Pistorius

This blog doesn't address Germany's popular Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, but Johann Pistorius the Younger, who, after his birthplace Nidda in Hesse, called himself Niddanus throughout his life.

Red Baron listened to a lecture by Dr. Hans-Jürgen Günther: Johannes Pistorius Niddanus (1546-1608), eine bedeutende Persönlichkeit des Reformationsjahrhunderts im Breisgau (an important figure of the Reformation century in Breisgau.

Pistorius's universities

Pistorius the Younger attended the Latin school in Nidda and studied law and medicine from 1559 to 1567 in Marburg, Wittenberg, Tübingen, Padua, and Paris, before returning to Marburg, where he received his doctorates in law and medicine in 1567.

The dispute within the Reformed Church between the Philippinians, followers of Melanchthon, and the Gnesiolutherans, advocates of strict Lutheranism, as well as the spirit of optimism in the Catholic Church after the Council of Trent, led Pistorius to convert from Lutheranism to Catholicism in 1588.

Pistorius's house in Freiburg

His turbulent life story eventually led him to Freiburg im Breisgau in 1589, where he bought a house in the suburb of Neuburg.

From 1590 to 1591, he studied at Freiburg's theological faculty, earned his third doctorate, and was ordained a priest in 1592.

He then published polemical works such as Anatomia Lutheri (Cologne, 1595) against Protestantism, Luther, and contemporary Protestant controversial theologians. His writings are characterized by enormous expertise and thorough knowledge of Luther's printed works as well as archival evidence of church history during the Reformation. Pistorius was clear in his arguments and, when provoked, responded with sharpness and polemics.

A witch paralyzes a peasant.

The end of the 16th century was also the time of the witch trials.

Johann Jacob Renner

In 1603, Johann Jakob Renner, Freiburg's Obristzunftmeister (Master of military guild), urged Andreas Flader, a city councilor acting as mayor, to accuse 25 women suspected of witchcraft and have them tortured. Thirteen of them were sentenced to death, beheaded, and their bodies burned.
The last one, in August 1603, was Ursula Gatter, a laundress from Waldkirch, who had a daughter, just under 14 years old, named Agatha.

The girl admitted that she had not only been present at witch gatherings with her mother on ten occasions, but had also renounced God and his saints and had slept with the devil on two separate occasions.

How to deal with such a case? A legal scholar at the university recommended that Agatha be kept in custody until the age of 16. Still, if the suspicion of witchcraft persisted, she should be subjected to a new, benevolent or painful inquisition through torture and, after the misdeed had been determined, the beloved iustitiam should be administered and executed.

On November 17, 1603, Pistorius told the city council that he wanted to interrogate the girl again. As a doctor and lawyer, he felt compelled to prove her confession absurd.

In the court reports we read, because he (Pistorius) cannot sufficiently ascertain from the girl whether she has lost her virginity and been deflowered, it is necessary, first of all, to have such matters examined by sworn midwives and women, as is customary. Once it has been determined whether she has been deflowered or not, appropriate measures must be taken.

Three days later, meanwhile, it has been learned from Mr. Keder's report that Agathe, the captive girl, has been examined and found not to have been deflowered or injured. This should be reported to Dr. Pistorio, who, with the help of the parish priest, should consider what to do with her and where she should be taken.

In the end, the girl was pardoned, the strict law set aside, and with the advice of the learned and spiritual Dr. Johann Pistory ... sent to a woman in Constantz to be brought up and educated. ... Thus she was taken away on Monday, January 12, 1604.

Pistorius' intervention had a lasting effect: in the following seven years, there were no more witch burnings in Freiburg.

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