Weitluft, Nicolaus or Nicholaus, defendant, 1650

Partial records containing a statement of the accusation, and a report of his examination, largely under torture, as well as of the interrogation of his accuser, beggar-boy named "Zacherlen," by the Inquisitors of the free city of Schwäbisch-Gmünd (in what is now Württemberg, Germany). The record documents the patterns of persecution, and the different strategies chosen by men and women indicted for witchcraft: in this case, Nicholaus protests that he is innocent until he is tortured and admits that indeed he has devoted himself to the devil, who visited his bedroom and turned it into a magic garden, etc.; he then retracts his confession; afterwards he admits that he is a witch, yet with the caveat that he was not really possessed. In the same "volume" is a detached leaf with the heading "Einnemen / Handlelohn." This is a record of a transfer of properties from one tenant to another, with no connection to the court trial record, except that the landlord may have been the same free city of Gmünd.