A Popular History of Unpopular Things
A podcast that makes history more fun and accessible - we love all things gory, gross, mysterious, and weird!
A Popular History of Unpopular Things
The Werewolf of Bedburg
Join Kelli as she goes over a trial from the peak years of Early Modern Europe's so-called werewolf panic - the trial of Peter Stumpp, the Werewolf of Bedburg. Peter confessed to all kinds of horrible, evil, depraved things. As a result, he was executed on the breaking wheel in a particularly gross and bloody fashion.
But was he actually guilty? Was he a murderer? Or was he tortured into confessing as a scapegoat for the times?
Let's dive into the historical context and available primary source data to learn about Peter Stumpp, the Werewolf of Bedburg Germany, and see how much truth there is to these heinous acts.
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The Werewolf of Bedburg
Intro
Welcome to A Popular History of Unpopular Things, a mostly scripted podcast that makes history more fun and accessible. My kind of history is the unpopular stuff - disease, death, and destruction. I like learning about all things bloody, gross, mysterious, and weird.
Just a quick reminder that you can support me and the show on Patreon, just look up either A Popular History of Unpopular Things or APHOUT: A-P-H-O-U-T. And you can also now watch episodes on YouTube - so go subscribe to my channel there! I appreciate all the love and support :)
So throughout history, there have been times where there were “panics.” The most well-known would probably be the witch hunts that began in the early 15th century, that’s the 1400s, and continued through to 1775. During this time, over 100,000 people were prosecuted for witchcraft, and anywhere from 40-60,000 were executed. This witch hunt panic spilled over to the Americas - remember the Salem Witch Trials, right? I did an episode on that a few years back. Good stuff. There was also a vampire panic in New England when “consumption” (which is really just tuberculosis) was killing off people in Rhode Island. I did an episode on that too! Check them out.
So would you believe me if I told you there was also a werewolf panic?
Beginning in the 15th century, again that’s the 1400s, there was a combined panic over both witches and werewolves. Those accused were put on trial, which really meant they were tortured into a confession, and then executed in bloody and violent ways. So today, I want to talk about one specific suspected werewolf, known as the Werewolf of Bedburg.
As we usually do on the APHOUT podcast, we’ll start with the historical context - what was going on in Europe that explains why the people were panicked about werewolves? What did this have to do with witches? And did the idea of a werewolf look the same all across Europe? After we get an understanding of the werewolf situation in Europe, we’ll focus on a man named Peter Stumpp, a 50-year-old farmer were confessed to being a werewolf in Bedburg, Germany.
It’s gonna be a juicy one today! Lots of blood, gore, violence, and torture. Aaaaand cannibalism :)
So let’s get started!
Historical Context
If you’ve listened to any of my other podcast episodes, you know that I’m a big fan of context. It’s just as important to understand the history surrounding a topic to get a better sense of what’s going on and why it happened. So to better understand Peter Stumpp’s execution as a werewolf, we need to talk about the world he lived in.
As I mentioned in the intro, there was a general panic over all things supernatural - witches, vampires, and werewolves. Why? Where did this fear come from, and why that specific period of time? What was happening in Europe that made people turn on each other and accuse them of things like witchcraft or shapeshifting?
So I’ve done a bunch of episodes that take place in this period of European history, what we typically call the “Early Modern Period.” There was a lot going on. The European trading city on the edge of Asia, Constantinople, fell in 1453. As a result, there was a lot of religious, political, and economic tensions - where would my Eastern goods come from? Do I have to worry about the spread of Islam even further into Europe?
Then, we started to explore other routes to Asia, which culminated, of course, with Columbus sailing West and connecting Europe to the Americas. This led to a lot of political and economic changes.
New technologies also hastened change in Europe - I’ve previously mentioned in other episodes that Johan Gutenberg’s printing press, adapted from East Asian inventions, changed the face of literacy, reading, and books forever. People started reading the Bible for themselves instead of listening to their Catholic priests, and they came up with their own interpretations of Christianity. Cue the protestant reformation and massive splits in the Church.
These are changes that took place over a long period of time, sure, but consider that they would have been huge interruptions to daily life. Just consider Germany in the early 1500s - they’re split up into small principalities ruled by different houses, but are all generally considered part of the Holy Roman Empire. But there’s war and conflict between them, and between the HRE in general and other European countries. Then you’ve got these different principalities fighting over which Christian faith they want to follow. Maybe you were once Catholic, but now you’re living in a Protestant village, and life around you is just different. And there’s all these new inventions coming in, and people are literate and spouting their own ideas about things, and the pace of life is just changing.
I mean think about today! Think about how rapidly our world is changing because of technology. For those of you old enough to remember, so my fellow millennials and older, our childhoods looked vastly different from Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s childhoods now, right? Sure some of us had old video games consoles, but it’s nothing compared to the iPad babies our there now. New technology hastens rapid change, and that often leads to conflict and fear.
Or even, consider, the rapidly developing AI technologies, right? Think about how much fear is out there - people are looking for a place to vent their frustrations and distrust of this new, potentially scary, thing.
Think of the witch and werewolf panics like that - the world was changing rapidly around them, and the people looked to a scapegoat for why life was so different now. The easiest thing to do is just blame someone for something.
And that’s why we see people being accused of things like witchcraft or shapeshifting.
Werewolf Lore
So now that we have a better sense of the panic and general insecurity of the Early Modern Period in Europe, why werewolves? What did werewolves look like for an Early Modern European? And where did the idea of a werewolf come from, anyway?
So as it turns out, werewolves go back a long time in our cultural history. Werewolves appeared in the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian epic poem from around 2100 BCE. They also existed in Greek mythology. So the idea of man turning into beast has been around for a while.
At the tail end of the medieval period and the beginning of the early modern period, werewolves were blamed alongside witches for things like crop failures, infertility, bodily ailments, and dead livestock - a mutilated cattle would be blamed on a werewolf’s hunger. And logically, werewolf accusations only took place in areas that still had wolves. England has no record of werewolf trials because there haven’t been wolves in England since the late 1400s, early 1500s. So we can’t actually blame the homeland on this one! Juuuust continental Europe.
So if a cow ended up mutilated and chewed on in a field, it was likely a wolf, right? But why blame a wolf, when we can make it *spicy* and blame a WEREwolf?!
So who was accused of being a werewolf? Well, it was usually someone who shepherded animals. Which kinda makes sense - if a wolf was around killing animals, then the blame would fall on the person responsible for those animals. And though there were some cases of women accused of being a werewolf, it was mostly just men - werewolves were seen as strong and violent and bloodthirsty and aggressive, which are usually traits associated with men. Women were usually labeled as witches.
So here’s a fun side story, before we get to Peter Stumpp. It’s about a wolf that terrorized rural France between 1764 and 1767 - the Beast of Gévaudan.
Now this wolf was attacking people - around 100 men, women, and children. Which is pretty intense for a wolf, to be honest - I imagine we were probably encroaching on the wolf’s lands, and it was attacking out of fear. And it was likely a whole pack of wolves, but one singular wolf. But anyway, most people - both contemporary to the times and modern scholars today - believed it was just wolves doing this. But there was also a rumor going around that it was actually a werewolf - the Beast of Gévaudan.
It even got to a point that King Louis XV of France sent hunters out to find and kill it, and there was a pretty hefty bounty on the wolf’s head! It made the news across Europe, and even made its way across to the US! You can imagine how badly the description was warped. One report says, quote, “It has a snout somewhat like a calf’s and very long hair, which would seem to indicate a hyena.”
Another source said, quote, “It could walk on its hind feet and its hide could repel bullets and it had fire in its eyes and it came back from the dead more than once and had amazing leaping ability.”
Clearly, the people were making this wolf or pack of wolves out to be more supernatural than it was. The beast was apparently killed in June 1767. And if we take a step back and look at this story in context, it tells us that the fear of werewolves, the occult, the supernatural, was still very much present in Europe. A werewolf was used to explain the unexplainable.
But this happened well after the peak years of werewolf trials in Europe. By the end of the 17th century, that’s the 1600s, werewolf trials had died down tremendously. So the Beast of Gévaudan, which happened well after the peak years of werewolf panic, was really just another expression of fear. The French people were going through the Seven Year’s War, and things in France were dicey. So when people in rural southern France start dying, they turn that fear into the supernatural - it must be werewolves targeting us. It was an escape, of sorts, and a way to pin blame on someone.
So let’s get to the main story of today’s podcast - the Werewolf of Bedburg. Does this have any similarity to the Beast of Gévaudan? How does this connect with the context of the time? Was Peter Stumpp just a scapegoat for the fears people had? A manifestation of the uncertainty of the times? Let’s find out.
Peter Stumpp, the Werewolf of Bedburg
On Halloween of 1589 (because of course it was Halloween) in Bedburg, Germany, Peter Stumpp was executed. He was charged with multiple murders, cannibalism, uhh how do I put this… fornication with a succubus and also apparently his own daughter. Jesus Christ.
He was strapped to a breaking wheel and skinned with hot pincers ripping little pieces of his flesh off. Once he was completely flayed, his limbs were broken on the wheel - I’ve been over the breaking wheel in other episodes, but that’s essentially the point - you feed the person’s limbs through the spokes of the wheel and break them. Once he was completely devoid of skin and with limbs broken, he was decapitated. And then his body was burned at the stake. Just imagine what that must have looked like - a flayed, headless body tied to a stake, set on fire. The hear was affixed to a spike carved into the shape of a wolf and displayed as a warning to others not to conspire with the devil.
Because that’s what Peter Stumpp claimed he had done - he confessed to making a deal with the devil to turn into a werewolf. He confessed to killing 16 people, 13 of them children, including his own children. He confessed to eating his own son’s brain. And after confessing to these crimes, he more or less tortured to death.
So immediately my brain goes to - okay but did he really? Or was he tortured until he confessed? What really happened here? I mean obviously he wasn’t a werewolf, right? But was he a mass murderer and deviant? A cannibal? Or did he just say those things?
So the first thing we need to do as historians in this situation is look to the primary source records - what records exist that were published at the time of the trial that detail what actually happened? Can we read through them, take a step back, look at the bigger picture, and figure out the real story?
Well, only kinda. Because the historical record here is pretty sparse. Apparently, printed accounts of this trial were all over Europe, but those records are just gone. Lost to time. Poof. There are some records that still exist, like a 16-page pamphlet published in London, 1590, which is currently housed at the British Library. And this English-language document is apparently a translation of the original German one, which makes sense as it was a German werewolf trial, but the original document is gone.
But what’s really cool about this is the English pamphlet has an illustration of Stump as a werewolf, with panels showing his capture, trial, and execution. I love old manuscript illustrations!
So here’s what we know about Peter Stump from the fragmented records that still exist. I read through the text of this source myself, which I found online on Early English Books Online, provided by the libraries at the University of Michigan. It’s a great resource, and I appreciate the people who transcribe all these old sources online for us historians who can’t always travel to see them in person.
So first, this source, before it even gets into the meat of the story, starts by calling Peter a, quote, “most wicked Sorcerer.” So right off the bat, we know that this was tied up with the general “witch panic” of the early modern period that I mentioned earlier. He was accused of being a werewolf, but really, that was an extension of engaging in witchcraft and making a pact with the devil. And a tangential fun fact - werewolves in Eastern Europe in the early modern period were basically akin to vampires, whereas werewolves in Western Europe were tied up with witches and sorcery. So that’s pretty neat. I need to do an episode on Vlad the Impaler sometime soon. You know, Dracula.
But anyway, the source starts by saying that Peter Stumpp had been practicing “wicked arts” from twelve years old. It then goes on to claim that he practiced magic, necromancy, and sorcery. If you’re not a gamer and/or don’t know what necromancy is, it’s summoning the dead. But that’s a pretty bold claim - to say that he’s been practicing this stuff since his childhood. And here’s how the source goes. Quote:
“In the end, [he] gave both soul and body to the devil forever, for small carnal pleasure in this life, that he might be famous and spoken of on earth, though he lost heaven thereby. The devil who hath a ready ear to listen to the lewd motions of cursed men, promised to give unto him whatsoever his heart desired during his mortal life… he only requested that at his pleasure he might work his malice on men, women, and children, in the shape of some beast…
The devil who saw him a fit instrument to perform mischief as a wicked fiend pleased with the desire of wrong and destruction. [Peter] was straight transformed into the likeness of a greedy devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like brands of fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and mighty paws.” End quote.
Very descriptive. Almost like this is a fictional pamphlet designed to get people talking and gossiping about the devil and evil in the world :)
The source goes on to describe Peter’s evilness and the things he enjoyed doing with his newfound, devil-given werewolf powers, which includes plucking out people’s throats, tearing their joints asunder, shedding them of blood, butchering children, assaulting women in the fields and, quote, “after his filthy lust fulfilled, he would murder [them]...” It goes on and on. A veritable laundry list of all the evil things they could pin on this man.
And then the source gets into his crimes against children specifically. Just a quick warning, this gets really gross and depraved. The shock factor is pretty high, which was intentional. The source continues, quote,
“He had murdered thirteen young children, and two goodly young women big with child, tearing the children out of their wombs, in the most bloody and savage sort, and after eat their hearts panting hot and raw.
He had at that time living a fair young… daughter, after whom he also lusted most unnaturally, and cruelly committed most wicked incest with her, a most gross and vile sin, far surmounting adultery or fornication… And such was his inordinate lust and filthy desire toward her, that he begat a child by her, daily using her as his concubine, but as a filthy beast, given over to work evil, with greediness he also lay by his own sister…” End quote.
Ok, I’ll stop there.
Let’s reconsider this source for a second. This is an English translation of a German story about a man who confessed to being a horrible, evil, vile, depraved devil-worshipper who asked to become a werewolf so he could do all this evil stuff. And boy does this pamphlet sell that idea. They’re piling on the most awful and vile things they can think of. He murdered people. No, he murdered children. No wait, pregnant women and he ate their fetuses! No wait I can get worse - he even lusted after his own daughter and got her pregnant and…
Okay, pamphlet authors, we get it. He’s a bad dude. And it goes on and on and on from there, including more stories like how he hunted down his own son and ate his brain.
But I’m sitting here in 2024 not shocked about what he’s done. Not because I’m a weirdo who doesn’t find this gross! But I’m thinking about what they must have done to this guy to get him to confess. And what did he actually confess to, compared to what this pamphlet said he did? And why him? And was any of this actually valid? Was he a mass murderer, and he did all these crimes, and it was easier to understand if they made him a devil-worshipper and a werewolf?
Well, sources all more or less say that Peter Stump was a 50-year-old farmer. Which means he was in the fields near where animals would have been killed by wolves, which matches what I said earlier about who was accused of being a werewolf. But since most of the records are gone, we don’t really know much more about him and why the people hated him so badly as to accuse him of being a werewolf. And all the other awful things. And whether or not he actually killed anyone.
Now according to this English pamphlet, here’s how they knew it was Peter Stump as the werewolf. So they were trying to catch the wolf, he’d been around 25 years killing men, women, children, and beasts indiscriminately. So the men, quote,
“Set their dogs upon him, in such a sort that there was no means to escape, at which advantage they never could get him before, but as the Lord delivered Goliath into the hands of David, so was this wolf brought into the danger of these men, who seeing as I said before no way to escape the imminent danger, being hardly pursued at the heels presently he slipped his girdle from about him, whereby the shape of a wolf clean avoided, and he appeared presently in his true shape and likeness.” End quote.
So, for anyone who’s been glazing over because early modern English is rough - he shapeshifted from his wolf form to his human form in front of the hunters chasing after him, so they knew that the Werewolf of Bedburg was really Peter Stumpp the farmer, and he was arrested and put on trial.
And then the source says, and I’ll just paraphrase now, he was put on the rack, but fearing torture, he voluntarily confessed to all of the things he did, how he was a sorcerer, how he made a pact with devil - all things that would shock a good, Christian audience. Remember, this is the 16th century, he was put to death in 1589, and religious upheaval is everywhere. With the Protestant Reformation, people are uncertain about their religious beliefs and what they were allowed to practice. It was a touchy subject. Which, if I take a step back and look at the big picture here, tells me that this really sensational piece about a man who was in leagues with the devil and did all these horrible, perverse things was just a way for people to express their fears and frustrations about religion and godliness.
The source ends with a description of his execution, which matches what I said earlier, so it doesn’t bear repeating. But it was pretty bad - one of the worst breaking wheel punishments I’ve read about. It then reads, just a nail in the coffin here of my interpretation of the source, quote,
“Thus Gentle Reader have I set down the true discourse of this wicked man, Peter Stumpp, which I desire to be a warning to all Sorcerers and Witches, which unlawfully follow their own devilish imagination to the utter ruin and destruction of their souls eternally, from which wicked and damnable practice, I beseech God keep all good men, and from the cruelty of their wicked hearts. Amen.” End quote.
And that last paragraph tells me everything I need to know. This pamphlet, grossly exaggerated and it’s credibility very dubious, was meant to shock people into following their religion and being good and godly and fearful of anything deemed to be devilry. See what happens when you stray from the path? You make a covenant with the devil and turn into a werewolf and murder and become a cannibal and do all those other horrific things.
Was Peter Stump a murderer? We don’t actually know. But what we do know is that there was a war going on in his region of what would later become Germany from 1583-1588, the Cologne War - the region, not men’s perfume - which was a conflict between Protestants and Catholics. Religious tension, right? This predates the Thirty Year’s War, from 1618-1648, which was another religious conflict in what would later become Germany over which religion should be practiced. Stump was a recently converted Protestant, but Bedburg had recently been overrun by Catholics. And out of this religious uncertainty, we see cases and situations like Peter Stump, scapegoats for what was really going on here - a fear of the unknown and religious turmoil. And as one NatGeo article put it, quote, “Stump may have been singled out to ritually purge the community of evil through his execution.”
Or maybe he was a murderer, but making him a werewolf murderer just sounded cooler in print. We’ll never really know!
Outro
Thanks for joining me for this episode of A Popular History of Unpopular Things. My name is Kelli Beard, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the story of The Werewolf of Bedburg. Thank you for supporting my podcast, and if you haven’t already checked out my other episodes, go have a listen!
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