| Peter Stumpp | |
|---|---|
| Background information | |
| Also known as | The Werewolf of Bedburg of Danvill |
| Died | October 31,1589 |
| Cause of death | Execution |
| Killings | |
| Number of victims: | 18 |
| Span of killings | c.1564–1589 |
| Country | Germany |
| State(s) | Cologne |
| Date apprehended | 1589 |
Peter Stumpp (died 1589) (whose name is also spelt as Peter Stube, Pe(e)ter Stubbe, Peter Stübbe or Peter Stumpf) was a German farmer, accused of being a serial killer and a cannibal, also known as the "Werewolf of Bedburg".
Contents |
The most comprehensive source on the case is a pamphlet of 16 pages published in London in 1590, the translation of a German print of which no copies have survived. The English pamphlet, of which two copies exist (one in the British Museum and one in the Lambeth Library), was rediscovered by occultist Montague Summers in 1920. It describes Stumpp’s life and alleged crimes and the trial, and includes many statements from neighbors and witnesses of the crimes.[1] Summers reprints the entire pamphlet, including a woodcut, on pages 253 to 259 of his work The Werewolf.
Additional information is provided by the diaries of Hermann von Weinsberg, a Cologne alderman, and by a number of illustrated broadsheets, which were printed in southern Germany and were probably based on the German version of the London pamphlet. The original documents seem to have been lost during the wars that swept over the Rhineland in the centuries that followed.
Peter Stumpp, whose name is also spelt as Peter Stube, Pe(e)ter Stubbe, Peter Stübbe or Peter Stumpf,and other aliases include such names as Abal Griswold, Abil Griswold, and Ubel Griswold. The name “Stump” or “Stumpf” may have been given him as a reference to the fact that his left hand had been cut off leaving only a stump, in German “stumpf”. It was alleged that as the "werewolf" had had its left forepaw cut off then the same injury proved the guilt of the man. Stumpp was born at the village of Epprath near the country-town of Bedburg in the electorate of Cologne. His date of birth is not known, as the local church registers were destroyed during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). He was a wealthy farmer and influential member of the rural community. In the 1580s he seems to have been a widower with two children; a girl called Beele (Sybil), who seems to have been over fifteen, and a son of an unknown age. In the years before his trial he had an intimate relationship with a distant relative called Katharina Trump (also spelt "Trumpen" or "Trompen").
In 1589, Stumpp had one of the most lurid and famous werewolf trials in history. After being stretched on the rack, but before actual torture commenced[2], he confessed to having practiced black magic since he was twelve years old. He claimed that the Devil had given him a magical girdle, which enabled him to metamorphose into "the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and mighty paws." Removing his belt, he said, made him transform back to his human form.
For twenty-five years, Stumpp had allegedly been an "insatiable bloodsucker" who gorged on the flesh of goats, lambs, and sheep, as well as men, women, and children. Being threatened with torture he confessed to killing and eating fourteen children, two pregnant women, and their fetuses. One of the fourteen children was his own son, whose brain he was reported to have devoured.
Not only was Stumpp accused of being a serial murderer and cannibal, but also of having an incestuous relationship with his daughter, who was sentenced to die with him, and he coupled with a distant relative, which was also considered to be incestuous according to the law. In addition to this he confessed to having had intercourse with a succubus sent to him by the Devil.
His execution on October 31, 1589 is one of the most brutal on record: He was put to the wheel, where "flesh was torn from his body", in ten places, with red-hot pincers, followed by his arms and legs. Then his limbs were broken with the blunt side of an axehead to prevent him from returning from the grave, before he was beheaded and burned on a pyre. His daughter and mistress had already been "flayed, raped, and strangled" and were burned alive along with Stumpp's body. As a warning against similar behavior, local authorities erected a pole with the torture wheel and the figure of a wolf on it, and at the very top they placed Peter Stumpp's severed head.
There are a number of details in the London pamphlet that are inconsistent with the historical facts.
The years in which Stumpp was supposed to have committed most of his crimes (1582-1589) were marked by internal wars in the Electorate of Cologne after the abortive introduction of Protestantism by the former Archbishop Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg. He had been supported by Adolf, Count of Neuenahr, who was also the lord of Bedburg.
Stumpp was most certainly a convert to Protestantism. The war brought the invasion of armies of either side, the assaults by marauding soldiers and eventually an outbreak of the plague. Murder and violence were the rule.
When the Protestants were defeated in 1587, Bedburg Castle became the headquarters of Catholic mercenaries under the command of the new lord of Bedburg - Werner, Count of Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck, who was a staunch Catholic determined to re-establish the Roman faith.
So it is not inconceivable that the werewolf trial was but a barely concealed political trial, with the help of which the new lord of Bedburg planned to bully the Protestants of the territory back into Catholicism. If it had only been just another execution of a werewolf and a couple of witches, as sprang up around this time in various parts of Germany, the attendance of members of the high aristocracy – maybe including the new Archbishop and Elector of Cologne – would be surprising.
Furthermore, the trial remained a singular event, nor did the judges refer to the new paradigma of werewolfism (explaining the animal transformation as an infernal delusion).
The U.S. metal band Macabre recorded a song about Peter Stumpp, titled "The Werewolf of Bedburg"; it can be found on the Murder Metal album. And in the Pine Deep horror trilogy of Novelist and Folklorist Jonathan Maberry, Peter Stumpp is the supernatural villain Ubel Griswold. Since Griswold is actually one of Stumpp's historical aliases, Maberry decided to use the name of Ubel Griswold instead of openly telling people that the villain was the famous werewolf Peter Stumpp until later on in the 3rd Book of the series known as Bad Moon Rising. In the Jim Butcher Book "Fool Moon" there are several characters that use enchanted wolf pelt belts to transform into a wolf form, similar to the belt Peter Stump claimed to have.
A reference to Peter Stumpp is also in William Peter Blatty's book, The exorcist. When Father Karras and Kinderman talk about satanism they say "Terrible, was this therory, Father, or fact?" "Well, there's William Stumpf, for exemple. Or Peter. I can't remember. Anyway, a German in the sixteenth century who thought he was a werewolf".