Suicide by Proxy in Early Modern Germany: Crime, Sin and Salvation (World Histories of Crime, Culture and Violence)

Suicide by Proxy became a major societal problem after 1650. Suicidal people committed capital crimes with the explicit goal of “earning” their executions, as a short-cut to their salvation. Desiring to die repentantly at the hands of divinely-instituted government, perpetrators hoped to escape eternal damnation that befell direct suicides. Kathy Stuart shows how this crime emerged as an unintended consequence of aggressive social disciplining campaigns by confessional states. Paradoxically, suicide by proxy exposed the limits of early modern state power, as governments struggled unsuccessfully to suppress the tactic. Some perpetrators committed arson or blasphemy, or confessed to long-past crimes, usually infanticide, or bestiality. Most frequently, however, they murdered young children, believing that their innocent victims would also enter paradise. The crime had cross-confessional appeal, as illustrated in case studies of Lutheran Hamburg and Catholic Vienna. Acknowledgments Contents Abbreviations List of Figures Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Liturgies of Suicide by Proxy The Art of Child Sacrifice Catholics and Protestants A Crime of Women Rationality, Instrumentality, Ritual, and Sacrifice Chapter 3: “Fear God and the Court, while there is still Time.” Crime and Zealous Prosecution in Early Modern Hamburg The City Crime and Punishment in Hamburg A New Rationale for Murder: Precursors Invoking Divine Intervention: The “Ordeal of the Bier” and the “Justice of the Street” Conclusion: The Stage Is Set Chapter 4: “The Unbelievably Frequent Examples of such Murders Committed solely out of Weariness with Life.” Hamburg, 1668–1810 Direct Suicide: Ongoing Desecrations and an Emerging Insanity Defense in Select Cases Case Numbers Rise The House of Correction The Spinnhouse 1697: Female Inmates Form a Murder Plot 1698–1699: Child Murders in Prison and in the Streets The Early Eighteenth Century Legislation Fails to Stop the Killings 1737: Direct Suicide—Official Mercy vs. Popular Taboo 1740: Senators’ Discomfort with a Traditional Ritual 1750–1784: Child Murders Continue, Despite Official Leniency Toward Direct Suicide 1784: Desacralization and Deritualization Late Cases: Child Murder as a Suicidal Reflex Conclusion Chapter 5: Mary with the Axe: The Cult of the Injured Icon in Baroque Vienna Pietas Austriaca Vulnerable and Potentially Miraculous Eucharistic Devotions in Popular Practice Host Desecration in History and Memory: The Usual Suspects Chapter 6: The Injured Crucifix: The Emperor’s Conscience and Prisoners’ Defiance Governmental Responses A Theological-Judicial Loophole Allows a Change in Government Tactics Nicolaus Stark (c. 1729–1757) An Ongoing Problem? Gender and Age of Suicidal Blasphemers History and Memory Chapter 7: Crime and Justice in a Sacred Landscape: Vienna, 1668–1786 Early Cases Susanna Weiglhofferin (c. 1679–1704): Murder as Pilgrimage? The Government Responds, and Fails to End the Killings Unmoored, Dispossessed, Out for Revenge: Women Vagrants as Serial Killers? Execution Rates and Gender Sharing in a Blessed Death: Leveraging Salvation on the Ravenstone “How to Comfort Poor Sinners, who will be executed for their Misdeeds, and dispose them well for Death.” From Mount Calvary to Poor-Sinners’ Graveyard An Ideological Imperative: Eliciting the Poor Sinner’s Compliance The Demise of Old-Regime Criminal Justice Chapter 8: Conclusion: The Decline of Suicide by Proxy and its Historical Effacement Bibliography Manuscript Sources Archiv der Marktgemeinde Perchtoldsdorf (AMP) Bayerisches Staatsarchiv Nürnberg (StAN) Diözesanarchiv Wien (DAW) Fürstlich Oettingen-Wallersteinisches Archiv (FÖWAH) Geheimes Staatsarchv Preußischer Kulturbesitz (GSAPK) Germanisches Nationalmuseum, (GNM) Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt (ISG) Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Hauptarchiv Stuttgart (HStAS) Oberrat Kriminalakten Landesarchiv Salzburg (LAS) Oberösterreichisches Landesarchiv (OÖLA) Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (ÖNB). Handschriften Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden (HStAD) Staatsarchiv Augsburg Staatsarchiv Hamburg (StAH) Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg (SuStBA) Stadtarchiv Augsburg (StadtAA) Stadtarchiv Leipzig (StadtAL) Stadtarchiv Lübeck (StadtALü) Stadtarchiv Nürnberg (StadtAN) Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg (StadtBN) Stiftarchiv Kremsmünster (StiftAK) Stiftarchiv Lambach (StiftAL) University of Pennsylvania, Rare Book & Manuscript Library Unversitätsarchiv Wien. (UAW) Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg, Oettingen-Wallersteinische Bibliothek (UBA, OWB) Wien Bibliothek (WB) Wiener Stadt-und Landesarchiv (WStLA) Printed Primary Sources Secondary Sources Index