Mikyla Denney

Dr. Corley
HONR Sem: Gender/Society 401
April 13, 2015
Confessions of a Witch
Throughout the ages people have been accused of witchcraft, and if not witchcraft then
of the ideas now associated with witchcraft. These accused rarely gave in and plead guilty. They
were tried and questioned, some more intensively than others. In some cases, the defendants
were found not guilty for lack of proof. There were many who were not so lucky. Yet, there was
one thing needed to prove someone guilty: the defendants confession. Different methods, such
as various means of torture and verbal and emotional pressure, were used to extract confessions.
However, contrary to what many people think, torture was not as prevalent or acceptable in some
parts of Europe as it was in others. For example, the use of torture was less acceptable in
England than it was in the Holy Roman Empire. Why? To completely understand the use of
torture in the extraction of confessions, one needs to look at the legal procedures and the role of
the central government authorities during the time of the witch-hunts. In other words, did a lack
of government oversight allow for the practice of torture while strong governments managed to
control its use?
The prosecution of witches occurred all over Europe for several centuries before 1700,
and they especially grew in number between 1560 and 1660. However, the methods, intensity,
and timing of prosecution varied in different parts of Europe. For several of the legal systems in
Europe, the best form of evidence was the confession made by the accused. How this confession
was obtained on the other hand, differed from region to region. It is necessary to look at the

history of legal procedure in both the Holy Roman Empire and England to better understand
court methods and when torture was acceptable to use.
In the Holy Roman Empire during the time of the major witch-hunts, an imperial criminal
code called the Carolina was used. It addressed the issues of the collection of testimonies and
evidence. The Carolina relied on the confession when establishing the guilt of the accused. If
preliminary testimony indicated a guilty verdict, then the threat of torture and torture itself was
used to obtain a confession for any crime. As Peter Morton writes, torture was a regular part
of criminal trials in Germany at the time, and was not reserved especially for those suspected of
witchcraft.1 Since some legal experts viewed witchcraft as an exceptional crime, and therefore
the defenses against abuses of justice were often times ignored and the ordinary rules of justice
were relaxed.2 There are several stages to the trial procedure. The first stage was the initiation of
the investigation. It must be determined that there is sufficient suspicion of criminal activity to
warrant an investigation. The Carolina instructed the investigation of someone who was
suspected of a crime through common repute, or is notorious on account of other credible
indication.3 The second stage is the collection of the testimony, which will determine whether
there is sufficient indication to use torture. The final stage was the recording of a formal
confession and the carrying out of the sentence.4
However, the use of torture in England was very limited. Torture warrants could only be issued
by the monarch, and these were mostly used in crimes consisting of treason. In fact, private use
of torture by villagers was considered illegal. This was so for several reasons. First, the value of
1 Peter Alan Morton, ed., The Trial of Tempel Anneke: Records of a Witchcraft
Trial in Brunswickm, Germany, 1663, trans. Barbara Dhms (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2006), xxxi.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., xxxiii.

forcibly obtained confessions was doubtful. Second, the public might turn against a ruler who
forced his subjects to endure such cruelty.5 Also, even though the victim might confess while
being tortured, it does not mean they cannot recant in court. While these reasons did not stop the
use of torture, they allowed for the practice of other techniques to extract confessions,6 such as
confinement, intimidation, and verbal and emotional pressure, which led to confusion and selfdoubt.7
Going back to extraction methods, torture was one method used to obtain confessions. However,
it was used more extensively in certain parts of Europe. For example, torture was used in
Germany, as can be seen in the Trial of Tempel Anneke. England is another country where torture
was used, however it was more limited due to the fact that it was not always legal. There were
many different forms of torture as well. In seventeenth century England for example, the
methods of walking, starving, keeping awake, and swimming were commonly used. These
caused the mental health of the accused, all but the most resistant, to deteriorate.8 Starving and
keeping awake are pretty self-explanatory. The accused would be kept in prison and only given a
little or no food. Other times the alleged would be kept awake for long periods of time.9 After
several nights of not sleeping, the suspects entered a void between waking and sleep, their
eyes open but their brains dreaming.10 In a state like this, reality became mixed with fantasy,
and some suspects even started to hallucinate. Even the most intelligent minds viewed these
5 Orna Alyagon Darr, Marks of an Absolute Witch: Evidentiary Dilemmas in
Early Modern England (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2011),
60.
6 Ibid., 9.
7 Gaskill, Witchfinders, 89.
8 Malcolm Gaskill, Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 89.
9 C. LEstrange Ewen, Witch Hunting and Witch Trials (London: Frederick
Muller Ltd., 1971), 65.
10 Gaskill, Witchfinders, 90.

hallucinations as inseparable from genuine supernatural manifestations.11 Another form of

torture that was used in Germany was the leg screw.
One of the principal methods that were used to find witches was the swimming test. Suspects of
witchcraft were stripped down to their undergarments and then tied up, their left thumb to their
right toe and vice versa. Then a rope was wrapped around their armpits and they were thrown
into a pond while a strong man held each end of the rope. The theory was, if the suspects sank
they were thought to be innocent and hopefully the men could pull them out before they
drowned. However, if they floated, that meant they were witches. The swim test was more of a
popular action against witches. Most judges were opposed to it and it never gained any formal
legal status in England. Its first recorded use in England was in 1612-1613.12 An example of the
use of this technique is the confession made by John Lowis of England who is definitely
stated to have confessed after swimming at Framlingham.13
Another method of torture used in England, although illegal, was scratching. The victim needed
to scratch the accused witch and draw blood from her body. If the victim then consequently
recovered, the accusation of witchcraft was confirmed. Often times scratching took place with
the authorization of the justice of peace since the assize judges (judges higher up in rank) did not
utilize it because of its illegality.
Even just the threat of torture was sometimes enough to make someone accused of
witchcraft confess. This can be seen in the trial of a woman named Anna Roleffes, locally called
Tempel Anneke, of Germany in 1663. At the beginning of the trial, she answered a long list of
questions, mostly denying the accusations put against her. However, later in the trial, she was
11 Ibid.
12 James Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in Early Modern
England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 218.
13 Ewen, Witch Hunting and Witch Trials, 65.

asked some of the same questions again, but the second time under the threat of torture. Many of
her responses for the same questions ended up changing. For example, when she was originally
asked Whether she didnt promise him [Hans Tiehmann] that she would be able to frighten the
thief who stole what belonged to him, so that before twenty-four hours had passed, he should
have his things back,14 Tempel Anneke responded no, that she had not done that. However,
when she was asked the same question later under the threat of torture, her response was
different. Instead of denying the accusation, she said she had promised Tiehmann to torture the
thief so that he would get back his belongings, but she still denied saying that this would occur in
twenty-four hours.15 Clearly the threat of torture was enough to persuade Tempel Anneke to
change her confession.
Later in the trial, Tempel Anneke was asked some of the same questions again, but this time
under the application of torture. For example, she was asked from whom she learned her arts and
sorcery. She replied that a woman from Wittenberg had taught her. But then the executioner
tightened the leg screw he had put on her and talked to her sternly. She then claimed that she
would tell the truth. After the executioner loosened the leg screw, Tempel Anneke said that she
learned her sorcery from a different person, the Martensche of Wenden.16
The method of using the leg screw was common in the trial of Tempel Anneke. Later, when she
was asked how a certain mans leg was damaged, she said she did not know. Then, as the
executioner tightened the screw on her left leg, she confessed that a widow had buried a pot
under a bush that was meant for Tempel Annekes brother to walk over.17 When she was asked
14 Peter Alan Morton, ed., The Trial of Tempel Anneke: Records of a
Witchcraft Trial in Brunswickm, Germany, 1663, trans. Barbara Dhms (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2006), 16.
15 Ibid., 85.
16 Ibid., 100.
17 Ibid., 101.

whether or not she had brought death among the sheep through sorcery, she originally answered
that she had not. But again the executioner tightened the screws on both of her legs and she
confessed that a fortune-teller was at fault and she herself had only helped light a fire.18 It is clear
that the use of torture had a great impact on the extraction of confessions, both in England and
Germany, thus leading to the prosecution of many witches.
Sometimes the accused witches were victims of emotional and/or verbal pressure. They were
promised things such as forgiveness, favor with God, and similar notions. For example,
suspects could be led to confess without extremity, if after being instructed by divines or other
godly people about their sins, they wished to call on Gods mercy.19 An example of this was
the confession of an English woman named Ursley Kemp: The saide Brian Darcey then
promising to the saide Ursley, that if she would deale plainely and confess the trueth, that shee
should have favour and so by giving her faire speeches shee confessed as followeth.20 Yet
another way that judges were able to extract confessions can be seen in the case of Mother
Samuel of Warboys in 1589. She and her daughter were forced at the beginning of the case to
confront the children she was accused of bewitching and had to stand before them ...as they
cried out against her in their fits21 Another time a relative of the family realized she was
getting nowhere by good speeches22 and cut off some of Samuels hair and had it burned.
While originally Mother Samuel had claimed that the girls fits were wantonness, after enduring
several months of this type of treatment, she eventually broke down and confessed to bewitching
the children and to being a witch.23
18 Ibid., 101-102.
19 Darr, Marks of an Absolute Witch, 250,
20 Marion Gibson, Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases in Contemporary
Writing (New York: Routledge, 2000), 83.
21 Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness, 219.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.

Another example of verbal pressure was the confession of a woman named Margery Sammon
was accused of having spirits of her deceased mother. However, she denied this accusation. The
next day she was charged with the same thing, only this time her sister was aiding in the
accusation, saying that Margery had two spirits like toads, given to her by her mother at her
death. Margery still denied the accusation, saying she never saw any such things. However, after
she said this, her sister taking her aside by the arme, whyspered her in the eare: And then
presentlye after this Examinate with great submission and many teares, confessed that she had
two spirites delyvered her by her mother24 In this example, torture was not implemented to
get Margerys confession. However, it is unknown what her sister said to her to make her change
her mind. Maybe it was the threat of torture, her sister explaining to her that they would torture
her if she did not confess. But it could have been a multitude of things.
Looking at the patterns of where high intensity witch-hunts took place and where the use of
torture was more prevalent, it can be argued that the strength or centrality of governments played
a role in the practice of torture. Brian Levack suggests that decentralized governments played a
role in the extent to which torture was used. A good example of this theory is the Holy Roman
Empire. During the period of witch-hunts, what is today Germany consisted of hundreds of
autonomous territories varying in size, all included in the Holy Roman Empire. In other words, it
was a highly decentralized political structure.25 Each territory had its own courts, and even
though they were expected to follow the imperial law codes, each had control over its own
judicial life. This had a great impact on the prosecution of witches in the area. Judges and
inquisitors had the freedom to hunt witches as they wished and to use whatever methods they
24 Gibson, Early Modern Witches, 96.
25 Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe /. 3rd ed. ed.
Harlow, England ;: Pearson Longman, 2006, 101.

deemed necessary, such as torture. In fact, the most cruel and brutal reports of torture come from
Germany.26 Compare this situation with England, which had a more central government and
where the use of torture was illegal except in cases of treason, and it is clear that there is a
correlation between the role of the central government and the use of torture.
The witch-hunt crazes of Europe were times of hardship, fear, and panic. This led to many
accusations of witchcraft, and those accused were tried and questioned, some more intensely
than others. Rarely did the accused give in or plead guilty. Therefore, many were forced to
confess, often through means such as torture and verbal and emotional pressure. However, the
use of torture was not as acceptable in some parts of Europe compared to others, as is the case
with England and the Holy Roman Empire. However, the question remains as to why this was
the case. Based on the patterns of where torture was more prevalent, it can be argued that the role
of central governments had a significant influence on the use of torture.

Bibliography
Primary Sources
Morton, Peter Alan. The Trial of Tempel Anneke: Records of a Witchcraft Trial in Brunswick,
Germany, 1663. Translated by Barbara Dhms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2006.
26 Ibid.

Secondary Sources
Darr, Orna Alyagon. Marks of an Absolute Witch: Evidentiary Dilemmas in Early Modern
England. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2011.
Ewen, C. L'Estrange,. 1971. Witch Hunting and Witch Trials; the Indictments for Witchcraft from
the Records of 1373 Assizes Held for the Home Circuit A.D. 1559-1736. New York: [Barnes
& Noble.
Gaskill, Malcolm. Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2005.
Geis, Gilbert and Ivan Bunn. 1997. A Trial of Witches : A Seventeenth-Century Witchcraft
Prosecution. London ;: Routledge.
Gibson, Marion. Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases in Contemporary Writing. New
York: Routledge, 2000.
Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe /. 3rd ed. ed. Harlow, England ;:
Pearson Longman, 2006.
Sharpe, James. Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in Early Modern England. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.