The three men escaped, but not without harm. Slavata had a nasty head wound and could not leave the city, so he staggered to the imperial chancellor’s house, where the chancellor’s wife, Polyxena of Lobkovic, hid him from the mob and tended his wounds. Eventually, a body of men came to her house looking for the administrators, but she stood up to them, berated them, and sent them on their way. The secretary Fabricius had hurt his leg in the fall, but he managed to escape altogether. When he arrived at the emperor’s court, he was greeted warmly and was later raised to the nobility. His title included the term “von Hohenfall,” making him the lord of “High Fall.”
Meanwhile, back in Prague, after news of the Second Defenestration of Prague hit the streets, the city erupted. Protestant burghers roamed the city murdering Franciscan monks and, predictably, invading and pillaging the Jewish quarter. The world that was Prague was changing; fire was on the wind, the Thirty Years’ War had begun, and somehow once again the Jews were caught in the middle.3
KATHARINA KEPLER was a stubborn woman. She had been accused falsely of witchcraft, and although she knew that she was not a witch, she believed that anyone who truly understood her would know that as well. So why should she be hiding out in Heumaden and Linz? Why should she not be back in Leonberg, proving to them all that they were wrong about her and that the Reinbolds were malicious slanderers? On June 16, 1618, Katharina returned to Leonberg for the first time since October 1616. The Reinbold faction raged. They thought that they had gotten rid of the troublesome old women once and for all. Einhorn was nervous, however. What was she doing back in Leonberg? What could she want among clean Christian people? Would she try to resurrect her lawsuit against them? He thought that he had safely doused the slander case against Ursula Reinbold, but now that Katharina Kepler had returned to Leonberg, she and her family could blow on the embers once again and have the whole thing brought to life. The old woman was altogether troublesome and had to be stopped.
Katharina’s house was near the market square, so just standing at her doorstep upon her return, she let loose the hornets’ nest of gossip. Still under great suspicion of witchcraft, Katharina sparked fear in many simple people and in some not so simple. While she was away, the fear of her had grown. Instead of dying out, what had been mere suspicion had blossomed into a prejudice, and from a prejudice into a court case. The Reinbold camp, which had been shepherding that prejudice, gathered its forces at once and petitioned to have Katharina arrested.
Up until that point, Einhorn had managed to push through most of what the Reinbolds wanted, but now that Katharina had returned, they didn’t have everything their own way and had to split the difference—on June 23, the high court in Stuttgart denied their petition for Katharina’s arrest, but at the same time they advised that the witchcraft trial against Katharina Kepler should go forward. So Katharina was allowed her freedom, but the charges stood.
On October 8, the court publicized the witness examinations that they had made on May 7. During this time, Johannes Kepler sought the advice of the well-known jurist Christian Besold, and in April 1619 he received a letter from Besold that frightened him. Besold said that he had studied the forty-nine accusations that the Reinbolds had skillfully gathered for their court action and in his opinion they had the ring of truth. He was not hopeful about Katharina’s case and advised Johannes to contact Dr. Bidenbach, one of the duke’s legal advisers and a man who was personally close to the Kepler family.
A few months later, on June 10, 1619, Besold met with the Kepler family and their advocates and laid out for them all the behind-the-scenes manipulations that Einhorn had engaged in. Finally, the Keplers began to understand the power of the forces arrayed against them, but it was too late. If they had truly understood what was happening a year before, then they might have taken steps to neutralize Einhorn, but by the time they had figured it all out, Einhorn and the Reinbolds had already curried too much favor in high places, and their whispering campaigns had effectively turned the populace against Katharina. People were already beginning to remember old illnesses, twinges of sciatica and bouts of intestinal parasites, and were assuring each other that Katharina had had a hand in it all. Two months later, on August 16, Dr. Phillip Jacob Weyhenmayer, Jakob Reinbold’s advocate, walked into the courtroom and read into the record all forty-nine of the “most terrible and shameful articles”:
Accuser Jacob Reinbolden, in marriage and in the name of his dear housewife Ursula, versus Katharinam Kepplerin:
1. States in this behalf (salva priori protestatione) that it is true, first, that no person shall harm another in body or health in any way, and is forbidden under pain of punishment.
2. That it is also true that a person who inflicts pain upon another person is responsible and liable for all loss.
3. And then, thirdly, it is true that the Kepler woman, against the above laws not only took hold of Reinbold’s wife but also caused harm.
4. Fourth, it is true that the Kepler woman in 1613 invited Reinbold’s wife into her home and gave her a potion.
5. That a few footsteps later, Ursula fell ill.
6. And as a result, to this date, she endures unspeakable pain.
7. True that the same Ursula Reinbold has tried numerous proper remedies, at substantial cost to her, but nothing would help.
8. True that the Kepler woman confessed to the magistrate that she gave such a potion to the accuser.
9. True that the Kepler woman tried to hit another person when that person caught her in the unjust act of giving a drink to the glazier’s wife.
10. True that Ursula could swear a corporeal oath in good conscience to God that such a potion caused her present unspeakable illness.
11. Then the following is also true and strongly apparent in keeping with the Kepler woman’s fiendish misdeeds: The Kepler woman was raised by her aunt in Weil der Stadt, and that same woman was a witch and later burned for it.
12. True that the Kepler woman’s own mother (after above fiend was burned and the girl returned to her parents in Ölttingen) was willing to overlook her daughter’s upbringing as long as she hadn’t learned the fiend’s trade at Weil.
13. Further, it is true that the Kepler woman’s own son Heinrich states that his mother is out of her mind, since she once rode a calf to its death and then wanted to prepare a roast for him from it.
14. And that this Heinrich declined and wanted to report his own mother and accuse her of witchcraft to the authorities.
15. True that she also wanted to seduce Schützenbastian’s daughter to follow the trade of witchcraft, as well as…
16. …having told the same young woman that there is neither hellnor heaven, but that if one dies, everything would be over, just as it is with the senseless beasts.
17. Turned out to be true then, that the Kepler woman said, if anyone practices the fiend’s trade, then that person would have a good life and possess many wonderful things.
18. When the witches gather, they would have the best time, eat the best food and drink the best drink, and enjoy so much voluptuous pleasure that no one could praise it enough.
19. True, that the accused asked the grave digger for the skull of her deceased father, informing him that she wanted to make a drinking cup out of it, and then have the cup bound in silver; when, however, the grave digger let her know that he was not allowed to do this, that he would have to get permission from his superiors, the Kepler woman told him to let it be.
20. True that the Kepler woman injured the brick maker’s wife to such an extent that the woman is unable to work even now.
21. True that she gave the schoolmaster [Beutelsbacher], and also another person [the wife of Bastian Meyer], a potion in a pewter cup, so that he became lame and is even now unable to work, and that the other person fell ill and passed away from it.4
22. And it is just as true that the infamous Kepler woman gave a similar potion to the barber’s apprentice (who had cut her hair), so that he fell seriously ill at once.
23. True that she touched the two-year-old calf of Haussbeckhen, so that it died.
24. No less true that she rode the cow of Michael Stahl, the local saddler, at midnight, so that the cow kicked and raged as if mad and if he hadn’t helped the animal right then and infused her, she would have died the same night.
25. True that the butcher Stoffel was injured by the Kepler woman on his foot at the market square, where he sold his meat, and that he has endured great pain for some time.
26. And in turn she remedied his pain.5
27. True that she gave the wife of Guldinmann a basket of herbs which, when given to the livestock, made them act as if they wanted to climb the walls.
28. Further true that the above mentioned livestock started to kick and their throats swelled.
29. True that she touched the old brick maker Görge Bretzern’s two pigs, so that the same also started kicking and climbing the walls until they finally died.
30. True that during the time the Kepler woman was preparing her slander case, she injured Jörg Haller’s girl on her arm so that the girl endured much pain.
31. True that Haller reported her accordingly to the magistrate.
32. True that the magistrate, after listening to the Kepler woman enough said she could not produce a reason for doing so [hitting the Haller girl], which had the ring of truth.
33. That the magistrate hereby advised the Kepler woman that he could not keep quiet about the criminal process and was obliged under oath and office to report the same.
34. True, that the accused ardently implored the magistrate to spare her and not forward a report to the chancellery.
35. As was no less true that the Kepler woman promised to give the magistrate a cup if he would refrain from reporting her.
36. As was further true that the Kepler woman’s children tried to corrupt him and keep him away from the truth, but…
37. …the magistrate accepted neither gift nor offering, but includedthese things in his report to the chancellery.
38. True that afterward the Kepler woman did not leave to walk home, but walked directly from the court house out of the upper town gate.
39. True that due to the humble reports of the local magistrate, and no less the magistrate of Stuttgart, the court ordered her arrest.
40. As the accused was advised accordingly by her children, it is true that she moved out of the duchy to Austria.
41. And although it is true that the accused party requested judicialiter (by law) to state that she is innocent of any actions causing the unspeakable suffering of Ursula Reinbold, she should still appear before the court in person and defend her misdeeds.
42. True that she never came forward, but ran away and let her kin handle her affairs even to this day.
43. And that by her running away the Kepler woman gave strong evidence that she caused bodily harm to the accuser Ursula.
44. True that the accused after her escape from Leonberg also came to Stuttgart, attacked a young girl, born in Gebersheim, on the open road, so that same was injured to such a degree that she endured much pain for a long time.
45. True, that even some of the Kepler woman’s friends consider her a witch and have knowledge of several wicked acts.
46. That she chased her husband out of the house (undoubtedly with her witchly deeds), and thereafter he perished miserably in the war.
47. True that she touched two local children, who also died.
48. True that the general consensus in Leonberg is that the Kepler woman injured the accuser Ursula and caused her the reported bodily injury.
49. True that the accuser Ursula would much rather pay a thousand florins than be subjected to the unspeakable agony she endures daily, and at every moment.
Some of the events reported in these accusations actually happened. Katharina Kepler’s aunt had indeed been tried and burned as a witch. Katharina was an amateur apothecary, an herbalist who gathered flowers from the fields and boiled up potions and healing tonics for all occasions. She was not unusual in this, because about half the women in town did the same. She was unusual in that she pushed her concoctions on just about every visitor who happened by. Moreover, it is a real possibility that some of her potions might have been breeding grounds for Escherichia coli and perhaps Clostridium botulinum, maybe even the virus that causes poliomyelitis. It is also true that Katharina requested her father’s skull, so she could turn it into a drinking cup, which she wanted to give to Johannes. She did offer a bribe to Einhorn, and she did leave town at the behest of her children. The rest was codswallop—half vindictive rumor and half superstitious fantasy. The accusations about riding calves to death were part of the folk tradition on witches; if Katharina had been a witch, then midnight death rides on people’s livestock would have been a requirement according to the tradition.
The witness accounts bear this out. Jacob Koch’s bits of hearsay about what Heinrich Kepler, the unfortunate son, may or may not have said, along with other bits of hearsay about what the saddler told him about noise in his barn late at night are typical:
Jacob Koch, citizen of Leonberg (forty years old):
Some time ago (day and year cannot be recalled by witness), witness ran into Heinrich, the Kepler woman’s son, in Palin Theuerer’s shop. The men asked each other about how things stood (because at the time both of them were somewhat ill). Heinrich then said that he was the Kaiser’s messenger and thought that his condition may have come from the Keltin.
So, the witness said, he personally has it quite good, since his mother could care for him. Kepler then said that his own mother might care for him as well, but she was leading such a scandalous life that he had half a mind to move to his sister’s house in Heumaden, and then, when he had returned [to Leonberg], he would report his mother himself. The witness did not recall anything about a calf.
After interrogation: If he spoke out of habit, then one should accept same from the witness out of habit.6 He knew from the common talk that Heinrich Kepler had said that his mother had once ridden a calf to death and then offered to make him a meal from it….
Also, witness said that Michael Stahl, the saddler, was at Martin Weishaubten’s house, where he told the witness that he thought that the Kepler woman had once caused a ruckus in his barn. It happened at eleven o’clock at night, just as the watchman called out the hour—there was such a commotion in his barn, back by the shed, so that he called out to the watchman. His own mother, who had already taken to her bed, lamented. She was afraid and did not want to rise to see about the noise, so he [the saddler] finally worked up the courage to go into the barn himself. There the cows were unruly and angry. He then called his neighbor Hanns Nestler to help him, and the man did him a favor and came (despite his somewhat weak health). Hanns Nestler then asked the saddler and his mother who they thought had caused this disturbance, but they didn’t know.
It is amazing to modern readers that most people in the seventeenth century considered such testimony to be quite reasonable when it came to witchcraft trials, for such cases formed a category all their own. If an accused woman—and almost three-quarters of all cases were against women—did not have powerful political influence, she could easily end up being roasted alive.
Johannes, who was still off in Linz, was the most powerful support old Katharina had, but he was less influential than he might have been. His own reputation in the duchy was not very clean. During his struggles with Pastor Hitzler, Kepler had written to his old teacher Matthias Hafenreffer, the theologian at Tübingen, asking him to intercede on his behalf. In typical Kepler fashion, he tried to explain himself, passionately outlining his theological ideas as well as his personal reasons for refusing to sign the Formula of Concord. Behind it all was his desire for reconciliation between the different strands of Christianity, his fear of the coming war, and his belief that God’s will was always a force for peace, for harmony between people, even as it was among the stars.
Hafenreffer exchanged two lett
ers with Kepler, and then showed Kepler’s letters to the rest of the theological faculty, and from there they went to the consistory. Their response was final. “Either give up your errors, your false fantasies, and embrace God’s truth with a humble faith, or keep away from all fellowship with us, with our church, and with our creed.” On July 31, 1619, Kepler was excommunicated not just from his local community, but from the Lutheran church. This did not mean that he believed himself to be any less Lutheran, for later, when pressed by the Counter-Reformation, he refused to budge and had to flee Linz, just as he had left Graz rather than convert. It just meant that the Württemberg Lutherans did not want him.
Would Einhorn have had the freedom to persecute Katharina had Johannes obediently signed the Formula of Concord? Perhaps not. He was, after all, merely the lower magistrate of one town in one corner of the duchy. His association with the duke was largely through Kräutlin, the duke’s barber and a crony of the young prince. Hidden in the shadows behind Luther Einhorn, therefore, may well have been Matthias Hafenreffer, of the theological faculty of Tübingen, and the Stuttgart consistory, and the sufferings visited upon a half-mad old woman may well have been a punishment for the sins of her famous son.7
The duke’s consistory had accused Kepler of heresy. Could not his mother also be a witch? How great a jump was there from the first to the second? The duke, of course, had to contend with Kepler’s fame throughout Europe. How would it look if he had arrested so famous a mathematician, a friend to dukes and barons throughout Germany, Protestant as well as Catholic, the personal mathematician of three Habsburg emperors, on heresy charges? Kepler himself was nearly invulnerable, but Katharina was another matter. They could go after her, and no one would complain. After all, witchcraft trials had been occurring all over Germany for several hundred years, in Protestant and Catholic territories alike. What was one more old woman?
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