The Stedinger--Political "Witches"

Disclaimer

This is NOT a page about Wiccans or neo-pagans, and I do not advocate the belief that Wiccans are Satan-worshippers and/or baby-killers. I am well aware that they are not. This is a starting point for historical research into the great witch craze of 1100-1700 AD. And please, don't ask me for spells.

The following information has been predominantly taken from Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds, pp 490-492. For further information, see the bibliography.

Long celebrated for their attachment to freedom and their successful struggles in its defence, the Frieslanders inhabited the German district from the Weser to the Zuydersee. They had formed a general confederacy against the encroachments of the Saxons and the Normans back in the eleventh century. This confederacy was broken up into seven seelands. Every year, they gathered under a large oak tree at Aurich, near the Upstalboom. Here, without the control of ambitious nobles and clergy, they managed their own affairs. This self-government scandalized the nobles.

Eventually, the Archbishop of Bremen, along with the Count of Oldenburg and other neigbouring potentates, formed an alliance against the section of Frieslanders known by the name of the Stedinger. After harassing the Stedinger and sowing dissension amongst them for many years, the alliance were able to bring them under the yoke. Nevertheless, the Steinger were devotedly attached to their ancient laws and civil/religious liberty, and did not submit without a violent struggle.

In 1204, the Stedinger revolted and refused to pay tithes to the clergy or taxes to the feudal chiefs. They managed to drive out many of their oppressors. For twenty-eight years, the Stedinger continued their single-handed struggle against the Counts of Oldenburg and the Archbishops of Bremen. In 1232, they destroyed the Count of Oldenburgs's strong castle of Slutterberg.

The Archbishop of Bremen found the courage of these poor people too strong to cope with by ordinary means of warfare, so he petitioned Pope Gregory IX for spiritual aid. The Pope responded by labelling the Stedinger as witches and heretics, and encouraging all true believers to assist in their extirmination.

In 1233, a large body of fanatics and thieves broke into the lands of the Stedinger, burning and killing wherever they went. Children and women were not spared. Neither were the aged or the sick. Nevertheless, the Stedinger rallied in great force and routed their invaders, killing in battle their leader, Count Burckhardt of Oldenburg, along with many inferior chieftains.

Once again, the Pope was petitioned. This time, his holiness preached a crusade against the Stedinger to all that part of Germany. He wrote all bishops and leaders of the Catholics an exhortation to arm, to root out from the land those abominable wizards and witches. According to the Pope,

The Stedinger, seduced by the devil, have abjured all the laws of God and man, slandered the Church, insulted the holy sacraments, consulted witches to raise evil spirits, shed blood like water, taken the lives of priests, and concocted an infernal scheme to propagate the worship of the devil, whom they adore under the name of Asmodi. The devil appears to them in different shapes,--sometimes as a goose or a duck, and at others in the figure of a pale black-eyed youth, with a melancholy aspect, whose embrace fills their hearts with eternal hatred against the holy Church of Christ. The devil presides at their sabbaths, when they all kiss him and dance around him. He then envelopes them in total darkness, and they all, male and female, give themselves up to the grossest and most disgusting debauchery.

Because of the letters from the Pope, Frederic II, emperor of Germany, also pronounced a ban against the Stedinger. Aided by the Duke of Brabant, the Counts of Egmond, Diest, Oldenburg, the Mark, Cleves, Holland, and other powerful nobles, the Bishops of Minden, Munster, Lubeck, Osnabruck, and Ratzebourg took up arms to extirminate them. An army of forty thousand men marched under the command of the Duke of Brabant into the country of the Stedinger.

This time the Stedinger could not muster enough force. With only eleven thousand men, they fought in despair and in vain. Eight thousand Stedinger were slain in battle. The invading armies slew every Stedinger, drove away the cattle, set the cottages and forests on fires, and made a total waste of the land.

Lost?

The Stedinger--Political "Witches" copyright 1998 to Shantell Powell.