In the late 17th century, a quaint German village and the surrounding area were roiled by accusations of murder and witchcraft. A young mother, lying-in after the birth of her child, went from being healthy to suffering a horrible, painful death. The suspected cause is a Shrove cake cooked by a shrewish neighbor known for her temper, cursing and drunkeness. This woman, her family and associates are accused of and tried for witchcraft. Piecing together vast archival resources, Thomas Robisheaux's The Last Witch of Langenburg explores the events, players, community and culture behind this "witch scare."

Robisheaux does an amazing job detailing the lives in the small community of Hürden while placing the events in a wider historical context. In addressing this community crisis, The Last Witch of Langenburg touches on the home life of women, rural folklore, the role of the Lutheran church in the community, the young field of forensic medicine, the legal process, and Lutheran orthodoxy in the years after Luther and Melancthon. It is an amazingly expansive scope that serves to highlight the events at the heart of the book.

Thank you to W.W. Norton and the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program for the opportunity to review this wickedly good book! ( )

The Last Witch of Langenburg is an interesting combination of history book and folk story. Mr. Robisheaux takes the evidence from the witch trials, and weaves a thoughtful story together that takes you through what might have happened.

I enjoyed this book, but felt the historical context was heavily written, and made the book a long read. ( )

On Shrove Tuesday, 1672, in Langenburg, Germany, a young woman by the name of Eva Kustner brought a festive cake to her neighbor, Anna Fessler. Anna had recently given birth and as such, was still in delicate health, watched over by two other women constantly. Anna ate one of Eva’s cakes, but the rest were thrown away. Later that night, Anna began having convulsions and died. In the investigation that followed, blame fell on Anna Schmieg, Eva’s mother and the wife of the miller. Anna Schmieg had never been liked by her neighbors but had instead a reputation for alcoholism, nasty language, and cursing. It isn’t a stretch for them to accuse her of witchcraft and poisoning and throw her in prison. In this enlightening work of micro-history, Thomas Robisheaux explores Anna’s trial and sentencing as well as the larger political climate to give us a deeper look at accusations of witchcraft, the uncertain state of Germany after the Thirty Years’ War, and peasant culture in the late seventeenth century.

The broad concept of this book is fascinating. I had no idea that using one event to explore outlying themes was called micro-history but I love it. The trial of Anna Schmieg, as well as those of her daughter, husband, and fellow witches in other communities, was the focal point of this work, but so many interesting ideas are carefully considered. First, we are taught a little about village life. The miller was, naturally, an essential for every village, but was also rarely liked by townspeople. He could withhold grain, charge too much, or beef up his grain with sawdust and no one would ever know. He was also frequently richer than the average peasant. So suspicion falling on the miller’s wife, especially given Anna’s reputation and the coincidence of the cakes, is easily understood.

We also explore the reasons why Anna was found guilty and the potential thought process going through the heads of all the men involved, from the judge to the doctor who examined Anna Fessler’s body to the university authorities who were pulled in to pass judgement. This is all explained very carefully and I never felt lost or confused. Robisheaux explains everything he mentions and I felt that I learned a lot here about legal process, Protestantism and medical theory. It’s fascinating why people who had never seen Anna Fessler’s body decided that she’d died of arsenic poisoning and more still how the constant questions broke both Anna Schmieg and her daughter, horrible as that is, into confessing.

All of this, naturally, is wrapped up in the political struggles of The Holy Roman Empire and particular folk beliefs which caused the townspeople to react as they did. To some extent witchcraft was part of their culture and that made it even easier to single out those whose actions may have seemed entirely ordinary otherwise. With recent devastation behind them and threats on the horizon, people wanted someone to blame. Anna Schmieg was their scapegoat.

Never once does Thomas Robisheaux tell us outright his theory. Instead, he provides us with the evidence and allows us to draw our own conclusions. He doesn’t manipulate the evidence, but lays out the facts in a way that is understandable and interesting. There is no villainizing. Clearly, Anna Schmieg was not a witch, but she may have poisoned the cakes; they may have been intended for someone else, however, and not Anna Fessler. There are theories, but Robisheaux doesn’t force them on his reader. Instead we’re left with the feeling that we’ve learned something and, even better, that we want to learn more.

http://chikune.com/blog/?p=1113 ( )

Writing history as fiction is an interesting concept. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well in this case. The history gets lost in the fabrication, and the "story" gets mired down in historical detail. Still this book presents a unique view of societal interdependency at a time we normally think of as completely stratified. ( )

The Last Witch of Langenburg is not merely a 400 year old murder mystery, it is a deep, cogent, and insightful examination of myriad roles and interrelationships that existed in rural Germany in the late 1600s. Robisheaux uses the investigation of the untimely death of a young mother to plumb the depths of these roles and interrelationships, noting rocky and difficult associations between, for example, millers and farmers.

No aspect of life in rural Germany is left unexamined, no relationship unplumbed. The sum becomes greater than its constituent parts as social status, state interest, science, war, politics, poverty, and piety all collide. And Robisheaux delves into his subject by parting out the examinations as they are needed. The arc of Anna Smeig's story provodes the framework for introducing the examinations. Almost before the reader knows it, he or she is introduced to the semi-supernatural status of the local Lord's Executioner or the state interest in the out-of-wedlock pregnancy of a young woman.

But the real triumph of The Last Witch of Langenburg is the greater reality that these circumstances, roles, and relationships describe by implication. The Enlightenment was underway in France and Italy and ideas about human ability to know the mysteries of the natural world were colliding with systems of belief in profound ways that would be difficult to describe, let alone adequately illustrate without allowing a single episode to launch the reader into a detailed description of the time and place.

The Last Witch of Langenburg is an informative and entertaining work that has the power to transform the reader's understanding of some basic historical interpretations. Highly recommended.

Daniel ( )