A Peasant Youth Burnt At the Stake: July 19, 1476

The brief week that saw the interrogation and trial for Hans Behem has no actual or even contemporary records. Yet all the accounts, still from that period, concerning the Drummer and the Pilgrimage to Niklashausen of 1476, all say that Bishop Rudolph of Wurzburg convicted him for heresy and had him burnt at the stake. It's also known that the Bishop had collected notarized statements of the youth's blasphemous preaching, had them checked by independent ecclesiastic authority and had tried to extract some confession, under interrogation, from him. Wunderli explains a bit about the structure of ecclesiastical courts at the time.

"The legal procedures used in Hans' heresy trial followed a rigid hierarchy of proofs. In canon law procedures, witnesses were important to prove a crime, but not so important as in say, English common law procedures. In canon law the most important proof was the 'spontaneous confession' of the accused. ... The accused must convict himself by his own mouth. Judges alone decided cases ... and confession spared judges making difficult decisions; a 'spontaneous confession' partly eased their consciences."

Juries weren't used. There had been a number of sworn witnesses according to the chroniclers. The Bishop's marshal Jorg von Racken told the town council mid-week that under interrogation, the Drummer had 'laughed at everything for fear of his life' . Countering with other examples, 'not so with the twelve apostles and other martyrs'. [p. 132]

A typical part of the process was to threaten torture, as a last resort, in order to try to force one of these 'spontaneous confessions'. Judges knew that such a confession could not be used in court, but, if, the court agreed, they waited a day and the accused gave a similar confession without such torture, then the confession could be deemed legally valid. Johann Trithemius gives the only evidence that Behem was tortured.

"Next, the swineherd drummer, the youth, little Hans, the false prophet of the people, the captive deceiver, whose prophecies the common people held to be the truth, was interrogated by the rope [per cordam] and he confessed that everything was fictitious, false, and feigned. And with a free voice [voce libera], he said that a wandering cunning mendicant friar had contrived everything. Later, when this same friar heard that the little fool had been captured, he saved himself by fleeing as far away as possible." [p. 134]

But, we don't have any more information regarding him. As Wunderli claims, perhaps, Hans' confession was a fiction that gave rise to all the theories about some mendicant, a hermit, or the Beghard. We don't know. Wunderli suggests that this narrative would help Bishop Rudolph in claiming the youth had some outside help. Some wandering mendicant that could help such a simpleton pull off this huge mass pilgrimage. It was a simple believable tale.

Then, one after the other, Wunderli gives two contrasting stories of the execution. One, a popular story of a thief who was devoted to Mary. When this thief was caught and sentenced to a public hanging, because of his devotion, he was saved by the Virgin Mary. Our author suggests this might be a hopeful story Hans might take with him to the stake.  [pp 135-6]

The other version, that of Abbott Trithemius, gives a wide spectrum of analysis for the the crowd's responses. And a great sense of drama. In the end, the two other men were beheaded and Hans himself was lashed to the stake where he continued to sing. Then the fire grew and he acted like he felt it. "No miracles happened, nothing that demonstrated that Innocence had been consumed by fire." The executioner made sure the ashes were collected and thrown into the river so no one could use them and try to make a martyr out of him. [p. 137] To the end of this story, Trithemius insists on the mean and stupid beliefs of people and also, beliefs in demons trying to effect the outcome of the event. But Abbot Johann Trithemius is remembered as a very well-educated moderate humanist living in the Renaissance. A cultured fount for the elite who ran things, in those times, composing this exemplum, this 'recollection' of events very near forty years later, 1514.

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all quotes and pagination from Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.