Thread by @MikeStuchbery_

429 years ago today, in the town of Bedburg, near Koeln, a man named Peter Stumpp was subject to the horrific punishment of being broken on the wheel. For hours he was mutilated, beaten and left to writhe. Fair enough, it was thought - he was, after all, a werewolf! THREAD 1/

(Please note, I will be referring to ‘Peter Stumpp’ throughout this thread - his surname has had MANY spellings. I’m sticking with this one.) /1a

Before all the horror, Stumpp was a pillar of the community. An affluent farmer and widower, he was respected for miles around. His two children were approaching adulthood, and it seemed that he would be able to pass on his holdings and live a life of genteel retirement. /2

Life in Bedburg, it must be said, had been fairly peaceful too. Fairly peaceful, that is, until a wave of cattle mutilations rolled across the area. Wolves had always taken the old sheep or cow, but this was… much more violent and horrific in nature. /3

Then the odd child began to disappear, then travellers coming to & from Bedburg. Whatever was taking them - leaving only the odd belonging behind - seemed to have a preference for young women. That, of course, could be the work of bandits. All too many of them in the woods... /4

Stumpp’s own son disappeared at one stage, and the town rallied around the widower, offering their condolences. What a tragedy, that this much-loved farmer would not be able to leave his farm in the hands of his own heir! /5

Things began to come undone when severed limbs and offal were found strewn in a field. Pamphlets say a group of Bedburg hunters came together to hunt down and track a massive wolf, that had left a trial from the bloody crime scene. /6

Through the dark forests the hunters pursued the creature, over hill and through gullies until they thought they had cornered it - at which point they found the cowered, naked figure of Stumpp! /7

Stumpp was taken back to Bedburg, where he was tortured into giving a confession - this being the usual process. Over the course of his torture and interrogation, he revealed a horrible secret - he had been savagely murdering people for 25 years - including his own son! /8

Stumpp claimed that he had a magical belt - we’ll get back to that - that granted him the ability to shapeshift into a wolf, and perform acts of black magic. He also claimed that as part of these, he engaged in incestuous relations with his daughter. /9

People, including aristocrats, came from miles around to watch the trial of Peter Stumpp. We have quite a record of proceedings and witness statements that indicate that this was a fairly open and shut case. /10

On October 31, 1589, Stubbe was led out to the square in Bedburg, where he was strapped a wagon wheel. There he was torn with red hot pincers, before having another wheel used to shatter nearly every bone in his body. The pain must have been excruciating and lasted hours. /11

Stories about the horrid crimes and death of Peter Stumpp soon spread across the German lands and across the Channel. Some of our best accounts of what occurred in Bedburg come from pamphlets printed in London, like this one. /12 bl.uk/collection-ite…

So what was going on? Was Stumpp the beast the stories paint him at? Well, there’s a couple of schools of thought here. /13

Some believe that Stumpp was stitched up - they point to a lack of evidence, and more importantly, the religious strife dominating the era. The presence of aristocrats at his trial, they say, points to this being a message sent to Lutheran farmers by Catholic aristocracy. /14

Others believe that Stumpp really was a sadistic sexual murderer under some sort of delusion. He wasn’t the first to claim that he was a werewolf, and he wasn’t the last. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, spates of murders were blamed on self-confessed ‘werewolves’. /15

Could it be that the religious hysteria of the era, the harsh living conditions and other health problems have manifested in some kind of dissociative, murderous state? Hey, I’m not a doctor, but it seems possible. Every era has its violent, mad ‘monsters’. /16

Then there’s something that got me thinking. Stumpp, and some of the other werewolves claimed that their powers were conferred by a wolfskin belt. I can’t help but think of ancient Germanic representations of warriors wearing wolfskins, like the Gutenstein Scabbard. /17

I’m skeptical of ‘folk memory’, but it seems kind of telling that such a number of these so-called ‘werewolf’ cases involved the killer talking about a magical wolf-skin belt. Could be something chucked in confessions, could be a very distinct, localised belief, or tendency? /18

There’s a lot about the Stumpp case lost to time, but it really does bring home just how removed some aspects of the world of the early modern age can be from our own. Superstition, violence, the spectre of death - it intrigues me. How did it shape our ancestors? /19

If you’d like to learn more about the Stumpp case, this is a good overview. /20 modernfarmer.com/2013/08/peter-…

Finally, here’s an episode of the @lore podcast, now a @netflix series, devoted to the Stumpp case. /21 lorepodcast.com/episodes/3

Hope that suitably rattled your bones. Now, off to howl at the moon! /FIN