God, the devil, medicine, and the word: A controversy over ecstatic women in Protestant middle Germany 1691-1693

Central European History

Volumn 29, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 309-337

  Stitziel, Judd ^a  

^a JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61349199599     PISSN: 00089389     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0008938900013662     Document Type: Review

References (73)

1. Anonymous (usually attributed to either Johann Benedict Carpzov or Gabriel Christoph Marquardt), Ausführliche Beschreibung Des Unfugs/ Welchen Die Pietisten zu Halberstadt im Monat Decembri 1692. ümb die heilige Weyhnachts-Zeit gestifftet. Dabey zugleich von dem Pietistischen Wesen in gemein etwas gründlicher gehandelt wird (n. p. , 1693), 125-30.
2. Lutheran Germany in general seems to have seen a swelling in prophetic activity during these years, although quantitative measurement remains elusive. On prophecy during the Reformation and earlier in the seventeenth century, see Jürgen Beyer, "Lutherische Propheten in Deutschland und Skandinavien im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert: Entstehung und Ausbreitung eines Kulturmusters zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit," in Europa in Scandinavia: Kulturelle und soziale Dialoge in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Robert Bohn (Frankfurt am Main, 1994), 35-55;
3. and Robin Bruce Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis. Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford, 1988).
4. Klaus Deppermann, Der hallesche Pietismus und der preussische Staat unter Friedrich III. (Göttingen, 1961), 20-21, 62.
5. Entzückung, the term that most frequently appeared in the sources, was used to refer to a variety of emotional and physical states, alone or in combination, including delight, joy, rapture, ecstasy, catalepsy, and paroxysm.
6. However, the five women and other women who had similar experiences from 1690-1694 were still being discussed over a decade later. See Johann Heinrich Feustking, Gynaeceum haeretico fanaticum, oder Historie und Beschreibung Der falschen Prophetinnen/ Quäckerinnen/ Schwärmerinnen/ und andern sectirischen und begeisterten Weibes-Personen/ Durch welche die Kirche GOttes verunruhiget worden; sambt einem Vorbericht und Anhang/ entgegen gesetzet denen Adeptis Godofredi Arnoldi (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1704), 141-56, 220-22, 324-25, 362-64, 371-77, 530-31, 537-93, 601-12.
7. Johannes Wallmann notes that "the history of Pietism is to a large extent the history of individual leading and tradition-creating figures. " Johannes Wallmann, Der Pietismus (Göttingen, 1990), 11.
8. For passing references to the begeisterte Mägde, see Deppermann, Der hallesche Pietismus, 78-81, 86-87;
9. Albrecht Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus in der lutherischen Kirche des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, 3 vols. (Bonn, 1880-1886; repr. Berlin, 1966), 2:183-90;
10. Martin Brecht, ed. , Der Pietismus vom siebzehnten bis zum frühen achtzehnten Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1993), 360, 401, 458;
11. Richard Critchfield, "Prophetin, Führerin, Organisatorin: Zur Rolle der Frau im Pietismus," in Die Frau von der Reformation zur Romantik, ed. Barbara Becker-Cantarino (Bonn, 1980), 114-18;
12. Johannes Wallmann, "Geisterfahrung und Kirche im frühen Pietismus," in Charisma und Institulion, ed. T. Rendtorff (Gütersloh, 1985), 140;
13. Wallmann, Der Pietismus, 67;
14. Walter Werner, "Der frühe Pietismus im Fürstentum Halberstadt," in August Hermann Franche, 1663-1727, ed. R. Ahrbeck and B. Thaler (Halle, 1977), 89;
15. Theodor Wotschke, "Der Pietismus in Thüringen," Thüringisch-Sächsische Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst 28 (1929): 3-6;
16. F. Ernest Stoeffler, German Pietism During the Eighteenth Century, (Leiden, 1973), 61.
17. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Unfugs, 127-31.
18. (August Hermann Francke), Eigentliche Nachricht von Dreyen Begeisterten Mägden, der Halberstädtischen Catharinen, Quedlinburgischen Magdalenen und Erffurtischen Liesen aus zehen unterschiedenen eingelauffenen Schreiben zusammen getragen von M. August Hermann Francken der Zeit Pastore zu Glaucha vor Halle (n. p. , 1692), Georg Heinrich Brückner's letters to Joachim Justus Breithaupt, dated 7 December 1691 and 18 December 1691
19. for Schuchart's nickname, "die Pietistische Sängerin," see Feustking, Gynaeceum haeretico fanaticum, 555.
20. Brecht, "August Hermann Francke und der hallische Pietismus," in Brecht, Der Pietismus, 458.
21. Eigentliche Nachricht, Sprögel's letter to Francke dated 15 December 1691.
22. Eigentliche Nachricht, Achilles' letters to Francke dated 16 December 1691, "Anno 1691," and 15 December 1691.
23. This crisis was only part of a wider and still poorly understood social, political, and economic crisis of the seventeenth century: see Paul Hazard, The European Mind, 1680-1715 (Cleveland, 1964);
24. and Geoffrey Parker and Lesley M. Smith, eds. , The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (London, Henley and Boston, 1978).
25. Carl Hinrichs, Preussentum und Pietismus: Der Pietismus in Brandenburg-Preussen als religiös-soziale Reformbewegung (Göttingen, 1971), 1.
26. For a hostile interpretation of Pietism as a private, world-fleeing Christianity, see Ritschi, Geschichte des Pietismus.
27. Some students held meetings outside the university which included even Bürger, artisans, and women among its participants. For the proceedings, see Gerichtliches Leipziger Protocoll in Sachen die so genannten Pietisten betreffend samt Hn. Christian Thomasii berühmten JC. Rechtlichem Bedencken, darüber; und zu Ende beygefügter Apologia oder Defesions-Schriff Hn. M. Augusti Hermanni Franckens an Ihro Chur-Fürstl. Durchl. zu Sachsen. Wie solches zusammen von einem vornehmen Freund ist communicirt und hiemit getreulich zu Complirung der bißhero herauß gegebenen Actorum Pietisticorum, zum Truck befördert worden (n. p. , 1692), in August Hermann Francke Streitschriften, ed. Erhard Peschke, (Berlin, New York, 1981), 1-111.
28. For the background to the Orthodox's objections, see Peschke, Streitschriften, xiii-xiv.
29. Romans 11:25f. and Hosea 3:4f. prophesy of the conversion of the Jews, and Revelations 18 and 19 the fall of papal Rome, according to Spener in Pia Desideria. Johannes Wallmann, "Pietismus und Chiliasmus. Zur Kontroverse um Philipp Jakob Speners 'Hoffnung besserer Zeiten,'" Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 78 (1981): 248-49.
30. For the Pietists' interests in spiritual experiences and the need to judge true from false prophets, see Wallmann, "Geisterfahrung und Kirche," 141.
31. Martin Brecht, "Philipp Jakob Spener, sein Programm und dessen Auswirkungen," in Brecht, Der Pietismus, 362.
32. Peter Dinzelbacher has noted that inward-working miracles such as inspirations or feelings of sweetness were not a subject of the witch trials. Heilige oder Hexen? Schicksale auffälliger Frauen in Mittelalter und Frühneuzeit (Munich, Zurich and London, 1995), 249.
33. Mischief contained personal attacks on numerous individuals, both Pietists and others it associated with them. For the responses of Spener, Francke, Paul Anton, Johann Winckler, Christian Thomasius, and others, see Johann Georg Walch, Historische und Theologische Einleitung in die Religions-Streitigkeiten Der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirchen, Von der Reformation an bis auf ietzige Zeiten, 5 vols. (Jena, 1733; repr. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1972), 1: 696-705.
34. Gustav Kramer, ed. , Beiträge zur Geschichte August Hermann Francke's enthaltend den Briefwechsel Francke's und Spener's (Halle, 1861), 283.
35. Spener also wrote Francke: "One now must expect daily new difficulties from Halberstadt, which depress me more than any other things ever did. " Kramer, Beiträge, 288.
36. For another contemporary account of the attacks and pressure of the Pietists, see Wotschke, "Der Pietismus in Thüringen," 4-5.
37. Philipp Jacob Spener, Gründliche Beantwortung einer mit Lästerungen angefüllten Schrifft (unter dem Titul: Außführliche Beschreibung deß Unfugs der Pietisten u. s. w. ) Rettung der Warheit und so seiner als unter schiedlicher anderer Christlicher Freunde Unschuld (Frankfurt am Main, 1693), 184, 122.
38. Hereafter referred to as Thorough Reply in the text and Gründliche Beantwortung in the footnotes. Spener also published a report and a sermon in which he negatively judged Kratzenstein's "supposed revelations and other gross errors" which contradicted the Bible. Philipp Jacob Spener, Erfordertes Theologisches Bedencken/Über Heinrich Kratzensteins/ Bürgers und Goldarbeiters zu Quedlinburg/Vorgegebene Offenbahrung (n. p. , 1693);
39. Philipp Jacob Spener, Erklärung/Was von gesichten/erscheinungen und dergleichn offenbahrungen zu halten seye/ In einer Predit vorgestellet: Samt Dessen Theologischem bedencken In sacken Heinrich Kratzensteins/ und dessen vorgebender offenbahrung (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1693).
40. Francke's confessor, David Ehrius, a pastor in Ammendorf bei Halle, had the Leipzig theology student Johann Christoph Löser copy the letters which Francke had lent him, making Löser promise to keep the contents secret. Several weeks later, Ehrius discussed the begeisterte Mägde with two students from Halle, Hillemann and Ferber, who, according to Ehrius, secretly copied the letters without his knowledge and publicized them in Halle. August Hermann Francke, Verantwortung Gegen die so genandte Beschreibung des Unfugs der Pietisten/und die darinnen enthaltene alte und neue Aufflagen. Dabey Zu mehrer Erbauung des Lesers angefüget ist Eine Betrachtung Von Gnade und Wahrheit (Halle, 1694), in Peschke, Streitschriften, 214-16.
41. August Hermann Francke, Entdeckung der Boßheit so mit einigen jüngst unter seinem Nahmen fälschlich publicirten Brieffen von dreyen so benahmten begeisterten Mägden zu Halberstadt, Quedlinburg und Erffurt begangen Exposing the Malice Committed with the Letters Recently Falsely Published under his Name Regarding the Three so-called Ecstatic Maids of Halberstadt, Quedlinburg and Erfurt (Cölln an der Spree, 1692), in Peschke, Streitschriften, 141-59.
42. Werner, "Der frühe Pietismus im Fürstentum Halberstadt," 86-89. Eigentliche Nachricht also contains two short extracts from two separate letters concerning Reinecke written by "Frau Hoffräthin" in Halberstadt - one unaddressed concerning Reinecke and the other addressed to Francke concerning Reinecke and Elrich. I did not include these fragments in this paper because the descriptions of the two begeisterte Mägde are very similar to the other accounts and seem to be secondhand.
43. Eigentliche Nachricht, Brückner's letters to Breithaupt, dated 7 December 1691 and 18 December 1691.
44. Eigentliche Nachricht, Sprögel's letter to Francke dated 15 December 1691. All biblical quotes are taken from the King James version.
45. These characteristics as well as others the women possessed, such as poverty, fasting, sickness, preoccupation with repentance, and knowledge of the secrets of others' souls and their states of grace had belonged to the stereotypical characteristics of holy and pious men and especially women since the Middle Ages. For example, see Dinzelbacher, Heilige oder Hexen? and Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast, Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, 1987), chaps. 3, 9, 10.
46. Francke, Entdeckung der Boßheit, 150.
47. Eigentliche Nachricht, Achilles's letters to Francke.
48. The possibility of two completely contrary interpretations of a single religious form of behavior was a typical ambivalence of European Christianity for centuries. Dinzelbacher, Heilige oder Hexen?, 11.
49. Friedrich Hoffmann, Unlängst gestelltes Teutsches Judicium von Quedlinburgischen Magd Magdalenen An Hn. Sprögeln/Diac. Aul. Qvedl. entgegen gesetzet seiner Lateinischen Epistolarischen Dissertation an Herm D. Vvdelium. Consel. &c. (n. p. , 1692);
50. Hoffmann's report on Jahn is printed in Ausführliche Beschreibung, 162-68.
51. Hoffmann was named the first professor of medicine at the University of Halle in 1693 and later became the personal physician to Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia. For summaries of Hoffmann's life and medical carrier see Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 56 vols. , (1875-1912; repr. of the first edition: Berlin, 1969), 12:584-88
52. and C. L. F. Panckoucke, ed. , Dictionaire des Sciences Médicales. Biographie Médicale (Paris, 1822), 5:239-57.
53. Hoffmann was a friend of Spener and certainly had many inclinations toward the Pietists. However, as Roger French has argued, Hoffmann was hostile toward the radical, enthusiastic side of Pietism, preferring more rational and natural religious beliefs. "Sickness and the Soul: Stahl, Hoffmann, and Sauvage on Pathology," in The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, ed. Andrew Cunningham and Roger French (Cambridge, 1990), 88, 93.
54. At a time when the borders between and within religious groups were relatively vague and fluid, the classification of Hoffmann as a "Pietist" is problematic. For an example of a closer alliance between medicine and Pietism, see Johanna Geyer-Kordesch, "Georg Ernst Stahl's Radical Pietist Medicine and its Influence on the German Enlightenment," in The Medical Enlightenment, ed. Cunningham and French, 67-87 .
55. For a more detailed discussion of corpuscular philosophy and Hoffmann's theory of mechanical physiology see Lester S. King, The Road to Medical Enlightenment 1650-1695 (London and New York, 1970), 186-93;
56. François Duschesneau, "La Physiologie Mécaniste de Hoffmann," Dix-Huitième 23 (1991): 9-22;
57. and Karl E. Rothschuh, "Studien zu Friedrich Hoffmann," pt. 1, "Hoffmann und die Medizingeschichte. Das Hoffmannsche System und das Aetherprinzip," pt. 2, "Hoffmann, Descartes und Leibniz," Sudhoffs Archiv 60 (1976): 163-93, 235-70.
58. According to traditional conceptions of the humors dating back to Aristotle and Galen, the body was composed of four humors corresponding to the four elements of the universe: blood, like air, was hot and moist; phlegm, like water, was cold and moist; yellow bile, like fire, was hot and dry; and black bile or the melancholic humor, like earth, was cold and dry. See Vivan Nutton, "Humoralism," in Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, ed. William F. Bynum and Roy Porter, 2 vols. (London and New York, 1993), 1: 281-91.
59. Hoffmann identified his elemental particles by certain qualities, including earthy, watery, saline, volatile, fixed, branching, sulfurous. The proportion of these particles determined the primary characteristics - hot, cold, moist, and dry - which composed the temperaments. Thus, as Hoffmann wrote in 1695 in his Fundamenta Medicinae, "when sulphurous, oily, volatile and saline particles predominate over the fixed or watery, or earthy ones, the disproportion is warm, and then the resulting temperament is called warm or sanguine; and if the excess is too great, then a choleric temperament results. " Quoted in King, The Road, 187.
60. Hoffmann, Unlängst gestelltes Teutsches Judicium, 3-5.
61. The title also appears in the list of Hoffmann's works in Panckoucke, Biographie Médicale, 5:247.
62. The original reads: "in sex rebus non naturalibus keinen Fehler begangen. " Thanks to Mary Fissell for explaining this phrase. The six non-naturals, an ancient concept used well into the eighteenth century, were environmental, physical, and psychological factors which were part of the larger humoral system and influenced one's health. They were: air; exercise and rest; sleep and waking; food and drink; repletion and excretion; passions and emotions. See Peter Niebyl, "The Non-Naturals," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 45 (1971): 486-92;
63. and L. J. Rather, "The 'Six Things Non-Natural': A Note of the Origins and Fate of a Doctrine and a Phrase," Clio Medica 3 (1968): 337-47.
64. It is noteworthy that Hoffmann never mentioned the possibility of Jahn being a witch, especially since he wrote a treatise on the medical aspects of witchcraft a decade later. See Lester King, "Friedrich Hoffmann and Some Medical Aspects of Witchcraft," Clio Medica 9 (1974): 299-309.
65. A similar, yet greatly simplified approach to determining the causes of ecstasies was taken by the medical doctor Justus Vesti in his report on Schuchart dated 16 January 1692 and quoted in Wilhelm Ernst Tentzel, Monatliche Unterredungen Einiger Guten Freunde von Allerhand Büchern und andern annemlichen Geschichten. Allen Liebhabern Der Curiositäten Zur Ergetzligkeit und Nachsinnen heraus gegeben, (August 1692): 631-42. In addition to quoting Vesti's report and parts of a report on Elrich by a Dr. Meinecken, Tentzel offered a discussion of the causes of Schuchart's ecstasies in the form of a conversation between three imaginary men. This paper will not analyze the discussion since it is primarily a summary of the main medical, Pietist, and Orthodox arguments.
66. Philipp Jacob Spener, Theologisches Bedencken über einige Puncten/Nahmentlich: 1. Die gerühmte Offenbahrungen eines Adelichen Fräuleins. 2. Den D. Petersen Superint. zu Lüneburg/ und das von Ihm behauptete tausend jährige Reich Christi. und 3. Die so genannten Pietisten angehende (n. p. , 1692).
67. See Wallmann, "Geisterfahrung und Kirche," 142.
68. Spener, Gründliche Beantwortung, 184.
69. Spener also attributed Kratzenstein's behavior to natural, psychological causes: Kratzenstein's "confusion" was the result of his unhappy marriage. Schneider, "Der radikale Pietismus," 402, 427.
70. David Warren Sabean, Power in the Blood: Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1984), 106.
71. Tentzel, Monatliche Unterredungen, 622.
72. Eigentliche Nachricht, Sprögel's letter to Francke dated 15 December 1691. According to Tentzel, the passage was 2 Peter 3:11-12: Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for the hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire.
73. Eigentliche Nachricht, Bruckner's letters to Breithaupt dated 7 December and undated.