
By: Lynda Bustilloz
To: George Mooth
Re: Our Daily Witchhunt 1/2


THE JOHANNES JUNIUS LETTER

Taken from: European Witchcraft by E. William Monter 
Department of History, Northwestern University
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
page 85.

This is in many ways an unusual trial for witchcraft.  The time
and place are typical enough- the episcopal city of Bamberg in
Franconia during the Thirty Years' War.  But the victim in this
case was an extremely prominent person, the former burgomaster of
the city.  Very seldom did a witchcraft trial reach so highly
placed a person, although perhaps a dozen cases of even more
prominent victims could be cited.  Second, what makes the trial
of burgomaster Junius Johannes truly unique in the annals of 
witchcraft
is his secret letter to his daughter composed during his trial, and
printed here:

"Many hundred thousand good-nights, dearly beloved daughter
Veronica.  Innocent have I come into prison, innocent have I been
tortured, innocent must I die.  For whoever comes into the witch
prison must become a witch or be tortured until he invents
something out of his head and - God pity him- bethinks him of
something.  I will tell you how it has gone with me.  When I was
the first time put to the torture, Dr. Braun, Dr. Kotzendorffer,
and two strange doctors were there.  Then Dr. Braun, asks me,
"Kinsman, how come you here?", I answer, "Through falsehood,
through misfortune."  "Hear, you," he says, "you are a witch;
will you confess it voluntarily?  If not, we'll bring in
witnesses and the executioner for you."  I said "I am no witch, I
have a pure conscience in the matter; if there are a thousand
witnesses, I am not anxious, but I'll gladly hear the witnesses." 
Now the chancellor's son was set before me ... and afterward
Hoppfen Elss.  She had seen me dance on Haupts-moor ... I
answered: "I have never renounced God, and will never do it- God
graciously keep me from it.  I'll rather bear whatever I must." 
And then came also- God in highest Heaven have mercy- the
executioner, and put the thumb-screws on me, both hands bound
together, so that the blood ran out at the nails and everywhere,
so that for four weeks I could not use my hands, as you can see
from the writing ...  Thereafter they first stripped me, bound my
hands behind me, and drew me up in the torture.  Then I thought
heaven and earth were at an end; eight times did they draw me up
and let me fall again, so that I suffered terrible agony ....

And this happened on Friday, June 30, and with God's help I had
to bear the torture.   When at last the executioner led me back
into the prison, he said to me:  "Sir, I beg you, for God's sake
confess something, for you cannot endure the torture which you
will be put to; and even if you bear it all, yet you will not
escape, not even if you were an earl, but one torture will follow
after another until you say you are a witch.  Not before that," 
he said, "will they let you go, as you may see by all their
trials, for one is just like another."...
 
And so I begged, since I was in a wretched plight, to be given
one day for thought and a priest.  The priest was refused me, but
the time for thought was given.  Now, my dear child, see what
hazard I stood and still stand.  I must say that I am a witch,
though I am not, - must now renounce God, though I have never
done it before.  Day and night I was deeply troubled, but a last
there came to me a new idea.  I would not be anxious, but, since
I had been given no priest with whom I could take counsel, I
would myself think of something and say it.  It were surely
better that I just say it with mouth and words, even though I had
not really done it'; and afterwards I would confess it to the
priest, and let those answer for it who compel me to do it. ...
And so I made my confession, as follows; but it was all a lie.

Now follows, dear child, what I confessed in order to escape the
great anguish and bitter torture, which it was impossible for me
longer to bear.

....

Then I had to tell what people I had seen [at the witch-sabbath]. 
I said that I had not recognized them.  "You old rascal, I must
set the executioner at you.  Say- was not the Chancellor there?" 
So I said yes.  "Who besides?"  I had not recognized anybody.  So
he said:  "Take one street after another; begin at the market, go
out on one street and back on the next."  I had to name several
persons there.  Then came the long street.  I knew nobody.  Had
to name eight persons there.  Then the Zinkenwert- one person
more.  Then over the upper bridge to the Georgthor, on both
sides.  Knew nobody again.  Did I know nobody in the castle-
whoever it might be, I should speak without fear.  And thus
continuously they asked me on all the streets, though I could not
and would not say more.  So they gave me to the executioner, told
him to strip me, shave me all over, and put me to the torture. 
"The rascal knows one on the market-place, is with him daily, and
yet won't know him."  By that they meant Dietmery: so I had to
name him too.

Then I had to tell what crimes I had committed.  I said nothing. 
..."Draw the rascal up!"  So I said that I was to kill my
children, but I had killed a horse instead.  It did not help.  I
had also taken a sacred wafer, and had desecrated it.  When I had
said this, they left me in peace.

 
Now dear child, here you have all my confession, for which I must
die.  Ad they are sheer lies and made-up things, so help me God. 
For all this I was forced to say through fear of the torture
which was threatened beyond what I had already endured.  For they
never leave off with the torture till one confesses something; be
he never so good, he must be a witch.  Nobody escapes, though he
were an earl. ...
 

Dear child, keep this letter secret so that people do not find
it, else I shall be tortured most piteously and the jailers will
be beheaded.  So strictly is it forbidden. ...Dear child, pay
this man a dollar...  I have taken several days to write this: my
hands are both lame.  I am in a sad plight....

 
Good night, for your father Johannes Junius will never see you
more.  July 24, 1628.
 

[And on the margin of the letter he added:]
 

Dear child, six have confessed against me at once:  the
Chancellor, his son, Neudecker, Zaner, Hoffmaisters Ursel, and
Hoppfen Else-  all false, through compulsion, as they have all
told me, and begged my forgiveness in God's name before they were
executed.  ... They know nothing but good of me.  They were
forced to say it, just as I myself was.
 

ACCUSED WITCH-MARGARET JONES

The following about Margaret Jones sent to me by John Stewart:

Following is mainly I. Marc Carlson's research:
[Ref: History of Medway, MA]

Jones, Margaret: executed in Charlestown, North America, on 15 
June, 1648
[Ref: The Devil in the Shape of a Woman, Karlsen, p. 20]

"...Massachusetts Bay executed its first witch in 1648.  She was 
Margaret
Jones, and like Jane Hawkins and Anne Hutchinson, she was a midwife 
and
lay healer.  Jones was accused of several different practices, only 
some
of which had to do with her profession, but it is impossible to say
which activities initiated the accusations against her. Minister John
Hale, who witnessed Jones's hanging in Boston when he was a boy, 
later
said that she "was suspected partly because that after some angry 
words
passing between her and her Neighbors, some mischief befell such
neighbors in their Creatures, or the like: [and] partly because some
things supposed to be bewitched, or have a Charm upon them, being
burned, she came to the fire and seemed concerned. John Winthrop
included neither of these charges in his list of the evidence 
presented
against Jones, but suggested that the crimes had to do with her 
medical
practice.  She was accused of having a "malignant touch," Winthrop
noted, and her medicines were said to have "extraordinary violent
effects." When people refused to take her medical advice, he added,
"their diseases and hurts continued, with relapse against the 
ordinary
course, and beyond the apprehension of all physicians and surgeons."
Winthrop also mentioned that Jones was believed to possess psychic
powers: "some things which she foretold came to pass accordingly; 
other
things she could tell of ... she had no ordinary means to come to the
knowledge of. John Hale's account brings to the surface some of the
community's views of witchcraft.  He pointed out that several of 
Jones's
neighbors tried to get her to confess and repent.  One of them, he 
said,
"prayed her to consider if God did not bring this punishment upon her
for some other crime, and asked, if she had not been guilty of 
stealing
many years ago." Jones admitted the theft, but she refused to 
accept it
as a reason for her conviction as a witch.  Hale's writings, on the
other hand, showed that stealing, and other crimes such as 
fornication
and infanticide, were regularly associated with witchcraft, by both 
the
clergy and the larger population..."

[Ibid, p. 116]
"...sketchy information on the lives of New England's early 
witches, it
appears that Alice Young, Mary Johnson, Margaret Jones, Joan 
Carrington,
and Mary Parsons, all of whom were executed in the late 1640s and 
early
1650s, were women without sons when the accusations were lodged.
Elizabeth Godman, brought into court at least twice on witchcraft
charges in the 1650s, had neither brothers nor sons."' Decade by 
decade,
the pattern continued.  Only Antinomian and Quaker women, against 
whom
accusations never generated much support, were, as a group, exempt 
from
it."

[Ibid, p. 128]
"...Dissatisfaction with one's lot was one of the most pervasive 
themes
of witches' lives.  We find that women accused of witchcraft were
involved in petitions and court suits involving property, 
mistreatment,
even divorce.  A few women, Katherine Harrison and Rachel Clinton 
being
the most obvious examples, repeatedly took their grievances to 
court for
redress -- although legal channels seem to have provided little
satisfaction.  Of course, the witches themselves did not always 
initiate
the official process that expressed their dissatisfaction.  Dorcas 
Hoar
and Mary Johnson, to name only two of at least fourteen women, had 
been
charged with stealing prior to being accused of demonic activities."
Hoar was later accused of bewitching a child who threatened to reveal
the theft, while another witch, Margaret Jones, was asked whether she
did not think the witchcraft accusation God's way of punishing her 
for
taking what was not hers." The connections between the two crimes or
between the witch's earlier appearance in court and her later
identification as a witch-were rarely so clearly drawn."

[Ibid, p. 262]
Margaret Jones:  Massachusetts's first witch, executed in Boston in
1648; her husband Thomas was suspected as well, but he was never
prosecuted.

Ref: Governor Winthrop's Journal (1648)
"...At this court one Margaret Jones of Charlestown was indicted and
found guilty of witchcraft, and hanged for it.  The evidence 
against her
was, 1. that she was found to have such a malignant touch, as many
persons, (men, women, and children,) whom she stroked or touched with
any affection or displeasure, or, etc., were taken with deafness, or
vomiting, or other violent pains or sickness, 2. she practicing 
physic,
and her medicines being such things as (by her own confession) were
harmless, as aniseed, liquors, etc., yet had extraordinary violent
effects, 3. she would use to tell such as would not make use of her
physic, that they would never be healed, and accordingly their 
diseases
and hurts continued, with relapse against the ordinary course, and
beyond the apprehension of all physicians and surgeons, 4. some 
things
which she foretold came to pass accordingly; other things she could 
tell
of (as secret speeches, etc.) which she had no ordinary means to 
come to

... rest of the posting was missing... - flr

