Overwinter author David Wellington stops by Suvudu to share a little insight into the werewolf hysteria of 16th-century Europe. After you read the post, fill out the giveaway form below to win a signed copy of Wellington’s Overwinter!
“I freely confess that of nights I go to the forest in the shape of a wolf, and there attack and consume the innocent.”
“And where is your wolf’s fur, that we may see it?”
“You may not, for I wear it on the inside of my skin.”
—Common testimony given at a 16th century werewolf trial
The ghastly image of witches being burned at the stake in Medieval Europe is largely a myth based on later, fictional works – though not unheard of, witchcraft trials in Europe only really flourished in the 17th century (and the vast majority of witches were hanged, not burned). Less well known, though arguably more chilling, are the werewolf trials of the 16th century, when men and women all over Europe were tried and condemned for the crime of lycanthropy. Though few have heard of them today, these trials were the source of an enormous panic in their time. The sheer number of victims of this hysteria are astonishing – in France alone, 30,000 people were executed for “werewolfery” in the period between 1520 and 1630.
Court records from the time survive and tell lurid stories of men, often well-established and prosperous in their communities, who went out by night to take on the form of wolves and prey on their neighbors. The accused confessed to all manner of sinister practices. Some would anoint themselves with a special unguent that allowed them to don wolf skins, and thereby affect the transformation. Others made use of the “wolf strap,” a belt of wolf or human skin adorned with fur and an occult pattern of nails.
Though the stories often sound ridiculous to modern readers, the crimes of the werewolves are only made more gruesome by contrast. The court records describe in cringe-worthy detail the victims torn to shreds, the severed legs the werewolves would take home to eat at their leisure. Some werewolves claimed to have been murdering their fellow villagers – and even their loved ones – for years before they were caught.
Perhaps the most horrifying thing one discovers when reading these transcripts is that almost every case included the murder of children. The anonymous Tailor of Chalons, tried in 1589, was said to have lured children into his shop, the cellar of which was found to be full of their bones. It was only when the local children got wise that he put on his wolfskin and went to the forest to find more victims.
Once accused and found guilty, the fate of a convicted werewolf was not for the squeamish, either. Peter Stumpf, perhaps the most famous werewolf of all, was broken on a wheel and then dismembered, his limbs and body being burned afterward to make sure he did not return from the grave. His daughter and mistress were flayed, strangled, and burnt alive on the same pyre. As a deterrent the local authorities put his severed head on top of a high pole in Bedburg. The story of his trial was a continental sensation, with pamphlets lovingly describing his crimes being printed as far away as England. The public wanted to know everything they could about these enemies in their midst.
Yet one thing the court cases almost never reveal is a motive for the crimes. The men who took to the forest seem to have been driven by nothing more than depraved appetites. The werewolves themselves were hardly forthcoming about their reasons. They had to be tortured to confess, and few showed any remorse even after they were caught. They went to their deaths unrepentant and blaspheming, or refusing to shed tears even under torture, like Claudia Gaillard, the werewolf of Burgundy. Others, like the Gandillion Family, seemed to revert to a wolf-like state in captivity, barking and snarling at their captors and going about on all fours.
Whatever the cause of the hysteria, by the turn of the century it had gotten so out of hand that the authorities moved to put an end to the heyday of werewolfery. When lycanthropes were examined by medical experts they insisted the accused were victims not of black magic but mental illness. Sentencing, as a result, became much more lenient. In 1603 Jean Grenier was inspected by the Parliament of Bourdeaux, who ordered him to be confined for life in a monastery. Later werewolves almost always ended their careers in asylums rather than at the stake – the days of breaking on the wheel had passed.
In the 17th century lycanthropy began to be treated more and more as a disease rather than a crime. As wolves became rarer and finally extinct in European forests, charges of lycanthropy became almost laughable, and this dark page of history was slowly forgotten. It’s hard to kill a myth, but they can mutate over time. It’s especially telling that in 1852 Manuel Blanco Romasanta was convicted in Spain for the murders of thirteen people – but was able to escape the death penalty … by claiming he was a werewolf.
Click on the images in the slide show of werewolf engravings below to find out more about the images.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
David Wellington is the author of Frostbite and Overwinter, two werewolf novels published by Three Rivers Press. He seems to be driven only by a depraved appetite for monsters of every kind, as he also writes books on vampires and zombies. In 2011 his first fantasy novel, Den of Thieves, will be published under the pen name David Chandler. He lives in New York City. His website can be found at davidwellington.net.
