Konrad von Marburg, German Inquisitor General and Heretic-Finder

Konrad (or Conrad) von Marburg was a learned, pious, and sadistic fanatic. Actually a hunter of heretics and of the dubious Luciferans (Devil worshippers) rather than of witches, he is worth mentioning here because of his search techniques. He would rouse up a mob, round up suspects, and tell them to recant their heresy or die.

He accepted all evidence.

Those who recanted their heretical ways would have their heads shaved. Those who maintained their innocence would be sent to the stake.

"The archbishop of Mainz felt constrained to address a letter of complaint to the pope: the inquisitor was forcing the most innocent of people to make untrue confessions by the use of torture. The accused were intimidated, and induced to denounce respectable people by the promise that their lives would be spared."

Konrad was later forced to resign. Before Gregory IX could reply to the archbishop's complaint, some knights took matters into their own hands. On July 30, 1233, Konrad was assassinated on the road from Mainz to Paderhorn. His probable murderers were vassals of Henry of Seym. Seym was "a nobleman whom Conrad had falsely accused of taking part in satanic orgies at which he had been seen riding a demon who had taken on the form of a gigantic crab" (King 26).

It ought perhaps to be mentioned, however, that the deed was prompted less by love of justice than by concern for their worldly goods. If Konrad von Marburg had not been seduced by greed into choosing his heretics mainly from the ranks of the affluent, so as to confiscated their possessions in the course of the trial--who knows whether he would have been so promptly dispatched by a gang of armored thugs (Kunze 241, 242)?

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Konrad von Marburg, German Inquisitor General and Heretic-Finder copyrighted 1996-1998 to Shantell Powell.