickening before or after this period, or not at all.
The precise nature of quickening was also a point of contention. One of the
most common explanations associated quickening with the moment a fetus
was somehow “animated,” a concept usually equated with the reception of
a soul and the start of life.69 Quickening could only be confirmed by what
the mother felt in her own abdomen and reported for herself, and not from
external observation.
It was a common belief among jurists and theologians that a fetus did
not receive a soul immediately upon conception, but rather that it gained its
soul sometime later. Benedict Carpzov cited two popular ideas in his work:
one that placed ensoulment at around the halfway point of pregnancy and
another idea which dated back to the ancient world,70 the belief of Aristotle
that male and female fetuses experienced animation at different times, on
the fortieth and ninetieth day, respectively.71 Ensoulment was an important
factor in determining when and how life began, thus the question of quick-
ening had been fundamental to studies of anatomy and philosophy long
before the advent of Christianity. This debate entailed several questions.
What exactly happened at conception? Did the soul exist in the seed of the
father, waiting to be imparted unto the material substance in the womb of
the mother? Or was Aristotle more accurate, with his idea that the soul
came later, several weeks or months into the pregnancy? Was the movement
of the fetus actually a sign of ensoulment? Was the soul synonymous with
life or the potential of life? When did life, ultimately, begin?
Ensoulment and its association with “living” fetuses was more than a
theological issue; it was also a central concern in the prosecution of abor-
tion. The Carolina, after all, distinguished between the abortion of a living
fetus and that of a fetus that was not yet living. Legal and philosophical defi-
nitions of abortion have, since antiquity, depended on when the fetus was
considered living and whether or not the aborted fetus had a soul, or even if
that was at the time an important criterion. The criminalization of abortion
throughout European history has varied widely according to different inter-
pretations of these questions. The notion that ensoulment happened at some
point after conception seems to have been fairly widely accepted by the
early modern period, as was the particular association of ensoulment with
quickening, as seen in both legal and medical treatises.72 However, increas-
ingly in the eighteenth century, physicians and theologians alike began to
associate ensoulment with the moment of conception, seeing no medical or
physical reason to assume otherwise, but this new viewpoint was not uni-
versally shared.73 In any case, the concept of a delayed ensoulment endured,
at least in Germany, through deference to the Carolina, which distinguished

between the abortion of a fetus that was living, a crime that deserved execu-
tion, and a fetus that was not yet living, a crime that did not.
As physicians and jurists (and theologians) tackled these questions in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the distinction between “living” and
a not yet “living” fetus became increasingly blurred. Further confusing the
issue was the fact that only fetal size and visible development could serve as
the basis for such a determination. A soul could not be discovered during
an autopsy. Furthermore, most investigations into abortion did not have
a corpse to examine. If investigators did locate a corpse, the abortion had
likely occurred well after the fetus had passed the moment when it might be
described as “living.” Without a unified definition of the beginning of life,
the question of whether the fetus had reached the stage of “living” or not
gave way to more pressing questions that physicians and lawyers thought
could be answered, such as the timing and cause of fetal or infant death.
The most important of these questions, with which both local examining
physicians and medical faculties tangled, was whether the corpse in ques-
tion was that of a fetus that had died before birth or a child who had died
postpartum. As examined above, this question could be addressed in sev-
eral ways. General observations about the length and weight of the corpse
helped to determine if it had reached a size and therefore stage of develop-
ment capable of living outside the womb, but such measurements could
vary widely. One of the leading experts on the subject, Gottfried Wilhelm
Ploucquet, a professor of medicine at the University of Tübingen, specified
a range of fourteen to twenty-one inches in length and six to nine pounds
in weight for the healthy size of a full-term newborn.74 Wilhelm Bucholtz,
court physician at Weimar, put birth weight between five and six pounds
and size at roughly the same length as suggested by Ploucquet.75 If the fetus
had not attained the lower limits of these ranges, then it was an issue of
potential abortion but not of infanticide.
Doctors also provided lists of other indications of a live birth, or at least
a full-term birth. Ploucquet stated that a full-term child was “plump, solid,
fair.” In contrast, a premature baby might be “gaunt, wrinkled, and the face
is therefore ugly.” Several physicians emphasized the necessity of examining
the fingernails; according to Ploucquet the nails of a full-term child, should
be “hard, strong, not very pliable, long, and of a reddish color.” Alterna-
tively, the fingernails of a premature child are short, “barely one Linie [1/12
of an inch] long, and the first joint is not completely covered; they are soft,
and pliable as writing paper, and one can see a blue color through them.”76
Christoph Gottlieb Büttner, a professor of medicine from Königsberg, enu-
merated ten attributes to check regarding the former viability of a corpse.
In addition to the length and weight of the body, one should also observe
the nails, the hair, the skin, the bones, the muscles, the umbilical cord, the
rigidity of the ears, and the size of the head and the fontanel.77
Integral to this discussion was the estimated age of the fetus at parturi-
tion and whether it could have survived outside of the womb at that age.
It was generally accepted that if the fetus had reached eight months, it had
a small chance of surviving postpartum. Büttner placed the slimmest pos-
sibility of survival at seven months. A child born after five or six months’
gestation, he wrote, would never open its eyes or cry, and would “lie always
in sleep,” before quickly expiring.78 Ploucquet agreed with Büttner that a
five- or six-month-old fetus could be born living and breathing but would
not live for long.79
The death of an almost full-term fetus made the distinction between
abortion and infanticide even fuzzier for many physicians. For Büttner, the
beginning of the seventh month of gestation, because it heralded potential
survival, demarcated a new phase, distinct from the first six months. In Büt-
tner’s view, a fetus born—either alive or dead—during the first six months
of pregnancy should be referred to as an Abortum, or unzeitiges Kind, an
abortion or an “untimely child.” If a fetus is delivered after the beginning of
the seventh month and before the end of the ninth month, Büttner refers to
it as a frühzeitiges kind, or a Partus praematurus, which would translate as
a “premature” infant, but one not without hope for survival. In essence, the
difference seems to have been between a too premature birth and a simply
premature birth.80
Jena court jurist Johann Schröter agreed with Büttner’s classification,
explaining that “one considers a child to be living and complete as soon as
the pregnancy has passed into the seventh month.”81 For Schröter the dis-
tinction may have had a basis in medical matters, but as a lawyer, Schröter
would have been most concerned with the definition of life from a legal
standpoint. By pinpointing the moment at which a fetus becomes “living,”
Schröter attempts to classify the crime in the terms of the Carolina. Given
the imprecision of the Carolina’s definition of life, Schröter chose to mea-
sure this moment of transition along the lines of medical thought, assigning
the distinction of a “living” fetus to one that could possibly survive outside
the womb.
Despite all of this careful deliberation, determining the age of the fetus at
birth remained a complicated matter because of the difficulty of pinpointing
conception. Ploucquet warned that a false calculation of the timing of con-
ception likely accounted for the more extreme reports of severely premature
babies surviving. He says that the word of the mother regarding the timing
of conception is not always to be believed, since she might not understand
fully the signs of pregnancy or how to accurately calculate gestation. The
best way to determine the duration of gestation, he said, was therefore to
examine the corpse itself,82 thus leading us in a circle back to the physical
inspection.
Observations about the maturity of the fetus, while useful, still could
not determine if the child had actually been born living; they could only
give an indication that it could have been living at the time of birth. Physi-
cians looked to other methods to discover if the child had actually lived
outside the womb. For this, they most frequently turned to the lung test. By
the mid-seventeenth century, the Lungenprobe had become the preeminent
method of determination if death was pre- or postnatal. According to most
physicians of the era, the lungs of a child who had been born alive, and
thus had taken in air, were somehow fundamentally transformed from their
pre-partum state. The lungs of a child born living, many said, were whit-
ish, thin, and light, while those of a child who had died before birth were
reddish, dense, and heavy. This idea dated back to the ancient Greek physi-
cian Galen, whose influence on the field of medicine still held strong in the
eighteenth century.
After careful observation of the lungs and other internal organs, physi-
cians performed the lung test. This practice involved placing the lungs in
water: if the lungs floated, the child had lived after birth, and if not, then
the corpse belonged to a fetus that had died in the womb and had been still-
born. Lungs that sank of course did not entirely exonerate the mother but
did mean that the prosecution was likely looking at a potential case of abor-
tion instead of infanticide. The lung test did not determine whether there
had been any sort of “foul play” involved in the death of the fetus or infant,
simply whether it had lived outside the womb, however briefly.
The theory behind the lung test was the idea of a fundamental shift in
bodily functions that occurred at childbirth. Ploucquet describes this shift
and the resultant change in the physical attributes of the lungs as follows:
After the birth, there are two main changes in a living child: namely, the
intake of breath, and the alteration of the circulation. In the mother’s
womb, the child is surrounded by water and therefore, if it could make
the motions of drawing in breath, it would pull water into its lungs. As
soon as it comes into the open air, it naturally begins to draw in breath,
or air into the windpipes and into the lungs; through this, the smallest
branches of the windpipes and the ends thereof are stretched out, the
blood vessels get more room, and are set in a position to hold a greater
amount of blood in them: this is the greatest difference between a lung
in which no air has yet been drawn, and one which has drawn breath.83
The lung test was recommended by well-educated university physicians and

was practiced by local city-appointed physicians in their forensic examina-
tions. If we return one last time to the 1692 case of Anna Barbara Hauin,
seen at the beginning of this chapter, we see that her final fate hinged upon
the performance of a lung test on the corpse of her newborn, which proved
to the examining physician that the child had been born living. The results
of the lung test, combined with the rest of the autopsy, proved too much for
Anna Barbara to defend herself against, and she was executed two months
after her arrest.84 For many like Anna Barbara, the lung test was the decisive
evidence in their cases. Local physicians treated the lung test as definitive,
and any testimony that did not conform to the test’s results was not to be
trusted.
By the late eighteenth century, however, the lung test had come under
closer scrutiny by physicians across Germany. Indeed, physicians had long
noted imperfections in this method, even as they still relied on it. They
questioned its accuracy, noting the possibility of false negatives or false
positives. They raised concerns about the numerous circumstances that
might cause the lung test to show false results. Christoph Büttner explained
how decomposition could alter the outcome of the lung test: “it is possible
that the lungs of a child who was truly stillborn might float in water, if
the lungs are very rotten, because the decomposition of the entire body
and also of the lungs makes them [the lungs] light, so that the latter float
in water, as if they had really taken in air.”85 On the other hand, Büttner
also claims that the lungs of a child who was born living, but had been suf-
focated immediately, would sink.86 He clarified that “one should not look
only at whether the lungs float, nor only at the pale red color of the same,
nor only at the expansion of the alveoli, but should take all three together,”
in order to make a ruling on whether the lungs had breathed air.87 Wilhelm
Bucholtz also added to the list of conditions that might complicate the
lung test: “with a child who had lived after birth and had taken air, one
observes that the lungs float in water, only if they have no hardening or
buildup of pus or blood clots, which becomes apparent when the lungs
are cut open.”88 Several physicians provided multiple examples from their
own forensic examinations of times when the results of the lung test were
apparently contradicted by other findings from the autopsy or information
from witness statements.
Perhaps no one was more skeptical of the lung test than Gottfried Plouc-
quet. As a leading expert in forensic examination, Ploucquet himself made
frequent use of the lung test. His close study of this practice and its outcomes
led him to propose a new method, which he explained in his 1781 work,
De nova pulmonum docimasia. Ploucquet suggests that rather than simply
testing the whole lungs and then pieces of the lungs, which can only be sug-
gestive of an answer and not a definitive conclusion, that examining physi-
cians instead consider the ratio of body weight to lung weight. This method,
Ploucquet argued, would provide the same information that the original
lung test was supposed to: whether or not the lungs had respired. Plouc-
quet’s new method was based on his theory that lungs that had respired had
also experienced an increase in blood flow and therefore were heavier than
lungs that had not respired.89
In fact, the identification of the lung test’s deficiencies in the 1770s and
1780s was a sign of greater changes taking place in the legal and medical
worlds, as forensic and judicial standards across Germany were raised.90
The problem with the lung test was that despite all of the evidence to the
contrary, no other method purported to so definitively answer the all-impor-
tant question of when death had occurred. But the questions raised about
the lung test were reflective of a growing hesitancy to rely on old methods
and to make decisive declarations about the state of infant corpses. This
hesitancy would result in severe prosecutorial complications as the medico-
forensic field had grown in importance.
Without a clear physician’s statement that the infant had died an unnatu-
ral death, it became more difficult for the prosecution to reach the minimum
standards of proof to proceed to torture. This trend went hand in hand with
the increasing abhorrence expressed toward the use of torture in general,
especially in the wake of Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria’s famous 1764 con-
demnation. Physician Peter Camper discussed these frustrations with both the
lung test and torture in his 1777 work Examination of the Signs of Life and
Death in Newborn Children. Camper repeatedly encouraged extreme caution
in infanticide cases for multiple reasons. In addition to his repeated concerns
about the validity of the lung test, he also denigrated the use of torture, espe-
cially when investigating infanticide. He strongly refuted others who suggested
using torture to confirm the findings of the increasingly distrusted lung test:
Who does not shudder at this thought [of the use of torture]? Must
torture, this shameful tool which robs humanity of its honor, must the
gruesome torture make worse the doubt and suffering of the unfortu-
nate, these sorrowful creatures [the mothers]? Which bloody horrors
will one pile on each other in order to protect virtue?91
Camper continued, explaining why he would not suggest torture in the case
of lungs that sink:
Torture is such a bitter word for our ears, we who live in a century in
which the tender feelings have flowed into our culture, and at least in
cases in which the lungs sink, I want to preclude this [torture].92
Camper was one of many who began to urge caution, both in relation to
infanticide investigations and the lung test in particular and to torture more
generally.
Furthermore, the inescapable problem with the lung test was not just that
it was unreliable but that it still did not answer the question of whether the
mother had actually done anything to cause the death of her fetus or child.
For Camper, Ploucquet, and many others, these concerns outweighed the
benefits offered by the use of the lung test, and they called for improved
methods and alternatives to the traditional processes.
The discussion surrounding the lung test in many ways embodied the
concerns of late-eighteenth century physicians and lawyers regarding infan-
ticide and abortion trials. Confidence in medical testimony became shakier
as concerns about the lung test, and forensics more generally, grew. At the
same time, trust also declined in the only other method of confirming infor-
mation—through interrogation under torture. Up until this point, forensics
and torture had worked hand in hand; as one became less reliable, so did
the other. Infanticide and abortion were just one arena in which questions
of evidence and torture arose and from which a new discussion of criminal
procedure and punishment grew. This confluence would lead inevitably to
the decline in executions for the crimes of infanticide and abortion.93
THE DEBATE ABOUT PUNISHMENT
As the use of torture declined, jurists also had to rethink the role of capital pun-
ishment, and this became the focus of legal debates about infanticide by the late
eighteenth century. Execution was less likely when torture was not employed,
but the decline in torture was not the only reason for the decline in the death
penalty, especially when it came to infanticide. The use of torture in infanticide
trials largely conforms to John Langbein’s thesis about the decline of torture in
that it was not necessarily abhorrence at torture alone that led to its disuse but
rather the declining need for torture given the decline in use of execution.94
For many who debated capital punishment, especially when it came to
infanticide and abortion, the concern focused primarily on the effectiveness
of the punishment: whether execution actually deterred further crimes. The
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries had already witnessed calls for,
if not more severe punishments, at least the stricter enforcement of those
already prescribed. The primary concern for much of the early modern
period was to prevent further infanticides and abortions. For example, as
late as 1683, Johann Karl Naeve still advocated the use of one of the harsh-
est methods of execution existent: the punishment of drowning in a sack;
in his treatise he spends a great deal of effort discussing the Roman origins
of the punishment as well as the specifics of implementing it. For him, the
argument that the Romans used the punishment of the sack legitimized the
practice.95 Benedict Carpzov, who also advocated the use of the punishment
of the sack, extensively detailed the symbolism behind the various animals
that were supposed to be sewn up into the sack with the convicted child-
murderer. The dog, for example, as man’s faithful companion, symbolized
the infidelity inherent in the crime. Because of the terror associated with
this punishment as well as its symbolism, it was appropriate for the horrific
crime of infanticide.96 The detailed discussion of this terribly impractical
punishment—both Naeve and Carpzov discuss various more feasible, but
still acceptable, alternatives—highlights the central role that assigning the
proper punishment had in the judicial process.
Execution with the sack, at least as outlined in these theoretical works,
does not seem to have ever been used in the early modern period, at least
for infanticide. Likewise, the Carolina-prescribed punishment of live burial
was also employed extremely infrequently; the Carolina’s secondary pun-
ishment for infanticide, drowning (without the sack or animals), was occa-
sionally used, albeit rarely. Instead, throughout Germany child-murderers
were almost always beheaded. This method of execution already showed
more leniency than prescribed in the law code and recommended by law-
yers. A “lesser” punishment allowed local authorities to claim, as was fre-
quently seen in the Augsburg decrees of execution, that they were acting out
of mercy, “aus Gnaden.” When it came to infanticide, it seems that those
charged with enforcing the law were stuck between the belief that more
severe punishments were more likely to deter crime and the discomfort of
the more brutal forms of execution, particularly when it came to young
women, and that beheading served as a compromise.
But by the late eighteenth century, not only was the efficacy of capi-
tal punishment as a deterrent questioned, but some of the more prominent
voices of enlightened reform began to criticize any form of execution as
inhumane and barbaric. Even the “more humane” punishment of beheading
was questioned as leaders called for reform; a small number of territories
even abolished the death penalty altogether. Alternate punishments were
proposed, along with the idea of rehabilitation. Execution might be replaced
with sentences to work in the galleys or exile to the colonies. Women found
guilty of infanticide or abortion were, especially by 1800, most often sen-
tenced to another relatively new innovation in punishment: the workhouse.
The advent of the workhouse as a locus of punishment and theoretical reha-
bilitation reflected major developments in the law and views of the purpose
of punishment that grew in part out of the eighteenth-century debate about
infanticide and abortion, and will be discussed in the next chapter.
CONCLUSIONS
What we begin to see in the seventeenth century, and what is readily appar-
ent by the middle of the eighteenth century, is that the increased involve-
ment of professionally trained lawyers and physicians, which was intended
to aid in clarifying certain aspects of the investigations, resulted instead
in the further complication of infanticide and abortion investigations. As
medical knowledge advanced, defining and confirming the crime from a
medical standpoint became much more difficult. Methods such as the lung
test aimed to provide certainty but eventually resulted in greater confusion.
The more physicians discovered, the more they began to realize remained
a mystery. In turn, this difficulty introduced a greater hesitancy on the
legal side of matters, as the minimum standard of evidence for prosecu-
tion and torture became harder to reach. Despite the increasing interaction
between local practitioners and highly-educated university professors, the
medical and legal experts intended to aid progress in criminal trials had
actually, on a larger scale, accomplished just the opposite. Simultaneously,
the Enlightenment-era critiques of torture and the death penalty started to
throw into question the whole prosecutorial and punitive system of early
modern Europe.
In Augsburg and across the Holy Roman Empire, women were still tor-
tured and executed for infanticide well into the second half of the eighteenth
century, yet the numbers of both prosecutions and executions were dwin-
dling. In place of traditional responses to infanticide, by the 1740s and 1750s,
a new attitude toward the crime was emerging. This new attitude not only
reflected the developments in the legal and medical fields but was also indica-
tive of an initially subtle shift in broader cultural perceptions of the crime of
infanticide and of gender roles. By the end of the eighteenth century, women
would no longer be held as directly responsible for the infanticides and abor-
tions they committed. Instead of one of innocent babies falling victim to
heartless, wanton women, the story of infanticide would transform into that
of women who were the helpless victims of cruel, seductive men. If child-
murderesses were not entirely to blame, and were perhaps even themselves
a type of victim, then their executions were unconscionable and unpopular.
These more sympathetic murderesses were turned into literary heroines as a
new sensationalism regarding infanticide gripped Germany before judicial
reforms ended execution for infanticide and abortion almost entirely.
NOTES
1. Stadtarchiv Augsburg (StadtAA), Urgichten, Anna Barbara Hauin, 31 July

1692.
Ancien Régime (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 5.
3. Mary Wessling, “Infanticide Trials and Forensic Medicine: Württemberg,
1757–93,” in Michael Clark and Catherine Crawford (eds), Legal Medicine in
History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 120.
4. Gerhard Gensthaler, Das Medizinalwesen der Freien Reichsstadt Augsburg bis
zum 16. Jahrhundert (Augsburg: Mühlberger, 1973).
5. Merry Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 79–83.
6. Michael O’Dowd and Elliot Philipp, The History of Obstetrics and Gynaecol-
ogy (New York: The Parthenon Publishing Group, 1994), 349, 644. SstBA,
Med 3745: Eucharius Rößlin, Der Schwangeren frawen und Hebammen
Rosengarte (Augsburg: Stayner, 1529).
7. StadtAA, Collegium Medicum, Nr. 18 Hebammen und Obfrauen, Karton 15,
“Deß Heiligen Röm Reichs-Stadt Ulm, Widerholt- und erneuerte Ordnung,
Die Oberhändige Frauen, Heb-Ammen und Führerin betreffend.”
“Deß Heiligen Röm Reichs-Stadt Ulm, Widerholt- und erneuerte Ordnung,
Die Oberhändige Frauen, Heb-Ammen und Führerin betreffend.”
Nr. 8.
10. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Anna Maria Pierlerin 16 July 1645.
StadtAA, Collegium Medicum, Nr. 17 Hebammen und Obfrauen, Karton
14, Anna Maria Pierlerin Urgicht.
11. SStBA, 2 Stw 24, Reformation guter Policey/ Zu Augspurg/1548 aufgericht, 403.
12. Gensthaler, Das Medizinalwesen.
13. StadtAA, Collegium Medicum, “Eines Hochedlen und Hochweisen Raths des
Heil. Röm. Reichs Stadt Augsburg Apotheker-Ordnung, erneuert im Jahr 1761.”

15. Ulinka Rublack, “Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Female Body in Early Mod-
ern Germany,” Past & Present 150, no. 1 (February 1996), 84–110.
16. StadtAA, Urgichten, Barbara Beürin, 26 March 1585.
17. Cathy McClive, Menstruation and Procreation in Early Modern France (Burl-
ington, VT: Ashgate, 2015).
18. Ulinka Rublack, “The Public Body: Policing Abortion in Early Modern Ger-
many,” in Lynn Abrams and Elizabeth Harvey (eds) Gender Relations in
German History: Power, Agency and Experience from the Sixteenth to the
Twentieth Century (London: University College London Press, 1996), 66.
19. For a specific example, see StadtAA, Strafbücher, Ursula Millerin, 16 May
1637. For more such coded language for abortions, see John Riddle, Contra-
ception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1992) and Eve’s Herbs: A History of Contraception
and Abortion in the West (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997).
20. StadtAA, Urgichten, Appolonia Heringin, 1 March 1601.
21. Riddle, Eve’s Herbs.
22. Rublack, “The Public Body,” 64–66.
24. StadtAA, Urgichten, Anna Nilgin, 21 February 1594.
25. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Ursula Millerin, 16 May 1637.
26. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Ursula Millerin, 16 May 1637.
Wie den schmerzen darmit zulegen und demnach am Sontag von Georgy
gegen abendt ungefahr umb 8 uhr, etwas schier eines Ganss ay gross, doch
ohne einichen zwang, so sy ihr selbs angethon het, von ihr gangen, und
sie gleich wol verspirt, das dasselbigen ding ain haut gehabt . . . sey aller
zermottert gewesen, hab khain leben davon vermerkht, aber gleichwol
die anzaig eines Kindts daran gesehen, nemblich die hendlein, fiesslein
und den Köpfle . . . so hat sie solches in ain weiss tiechle eingewikhlet,
unnd am Affermontag darnach selbs in Lech beim undern schlachthauss
geworffen, volgents ist am donnerstag an St. Georgen abendt in ihrem
Sailers laden, auch gestokht blueth von ihr gangen, schier ihr gluetscher-
ben voll . . . hat dasselb gestokht bluet, welliches ain runder Knipfel unge-
fehr ainen faust gross war hier und her Khert, aber nichts anders daran
befunden, alss dass es ein gestokhtes bluet gewesen, sp sich in ihrem leib,
wegen so lange auss geblibenen monatlichen Zeit zusamen gestopft und
versamblet möcht haben, und solliches blueth auch gegen nachts, durch
ihr dienstmegdle, in Lech schitten lassens.
StadtAA, Strafbücher, Jeremias Bair, 4 September 1608.
28. StadtAA, Urgichten, Ursula Millerin, 16 May 1637.
Wir in underthenigkeit zu berichten, das die lorbeer zu vertreibung der
frucht nicht für sich selbst sonder accidentaliter ratione quantitatis per
rebeorem immodertum osum allein in den hizigen und etlichen massen
temperrirten naturen würcklich sein mögen, in bedenckung weib die lor-
beer diser aigenschafft sein ds sie auch beneben offt und vilgebraucht der
weiber ordenliche zeit starck und hefftig treiben, auch die leibsfrüchten
leichtlich vertreiben könden.
29. See for example, StadtAA, Strafbücher, Jeremias Dietrich und Martha Pfei-
fferin, 6 May 1604.
30. Stadtarchiv Nördlingen, Kriminalakten, Margarete Leonhartin, 1621.
31. StadtAN, Kriminalakten, Margarete Leonhartin, 1621.

32. StadtAA, Urgichten, Maria Grueberin, 16 June 1674.
33. StadtAA, Urgichten, Anna Barbara Hauin, 31 July 1692.
StadtAA, Strafbücher, Anna Barbara Hauin, 31 July 1692.
34. StadtAA, Urgichten, Margareth Tröstin, 16 July 1609.
35. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Maria Dottweiler, 17 September 1665.
StadtAA, Urgichten, Maria Dottweiler, 17 September 1665.
36. StadtAA, Urgichten, Cyprian Wiser, 26 September 1693.
37. Wessling, “Infanticide Trials and Forensic Medicine,” 132
38. Benedict Carpzov, Practica Nova Imperialis Saxonica Rerum Criminalium
(Goldbach: Keip Verlag, 2000), 63–85.
39. William Myers, Death and a Maiden: Infanticide and the Tragical History
of Grethe Schmidt (Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2011),
199–201.
40. SStBA, Diss Jur 1329, Johann Karl Naeve, Tractatio Iuridica, De Parricido &
Infanticidio (1683) (Halle: Hendelius, 1731).
41. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich (BSBM), 2 Diss. 1670, Wolfgang Adam
Schoepf, Dissertationem Inauguralem de Infanticidio Praesumto (Tübingen:
Schammianis, 1737).
42. Martin Lipenius, Bibliotheca Realis Iuridica (Frankfurt: Friedrich, 1679); Bib-
liotheca Realis Medica (Frankfurt: Friedrich, 1679).
43. BSBM, 4 Diss 3898, 7, Joseph Christian Nölting, Dissertatio Inauguralis Med-
ico-Forensis de embryoctonia et infanticidio (Göttingen: Grape, 1805); SStBA,
Diss Med 3967, Georg Ernst Stahl, Dissertatio inauguralis medica, De abortu
& foetu mortuo (Halle: Henckel, 1708); SStBA, Diss Med 4155, Sigismund
Ruprecht Sultzberger, Dissrtatio medica inauguralis de abortu (Leipzig: Hahn,
1669).
44. SStBA, Diss Med 1174, Johann Jakob Fick, Dissertationem hanc de Abortu
Epidemico (Jena: Gollner, 1697).
45. SStBA, Diss Med 862, Heinrich Friedrich Delius, Sugillatio quatenus infantici-
dii indicium (Erlangen: Camerarius, 1751).
46. SStBA, Diss Med 195, Michael Alberti, Dissertatio Inauguralis Medico-Foren-
sis, De Abortus violenti modis & signis, Halle, 1730.
47. Sönke Lorenz, Aktenversendung und Hexenprozeß (Frankfurt: Lang, 1982),
27–28.
48. Marianne Sauter, “Juristische Konsilien,” in Christian Keitel and Regina Keyler
(eds), Serielle Quellen in südwestdeutschen Archiven. Eine Handreichung für
die Benutzerinnen und Benutzer südwestdeutscher Archive (2005), accessed
June 4, 2015, http://www.boa-bw.de/jspview/downloads/frei/bsz306616858/0/
www.uni-tuebingen.de/IfGL/veroeff/digital/serquell/konsilien.htm.
49. Universitätsarchiv Tübingen (UAT), UAT, Konsilien der Juristischen Fakultät,
84/3 #54, 29 September 1611.
50. UAT, Konsilien der Juristischen Fakultät, 84/5 #113, 31 March 1619.
51. UAT, Konsilien der Juristischen Fakultät, 84/3 #98, 29 April 1611.
52. See for example, UAT, Konsilien der Juristischen Fakultät, 84/3 #191, 14
March 1613.
53. UAT, Konsilien der Juristischen Fakultät, 84/7 #81, 22 August 1630.
54. UAT, Konsilien der Juristischen Fakultät, 84/7 #35, 22 April 1630.
55. UAT, Konsilien der Juristischen Fakultät, 84/76 I #109, October 1745.
56. Kathy Stuart, “Suicide by Proxy: The Unintended Consequences of Public
Executions in Eighteenth-Century Germany,” Central European History 41,
no. 3 (2008), 413–445.
Tyge Krogh, A Lutheran Plague: Murdering to Die in the Eighteenth Cen-
tury (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

57. See, for example, Myers’ Death and a Maiden, in which a case of infanticide
fed into an ongoing battle over jurisdiction between the city of Brunswick and
the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In this case the city council of Brunswick
also consulted the legal faculty at the University of Helmstedt more than once.
58. UAT, Konsilien der Juristischen Fakultät, 84/75 #397, 10 June 1738.
StadtAN, Ratsprotokolle, 1738.
59. Wessling, “Infanticide Trials and Forensic Medicine.”
60. Ibid.
61. Mary Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), 220–224.
Monica Green, Making Women’s Medicine Masculine: The Rise of Male
Authority in Pre-Modern Gynaecology (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2008), 246–287.
62. Wilhelm Bucholtz, Beyträge zur gerichtlichen Arzneygelahrheit und zur medi-
cinischen Polizey (Weimar: Hoffmann, 1793), vol. 4, 223.
63. Katharine Park, Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins
of Human Dissection (New York: Zone Books, 2006), 103–106. See also
McClive, Menstruation and Procreation in Early Modern France.
64. StadtAA, Urgichten, Anna Schaidhofin, 15 January 1572.
65. StadtAA, Urgichten, Theresia Seizen, 21 April 1725.
66. Park, Secrets of Women, 103–106.
67. SStBA, Med 4857, Barbara Widenmann, Kurtze/ Jedoch hinlängliche und
gründliche Anweisung Christlicher Hebammen (Augsburg: Lotter, 1735),
9–11.
68. Bucholtz, Beyträge, vol. 4, 223. “Alle diesen Umstaenden nach zu schlies-
sen, kann ich diese Person für jetzt nicht uer [sic] schwanger erkennen, ob ich
gleich auch nicht mit Gewissheit behaupten will, dass sie es nicht ist.”
Medieval Law (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012).
70. Carpzov, Practica Nova, 78–79.
71. Aristotle, The History of Animals, Book VII, Chapter 3, 583b; from Jonathan
Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle The Revised Oxford Transla-
tion, Volume One Bollingen Series LXXI–2 (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1984).
72. Riddle, Eve’s Herbs, 95–95.
73. Christoph Gottfried Büttner Vollständige Anweisung wie durch anzustellende
Besichtigungen ein verübter Kindermord auszumetteln sey (Königsberg: Har-
tung, 1771), 19.
Gottfried Wilhelm Ploucquet, Abhandlung über die gewaltsame Todesarten,
Als ein Beitrag zu der medizinischen Rechtsgelahrtheit (Tübingen: Jakob
Friedrich Heerbrandt, 1777), 200–204.
See also Müller, The Criminalization of Abortion.
74. Ploucquet, Abhandlung, 124–126.
75. Bucholtz, Beyträge, vol. 3, 24.
76. Ploucquet, Abhandlung, 126.
77. Büttner, Vollständige Anweisung, 14.
78. Ibid., 8, 16–17.
81. Johann Schröter, Von der Abtreibung der Kinder in Vermischte juristische
Abhandlungen zur Erläuterung des deutschen Privat- Kirchen-und peinlichen
Rechts (Halle: Gebauer, 1786), 431.

83. Ibid., 141. “Nach der Geburt gehen ordentlicher Weise zwey hauptsächliche
Veränderungen mit einem lebenden Kinde für, nemlich das Athemholen, und
die Abänderung des Kreisslauffes. In Mutterleib ist das Kind mit Wasser umge-
ben, und würde folglich, wann es die zum Athemholen erforderliche Bewegun-
gen machen könnte, nicht Luft, sondern Wasser in die Lunge ziehen. A) Sobald
es aber an die freye Luft kommt, so fängt es gewöhnlicher Weise an, Athem zu
holen, oder Luft in die Luftröhre und in die Lunge zu ziehen; Hiedurch werden
die kleinsten Zweige der Luftröhre und die Enden derselben zum erstenmahl
ausgedehnt, die Blutgefässe bekommen mehr Raum, und werden in den Stand
gesetzt, eine grössere Masse von Blut in sich zu fassen: Daher ensteht der grosse
Unterschied zwischen einer Lunge, in welche noch keine Luft gedrungen, und
einer solchen, welche Athem geschöpft hat.”
84. StadtAA, Urgichten, Anna Barbara Hauin, 31 July 1692.
StadtAA, Strafbücher, Anna Barbara Hauin, 31 July 1692.
85. Christoph Gottfried Büttner, Erörterung einiger, bey Gelegenheit einer todtge-
bohrnen zweyköpffigen und einleibigen unreiffen menschlichen Frucht, in die
rechtliche Artzney-Gelahrtheit einschlagenden, die Reiffe eines in der Geähr-
mutter verhandenen Kindes und deren Stöhrung, die Lungen-Probe todt oder
lebendig gebohrner, todt oder lebendig ins Wasser geworffener, erstickter, und
so wohl wegen ohnverbundener Nabelschnur, als andern äussern Verletzungen
ertödteter Kinder, betreffenden Fragen (Königsberg: Hartung, 1765), 11. “Es
kan eines würcklich todt gebohrnen Kindes Lunge im Wasser schwimmen,
wann dieselbe sehr faul ist, weil die Fäulung den gantzen Cörper, also auch die
Lungen leicht macht, dass letztere alsdenn im Wasser schwimmen, als solche,
die würcklich Luft eingezogen haben.”
87. Ibid., 42. “. . . dass man weder auf das Schwimmen der Lungen allein, noch
auf die blassrothe Farbe derselben allein, noch auf die Ausdehnung der Lun-
genblaeschen allein sehen, sondern alle drey zusammen nehmen.”
88. Bucholtz, vol. 3, 24. “Bey einem Kinde, das nach der Geburt gelebt und Othem
geholt hat, beobachtet man, dass dessen Lungen im Wasser schwimmen, wenn
nemlich keine Verhaertungen oder Anhaeufungen von Eiter oder Blutklumpen
in den Lungen sind, welches sich aber bey der Zerschneidung der Lungen sehr
bald offenbaret.”
89. Gottfried Wilhelm Ploucquet, De nova pulmonum docimasia (Tübingen,
1782). Wessling, “Infanticide Trials and Forensic Medicine,” 135–137.
90. Wessling, “Infanticide Trials and Forensic Medicine,” 135–137.
91. Peter Camper, Abhandlung von den Kennzeichen des Lebens und des Todes
bey neugebornen Kindern: nebst einigen Gedanken über die Strafen des
Kindermords (Frankfurt: Brönner, 1777), 9. “Wen schaudert nicht bey die-
sem Gedanken? Muss die folter, dieses die Menschlichkeit so entehrende, so
schändliche Werkzeug, muss die grausame Folter die Verzweiflung und das
Elend dieser Unglückseeligen, dieser harmvollen Geschöpfe noch vergrösern?
Welche blutige Grausamkeiten häufet man nicht aufeinander, die Tugend zu
schützen?”
92. Camper, 106. “Das Foltern ist ein so rauhes Wort für unsere Ohren, die wir
in einem Jahrhundert leben, worin uns die Kultur zärtlichere Empfindungen
eingeflösset hat, und diesem wollte ich wenigstens in diesem Falle vorbeugen,
wenn die Lungen sinken.”
93. On the decline of torture, see Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof.
94. Ibid.
95. SStBA, Naeve, Tractatio Iuridica.
96. Carpzov, Practica Nova, 5–6.

5 “Sighs of the Poor Sinner”
Sensationalism and Enlightenment
Sighs of the Poor Sinner: Seufzer der Armen Sünderin.

What misery has taken place! Welch Jammer ists, also abscheiden!
What misery, when one so dies: Welch Jammer, wann man also stirbt:
it brings agony and suffering to the Dieß bringt der Seele Qual und
soul Leiden
when the body is thus lost: Wann so der Körper hin verdirbt:
so listen, answer my prayers, dear Drum hör, erhör mich lieber Gott
God
and grant me mercy in my death. Und schenk mir Gnad in meinem Tod.
Merciful father see your child, Barmherziger Vater schau dein Kinde,
who now flees to your goodness; Daß jezt zu deiner Güte flieht;
do not forsake her for her sins, Verlaß es nicht ob seiner Sünde,
Your spirit strives for my salvation: Dein Geist sey um mein Heil bemüht:
oh Holy Spirit you make the way, Ach heiliger Geist mach du die Bahn,
so that I can turn to heaven.1 Daß ich zum Himmel wandeln kan.
These words were attributed to a young woman named Anna Katharina

Türkin, who was executed for infanticide in Ulm in 1783. The pamphlet in
which this poem was printed reported Anna Katharina’s crime to the people
of Ulm. It also included a lengthy and graphic description of her crime,
including how she smashed the baby’s head on a bench, and how “because
after this the child still floundered a bit with its feet, she hit it a second
time,” and then threw the baby in the privy. The pamphlet story concludes
with her sentence to death by the sword. The poem itself appears as a first-
person narrative of Anna Katharina’s religious conversion before her death;
her words assure the reader of the salvation possible for true and repentant
believers despite even their gravest sins.
The attachment of a hopeful message to infanticide cases was new
to the late eighteenth century and reflected not a change in the religious
perspective on the crime but a major shift in the way the criminals them-
selves were viewed by society. As jurists debated the best way to punish
child-murderesses, the death penalty more generally was also coming into
question. For many, execution seemed too harsh for women who might be
“Sighs of the Poor Sinner” 151
considered more unfortunate than sinful. Instead of the thoughtless, self-
ish, and wanton mother seen in the Carolina and presented in the court
records, the “poor sinner” above suffers under the weight of her guilt. Her
tormented conscience allows hope for her redemption. This new interpre-
tation of child-murderesses appeared over and over again in the late eigh-
teenth century in a new round of sensationalized crime reports. This new
kind of victim was not unique to crime reports. It was also a theme taken
up by the highest echelons of German literature. The poets of the Sturm

und Drang movement in the late eighteenth century, including Goethe and
Schiller, were captivated by the crime of infanticide and the character of the
suffering, unwed, and murderous mother.
By the 1770s, the fascination with infanticide reached a fever pitch
both in the literary world and beyond. It was an age of the idea of prog-
ress, the era of the Enlightenment, and advocates of change seized infanti-
cide as a cause-célèbre and a chance to explore the idea of societal, moral,
and legal reformation. Reformers took a new approach: if the underly-
ing cause of infanticide was not heartless mothers but rather inhumane
laws and societal expectations, then the transformation of these laws and
expectations would lead to the reduction of infanticide. The renewed
interest in infanticide therefore led not just to a flurry of new literature in
a variety of genres but also to a tremendous response in the legal field and
a reexamination of criminal procedure, punishment, and the relationship
between sexuality and the law, all through the new perspective of women
as naïve, helpless, and weak victims. Leading in to the eighteenth century,
views about women’s role in the family and in society were changing,
and these changes became apparent in how various groups discussed the
largely female crime of infanticide. The discussion occurred at all levels
of society.
LOCAL REPORTS
Published reports of criminal cases in the eighteenth century were very dif-
ferent from the short broadsides of the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-
ries. In the eighteenth century, such pamphlets took on a more authoritative
tone. These publications were generally reproductions of the court’s official
declaration of the crime and denunciation of the criminal. These pamphlets
served to publicize the crimes of an executed criminal, to justify the execu-
tion, and to warn others against committing such crimes. The inclusion of
an official announcement from the court lent an air of authority to the rest
of the material, which often contained more liberal accounts of the crime
and supposed quotations of the condemned criminal’s words. But most sig-
nificantly, the major change in all of these publications is a new interpreta-
tion of infanticide as a crime resulting from unfortunate circumstances and
a new portrait of child-killers as sympathetic and capable of redemption.
The focus was now on the individual child-killer as a sinner-turned-martyr
and on sharing the message of the possibility of redemption.
BARBARA GRUBERIN
In Augsburg in 1765, twenty-two-year-old Barbara Gruberin suffocated her

newborn daughter under her bed. Appended to Barbara’s official denun-

ciation is a six page long “departure-speech.” The author of the pamphlet
presents this speech as if Barbara had given it herself immediately before
her execution, as she stood before the Augsburg town hall. Such gallows
speeches from the lips of convicted murderer presented a prime opportunity
to impart messages about the dangers of sin. In her supposed speech, Bar-
bara warned other “impudent youths” and “wicked women” to see her and
recognize the consequences of lasciviousness and insolence:
It was I, who, on the 16th of March, 1765, gave birth to a healthy and
living baby, who was, unfortunately! conceived in dishonor; but I was
not released from the bonds and ties of Satan, through which I was
forced to do his will; then, instead of true repentance and conversion
to the worthy bonds of Jesus the savior of all sinners, to earnestly seek
mercy, forgiveness, salvation, and freedom, I let myself be even more
tightly bound and fettered to Satan according to his and my will; so that
I first concealed my shameful pregnancy from people; then my secret
parturition I godlessly hid, and finally also, oh alas! wrapped my inno-
cent child in an apron, and stuck it under a straw sack, so that it would
miserably suffocate in its blood and bleed to death. Oh foolish deed! Oh
shocking outrage! Oh inhuman murder! I let an innocent child, my own
child, without mercy or compassion, without the feeling of motherly
love and devotion, be destroyed and die!
But more significantly, Barbara goes on to express her hope for salvation
despite her misdeeds:
But now I have comprehended, according to divine and man’s laws,

what my shameful, what my horrifying deeds are worth. OH GOD! OH
JESUS! Have mercy on me. As the blood of my child who choked on his
blood cries out for vengeance against me: Ah! so let your conciliatory
blood . . . cry out for me to God over mercy and forgiveness. I will be led
bound and chained to death, ah Oh Jesus through your bonds make me
free and free me from the bonds of my sin, truly free, yes eternally free,
so that I do not have to die forever, but instead live forever with you.2
Published gallows speeches were not new to the eighteenth century by

any means, emerging in England as early as 1600,3 but what was new
at least in Germany was the attribution of such speeches to condemned
child-murderesses. Through the depiction of Barbara as a repentant crimi-
nal concerned only with salvation, the audience is led to feel sympathy,
not scorn. Even though the speech might not be her own words, she is
given these words and a voice; the audience is invited to put themselves
in Barbara’s place, to see themselves as equally capable of both sin and
redemption.
While such depictions likely ensured good sales for the printers, and this
motivation cannot be ignored, what becomes apparent is that the printers were
picking up on and contributing to a new perception of infanticide and par-
ticularly of child-murderesses. Barbara was not a brazen and selfish woman,
but a repentant sinner, just like the rest of society. If even Barbara, who killed
her own flesh and blood, could believe in the possibility of redemption, then
this opportunity might await anyone. She knew the penalty for her crime and
welcomed it as she should in retribution for and purgation of her sins. She
was to be pitied and prayed for, but not despised. Barbara was also not alone;
many child-murderesses now achieved posthumous fame thanks to these pub-
lications. And in all of them, redemption played a key role.
SAMUEL KECK
One of the most intriguing examples of this new genre was the case of
Samuel Keck. On December 20, 1710, the twenty-year-old merchant’s
apprentice was decapitated and strung up on the wheel for the murder of
his pregnant former lover, Jacobina Bäurin. Although Samuel’s case comes
from the early eighteenth century, we can already see some of the themes—
evident in Barbara Gruberin’s material—that would be popularized by the
second half of the century and that reflected society’s changing ideas about
crime and punishment. Despite his conviction and execution for what all
accounts referred to as a heinous crime, Samuel was represented in almost
a heroic vein. The story of his fall and redemption proved extraordinarily
popular and provided ample material for printers to sell their sensationalist
pieces. Samuel’s crime led to a striking burst of publication, inspiring mul-
tiple pamphlets with songs, poems, and speeches, surpassing in volume any
other crime in early modern Augsburg. His crime was indeed shocking, but
it was also the connections his crime had to the ever-captivating crime of
infanticide that resulted in the intense frenzy of publication.
Two weeks before his execution, Samuel had confronted Jacobina in order
to persuade her not to name him as the father of her child. She was unwill-
ing, and Samuel “took a knife and gave her multiple stabs and cuts . . . and
then hauled her to the water and threw her in . . . he killed Jacobina Bäurin
and also the living child in her womb.”4 Another account provides further
details, describing what Samuel did next:
[He] then threw her into the flowing water; then she floated into the
city and was pulled out while she was still warm; immediately after the
murder he came into the city after it was opened, and the next day the
8th around 11 o’clock impelled by his conscience, he gave himself over
to arrest and freely admitted everything, and only asked for a quick and
merciful judgment, which took place on the 20th; his head was chopped
off, and his body was placed on a wheel for four weeks.5
Some of these publications took a dark tone and used Samuel’s actions to
warn about the consequences of sin. In a text labeled as Samuel’s “departure

speech,” he warns children not to follow in his footsteps and plays on the
meaning of his last name, Keck, which translates as bold or brash:
But open your eyes, foolish youth! See in me, as in a mirror, and observe
how my beautiful given name, Samuel, have I forgotten, my family name
serves me, for it happens that I am called Keck. Oh unhappy boldness!
Which aggrieves my parents until death.6
Yet the overall tone of most of the publications is comforting, as Samuel

expresses his repentance and his hope for his impending salvation after
death:
Shame, fear and pain are conquered, Schmach/ Angst und Schmertz ist
überwunden
Through the solace of God’s word, Durch Trost/ den mir gab Gottes Wort
I longingly count the hours, Ich zehle sehnlichen alle Stunden
which lead me forward, Daß man mich bald möcht führen fort
and the day will soon appear, Und daß der Tag möcht erscheinen
separation will unite me with God. Durch Scheiden mich Gott zu
vereinen.7
Even the court records from his trial testify to the fact that Samuel’s con-
science plagued him severely, leading him to change his mind after initially
fleeing and return to the city to confess his crime. During his further testi-
mony, his overpowering sense of guilt again comes through. When asked
about the strange timing of Jacobina’s pregnancy—the city physicians
declared she had been about eight months pregnant, but Samuel claimed to
have slept with her only much more recently—Samuel admitted that when
Jacobina told him he was the father, he also thought the timing was strange
but did not press her on this issue “because he knew he was guilty of having
adulterous dealings with her.”8
Despite his repentance and conversion, Samuel Keck faced a gruesome
and dishonorable execution: after he was decapitated with a sword, his
body was then broken with and displayed on a wheel and his “head along
with the murder-knife” were laid beside him. His body was displayed in this
manner for an entire month. The display of his corpse after execution was
intended as even further punishment; it added dishonor to his memory and
shamed his family. But in the face of this horrific end, Samuel is described as
having conducted himself honorably, further demonstrating the authenticity
of his repentance.
This Samuel Keck prepared himself for the coming of his death, until
the end of his life, with greatest steadfastness, confident courage and
joy. He humbly thanked the criminal court, plead for a final mercy,
that he might be clothed entirely new in black and white, which was
allowed to him. . . . On the last day of his life he took no more food,
he asked for the scaffold . . . and he did not let his eyes be covered,
but instead awaited with open eyes the stroke [of the sword]; thus
did Keck, to everyone’s wonderment, happily and heartily gave up his
spirit.9
Both the popular literature and the court records emphasize how Samuel
Keck died a “good death,”10 which helped to reconcile Samuel with earthly
and heavenly authorities. He had, both by impregnating Jacobina out of
wedlock and then brutally killing both mother and (in the court’s words) his
child, ignored his Christian and fatherly duty to be a protector and provider
for his family and a good citizen of the town. By going to his punishment
willingly—and awaiting the sword’s blow with his eyes open—Samuel made
legal and religious amends and reclaimed his position in society as an obedi-
ent and brave citizen and man.
The most striking theme that comes through in the extensive publications
about Samuel Keck is the connection between his crimes and the crimes of
infanticide and abortion. Although Samuel was not directly accused of these
crimes, the descriptions of his actions very closely resemble those of child-
murderesses in similar literature. In fact, much of the concern about what
Samuel did seemed to focus on the fact that he committed a crime more
expected of a woman—that is, ending a pregnancy in an attempt to avoid the
shame and dishonor associated with fornication and producing illegitimate
children. One song, supposedly relating Samuel’s own words, explains:
With her I lived in sin, Mit der ich lebt’ im Unzucht-Stande

It is her, along with her womb’s fruit, Die must sammt ihrer Leibes-Frucht
(so that I might escape shame) (Daß ich abkommen möcht der
Schande)
with my fist (oh so cursed!) Durch meine Faust (o wie verflucht!)
whom I wounded, who died in the Zuvor verwundt/ Im Wasser sterben
water
and was so wretchedly destroyed.11 Und so elendiglich verderben.
Given that court records stated Samuel killed Jacobina when she refused his
request not to name him as the father of her unborn child, Samuel clearly
sought to avoid the shame and responsibility of an illegitimate child.
Cases like Samuel’s challenge historical interpretations of infanticide,
shame, and dishonor. Why would a man feel the need to commit such a
horrendous crime in order to escape public shame? A man had, of course,
practical financial reasons for avoiding his paternal responsibility. Alleged
paternity could have been reason enough for his master to dismiss him. And
if Jacobina had successfully sued Samuel for paternity, paying the required
child support would have been difficult on an apprentice’s pay. The pres-
sures were material but also emotional, as exemplified in the many words
attributed to Samuel. He was reported to have said he was trying to avoid
shame by killing Jacobina; he did not say he wanted to avoid the responsi-
bility of caring for a child. Shame and dishonor, then, were thought to affect
both women and men; even the particular shame of having illegitimate chil-
dren was not limited to women.
Samuel killed Jacobina and her fetus for the same reasons that Barbara
Gruberin and other women committed infanticide or abortion, and there
are shared themes of sin and redemption in the literature about them, yet
Samuel’s story is still markedly different. In the first place, his crime gar-
nered far more attention than any crime by a woman. In the second place,
although Samuel’s masculinity is called into question by the nature of his
crime, it is restored in the manner in which he returns to confess and face his
punishment. Samuel did not commit his crime in secret and then try to hide;
he recognized his misdeeds right away and came forward to confess. In the
retelling of his story, Samuel is assigned far more agency than Barbara Gru-
berin, who remains a victim. The reader is instead left feeling that Samuel
is almost to be admired instead of pitied. When women were the killers,
their sin and redemption was taken almost completely out of their hands,
illustrating well new attitudes about women in the late eighteenth century
as helpless creatures in need of saving instead of wanton, selfish criminals.
SALOME HAUSSMÄNNIN
The child-murderess herself was a compelling figure. Women, seen as

weaker both physically and spiritually, made for sympathetic antiheros.
Women were also far less frequently sentenced to execution than men,
which made their stories unusual and exciting. Furthermore, the particular
crime of infanticide, necessarily preceded by a (usually illicit) sexual act,
provided writers with an opportunity to tell stories of seduction along with
their narrative of redemption. These elements can be seen very clearly in the
story of Salome Haußmännin, who was executed for infanticide in 1715
in the small city of Nördlingen. The next year, Georg Matthäus Beckh, a
Lutheran pastor who had been Salome’s confessor before her execution,
wrote a lengthy pamphlet about Salome’s crime and religious conversion,
entitled The Poor Sinner and Child-Killer Most Blessed by a Compassion-
ate God. In her analysis of this text, Eileen Dugan notes that Beckh omitted
Salome’s name from his account, not to protect her identity, but to make
her an Everywoman, whose fate could await anyone. Beckh’s narrative,
intended to be inspirational and instructive, not historical, told of the neces-
sity of individual repentance. He blamed Salome’s crime on her spiritual
ignorance and attributed her salvation to a spiritual awakening. He assured
Salome and consequently, his audience of the salvation of her unbaptized
child as well. Beckh used the story of Salome and his role as her confessor
to convey a message about repentance and faith with the authority of an
eyewitness and participant in a successful conversion.12 Beckh knew that

Salome Haußmännin’s story would resonate with his audience, who would
have been concerned for their own souls and for whom Salome’s story of
redemption was a great comfort. As a pastor, Beckh saw an opportunity to
instruct on the greatness of God’s forgiveness, which would extend even to a
mother who had killed her own child. A child-murderess was seemingly the
perfect character on which to center messages of faith and hope.
The frequency with which similar stories appeared testified to the selling
power of the redeemed sinner. However, the confidence that these sinners
had in their salvation complicated the warnings and calls to good behavior
that these publications also espoused. The authors of these publications tried
to find the delicate balance between frightening readers away from a life of
sin, while also offering hope to those who did stray. Too much comfort might
be interpreted as license to sin. As they tried to find this balance between
warning and promise, authors spun dramatic and captivating stories.
SUICIDE BY PROXY
In exploring tales of sin and repentance, printers also began to focus on a

particular crime that tested this balance. This crime was a peculiar form of
infanticide, which historians variously label as suicide by proxy or indirect
suicide. It was a crime that depended upon the idea of a repentant criminal
and the possibility of salvation.13 Suicide by proxy, which rose in occurrence
in Germany in the 1770s and 1780s, involved a suicidal person committing
a capital crime in order to be executed.14 Suicide was an unforgivable sin:
a person who committed suicide had no chance to repent or confess his
sins before his death and would thus face eternal damnation. Those who
committed indirect suicide wished to die but did not want to face the eter-
nal consequences of suicide. After committing a capital crime, the criminal
would have a chance to confess before his execution. Through this expedi-
ent, the suicidal person achieved his goal of dying, but he was also able to
hold on to a chance at eternal salvation.15
Most suicides by proxy committed various capital crimes to achieve their
ends; some tried simply confessing to a crime that they had not committed,
but this could prove difficult when no evidence existed to confirm their
story. Some chose to commit bestiality, or at least confessed to it, as it was
a crime that did not leave evidence, and neither did it harm other people.16
However, the trend in Germany generally involved the commission of
murder. The murder of an adult, however, was troubling because it denied
the victim a chance to set his or her own spiritual affairs in order before
death. A solution to this concern was to kill an innocent child who had been
cleansed by baptism and was too young to have committed sin, having not
reached the age of reason. Many victims of suicide by proxy, then, were very
young children or babies. Both the victim and the killer would then die with
the possibility of salvation. Though rare, this crime occurred across German-
speaking lands, including at least five cases in Augsburg between 1740 and
1783. Cases were largely confined to the eighteenth century, although Kathy
Stuart has found cases in other German-speaking regions from the seven-
teenth and nineteenth centuries as well.17
Suicide by proxy was an especially problematic crime because it did not
fit preset definitions of any one crime. Because suicide by proxy so often
involved the murder of children, and sometimes of the killers’ own children,
it was perhaps most closely related to the crime of infanticide. Indeed, a
consistent and clear distinction between the two crimes cannot be made,
and they were inherently linked in early modern culture. Suicides by proxy
were thus not labeled as such at the time, but were occasionally labelled
“Kindsmord” instead. The crime presented an array of legal, social, and
theological difficulties and garnered a great deal of attention in this period
of renewed sensationalism.
A further problem with this crime was that the promise of salvation after
execution, so highly publicized at the time, potentially encouraged people to
commit suicide by proxy. The practice of clerical preparation of condemned
prisoners resulted in situations—like those of Samuel Keck or Salome
Haußmännin—in which the condemned went willingly and happily to their
death. Witnesses to these executions might see the happiness and certainty
of the condemned, see the potential fulfilment of their own hopes for salva-
tion, and attempt to come to death in the same manner.18 Compounding
the horror of infanticide and suicide, suicide by proxy also emphasized the
importance of the conversion of the criminal. Such crimes thus provided
abundant source material for printers of this era in which both child murder
and redemption were popular topics. The publications featuring traditional
infanticide paled in comparison to the flurry of literature that involved sui-
cide by proxy. The victims were the most pitiable, the crimes horrific, and
the killers appropriately repentant. This combination made for exciting
reading, all while conveying the moral message of hope for salvation.
JEREMIAS BERTZ
In 1740, Jeremias Bertz was found guilty of murdering his own child by the
Augsburg town council. Jeremias was a forty-six-year-old leather tanner in
Augsburg. On March 14, he slit the throat of his fourteen-week-old daughter
Magdalena. The amount of material produced about Jeremias’s crime almost
rivals that for Samuel Keck’s: in addition to the print seen in figure 5.1, some
pamphlets reached nearly sixty pages of text, filled with songs, poems, and
speeches about the crime and the criminal’s spiritual transformation.
Figure 5.1 consists of two pictures: the first depicts the dead child lying on
blankets with her throat open and still bleeding, although her face remains
peaceful. Next to the child is a short text, written as if Maria Magdalena
had spoken it herself, following her own death. It reads:
You, who loved this child, observe the gruesome act of my father, who
paid no heed to my youth; his murderous hand killed me, an innocent
little lamb, ruthless father! I, poor little lamb, must kiss my father’s mur-
derous hand, which cut my tender throat in two. He himself who raised
me, made it so that I must die. Oh stone-hard heart! Rue your deed!19
The second picture depicts the actual murder weapon, with a caption that
reads “the sketch of the murder-knife.” This picture of a knife brings the
horrific murder closer to the readers; when contrasted with the innocence of
the murder victim, the knife further highlights the cruelty of the act.20
Figure 5.1 The innocent Maria Magdalena Bertzin, gruesomely murdered by her
own father at the tender age of 14 weeks, Augsburg, 1740, Courtesy Staats- und
Stadtbibliothek Augsburg
Another piece composed about Jeremias’s crime also featured his mur-
dered and “martyred” daughter, Maria Magdalena, “only 18 [sic] weeks
old,” who spoke from beyond the grave:
And you did it? Ah! It is hardly believable! That I should barely know
you as my father, because next to God, I have you to thank for my life!
Now I must name you, oh horror! As my murderer, because your cursed
hand plunged me into the grave, an astounding deed!21
Continuing, Maria Magdalena forgives her father and urges him to repent.
She wishes for him a “blessed death and eternal life.” The victim thus gener-
ously voices her support for her killer’s salvation.
One final example shows the variety of the material in these publications.
This particular piece was an acrostic of Jeremias Bertz’s name:
Jesus accepts the sinners. Jesus nimmt die Sünder an.

He is the one who can help me Er ists/ der mir helffen kan,
correct the murder of my child. Recht den Mord an meinem Kinde.
He forgives also this sin, Er vergibt auch diese Sünde,
My faith is confidently Meines Glaubens Zuversicht
turned toward Him alone, Ist auf Ihn allein gericht,
all sins are forgiven Alle Sünden sind vergeben
now I move from death to life, So geht es vom Tod zum leben,
I am still guilty of the death Bin ich doch deß Todes schuldig
So I patiently suffer Es so leid ich ihn geduldig,
but Save me JESUS Amen Rettet mich doch JESUS Amen
Swing the sword in Jesus’ name. Zückt daß Schwerdt in Jesu Nahmen.22
Despite being an inherently different crime, Jeremias’s suicide by proxy

resulted in the production of literature and a discussion that looked very
similar to that for more traditional infanticide. Even the messages of sin and
redemption for the two crimes were virtually indistinguishable. Although
similar messages of redemption could be seen relating to a wide variety of
crimes, suicide by proxy and infanticide also shared a category of victim.
The young children and babies who were the victims of these crimes served
to highlight the barbarity of the crime and provided the authors of popular
literature opportunities to dramatize the stories even further. What we also
start to see in the material produced about infanticide, suicide by proxy, and
other closely related crimes in mid-eighteenth century, is an attempt to try
to understand, define, and distinguish these crimes. Distinguishing infanti-
cide from suicide by proxy was a thorny task, made difficult by the lack of
vocabulary to speak about child murder when it diverged from the expected
definition. Suicide by proxy was beginning to be recognized as a crime and
as a possibility, but one that was still little understood and very rare.23 Jer-
emias’s crime must have still been confusing to authorities, but perhaps
because he was male, it was easier for the courts to classify Jeremias’s case
as something other than infanticide. What to do when the perpetrator of a
suicide by proxy was female was even less clear, despite the fact that it was
more often a female crime.24
MARIA ELISABETHA BECKENSTEINERIN

Maria Elisabetha Beckensteinerin was executed after killing her own child in
Augsburg in 1742. Several publications from the same year tell the story of
Maria Elisabetha, which straddles the already hazy line between typical infanti-
cide and suicide by proxy. The caption of one print (see figure 5.2) states:
Execution of Maria Elisabetha Beckensteinerin, who killed her own

barely half-year-old little son Johann Andreas with her garter here in
Augsburg in the prison, and was executed with the sword on the 20th
of March 1742. She was 37 years old.25
Figure 5.2 Thomas Bäck, Execution of Maria Elisabetha Beckensteinerin, Augs-

burg, 1742, Courtesy Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg
The image’s first panel depicts how she strangled her child and how the
child’s soul ascended to heaven, and the second panel illustrates Maria Elis-
abetha’s decapitation in front of a crowd. The rest of this one-page print
tells the story of her crime in rhyming verse. It reads, in part:
Come mothers, come see what an insolent woman did,

Who fiercely strangled the fruit from her own womb,
A woman like a tiger, from whom wolves and dragons shy,
Where else is such a thing to compare with this!

...
So follows such impudent deeds, the pain of the sword,
The mother has killed, so she also belongs to Death.
Komt Mütterin komt erschaut was thut ein freches weib,

Die in dem Grimm erwurgt die Frucht von ihrem Leib,
Ein Weib von Tyger Art, der Wölff und Drachen weichen,
Wo ist ein solcher Sinn, so diesem zu vergleichen!
...
So folgt auf freche That, der Straffe schwert Peyn,
Die Mütter hat getödt, sie mus deß Todts auch seyn.26
Official court records provide more information on this story. Maria Elisa-
betha Beckensteinerin was in her midthirties and married to a mapmaker
named Michael. She was arrested for theft on March 7, 1742. She begged
the council to allow her to bring her six-month-old son into jail with her,
as she had no one who could take care of him. Her “bitter poverty” had
brought her close to despair, she claimed. The following morning, she tied
her garter around the child’s neck, strangling it. She explained during her
interrogation that poverty had driven her to thievery and then to despair.
Maria Elisabetha was executed on March 20.27 Maria Elisabetha featured
in several other publications, including one that displays a ribbon tied in
a loop that is labeled “the length and width of the murder-band.”28 Oth-
ers included gallows speeches and songs in the same vein as those written
for Samuel Keck, with calls for youth to behave and sinners to repent and
Maria Elisabetha’s prayers for forgiveness.
Maria Elisabetha, whose motivations were not dissimilar to those of
women who killed their illegitimate children—both poverty and despair—
further blurs the line between these two crimes and highlights the difficulty
that faced officials and a public who wanted to properly understand, label,
and punish the crime. In a time when punishments for infanticide were being
reconsidered, suicide by proxy presented even further complications. Should
those who commit murder because they actually want to die be executed
and therefore given what they sought? Or should they be punished in some
other way? These were questions that were indirectly addressed in the popu-
lar sensationalism of the eighteenth century as infanticide and criminality in
general were reevaluated.
DEFINING THE CRIME
These cases of suicide by proxy highlight the complexity of infanticide in the

eighteenth century. Although historians now recognize suicide by proxy as
a separate crime from traditional infanticide, the distinction was not always
clear in the eighteenth century. The difference between the killing of an ille-
gitimate newborn and the murder of a child to achieve execution lay in the
killer’s motivations. But personal motivations were difficult to determine, a

task made even more difficult by the surviving sources. The various incarna-
tions of child murder were thus highly intertwined in the public imagination
and in the dealings of the town councils.
The 1760 case of Maria Barbara Schmidin, for example, clearly illustrates
the difficulty of determining motivation. Maria Barbara was found guilty of
infanticide after killing her four-week-old daughter. She would have had a
difficult time hiding a newborn for four weeks, so it is likely that others knew
about her child. As such, her motivations could not have been to avoid the
shame and the shame-related consequences of an illegitimate child. However,
her official denunciation noted the fact that Maria Barbara was executed
according to article 131 of the Carolina, dealing with narrowly defined, tra-
ditional infanticide.29 So although Maria Barbara’s case differed in signifi-
cant ways, no other statute in the Carolina matched her crime as precisely.
Suicides by proxy were sometimes punished according to article 137 of
the Carolina, which addressed murder and manslaughter without regret,
instead of article 131. This was the case with Maria Anna Mayrinn, a likely
suicide by proxy who killed an unrelated three-year-old girl in 1783; she
was executed after turning herself in to the Augsburg town council.30 But
the issue gets more complicated when suicides by proxy murdered their own
children. According to one record, Maria Elisabetha Beckensteinerin, who
seemed to have been a suicide by proxy, was executed under article 131 of
the Carolina, not article 137.31 Maria Elisabetha, unlike Maria Anna May-
rinn, murdered her own child. It appears, then, that Maria Elisabetha closely
enough resembled article 131’s definition that she could technically be pros-
ecuted for infanticide instead of, or perhaps in addition to, murder without
regret. Yet Maria Elisabetha was married and the child was not a secret,
so no one could have charged her with covering up an illegitimate child.
There was also confusion surrounding the crime of Jeremias Bertz. Jeremias
killed his own fourteen-week-old daughter but was sentenced under article
137,32 according to one record, and both articles 131 and 137 according to
another.33 Multiple records label his crime “Kindermord,” including the one
which had claimed that Jeremias was executed under article 137.34
When distinguishing between traditional infanticide and suicide by
proxy, discerning the killer’s motivation helped to clarify exactly what
crime she had committed. Maria Elisabetha claimed that she was a thief
because she was poor, and her poverty had driven her to desperation, and
it was desperation that she claimed ultimately led her to kill her child. Even
though Maria Elisabetha was married, this motivation did not differ all that
dramatically from that of unmarried women who killed their newborns.
The ultimate goals were, in the simplest of terms, polar opposites: suicides
by proxy wanted death, but women who committed traditional infanticide
were trying to save their own lives. However, both were driven by the threat
of destitution. In the end, motivations are not entirely within the historian’s
grasp, but neither were they necessarily within the grasp of those contempo-
raries who sought to label the crimes, as evidenced by the sometimes loose
interpretations of the Carolina. While this law code defined infanticide and
murder without regret as distinctly separate crimes, the distinction was
sometimes much less clear in reality, hence the cases that were prosecuted as
both or the cases that could not be clearly defined as either.35
As seen in chapter two, most women accused of infanticide attempted to
deny any direct violent action as the cause of the child’s death. Traditional
infanticides often involved neglect or suffocation, while suicides by proxy, as
Kathy Stuart notes, involved more overt violence, such as slitting a throat or
strangling with a garter.36 It is likely that this disparity reflected the varying
intentions in the two crimes. More traditional infanticides often involved
mothers who had tried to distance themselves from their pregnancies and
children; they did not necessarily have violent feelings toward their children
but rather wanted to ignore or evade the problem and keep it as quiet as
possible. Suicides by proxy, on the other hand, wanted to commit crimes
heinous enough to earn the severest punishment and wanted their crimes
to be discovered. They also needed to commit the murder with the clearest
possible intentions—simply neglecting a baby would not only take longer
than slitting its throat, but it could potentially mask the parent’s intention.
Although the eighteenth century did see significant changes in the way
infanticide and related crimes were prosecuted and publicized, the basis
for prosecution of infanticide and the official interpretation of motivation
remained unaltered; at the end of the eighteenth century, magistrates were
still using the Carolina, which was at this point over 250 years old. In sev-
eral cases, such as that of Maria Barbara Schmidin, the articles cited did not
fit the specific circumstances of the crime but rather a much more general
interpretation.37 Though the town council sought to accurately reflect the
circumstances of an individual case, it still needed to fit crimes such as Maria
Barbara’s into official and familiar categories. Suicide by proxy confused the
role of pitiable sinner/criminal turned redeemed hero so popular at this time
by showcasing the flaw in celebrating the conversion narrative. This ten-
sion made suicide by proxy a popular theme in eighteenth-century print. In
contrast, a child-murderess who was forced into her crime by circumstance
seemed a much less ambivalent focus for multiple genres of literature.
A wide range of violence toward children had always been entangled
with the concept of infanticide, as seen in chapter three, and this was still the
case in the eighteenth century. While distinct legal definitions and different
articles in the Carolina distinguished infanticide from other crimes, these
definitions could be highly ambiguous and flexible. The term Kindermord
was used both by the municipal officials and by the authors of crime litera-
ture to refer to the murder of children in a wide variety of situations, not just
when unwed mothers killed their newborn, illegitimate children. Even when
eighteenth-century authors took on suicides by proxy, they used the same
language to discuss the crime. In many ways, then, the terminology of infan-
ticide broadened to include more crimes, while this wide variety of crimes
was manipulated into a narrow definition. Yet, in certain sectors of German

society, Kindermord still held one, narrow definition, and that followed the
wording of the Carolina. While the local courts may have treated infanticide
as a flexible term and a varied crime, the singular definition of an unwed
and helpless mother remained much of the discourse throughout Germany,
which was rapidly gaining momentum at the end of the eighteenth century.
This more erudite literature was the other half of late eighteenth-century
sensationalism.
STURM UND DRANG
The figure of the pitiable child-murderess (or murderer) portrayed in local

publications was not unique to Swabia, nor was it unique to the particular
genre of crime reporting discussed above. Writers of the contemporaneous
Sturm und Drang movement, who aspired to reach a more sophisticated
and more literate audience, also found ample fodder in the crime of infan-
ticide. In Sturm und Drang the child-murderess reached new heights of
drama. In their poems and plays we see the same image of the helpless,
victimized mother driven to infanticide. In both genres, the helplessness
and regret of the murderous mother made her as much a victim as her
dead child. This idea was a long way from the child-murderess described
in the Carolina, a “depraved woman,” who had killed her child “secretly,
maliciously, and willfully.” Instead, the child-murderess was now a fallen
woman who had followed the only course of action left to her to pre-
serve her reputation and her life; her actions were understandable, even if
regrettable.
The Sturm und Drang, often translated as “Storm and Stress,” was a
literary movement in Germany that grew in popularity from the 1760s. A
sort of proto-Romanticism, the Sturm und Drang produced works that fea-
tured heightened emotions, intense drama, sexuality, and violence, largely in
reaction to what was perceived as the overly cold reason of the Enlighten-
ment. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther,
in which the protagonist commits suicide out of overwhelming love, was
the movement’s defining work and a bellwether of later Romanticism. The
themes in this novel—individualism, freedom, unrequited love, violence,
emotion, madness—typified those found throughout the Sturm und Drang
period.38
It was infanticide, however, that came to stand out as perhaps the most
popular subject of the genre. The most renowned writers of eighteenth cen-
tury Germany, including Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, drove the discussion
surrounding the crime with poems, plays, and novellas in which infanticide
was the dramatic climax in tales of seduction and betrayal. The attention
that participants of the Sturm und Drang gave to infanticide has long been
noted by literary scholars: in 1927, J.M. Rameckers said simply that there
were “no Stürmer and no Dränger who had not given [infanticide] a try.”39
As many as twenty different German literary works between 1772 and 1791
dealt with the theme of infanticide, indicative of a new kind of interest in
the crime.40
Unlike the popular publications discussed above, the works of the Sturm
und Drang movement were not based on actual events. Instead, writers
adopted the motif of infanticide as a medium for writing about the favor-
ite themes and broader social ills of the time. Tales of infanticide began
with passion and danger, in the form of seduction, illicit sex, or rape. The
women, now pregnant, were abandoned, and that passion gave way to
shame, sorrow, and anger. Despair led to infanticide, presented as a crime
against nature driven by utter desperation. The murder scenes in these works
that inevitably followed featured uncontrollable rage and violence followed
quickly by regret and sorrow. This was then followed by some dramatic
conclusion, like a suicide or the tragically late return of the father. Stories of
infanticide thus contained a spectrum of sensational acts including sex, vio-
lence, murder, and sometimes suicide, along with the wide range of extreme
emotions that accompanied these actions. It was an appealing combination
for those writers who professed to feel constrained by the rationality of the
Enlightenment.
Goethe began work on his most famous work, Faust, in the 1770s, in
the midst of the renewed infanticide furor. After selling his soul to Mephis-
topheles, Faust falls in love with Margarethe, called Gretchen. He seduces
and impregnates Gretchen, and then abandons her. Gretchen falls into
despair, kills her baby, and is arrested. The audience is led to blame Faust,
not Gretchen, for both her madness and her actions. In prison she is driven
to insanity:
Only let me first nurse my baby. Laß mich nur erst das Kind noch
tränken.
I held it this whole night; Ich herzt es diese ganze Nacht
They took it from me to give me pain, Sie nahmen mir’s, um mich zu kränken,
And now they say I killed it. Und sagen nun, ich hätt es umgebracht.
And never again will I be happy.41 Und niemals werd ich wieder froh.
When Faust later returns to rescue her with the help of Mephistopheles,
Gretchen refuses his aid, desiring to face the punishment she has earned.
Mephistopheles declares, “She is judged!” but a voice from above corrects
him: “She is saved!”42 Faust and Mephistopheles are presented as the ones
responsible for Gretchen’s fate, while Gretchen’s repentance redeems her.
Her subsequent execution is seen as a tragedy, but her salvation after death
provides solace.
Goethe’s close friend, Friedrich Schiller, also took on the topic of infan-
ticide with his 1782 poem “Die Kindsmörderin,” (“the Child-Murderess”).
It reads, in part:
And there the babe—in the mother’s Und das Kindlein—in der Mutter
lap Schooße
there it lay in sweet, golden rest, Lag es da in süßer, goldner Ruh,
with the charm of youth’s rosy morn, In dem Reiz der jungen Morgenrose
the dainty little one smiled at me— Lachte mir der holde Kleine zu—
Lovely in its fatality, every feature of Tötlichlieblich sprach aus allen Zügen
his precious and dear image spoke Sein geliebtes teures Bild mich an,
to me,
the mother’s fearful bosom is Den beklommnen Mutterbusen wiegen
cradled by
love and the madness of despair. Liebe und—Verzweiflungswahn.
Woman, where is my father? babbled Weib, wo ist mein Vater? lallte
his silent innocence like a thunderclap,
Seiner Unschuld stumme Donnersprach,
Woman, where is your husband? echoed Weib, wo ist dein Gatte? hallte
in every corner of my heart— Jeder Winkel meines Herzens nach—
Alas, you, orphan, seek him in vain, Weh! umsonst wirst, Waise du ihn
suchen,
he perhaps is holding other children. Der vielleicht schon andre Kinder
herzt,
You will curse the moment of our Wirst der Stunde unsres Glückes
bliss fluchen.
when the name Bastard brands you. Wenn dich einst der Name Bastard
schwärzt.
Schiller ends his poem with the convicted woman begging the executioner
to work swiftly:
Quick, bind the blindfold around Schnell die Binde um mein Angesicht!
my face!
Hangman, can you not harm the lily? Henker, kannst du keine Lilie knicken?
Pale hangman, tremble not! Bleicher Henker, zittre nicht!43
Many scholars have explored how the tone and message of these poems dif-
fered in several key ways from the reality of infanticide cases.44 As a young
jurist in the city of Frankfurt, Goethe famously witnessed the 1771 trial of
child-murderess Susanna Margaretha Brandt. This trial was supposedly his
inspiration for the fallen lover of Faust. Despite his sympathetic portrayal of
Gretchen, Goethe the jurist was responsible for condemning to death other
child-murderesses in his courtroom.45 Goethe’s 1783 vote to uphold execu-
tion as the punishment for infanticide in Saxe-Weimar has been a source of
historical controversy, as scholars have sought to reconcile this vote with
his development of Gretchen.46 But in some interpretations of crime and
redemption, Gretchen’s salvation depended on the purgation of sin provided
by her execution. This idea is seen in the local news reports: murderers were
sympathetic because of their impending death. Indeed, in all of the Sturm

und Drang literature, the child-murderess dies in the end, either by her own
hand or the executioner’s.
The crimes as reported in court records differed in many significant
ways from the crimes as portrayed in the poetry of the Sturm und Drang.
The circumstances leading to the unwanted pregnancy, the motivations for
infanticide, and the actual act of infanticide were all drastically altered to
heighten the dramatic effect and to emphasize the popular themes of the
era. These alterations served to promote the image of the child-murderess
herself as the victim. Thus, in these works the main character was a poor,
young, unmarried woman who was seduced by a much more powerful and
wealthy man who refused to marry her once she became pregnant. Such
was the case in Gottfried August Bürger’s poem “The Pastor’s Daughter
of Taubenhain.” The daughter is described as “innocent as a little dove,”
reinforcing the imagery of the name of her hometown. This young woman,
“young, lovely and fine,” is seduced by the Junker of Falkenstein (Falke,
or falcon, being a bird which hunts doves), who woos her with his looks,
pretty letters, and jewelry. After the nobleman abandons her, she gives birth
and stabs her newborn son in the heart with a silver hairpin.47 As this
and several other historical studies have shown, however, most unwanted
pregnancies leading to infanticide occurred under rather different circum-
stances. The father was never a nobleman but rather someone from the
woman’s own social class, an apprentice or day laborer, someone who had
fewer ties to society. Yet the tendency of fathers to flee or deny paternity
rendered them in practice just as inaccessible as the fictional aristocrats.
Poets used class discrepancy not as a reflection of actual events but as a
means to emphasize the power differential in their stories. In these poems,
the mother is usually portrayed as an innocent victim, with the true crimi-
nal being the father, even more dastardly for taking advantage of the dis-
tance between their social standings. The women are not only poor and
helpless but also very naïve, believing promises of marriage from someone
who could not fulfil them.
Women’s naivety and helplessness were actually presented as positive
characteristics, almost excusing their actions. As the father is now the vil-
lain, the pregnant woman’s further actions are therefore no longer her fault.
In these works, the mother is presented as the victim of circumstance and
of the heartless seducer who impregnated, but not as a cold-blooded mur-
derer herself. Indeed, the authors of these plays and poems take practically
all agency from the mothers, placing it entirely in the hands of the seducer.
Any actions that the mothers do take are presented as the entirely inevitable
and even expected consequences of her illegitimate pregnancy. According to
this line of thinking, an honorable woman had no other choice but to com-
mit infanticide; not to do so was to accept infamy and her previous sins.
The motivations of the women in these overwrought poems therefore do
not square with those expressed by women accused of infanticide in court
records or even those assumed by the prosecution. Only rarely did women
in the records attempt to shift the blame to the father; in fact, more often
than not, they did not even name the father.
Some of these works even suggest that the violence committed against
the newborn was really aimed at the father—the child might resemble the
father too closely or be merely a proxy for the absent father—placing fur-
ther blame on the father’s shoulders.48 In August Gottlieb Meißner’s “Die
Mörderin,” the murderous mother sees her child as a smaller stand-in for the
father whom she could not kill.49 Yet again this motivation proves entirely
fanciful when contrasted with the words of the women in the court records.
No woman in the records I have examined, nor in the records examined
by other historians seems to have ever made the claim that they killed their
baby to avenge themselves on the father.50
A further motivation frequently explored in these poems is the mother’s
descent into madness. In Anton Matthias Sprickmann’s poem “Ida,” the
eponymous heroine narrates her entire mental breakdown before she bashes
her child’s head in with rocks.51 Bürger likewise describes the “Wahnsinn”
or madness of the preacher’s daughter in his piece. Temporary madness also
afflicted Goethe’s beloved Gretchen; Schiller describes his child-murderess
as feeling a desperate madness. The women in such poems then wake up
from their trance-like state and immediately regret their actions, almost
expressing surprise at the dead child in their arms. This again distances the
women from their actions, placing the blame on madness caused by the
father. Differing from the claims in actual infanticide trials, a descent into
madness was expected to elicit sympathy from the reader and to alleviate
the mother’s guilt. In the trials women did plead naivety, as well as a depar-
ture from their senses; however, these excuses rarely gained them pity or a
reduced sentence. The belief in the biological and psychological weakness
of women contributed to the expectation of complete mental breakdown of
the murderous mother during childbirth. The pains of labor were thought to
be too much for the woman to bear, and when combined with the psycho-
logical pain of their guilt and dishonor, could only result in violence against
the newborn as the cause and focus of that pain.52
Even the physical circumstances of the crime change drastically from the
court records to the poetry. Murderous mothers in these poems, having lost
all of their senses, do not usually quietly smother or drown their newborns
but rather bash their newborns’ heads into rocks (as in Sprickmann) or kick
them to death (as in Meißner), among other similarly violent methods. The
death of the mother herself is similarly much more melodramatic in the
poetry; she might speak of facing execution in some poems such as Schil-
ler’s, but more often she dies at her own hands or of misery and heartbreak.
In true Sturm und Drang fashion, there are sometimes further victims as
well, such as the father of the dead child, whom we see committing sui-
cide at the end of some works. Everything about these scenes was carefully
crafted to take the circumstances to their most extreme end.
Sprickmann’s “Ida” was perhaps one of the greatest examples of how

this subject touched on the most popular themes of Sturm und Drang. In
this ballad, Humfried, a nobleman, seduces and impregnates Ida. Hum-
fried leaves Ida for Luitberga, a woman of his own status, but eventually
comes to regret his decision. He races to find Ida and discovers her and their
child in a hut on desolate cliffs, where she has descended into madness. Ida
kills the child, while Humfried witnesses the act through a window, having
arrived too late. Humfried then he kills himself; Ida’s death follows. Finally,
when Luitberga discovers the bloody scene and understands what has taken
place, she too dies of heartbreak.53 Seduction, abandonment, madness, a
bastard child, infanticide, suicide, and a final scene littered with corpses
and haunted by ghosts: this was the ultimate expression of the Sturm und
Drang.
While the popular prints of the era shared very similar elements of drama,
violence, and emotion, the representations of both the crime and the crimi-
nal in Sturm und Drang literature were still in many ways a far cry from
their cheaper brethren. The popular prints seen above were elaborations of
actual cases, but poems such as “Ida” and “Die Kindsmörderin” were in
their entirety the fantastical imaginings of poets and playwrights. Further,
the popular prints seem to have served a much different purpose. While the
poets of the Sturm and Drang sought to titillate and arouse pity, the authors
of the popular prints sought to not only excite but also to warn. They con-
veyed messages of morality, religious repentance, and conversion and aimed
for higher moral messages. Resolution comes when the executioner’s sword
brings spiritual salvation and not when the scene is left strewn with corpses
and blood. Yet both genres of literature brought renewed attention to the
crime and helped to propel the discussion beyond their own pages. Even
though the representations of child-murderesses seen in all of these exam-
ples diverged from what was recorded in the courts, in a way they became
a new sort of reality on which reformers based their calls for actual social
and legal change.
1780 MANNHEIMER PREISFRAGE
Gustav Radbruch, famed scholar of German law, described infanticide as

“the key delict of all efforts at criminal law reform in the eighteenth cen-
tury. No other crime was more frequently and passionately disputed.”54 It
was not just poets and playwrights who turned their attention to infanti-
cide in the later decades of the eighteenth century. Politicians, legal, and
social reformers all felt compelled to address the subject of infanticide by the
1770s. By this time, ideas of the child-murderess had transformed, as seen
in both popular street literature and the higher-brow literature of the Sturm
und Drang; this transformation also reflected very real transformations in
the law and in public opinion regarding the crime of infanticide.
Indeed, social reformers of the Enlightenment enumerated similar ideas

regarding the victimhood, unstable mental state, and lack of agency of child-
murderesses when they formulated their suggestions for addressing the sup-
posed epidemic of infanticide. The spiritual, physical, and psychological
weakness of the child-murderess presented in the literature of the Sturm und
Drang and popular prints of these decades dovetailed with similar opinions
about women in the eyes of the law. In the midst of legal reforms, the ques-
tion of responsibility and punishment arose: if women were too weak to be
in full control of their faculties, then could they be legitimately executed for
the commission of infanticide?
Potential reformers were given the chance to elaborate their solutions
when in 1780 an anonymous benefactor from Mannheim55 offered a prize
of 100 ducats for the best response to the question, “What are the best pos-
sible methods for stopping infanticide?” This Preisfrage, or prize-question,
elicited nearly four hundred responses, many times more than any other
such challenge; answers came from all over Germany and Europe, a testi-
mony to the intensity of the debate over infanticide. In contrast, a Preisfrage
issued in the same year by Frederick the Great of Prussia resulted in a com-
paratively paltry forty-two responses.56
In earlier centuries, the prevailing belief was infanticide was a sin that
needed to be stopped, and the best way to do this was to intensify prosecu-
tion and to punish harshly. But some of the responses to the Preisfrage put
forward novel approaches to the crime. Although these respondents still
considered infanticide to be a horrific crime, reformers began to focus not
just on how to stop the crime itself but what course of action would prove
the most beneficial for society as a whole. While some respondents encour-
aged simply issuing sterner warnings to young girls about the consequences
of fornication, many recognized that the system of expectations and conse-
quences was flawed. Their suggestions, including the institution of found-
ling homes and lessening the severity of punishments for fornication, were
attempts to fix the causes, not just to deter the potential child-killer. As the
proposed solutions came to focus on institutions rather than individuals,
child-murderesses were increasingly recognized as victims themselves, or at
least as women in need of help, instead of as heartless killers. In seeking to
deal pragmatically with the crime, these writers distanced themselves from
traditional approaches that they saw as more sanctimonious than effective.
This argument was a vital component of the changing attitudes toward
women during the eighteenth century. In the Enlightenment era, the success
of a state was thought to depend on the growth of its population, and women
served a fundamental role as the producers of the next generation. A power-
ful state needed young, fertile women to bear children who would become
productive citizens. Many reformers across Germany and Europe made this
argument in the mid-eighteenth century against harsh punishments for for-
nication and illegitimate pregnancy. It was a point made by even the most
prominent reformers, including Voltaire and Cesare Beccaria, and taken up
by those world leaders who saw themselves as promoters of the Enlighten-

ment. Some potential reformers even suggested alleviating the punishments
for those who actually committed infanticide, arguing that society was bet-
ter served by not killing members who could potentially be rehabilitated
into productive and reproducing citizens. Physician Peter Camper argued
that the current state of crimes and punishments forced society to “rob itself
twice,” first of the newborn citizen, and then of its mother.57
Even as these reforms changed the tenor of law and policy, societal pres-
sures, potential dishonor, and stigmatization still weighed on unwed preg-
nant women and still led them to abortion and infanticide. Thus, reformers
also moved to undermine these concepts, which they now labeled as counter-
productive, if not outright backward or medieval. Further suggested reforms
thus included the decriminalization of abandonment and the protection of
anonymity of abandoning mothers as a means of making foundling houses
a more viable and appealing option than abortion or infanticide. Other sug-
gestions involved establishing homes in which single mothers could give
birth safely and privately.
For this perspective in the debate, the question came to focus on how to
change the system—that is, the legal and social expectations of women—
instead of the women themselves. These reforms acknowledged the pres-
sures of society while portraying women as naïve and helpless victims
of greater forces. A major factor in this changed perspective on child-
murderesses was the acknowledgment that those who committed infanti-
cide were often otherwise honorable women who sought to preserve that
honor. Peter Camper explained in language familiar from the poetry of
the Sturm und Drang, “It is the young and innocent girls, and frequently
the most virtuous, who succumb to seductions and who foolishly attempt
to cover up one regrettable crime with a much bigger one.”58 Theologian
Georg Friedrich Donauer concurred in his own submission to the contest,
arguing that execution should not await those who were attempting to
preserve their honor:
Death is what a girl who is both proud and yet covered in shame wishes
for herself. The punishment is therefore a boon for those for which it
should not be. On the contrary, other punishments, such as lifelong
imprisonment or oft-repeated time in the pillory, is not only more
daunting for pregnant women, but is also the best method for teaching
and warning other girls.59
By labeling those who committed infanticide as otherwise honorable and
innocent, the entire conversation changed from focusing on stopping wan-
ton, selfish mothers to transforming society in such a way as to make infan-
ticide a less desirable option.
Donauer’s entry in the competition demonstrated the fine line between
discouraging prejudicial treatment of illegitimate children and avoiding
encouraging the immoral behavior that produced them. He argued against
stringent restrictions on marriage. He also argued that punishing illegiti-

mate children for the mistakes of their parents did nothing to advance soci-
ety; thus, he claimed that guild restrictions against illegitimate members
were unfair because they punished the wrong people. His plan for decreas-
ing infanticide had several further points. Like others, he argues that shame
should not be heaped upon unwed mothers, as this only encourages them
to commit infanticide; foundling homes and birthing homes should be made
available to avoid the dangers of giving birth in secret; workhouses should
be used as rehabilitation for unwed mothers. Much of his plan was based on
his assertion that the majority of women who committed infanticide were
not prostitutes and whores but rather otherwise honorable women; as such,
society should try to help them in their time of need. Illegitimate pregnancy
in these women, these daughters of citizens, farmers, and artisans, should be
forgiven as a one-time mistake for the benefit of all of society. In this way,
society does not lose the newborn citizen who might otherwise become a
victim of infanticide, and the mother can go on to marry and give birth to
more productive citizens. Like many reformers, Donauer argued that he had
society’s best interests at heart and that society is better served by promot-
ing marriages and reproduction rather than restricting them. He summa-
rized his philosophy with a plea for compromise: “Would not, contrary to
intentions, more harm than good be done? And should not here the golden
middle way assert its generally recognized preference?”60
Yet the benefit of the state or finding a middle way were not always
the primary concerns of respondents to the essay question. Many took an
oppositional approach and called for stricter morality to prevent infanti-
cide and discourage sin. Karl Müller, one of the many defenders of stricter
morality, argued that while nothing could stop infanticide altogether, there
were several ways to lessen its occurrence. Müller attempted to counter the
arguments of the opposition with a detailed, all-encompassing plan. He,
like his adversaries, proposed making marriage more accessible by easing
restrictions, but he also suggested strengthening laws against fornication
and extramarital sex. He called for higher morals, specifically based in Prot-
estantism; he refers to the current age as a “time of light” in contrast to when
priests and monks operated in a “time of blindness.” His further suggestions
include preachers giving stricter sermons on fornication, more training for
midwives so that they knew how to discourage infanticide, regular inspec-
tions of serving maids’ quarters, and even a sort of chastity belt contraption
that could be inspected for evidence of fornication.61
This side of the argument won the day when it came to the Preisfrage.
Professor Johann Gottlieb Kreuzfeld, one of three declared winners, warned
of dire results if the consequences of sin were removed and argued that
allowing a few infanticides would be preferable to abiding fornicators
within the state. Although those of Kreuzfeld’s persuasion agreed with the
predominant attitude of the era that women were spiritually and physi-
cally weak, and that this could lead to sin, they nevertheless redoubled their
assertions by claiming that a strong support of marriage and family was

the only method for preserving the honor of the female sex. For this side,
stricter punishments against fornication and extramarital sex were the only
solution.62
Nevertheless, what can be seen in both sides of the Preisfrage debate is
a comprehensive reevaluation of infanticide and child-murderesses in light
of new ideas. This new context included changing ideas about criminality
and the idea that the treatment of both crime and criminals needed to be
reformed—arguments not focused solely on infanticide. Enlightened reform-
ers were eager to transform judicial systems across Europe. This debate
extended far beyond the Preisfrage, which might serve a microcosm for
observing the more general trends in debate during the Enlightenment era.
And soon these debates would begin to result in actual legal transformation.
ENLIGHTENED CRIMINAL REFORM IN PRACTICE
Infanticide was such a popular subject for Enlightenment-era debate

because it was one crime that touched on many of the reformers’ main
concerns: the use of torture and the death penalty, the role of the state in
regulating personal, especially sexual, behavior, and the role of the state
in assisting the less fortunate. Many localities tried to implement reforms
similar to those suggested in response to the Preisfrage, such as easing the
consequences of illegitimate pregnancy. In Prussia, for instance, Frederick
the Great promoted such ideas as early as the 1740s, and in 1765 a Prus-
sian decree announced that women who were pregnant out of wedlock
would not face punishment if they notified certain trustworthy female
citizens of their pregnancy.63 Such new practices sought to eliminate
secret pregnancies, and with them, infanticides. But there were greater
changes underway that would reshape how infanticide was prosecuted
and punished, and the Prussian edict of 1765 in many ways demonstrated
the ambivalence governing officials felt when trying to solve the prob-
lem of infanticide.64 It was the same ambivalence seen in responses to
the Preisfrage: which was worse, executing child-murderesses or allowing
fornication?
Infanticide trials came to be seen as especially harsh not just because
of the growing sympathy toward the mothers but also because of a grow-
ing distaste for the death penalty and torture. These practices decreased
in popularity across Europe during the eighteenth century, and many have
credited the decrease to pressure from philosophes. However, John Lang-
bein has convincingly argued that they did so not out of an Enlightened,
humane effort to end barbaric practices. Rather, any eventual decline in the
use of torture and execution was the result of inherent procedural problems
in a legal system that was becoming less effective. Langbein attributes the
decline of the use of torture to the dissolution of the inquisitorial procedure,
which had been in place in continental Europe since the sixteenth century.65
Prussia here also led the way, banning torture in 1740.
The decline in the use of torture merged with the decline in the use of
the death penalty, as it altered the inquisitorial procedure and the use of
confession as the ultimate proof. The death penalty was already used much
less frequently across Germany by the beginning of the eighteenth century
than it had been in the sixteenth century.66 As torture came to be seen as
problematic, the basis for conviction and the system of punishment nec-
essarily also came into question. Many cases, therefore, resulted in which
officials strongly suspected guilt but lacked proof enough to enact capital
punishment. Thus, in the eighteenth century, these authorities began exer-
cising their power to issue other punishments, or poena extraordinaria,
which were not regulated by law. This practice ruled out the death penalty,
instead making use of the developing alternatives, such as prisons, work-
houses and, where possible, work on galleys. These punishments, unlike
execution, could be issued without a confession.67 Workhouses and prisons
maintained strict daily schedules and aimed to instill a respect for authority
and a stronger work ethic, and to return the rehabilitated criminals to soci-
ety as productive citizens, another concept new to the eighteenth century.68
Such punishments all aimed, at the very least, to separate problematic ele-
ments from the rest of society. Again, the focus was on the good of society
as a whole, even if the harsh conditions of workhouses and prisons served
to severely punish criminals in any case.
Across Europe, reformers were seeking more effective punishments along
these lines. Objections to the death penalty did not center only on a discus-
sion of the humanity or barbarity of execution but rather on its appropriate-
ness and effectiveness, as seen in many of the responses to the infanticide
Preisfrage. In the case of infanticide, many agreed that the threat of exe-
cution could not outweigh the potential consequences facing an unwed
mother, and therefore it was not effective as a deterrent. Beccaria famously
based his argument against the death penalties in similar terms: he argued
for more precise gradation of punishments to better fit crimes and for more
effective punishments. Execution was, he said, a spectacle that was soon for-
gotten and therefore did not serve as an effective deterrent. Following such
arguments, some European leaders began adopting some of his suggestions.
Yet this did not signal the end of the death penalty by any means. Complete
abandonment of this practice remained controversial and rare; while many
states eliminated the death penalty for some crimes, many still retained its
use for particularly heinous crimes.69 The death penalty was not by any
means brought to a clean end with the coming of the Enlightenment. There
were very few reformers who sought to abolish it entirely, and even for the
crime of infanticide, there were some who still called for its use.70
When it came to infanticide itself, the perceptions of the criminal herself
shifted from horror toward pity. Beccaria and Kant both wrote about the
inevitability of the crime, sharing an idea seen in the poems of the Sturm
und Drang and in expressed in many Preisfrage entries: a woman who had
become pregnant out of wedlock would naturally be driven toward infan-
ticide. Beccaria argued: “How should she who is forced to choose between
shame and the death of a being unable to feel its miseries not prefer the
latter to the inevitable suffering to which she and the unfortunate offspring
would be exposed?”71 Beccaria and others tied this pity for the criminal and
inevitability of the crime to their arguments for ending the death penalty.
Additionally, they argued that to allow a woman to live in her shame, which
had been powerful enough to lead her to infanticide, was a far greater pun-
ishment than death.72
LOCAL PRACTICES
Beyond all of the theorizing and speculating, however, changes were tak-
ing place on the ground as well. Local courts prosecuting infanticide were
taking these wider debates into consideration. At the local level, the gears
of change ground slowly, but change was nevertheless quite apparent in
the waning decades of the eighteenth century all across the Holy Roman
Empire. Local laws, soon to be replaced by French reforms under Napoleon
as the empire fell, had already started to adopt calls for reform.
Yet a look back at the local level reveals something quite intriguing.
Despite all of the attention paid to infanticide, there was an immense dis-
crepancy between the fever-pitch of the discussion about the crime and its
actual occurrence. By the end of the eighteenth century in many localities
(although not all), infanticide was a very rare occurrence. The rabid debate
about this crime continued to build despite the fact that in many places, it
was already on the decline. Much like the earlier flurry of infanticide litera-
ture in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, there was often little
correlation between the accounts of witnesses, defendants, and prosecutors
in the courts and the stories presented by the melodramatic authors of the
Sturm und Drang and the impassioned reformers responding to the Preis-
frage. However, unlike the sensationalism of two centuries earlier, this new
perspective on the crime and on those who committed it did eventually lead
to changes in the actual practice of prosecuting infanticide.
Local court records of Augsburg and its neighbors indicate that a sig-
nificant transition was indeed underway in the eighteenth century. Of the
women accused of infanticide in the eighteenth century, very few were
executed. The death penalty was not entirely beyond consideration, but it
became increasingly rare. A close look at Augsburg is revealing of these
trends. The town council of Augsburg began reserving the death penalty
for what it considered to be especially horrific cases, such as suicides by
proxy. Augsburg, following Langbein’s thesis of the increase in poena
extraordinaria instead of capital punishment, increasingly punished what
they labeled “suspected infanticide,” instead of confessed infanticide. This
practice allowed the council to avoid torture and also allowed greater flex-
ibility in handing down punishments. Mere suspicion of having committed
infanticide had always been a punishable crime, and the town council had
long handed down such punishments. But by the later decades of the eigh-
teenth century, women were more frequently labeled as suspected infanti-
cides, and they were subject to a wider array of punishments. For instance,
in 1773 Rosina Bayrinn received twenty lashes in addition to banishment
for “suspecti infanticidii.”73 Nine years later, Catharina Löwin was also
found guilty of suspected infanticide, and the council sentenced her to two
months in the workhouse before banishing her.74
Closely related were the records that indicate that several women were
punished for hidden pregnancies and secret childbirths. Both of these had
long been deemed criminal offenses in an attempt to stem infanticide; but
they were usually only exposed when an infanticide or abortion came to
light and were thus subsumed into the more severe crime. However, the
number of women punished for these crimes themselves experienced an
upswing toward the end of the eighteenth century, perhaps reflecting a
stronger push to prevent infanticide by means of more thorough commu-
nity policing. In 1776 Magdalena Bartlin received fifteen lashes and spent
three weeks in the workhouse for concealing a pregnancy.75 In 1788 Maria
Margaretha Hirschmännin also attempted to hide her pregnancy and served
four weeks in the workhouse, and after her lying-in period,76 Marianna Bos-
chin earned four weeks in the workhouse for giving birth in secret in 1780.77
The records unfortunately do not indicate what became of the pregnancies
or the children.
Despite the efforts of some reformers, women were still punished for
having illegitimate children, albeit now usually only after multiple pregnan-
cies. In October 1777, Anna Barbara Schwagerin was arrested after having
found herself pregnant out of wedlock for the fourth time. She was sen-
tenced to an indefinite stay in the workhouse.78 In April 1784, Katharina
Meißgeyrin was arrested, also pregnant out of wedlock for the fourth time.
She was sentenced to remain in the workhouse permanently.79 Such punish-
ments for illegitimate pregnancies continued into the nineteenth century, as
Regina Zuchmeisterin was sentenced to an unspecified amount of time in
the workhouse in November 1801.80 Change came slowly, as the continued
prosecution of unwed mothers demonstrated.
In the sentences noted here, the workhouse was used for both rehabilita-
tion and punishment. Some condemned to the workhouse were expected to
stay there for a short period of time, usually a few weeks to a few months,
and then, presumably, return to society. Others were sent to the work-
house before they were banished. In such situations, the intent was clearly
not rehabilitation but merely to intensify the severity of the punishment.
Increasingly, indefinite or permanent sentences to the workhouse were used
instead of banishment for the growing range of noncapital crimes.
On rare occasions women fully convicted of infanticide were still executed
in the late eighteenth century, but the last execution for classic infanticide
found in the Augsburg city records, at least until this set of records ended
and the court system changed in 1806, was Barbara Gruberin in 1765. The
intervening forty-one years with no executions for infanticide marked a span
of time unmatched since the early sixteenth century. The last execution for
suicide by proxy—that of Maria Anna Mayrinn—took place in 1783, leaving
a span of eighteen years without an execution for infanticide of any type. One
final piece of evidence for Augsburg is the case of Felicitas Däumlingin, who
was convicted of infanticide in 1798, but was sentenced to the workhouse
instead of being executed. Although other child-murderers had occasionally
escaped execution throughout the early modern period, Felicitas’s case exem-
plifies an important shift: women were still committing infanticide but were
no longer executed in the event of conviction. Her case follows several decades
with no executions despite at least six convictions for suspected infanticide. In
Augsburg, as it was all across Germany, the use of execution was evolving.81
This pattern was also echoed across Germany. In Nuremberg, infanticide
trials rose and fell erratically throughout the eighteenth century, but execu-
tions dropped off in the 1770s, while other forms of punishments continued.82
The waning decades of the eighteenth century in Würzburg saw seven women
sent to the Zuchthaus (Discipline House) for infanticide while only two child-
murderesses were sentenced to death. Further, eight women were sentenced to
the Arbeitshaus (Work House), two to the Zuchthaus, and three were arrested
for suspected infanticide.83 The situation in Prussia was more complicated,
where Kerstin Michalik has found that there was a higher frequency of infan-
ticide than in southern Germany. Prussia was nevertheless much more pro-
gressive in its treatment of infanticide; the elimination of torture in 1740 and
the Prussian infanticide decree of 1765 resulted in extraordinary drops in the
percentage of women executed for infanticide. Before 1740, over 50 percent
of child-murderesses were executed. This number dropped to less than 20
percent after 1740 and again to 15 percent after 1765. The debates of the
Preisfrage were—albeit in a limited way—beginning to bear fruit.
CONCLUSIONS
The eighteenth century witnessed major transitions in the way in which

infanticide was prosecuted and punished. New images of infanticide perme-
ated German and European culture, resulting in significant shifts in attitude
and very real changes in judicial practice. These new attitudes were seen
nowhere as dramatically as in the poetry of the Sturm und Drang, but they
were also quite apparent in the popular street literature. The bombast of the
Sturm und Drang and the melodrama presented by infanticide were a natu-
ral fit. Authors like Schiller and Goethe used infanticide to explore themes
of sex, violence, and betrayal. The popular street literature of the day also
appreciated the salacious material that infanticide provided but found its
most powerful message in the possibility of redemption of the sinner. In all

of these works we find a figure relatively new to the eighteenth century, that
of the child-murderess-as-victim. She was now not simply a criminal but a
weak and naïve victim of her seducer and her society. Gone was the child-
murderess who was always labeled as selfish, shameless, and wanton. Gone
therefore also was the automatic assumption that execution was the only
solution for such a horrific crime. The new image of the child-murderess
fed into ideas of reform as well, sparking calls for greater compassion. As
a victim, the child-murderess garnered sympathy, and in an age in which
legal and social reform was opening up for public discussion, infanticide was
therefore a natural target. The child-murderess was the ideal figure to focus
these attentions on: the sympathetic young woman who could potentially be
rescued from the barbaric practices of the “dark ages,” and whose salvation
could serve as an example of the possibility of rehabilitation and redemption.
NOTES
1. Stadtarchiv Ulm, Stbibl. 27148 1785, “Urteil über die am 25. Apr. 1785 hing-
erichtete Kindsmörderin Anna Katharina Türkin,” 1/2 Bogen.
2. SStBA, 4 Aug 1532a, Samuel Valentin, Ein HochEdler und Hochweiser Rath
des Heil. Röm. Reichs-Freyen Stadt Augspurg, hat mit Urthel zu Recht erkannt,
Daß, den 20. Aug. Anno 1765. Barbara Gruberin, allhiesige Dienst-Magd, von
Mauren gebürthig weilen sie ihr in Unehren erzeigtes Kind, gleich nach der
Geburt Erbarmungs würdiger Weise ums Leben gebracht, durch das Schwerdt
vom Leben zum Tod gebracht werden solle (Augsburg: Brinhauser, 1765).
Ich bin es, welche, den 16. März Anno 1765 mit einem gesunden und leb-
endigen, leyder! in Unehren erzeugten Kinde entbunden worden; Aber nicht
von den Banden und Stricken des Satans, von welchen ich gefangen war zu
seinem Willen. Dann an statt durch wahre Buse und Bekehrung in den verdi-
enstlichen Banden JESU des Heylandes aller armen Sünder, Gnade, Vergebung,
Erretung und Freyheit ernstlich zu suchen, ließ ich mich vom Satan nach seinem
und meinem Willen, noch fester fesseln und binden; So daß ich zuerst meine
schändliche Schwangerschaft, vor denen Menschen verhehlt, so dann meine
heimliche Entbindung gottloser Weiß vertuscht, endlich aber auch mein, ach
leyder! unschuldiges Kind in einen Schurz eingewickelt, und unter den Stroh-
sack gestecket habe, mithin in seinem Blute elendiglich ersticken und es zu todt
bluten ließ. O verwegene That! O erschröckliche Schandthat! O unmenschliche
Mordthat! ein unschuldiges Kind, mein eigenes Kind ohne Erbarmen und Mit-
leyden, ohne Gefühl einer Mütterlichen Liebe und Treue verderben und sterben
lassen! . . . Jezo aber empfange ich nach Göttlichen und Menschlichen Rechten
was meine schändlich, was meine schröckliche Thaten werth sind. O GOTT!
O JESU! erbarme Dich meiner. Wie das Blut meines in seinem Blute erstickten
Kindes wider mich um Rache schreyet: Ach so laß! Dein versöhnendes Blut . . .
für mich bey GOTT um Gnade und Vergebung schreyen. Ich werde gefangen
und gebunden zum Tode geführet, ach mache mich O JESU durch deine Bande
und Strick von allen meinen Sünden-Banden frey, recht frey, ja ewig frey, daß
ich nicht ewig sterben müsse, sondern ewig bey Dir leben möge.
3. J.A. Sharpe, “‘Last Dying Speeches:’ Religion, Ideology and Public Execution in
Seventeenth-Century England” Past and Present 107, no. 1 (1985), 144–167.
Joy Wiltenburg, Crime and Culture in Early Modern Germany (Charlot-
tesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013).

4. StadtAA, Strafamt, Todesurteile, Samuel Keck, 20 December 1710.
StadtAA, Strafamt, End-Urthel und Verruf, Samuel Keck, 20 December
1710.
5. SStBA, 4 S 567–1, Caspar Brechenmacher, Kurtzes Und Von dem armen Sünder
in dem Gefängnuß mit eigner Hand aufgesetztes Lebens-Gedächtnuß, Aufrich-
tige Sünden-Bekandtnuß, Schmertzliche Bereuung, Hertzliche Ermahnug und
Christlich-standhaffte Todes-Verfassung. Weil: Samuel Keck, Von Ravens-
purg, geweßter Handels-Jungen, Seines Alters im 21. Jahr, so Sonntag den 7.
Dec. 1710 in Augspurg eine hochschwangere ledige Weibs-Persohn, welche
ihn als Kindes Vatter angeben wollen . . . (Augsburg: Brechenmacher, 1710).
Samuel Keck/ Von Ravenspurg/ geweßten Handels-Jungen/ Seines Alters im
21 Jahr/ so Sonntag den 7 Dec. 1710 in Augspurg eine hochschwangere ledige
Weibs-Persohn/ welche ihn als Kindes Vatter angeben wollen/ Abends zwischen
6 u 7 Uhr nach gesperrtem Thor ausser der Stadt aus vorsetzlichem Grimm mit
seinem Tisch-Messer jämmerlicher Weis tödtlich verwundet/ und gleich darauf
in das vorbey fliessende Wasser geworffen/ auf welchem sie sobald in die Stadt
geschwummen/ und noch warm tod heraus gezogen worden; Er aber ist gleich
nach verrichter Mord-That durch den Einlaß in die Stadt gekommen/ und hat
sich den folgenden Tag als den 8 dito Nachts um 11 Uhr aus Trib seines Gewis-
sens selber in Arrest begeben/ und alles freywillig bestanden/ u nur um ein
baldig- und gnädiges Urtheil gebetten/ welches auch den 20 dato an ihm vol-
lzogen/ das Haupt abgeschlagen/ und dises hernach auf 4 Wochen lang samt
dem Cörper auf ein Rad gelegt.
6. StadtAA, Strafamt, End-Urthel und Verruf, Samuel Keck, 20 December 1710.
Eröffne doch deine Augen tolle Jugend! schaue in mich, als in einen Spie-
gel, und betrachte wie ich meinen schönen Tauf-Namen Samuel vergessen,
meines zunahmens mich bedienet, and in der That erwiesen, dass ich heisse
Keck. O unglückseelige Keckheit! Welche meine geliebte Eltern Biss in den Tod
betrübet.
7. SStBA, 8° Aug 344, Caspar Brechenmacher, “Ernstliche Buß-Vermahnung,”
(Augsburg: Brechenmacher, 1710).
8. StadtAA, Urgichten, Samuel Keck, 20 December 1710.
9. StadtAA, Strafamt, End-Urthel und Verruf, Samuel Keck, 20 December 1710.
Nota: Dieser Samuel Keck hat sich bey Unkündigung seines Todes, biss zu
seinem Lebens-Ende, mit der grösten Standhafftigkeit, getrosten Muths und
Freudigkeit zum Sterben bereitet. Dann er bedancke sich gegen die hohe Justiz
demüthigst, bathe um die lezte Gnade, dass er ganz neu und in schwarz und weiss
auf seine Todes-Reise möchte gekleidet werden, welches auch erlaubet wurde;
da ihme seine liebe und werthe Herrschafft ein ganz neues feines Hembd, und
ein Halstuch schwarz ausgenehet, ein schwarz seidenes paar Strümpff, schwarze
sammeten Hosen, ein schwarzes Band, seine schöne lange Haare zubinden,
neue Schuh mit blau angelauffenen Schnallen übersandte. An dem lezten Tage
seines Lebens nahme er keine Speise mehr zu sich, auf dem Chavot bate er, man
möchte ihm die Haare nicht abschneiden, sondern selbige mit dem schwarzen
Band hinauf binden, ingleichem liess er sich die Augen nicht zubinden, sondern
erwartete mit offenen Augen den Streich; Also hat dieser Keck zu jedermanns
Bewunderung freudig und beherzt seinen Geist aufgegeben.
10. Much work has been done on the concept of a “good death.” See for example,
Joy Wiltenburg, Crime and Culture in Early Modern Germany, for analysis on
this in the German context.
11. SStBA, Brechenmacher, “Ernstliche Buß-Vermahnung.”
12. Eileen Dugan, “The ‘Poor Sinner’ of Nördlingen: A Lutheran Criminal Con-
version Narrative,” in Marion Kobelt-Groch and Cornelia Niekus Moore

(eds), Tod und Jenseits in der Schriftkultur der Frühen Neuzeit (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz in Kommission, 2008), 213–226.
13. Tyge Krogh, A Lutheran Plague: Murdering to Die in the Eighteenth Century
(Leiden: Brill, 2012).
14. Kathy Stuart, “Suicide by Proxy: The Unintended Consequences of Public
Executions in Eighteenth-Century Germany,” Central European History 41,
no. 3 (2008).
15. Craig Koslofsky and Dana Rabin, “The Limits of the State: Suicide, Assas-
sination, and Execution in Early Modern Europe,” in Andreas Bähr and Hans
Medick (eds), Sterben von eigener Hand: Selbsttötung als Kulturelle Praxis
(Cologne: Böhlau, 2005), 45–64.
16. Arne Jansson, “Suicidal Murders in Stockholm,” in Jeffrey Watt (ed.), From
Sin to Insanity: Suicide in Early Modern Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 2004), 97–98.
17. Stuart, “Suicide by Proxy,” 424.
18. Krogh, A Lutheran Plague, 41.
19. “Du, der du dieses liebest, betrachte die grausame That meines Vatters, den
meine Kindheit nie beleidiget, seine Mord-Hand hat mich unschuldiges Läm-
mlein abgewürget, O barmherziger Vatter! Ich armes Lämmlein muß des Vat-
ters Mord-Hand küssen, So mir die zarte Keyl entzwey geschnitten hat, der
mich selbst hat erzeugt, macht daß ich sterben müssen, O Felsen-Hartes Hertz!
bereue diese That!”
20. SStBA, Graphiksammlung, 29/120, Die alhier in Augsburg Ao 1740 den 14.
Marty von seinem eigenen Vatter grausam ermordete Unschuld Maria Magda-
lena Bertzin, (N.p., 1740).
21. “Und du hast es gethan? Ach, es ist kaum zu glauben! Da ich dich billich solt
als meinen Vatre kennen, Weil ich daß Leben Dir nechst Gott zu dancken hab!
So muß ich dich, O Grauß! jetzt meinen Mörder nennen, weil dein verfluchte
Hand mich stürtzt dann in daß Grab Erstaunens volle That!”
22. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verzeichnis der Maleficanten, Jeremias Bertz, 31 May
1740.
23. Stuart, “Suicide by Proxy.”
24. Ibid., 429.
25. Hinrichtung der Maria Elisabetha Beckensteinerin, welch emit ihrem Strumpf-
Band ihr eignes noch kein halb Jahr altes Söhnlein Johann Andreas allhier in
Augspurg in der Gefängnus erdroßelt, wurde 20 Marty 1742 mit dem Schwerd
hingerichtet worden. Ihres Alters 37 Jahrs.
26. SStBA, Graphiksammlung, 29/123, Hinrichtung der Maria Elisabetha Beck-
ensteinerin (Augsburg: Thomas Bäck, 1742).
27. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verzeichnis der Maleficanten, Maria Elisabetha Becken-
steinerin, 20 March 1742.
28. SStBA, Graphiksammlung, Grausamer und fast niemahls erhörter Kinder-
Mord . . . M.A. Beckensteinerin. (N.p., 1742).
29. SStBA, Valentin, Maria Barbara Schmidin.
30. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verbrecher-Buch, Maria Anna Mayrinn, 8 February 1783.
SStBA, Hilgendorf, Maria Anna Mayrinn.
StadtAA, Strafamt, Verziechnis der Maleficanten.
31. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verzeichnis der Maleficanten, Maria Elisabetha Becken-
steinerin, 20 March 1742.
32. StadtAA, Verziechnis der Maleficanten, Jeremias Bertz, 31 May 1740.
33. StadtAA, Strafbücher, Jeremias Bertz, 31 May 1740.
34. StadtAA, Verziechnis der Maleficanten, Jeremias Bertz, 31 May 1740.
StadtAA, End-Urthel und Verruf, Jeremias Bertz, 31 May 1740.

35. Stuart, “Suicide by Proxy,” 424.
36. Ibid., 431.
37. SStBA, Valentin, Maria Barbara Schmidin.
38. Vera Lind, Selbstmord in der Frühen Neuzeit: Diskurs, Lebenswelt und Kul-
tureller Wandel am Beispiel der Herzogtümer Schleswig und Holstein (Göt-
tingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), 126–134.
39. J.M. Rameckers, Der Kindesmord in der Literatur der Sturm-und-Drang Peri-
ode (Rotterdam: Ditmar, 1927), 4.
40. Kirsten Peters, Der Kindsmord als schöne Kunst betrachtet: eine motivge-
schichtliche Untersuchung der Literature des 18. Jahrhunderts (Würzburg:
Königshausen & Neumann, 2001), 9.
41. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust (New York: Anchor Books, 1990), 408.
My translation.
42. Ibid., 420.
43. Friedrich Schiller, “Die Kindsmörderin,” accessed June 8, 2015, http://guten-
berg.spiegel.de/buch/3352/118. My translation.
44. See, for example, Otto Ulbricht, Kindsmord und Aufklärung in Deutschland;
Helen Fronius, “Images of Infanticide in Eighteenth-Century Germany,” in
Helen Fronius and Anna Linton (eds), Women & Death: Representations of
Female Victims and Perpetrators in German Culture, 1500–2000 (Rochester:
Camden House, 2008), 93–112 and Susanne Kord, Murderesses in German
Writing, 1720–1860: Heroines of Horror (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2009).
45. Rebekka Habermas and Tanja Hommen (eds), Das Frankfurter Gretchen: Der
Prozess gegen die Kindsmörderin Susanna Margaretha Brandt (Munich: C.H.
Beck, 1999), 28–29.
46. W. Daniel Wilson, “Goethe, His Duke and Infanticide: New Documents and
Reflections on a Controversial Execution,” German Life and Letters 61, no. 1
(January 2008), 7–32.
47. Gottfried August Bürger, “Des Pfarrers Tochter von Taubenhain,” 1778,
accessed June 8, 2015, http://www.literaturwelt.com/werke/buerger/tauben-
hain.html. My translation.
48. Susanne Kord, “Women as Childkillers: Poetic Images of Infanticide in Eigh-
teenth-Century Germany,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 26, no. 3 (Spring
1993), 453–7.
Kord, Murderesses in German Writing, 121–153.
49. August Gottlieb Meißner, “Die Mörderin,” in Deutsches Museum, vol. 4,
April 1779, 380–383; Fronius, “Images of Infanticide,” 96.
50. Fronius, “Images of Infanticide,” 102–103.
51. Anton Matthias Sprickmann, “Ida,” in Deutsches Museum, vol. 2, February
1777, 120–128.
52. Fronius, “Images of Infanticide,” 93–112.
53. Ibid., 94–96.
Peters, Der Kindsmord als schöne Kunst, 79–80.
54. Gustav Radbruch and Heinrich Gwinner, Geschichte des Verbrechens: Ver-
such einer historischen Kriminologie (Frankfurt: Eichborn, 1991), 242.
55. This anonymous benefactor was later revealed to be Ferdinand Adrian von
Lamezan, a Mannheim jurist and bureaucrat. Ulbricht, Kindsmord und
Aufklärung, 219.
56. Ibid., 217–218.
57. Peter Camper, Abhandlung von den Kennzeichen des Lebens und des Todes
bey neugebornen Kindern: nebst einigen Gedanken über die Strafen des Kind-
ermords (Frankfurt: Brönner, 1777), 119.
58. Camper, Abhandlung, 11, as cited in Fronius, “Images of Infanticide,” 101.

59. Georg Friedrich Donauer, Versuch einer Beantwortung der Preißfrage: Welches
sind die besten ausführbaren Mittel, dem Kindermord Einhalt zu thun? (Nurem-
berg: Gratenauer, 1781), 21.
“Der Tod ist es eben was ein stolzes und auf einmal mit Schmach bedecktes
Mädchen sich wünschet. Die Strafe ist also Wohlthat für dasselbe, welches
sie nicht seyn sollte. Hingegen würde eine andere Strafe, z.B. lebenslängliche
Zuchthausstrafe und oft wiederholte Ausstellung an den Schandpfal nicht nur
für Schwangere viel abschreckender, sondern auch für andere Mädchen die
beste Art von Unterricht und Warnung seyn.”
60. Ibid.
“Sollte daher nicht, wider die Absicht, leicht mehr Boeses als Gutes dadurch
gestiftet werden koennen? Und sollte nicht auch hier die goldne Mittelstrasse
ihren allgemein anerkannten Vorzug behaupten?”
61. Karl Müller, Mittel wider den Kindermord. Eine Beantwortung der
Mannheimer Preisaufgabe (Halle: Hendel, 1781).
62. Kerstin Michalik, “The Development of the Discourse on Infanticide in the
Late Eighteenth Century and the New Legal Standardization of the Offense in
the Nineteenth Century,” in Ulrike Gleixner and Marion Gray (eds), Gender in
Transition: Discourse and Practice in German-speaking Europe, 1750–1830
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 59–60.
63. Ibid., 53–54.
BSBM, 2 Pol. civ. 4 d, Edikt wider den Mord neugebohrner unehelicher
Kinder, Verheimlichung der Schwangerschaft und Niederkunft, Berlin, 1765.
64. Isabel Hull, Sexuality, State, and Civil Society in Germany, 1700–1815 (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1997), 107–130.
Ancien Régime (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977).
66. Richard Evans, Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany,
1600–1987 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 42.
67. Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof.
Evans, Rituals of Retribution, 113–116.
68. Joel Harrington, “Escape from the Great Confinement: The Genealogy of a
German Workhouse,” The Journal of Modern History 71, no. 2 (June 1999),
308–345.
69. Evans, Rituals of Retribution, 127–140.
70. Michalik, “The Development of the Discourse,” 56.
71. Quoted in Kord, Murderesses in German Writing, 135.
72. Kord, Murderesses in German Writing, 135–141.
73. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verbrecher-Buch, Rosina Bayrinn, 19 January 1773.
74. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verbrecher-Buch, Catharina Löwin, 19 February 1782.
75. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verbrecher-Buch, Magdalena Bartlin, 9 November 1776.
76. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verbrecher-Buch, Maria Margaretha Hirschmännin, 19
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77. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verbrecher-Buch, Marianna Boschin, 4 March 1780.
78. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verbrecher-Buch, Anna Barbara Schwagerin, 11 October
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79. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verbrecher-Buch, Katharina Meißgeyrin, 17 April 1784.
80. StadtAA, Strafamt, Verbrecher-Buch, Regina Zuchmeisterin, 19 November
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81. Evans, Rituals of Retribution.
82. Van Dülmen, Frauen vor Gericht, 70.
83. Ibid., 91.
Conclusion
In all societies, and for many reasons, regardless of views on and practices
of abortion or infanticide, people have had unwanted pregnancies and
unwanted children. And because unwanted children exist, there are always
people willing to take some sort of drastic measures to end a pregnancy or
dispose of a newborn baby. What makes a pregnancy or a child unwanted
depends on myriad factors, including the role of the child in the particular
society, religion and morality, the status of the child’s parents, the society’s
attitudes toward children, women, and pregnancy, and ideas about bodily
autonomy, legitimacy, and social welfare. What a mother or father of an
unwanted child is willing to do, is capable of doing, or needs to do is depen-
dent upon who is considered responsible for the pregnancy or unwanted
child and what physical controls and legal rights a woman has over her
body and her pregnancy. The answers to these questions may determine if
the mother has an abortion, if one of the parents commits infanticide, or if
another solution needs to be found or imposed, such as exile, social humili-
ation, or marriage to the father.
Looking at abortion and infanticide in the early modern period invites
comparison with other times and places, especially our own. There are cer-
tain major discrepancies that stand out. While infanticide is almost univer-
sally held to be illegal and immoral, for instance, today, abortion inspires far
greater ambivalence and more intense debate. However, certain questions
remain constant: just as in the early modern period, there is no consensus
today on such pivotal questions as when life begins, whether a woman has
bodily autonomy and control and how that changes with pregnancy, or
whose right it is to even ask and answer these questions. Studying abor-
tion from a historical standpoint does not, perhaps, clarify modern issues,
but it does provide context and perspective. This perspective allows us to
see that certain aspects of these debates have evolved quite dramatically.
Medical knowledge, for instance, has progressed tremendously since 1800.
Now, for example, the diagnosis of pregnancy is generally far more cer-
tain. The framework of the debate about abortion, while sometimes strik-
ingly familiar, has also shifted dramatically to include those who argue for a
woman’s right to abortion. The many sides of these debates often assert the
186 Conclusion
universality and historical continuity of their opinions. This study, I hope,
has proven otherwise. Infanticide and abortion, while they exist universally,
are historically and culturally contingent.
The early modern period experienced a unique obsession with infanticide.
Yet what that obsession meant and looked like varied quite widely within
the period. The era was bookended by two definitions of child-murderesses:
the Carolina’s description of a wanton, selfish mother who mercilessly kills
her illegitimate child, and the suffering mother of the Sturm und Drang,
who was an inherently good but flawed young woman seduced by an evil
man. How early modern society in general treated infanticide and abortion
reflects, therefore, what it thought about women in general. But looking
at the full expanse of the period allows us to also see many more varia-
tions in the idea of infanticide. Fathers killed their children, children were
killed as collateral damage in suicides by proxy, and married mothers killed
legitimate offspring. Infanticide became wrapped up in a set of ideas about
dangers facing society more generally, and babies were held as potential
victims not only of their unwed mothers but also of murderous foreigners,
cannibalistic monsters, witches, Jews, and criminals of all sorts.
But infanticide and abortion were still much more than a variety of
loosely related crimes in the early modern period. They were crimes that
were shaped by and helped to define certain early modern ideas. Included
were ideas of sexual expectations and regulations, as theologians and mag-
istrates struggled to effectively control sexuality and human behavior and
the consequences thereof. The crimes also shaped medical understanding
of reproduction, as physicians tried to come to terms with defining life,
when life began, and when it ended, in addition to sorting out complex
notions of proof. In the legal arena, infanticide and abortion tested the lim-
its of legal definitions, forced confrontations between imperial and regional
laws, and pushed forward the conversation about torture and the death
penalty. Additionally, the two crimes drew crime and the legal arena into a
closer, mutually influential relationship with media, as perceived criminal-
ity and media sensationalism built upon each other. Finally, more broadly,
the crimes illuminate broader ideas in the early modern period, such as the
social and cultural importance of children, the perceived abilities and agency
of women, the patriarchal foundations of early modern society, and the role
of government in personal matters and morals. Examining infanticide and
abortion through the three centuries of the early modern period allows us
to comprehend and appreciate the magnitude of these changes. Infanticide
and abortion were not simple crimes but cultural phenomena shaped and
reshaped by the dramatic fluctuations in society at large; the impact of these
crimes went far beyond what might be expected.
Even though the number of women (and men) whose acts of infanti-
cide or abortion were discovered never came close to the statistics for other
crimes, such as murder or theft, these crimes caught the imagination of early
modern Europeans. Introspectively, they wondered what was happening in
Conclusion 187
their own communities that women could be so immoral and cruel. The
continued occurrence of infanticide and abortion heightened concerns that
larger problems loomed and that as a whole, society was far from the ideal
of the Christian community. Violence toward children erupted into a storm
of sensationalized literature, which took different forms at different times,
reaching a level of obsession that could not be explained by the relative
rarity of the crime. But as the myth of infanticide developed, it started to
have very real consequences. In their own way, abortion and infanticide
were catalysts for cultural change far beyond the immediate problem of
unwanted pregnancies.
There is much that remains mysterious about infanticide and abortion
in the early modern period. These were secretive crimes, and the hidden,
secret nature of infanticide and abortion unnerved early modern society in
many ways: How many more incidences went undiscovered? How could it
possibly be stopped? But even more than unnerving, infanticide and abor-
tion proved unendingly fascinating. It is a phenomenon still today, as abor-
tion dominates political discourse and cases of infanticide garner televised,
twenty-four-hour news coverage. When it came to sin, sex, murder, and
depravity, the public was (and still is) held completely captive. Sensational-
ism, prosecution, and debate escalated until a myth of infanticide was cre-
ated, a myth that in many ways still exists today.

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Index
abandonment 3, 10, 20, 24–6, 34–6, Baumüllerin, Margaretha 70–1

38, 42–3, 49, 57, 69, 71, 78, Beccaria, Cesare 141, 172, 175–6
125, 129, 172 Beckensteinerin, Maria Elisabetha
abortifacients 2, 26, 57, 61, 66, 74–7, 161–4
117, 119, 122–5; laurel 74–5, Beckh, Georg Matthäus 156–7
123–5; parsley 123 Bern 94–5
accidents 4, 7, 42–3 Bertz, Jeremias 158–61, 163
adultery 29, 50, 74–5, 132, 154 Blaicherin, Maria 54–6, 64, 66
Aktenversendung 131–4 Boes, Maria 52
Aleweckher, Hanns 103–4 Breslerin, Agnes 63, 67
apothecaries 116–23 brothels see prostitution
apprentices 8, 29, 32, 57, 117, 156; Bucholtz, Wilhelm 137, 140
see also guilds Bürger, Gottfried August 168–9;
Ariès, Philippe 9 “The Pastor’s Daughter of
Aristotle 20, 136 Taubenhain” 168–9
Augsburg: city council 34–5, 49, 67, burial 2, 39, 59, 62–3, 106
117, 119–20, 132–3, 143; Büttner, Christoph Gottlieb 138, 140
court records 17, 40, 51–2, 54, Butzen-Bercht 90–3; see also Kinderfresser
132, 144, 153, 158, 176–8;
economy 50; laws 32–3, 44–5, Camper, Peter 131, 141, 172
177–8; print industry 82–3, 85, cannibalism 82, 85–102, 186; see also
88–9, 91, 98, 100, 103, 115; grave robbing; Kinderfresser;
reformation 22, 27; trials 1–2, ritual murder; robber-murderers;
16, 29, 36–7, 40–1, 43–4, 54, witchcraft
56–8, 63, 70–9, 95–6, 101, 118, Carpzov, Benedict 129–30, 136, 142
126–8, 152–3, 158–63; war charity see poor relief
50, 96 child abuse see domestic abuse
Collegium Medicum 117–20
Bach, Abraham 89, 94 Cologne 53, 105
Bair, Jeremias 57, 74–6, 124 conception 4, 19–20, 38, 58, 117,
Bambergische Halsgerichtsordnung 135–9
22–4, 26, 39; von confession (criminal) 22, 24, 36, 54, 56,
Schwarzenberg, Johann 22–3 65–7, 69, 77, 93, 115–16, 121,
banishment 1–2, 10, 18, 20, 26, 31–2, 128, 130, 132, 175
34, 36, 40–1, 54, 58, 60, 63, 67, confession (religious) 3, 8, 17, 19,
70–1, 75–6, 78, 95–6, 124, 128, 21–2, 27–8, 36, 93, 104, 156
177–8, 185 Constitutio Criminalis Carolina 1–3,
baptism 28, 36, 70, 157–8 7, 10, 16–18, 20–7, 34, 39–45,
barber-surgeon 116–20, 127 53–4, 56, 65–7, 69–70, 77–8,
202 Index
116, 130–1, 136–8, 143, 151, foundlings 10, 34–6
163–5; article 131 24–5, 163; Frankfurt 51–2, 106, 167
article 132 24–5; article 133 24, Frederick the Great 171, 174; see also
26; article 137 163 Prussia
free imperial cities 132–3; see also
Danzig 51–2 Augsburg; Memmingen;
Devil 2, 55, 64–5, 84, 90–2, 97–100, Nördlingen; Nuremberg; Ulm
103–5, 110, 152; see also
diabolism; witchcraft Galen 139
De Vries, Jan 37 Ganserin, Barbara 36, 57

diabolism 64–5, 90, 99–102 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 1–2,
Discipline Lords 27 151, 165–9, 179; Faust 1–2,
domestic abuse 25–6, 30, 43, 128 166–8
domestic servitude 8, 16, 29–31, 39, grave robbing 97, 100–1; see also
54, 57, 70, 74, 76, 95, 103, 123, robber-murderers
134, 173 Gruberin, Barbara 2, 152–3, 156, 178
Donauer, Georg Friedrich 172–3 guilds 28, 30, 32–3, 50, 75, 173;
Dugan, Eileen 156 see also apprentices; journeymen
economy 8, 25, 31–3, 36, 38, 45, 50–1, half-proof 65, 67, 116, 133, 135
53, 73, 78, 111 Harrington, Joel 35, 36, 52
employment 1, 28–32, 35–7, 50, 57, Hauin, Anna Barbara 115, 126–7,
78; see also domestic servitude 139–40
Endres, Blasius 102–4 Haußmännin, Salome 156–7; see also
Enlightenment 5–6, 143–4, 151, 165–6, Beckh, Georg Matthäus
171–8 Heberle, Hans 96–7
ensoulment 19–20, 136–7 Heringin, Appolonia 31, 61, 63, 66,
Erhart, Matthes 2, 67–8, 71–3 123
evidence 11, 20, 23, 33, 41, 53, 55–6, Höflerin, Barbara 31, 51, 64
62–3, 65–6, 69, 76–8, 115–16, Höllin, Margarete 2, 17–18
120–2, 126–7, 133–5, 140, 142–3, homicide see murder
157, 173; see also half-proof honor 28–9, 32–3, 44–5, 49, 65, 75,
execution 1–2, 6, 10, 16–18, 20, 23, 105–6, 141, 152, 154–6, 169,
39–40, 43–5, 51–3, 56, 62, 74, 172–4
76, 78, 95, 99, 102, 104, 107, Hsia, R. Po-Chia 95
115, 121, 137, 142–4, 150–4,
156–8, 161, 163, 167–8, 170, illness 35, 39, 50, 58–9, 61, 76, 78, 96,
172, 175, 178–9; burial alive 1, 117, 122, 135
23–4, 43–4, 143; burning 44, Imperial Diets 22
99, 101, 104, 106; decapitation Inquisitionsprozess 21–2, 38–40;
2, 26, 43–5, 51, 55, 73, 109, see also half-proof
143, 153–4, 162; drowning 1, 2,
16–17, 23–4, 26, 43–5, 142; the jail 2, 29, 40, 43, 54, 56, 158, 161–2,
sack 142–3; the wheel 44, 99, 166, 172, 175
102, 153–4 Jews 86, 93–6, 99, 119; see also ritual
exile see banishment murder
journeymen 8, 29, 32, 37, 76; see also
forensics 5, 117–18, 120–8, 130–1, guilds
133–42
fornication 1–3, 7, 9, 16, 27–9, 33, Keck, Samuel 153–6, 158–9, 162
35–6, 45, 50, 56–7, 71–3, 78, Kelblingerin, Kunigunda 62
101, 107, 118, 155, 171–4 Kinderfresser 82–3, 86–94; see also
foundling house 3, 10, 34–6, 63, 71, Butzen-Bercht
171–3; see also abandonment Kindserdrücken 42
Index 203
Kölderer, Georg 49–51, 77–8, 82 Naeve, Johann Karl 130, 142
Kreß, Georg 100 Nördlingen 2, 6, 17, 92–3, 124–5, 133,
Kreuzfeld, Johann Gottlieb 174 156–7
Nuremberg 35, 51–2, 85, 88, 107,
Langbein, John 142, 175, 177 178
legitimacy 2–3, 7–8, 16–17, 24–5,
28–9, 31–8, 40–2, 45, 50, 53–4, Oldekop, Justus 129–30
67, 70–3, 75, 104, 106–7, 110, orphans 34–5, 167; orphanages 3, 35;
118–19, 125, 128, 131, 155–6, see also foundling houses
162–3, 165, 169, 171–4, 177,

185–6 paternity claims 29, 34, 36, 38, 40–1,
Leonhartin, Margarete 124–5 55, 57, 70, 73–6, 76, 153–6,
Linderin, Catharina 61, 67–8 168–9
literacy 84, 165 physicians: expertise 119, 128–35,
Little Ice Age 50 186; medical regulation 117–18;
Loder, Christian 134–6 physician testimony 60–1, 75,
lung test 126, 139–42; see also 115–28, 134–42, 154; see also
Bucholtz, Wilhelm; Camper, Collegium Medicum
Peter; Hauin, Anna Barbara; Ploucquet, Gottfried Wilhelm 137–41
Ploucquet, Gottfried Wilhelm; poena extraordinaria 175, 177
Schröck, Lucas poor relief 33
Lutheran Reformation see religious popular literature 2, 4, 6, 10–11, 84–6,
reformations 91–2, 96–107, 109, 150–3, 155–6,
159–60, 166, 170–1, 179
magic see witchcraft poverty 1, 8, 31, 33, 38, 50, 70–1, 78,
Mannheimer Preisfrage 170–4, 178; 118, 162–3, 168; see also poor
see also Camper, Peter; Donauer, relief; employment
Georg Friedrich; Kreuzfeld, pregnancy: concealment 1, 16, 18,
Johann Gottlieb; Müller, Karl 23–5, 34, 39, 42, 54, 56, 58–9,
marriage 5, 26–7, 29–30, 32–3, 37, 42, 61, 65, 68–9, 72, 118, 122,
50, 57, 60, 71, 73, 76–7, 168, 135, 152, 174, 177; diagnosis
173–4, 185 58, 135, 185; symptoms 24,
Massacre of the Innocents 109–10 39, 58, 118, 122, 127, 135–6,
Mayrinn, Maria Anna 163, 178 138; see also conception;
Meißner, August Gottlieb 169; “Die quickening
Mörderin” 169 premarital sex see fornication
Memmingen 2, 6, 52 prematurity 121, 137–9
menstruation 58, 61, 74, 119, 122–4, prison see jail
135 proof 22–4, 29, 64–5, 67, 116, 133,
midwifery 25, 58–9, 92, 119, 122; 135, 141, 175, 186
midwife education 117, 134, prostitution 27, 32–3
173; midwife manuals 117; Prussia 171, 174–5, 178; infanticide
midwife ordinances 118–20; edict of 1765 174; see also
midwife testimony 23, 39, 61, Frederick the Great
77, 116–18, 120–4, 126–8, punishment 1–3, 8, 11, 17–31, 34–7,
134–5 40–1, 43–5, 49–51, 56–7,
Millerin, Ursula 2, 59, 123–4, 129 72–3, 75, 82, 84–5, 92, 106,
miscarriage 4, 19, 24, 42, 59, 61, 119–20, 128–32, 142–4, 150–1,
121–2, 126, 130–1 153–6, 162–4, 166, 168, 171–8;
Müller, Karl 173 corporal punishment 1, 23, 31,
Müller, Wolfgang 20 70–1, 95, 101, 177; Lasterstein
murder 4, 10, 19–22, 24, 64, 82, 84–6, 29; pillory 2, 18, 29, 31, 34,
93–111, 130, 157–8, 163–4 172; see also banishment;
Myers, David 129–30 execution; workhouses
204 Index
quickening 19–20, 58, 74, 136–7; suicide by proxy 132, 157–65, 178
see also ensoulment; pregnancy Swabia 50, 92–3, 165
Radbruch, Gustav 170 Thirty Years’ War 50, 84, 96–7

Rameckers, J.M. 166 Thomannin, Maria Lucia 2, 76–7, 128
Rampf, Hans 103 torture 63, 65–70, 72, 77–8, 92–3,
rape 30, 57, 109, 166 95, 101, 116, 121, 125, 131–3,
rehabilitation 143, 172–3, 175, 177–9 141–4, 174–5, 177–8; leg screws
religious reformations 5, 8, 10, 17, 21, 65; strappado 60, 63, 65–9, 72;
27–33, 38, 45, 53, 87–88, 93; thumb screws 65, 95; see also
Lutheran Reformation 22, 93 half-proof
Richter, Wolfgang 106 Turks 22, 85, 107–10
ritual murder 86, 93–6
robber-murderers 98–102 Ulm 2, 6, 51–2, 62, 96, 118, 150
Roman Law 8, 10, 21, 142 universities 11, 116, 129–34, 137, 139,
Rößlin, Eucharius 117 144; faculties of law 116, 129–33;
Rublack, Ulinka 52, 59 faculties of medicine 116, 129,
Rüeffin, Agatha 58–9, 64, 121 131, 133, 137; University of
Tübingen 130–3, 137; University
Sachs, Hans 108 of Wittenberg 130
Schaidhofin, Anna 2, 58, 135
Schiller, Friedrich 151, 166–7, 169–70, 179; van Dülmen, Richard 51–3
“Die Kindsmörderin” 167, 170 Voltaire 172
Schoepf, Wolfgang Adam 130
Schön, Erhard 108 Waldis, Burkhard 104
Schreiber, Nikolaus 105 Weiditz, Hans 89–90
Schröck, Lucas 115, 126 Weilbächin, Anna 2, 57–8, 74–6,
Schröter, Johann 138 123–4
Schultes, Lorentz 83, 94 Weisschoferin, Maria 37, 40–1
Schwarzkopf, Michael 101–2 Wildmen see Kinderfresser
Schwerhoff, Gerd 53 Wiltenburg, Joy 85, 102
Seitz, Walpurga 2, 16–17, 39, 43, 63, Wiser, Cyprian 2, 76–7, 128
69, 120 witchcraft 7, 9, 40, 52, 64, 66, 85–6,
Simon of Trent 94–5 90–3, 95, 99–102
Sprickmann, Anton Matthias 169–70; witnesses 22, 55, 65, 69, 76, 98,
“Ida” 169–70 115–16, 121, 128, 131–2, 140,
Stetten, Paul von 34, 96 157, 176
stillbirth 4, 60–1, 63, 67, 70, 115, workhouses 143, 173, 175, 177–8;
121–2, 124, 128, 139–42 Arbeitshaus 178; Zuchthaus 178
Strauch, Johannes 129–30 Württemberg 52, 131–3
Stuart, Kathy 158, 164
Sturm und Drang 5, 11, 151, 165–72, Zafran, Eric 94
176, 179, 186 Zika, Charles 94

Infanticide and Abortion in Early Modern Germany 2016

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Infanticide and Abortion in

Margaret Brannan Lewis is an assistant professor of history at the University

10 Blake, Gender and Culture

11 Age and Identity in Eighteenth-Century England

12 The Politics of Reproduction in Ottoman Society, 1838–1900

13 The Study of Anatomy in Britain, 1700–1900

14 Interpreting Sexual Violence, 1660–1800

15 Women, Agency and the Law, 1300–1700

16 Sex, Identity and Hermaphrodites in Iberia, 1500–1800

17 The English Execution Narrative, 1200–1700

18 The Early Modern Child in Art and History

19 Infanticide and Abortion in Early Modern Germany

British Masculinity and the YMCA, 1844–1914

Margaret Brannan Lewis

The right of Margaret Brannan Lewis to be identified as author of this

1 The Baby in the Pig Sty: Defining the Crime 16

2 “Such Barbarous Mothers There Are These Days”:

3 Beware the Kinderfresser: Violence Toward Children in

5 “Sighs of the Poor Sinner”: Sensationalism and Enlightenment 150

Works Cited 189

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2.1 Marginalia depicting the execution of Kunigunda

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an examination of the entire period, extending from roughly 1500 to 1800.

occurred only occasionally. As secretive crimes, officials suspected much

in the abysmal conditions of foundling houses. In theory, however, children

infanticide to a much wider intellectual world. The higher level of expertise

1. Wolfgang Müller, The Criminalization of Abortion in the West: Its Origins in

Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiq-

1720–1860: Heroines of Horror (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

In December 1568, a young maidservant of Altmannshofen was sent to

INFANTICIDE AND ABORTION BEFORE THE CAROLINA

Infanticide and abortion predated the codification of laws against them;

movement, or quickening, with ensoulment: “in the case of male children

EARLY MODERN LEGAL TRANSFORMATIONS

The publication of the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, also known as the

INFANTICIDE AND ABORTION IN THE CAROLINA

Further instructions state that the “experienced women,” or municipally

limited to mothers killing illegitimate newborns; presumably anything else

Women believed to be hiding a pregnancy were similarly mistrusted. Typi-

status.23 Under normal circumstances, childbirth was not a private matter

roughly equivalent to infanticide, was much more difficult to prove and

lands, in the wake of the Protestant and later Catholic reformations.

The reformations of the early sixteenth century—whether Lutheran, Zwing-

THE UNMARRIED MOTHER

The prevalence of fornication in court records shows that it was quite

ciated it with criminality and disrepute. From their perspective, a woman

Religious reformers acknowledged that sexual impulses were too strong to

All of these factors together resulted in an illegitimate pregnancy that was

giving women an opportunity to escape punishment for fornication but also

dismissed from their positions upon discovery of their pregnancy or birth

for further crimes.

THE BEGINNINGS OF PROSECUTION

women who committed infanticide or abortion is of particular note because,

Weisschoferin was brought before the council on the fifteenth of February,

1. Stadtarchiv Augsburg (StadtAA), Urgichten, Walpurga Seitz, 22 December

3. Wolfgang Müller, The Criminalization of Abortion in the West: Its Origins in

History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 157–161.

Press, 2009), 257–264.

In 1590 Augsburg city chronicler Georg Kölderer lamented a miserable state

Years’ War came to Augsburg and surrounding Swabia, it was particularly

pressure on women to commit infanticide or abortion could easily have