Thomas Robisheaux

What a pot full of drama. The real account of Anna Schmeig focuses on the trial of an elderly woman accused of witch craft and murder. Well documented and well written, the story chronicles the drama that went on during her trial. Family relations, gossip, poison, jealousy, superstition and nearly anything else that can be crammed into a matter that sent shock waves across a small region of Lutheran Hamlets in Europe. Robisheaux uses a very clever narrative to paint a somber and chilling setting that will determine the fate of a family that simply cannot, does not and refuses to fit in to the society in which they live. Most of all it reminds us that none of us are immune to secrets and the weight they carry as we bear those skeletons throughout our lives. Toss in some religious zealotry and we have a real life tragedy.… (més)

The opening of this book is not what I expected. Unlike most accusations of witchcraft I've read, this one is not due to religious conflict, famine or plague, but rather murder! Anne Fessel, having recently given birth, is poisoned after eating a Shrove cake baked by one of her neighbors. Even if one didn't believe in witchcraft, the primary witnesses are right to suspect murder.

However, this isn't the modern era, but 1672, in the latter half of the witchcraze era. The suspects, quarrelsome Anna Schmieg and her daughter, Eva Kustner, are arrested. They are a milling family, so their access to rat poison (aka arsenic) is not implausible. Revealingy, Eva and Anna are not hesitant to accuse each other of the deed. The tension is palpable as old grudges resurface. Still, investigator von Gülchen, with an inconclusive physical examination of the body, can only prove "legal infamy", leaving witchcraft off the table unless confessed. And was Fessler actually the intended victim or a miscalculation? But public pressure reigns. More "witnesses" leads to more stories, the situation escalates and unravels. Years-old suspicions are revived and tales of previously convicted witches, like Barbara Reinhart and Turk Anna, convince the court of a conspiratorial ring of witches.

I won't give the exact details of the ending but turning on family to save your own skin? That's dark. The author does an excellent job in his examination of the trial and making it easy to follow along, even if it is repetitive at times. The backdrop of the Thirty Years War and local politics was well done. I'm also glad they included some post-trial drama, because as we know, a witch panic doesn't just vanish. It always leaves a residue.… (més)

In The Last Witch of Langenburg: Murder in a German Village, Thomas Robisheaux recounts the case of Anna Schmieg, accused of poisoning her neighbor and being a witch in 1672. Robisheaux uses the case to examine the socio-political workings of the justice system in the early-modern Holy Roman Empire, which strove to balance the new Carolina legal code with Lutheran beliefs and a medical system that increasingly relied on physical evidence while still ascribing to Galenic philosophy. Add to this the changing political realities in the Holy Roman Empire’s states imposed through the Peace of Westphalia, the levels of bureaucracy at work in investigating and prosecuting the crime, previous witchcraft panics, village gossip, and the solicited opinions of contemporary medical and legal scholars, all of which add up to a multifaceted narrative that speaks volumes about early modern European life. Robisheaux draws upon all of these records, dramatically recounting events that contemporaries had recorded in detail and which he uncovered, contextualized, and shared with the scholarly community. A great read for scholars and lay-readers interested in the topics of Robisheaux’s study.… (més)