The burning of witches formed one of the most remarkable features of the age of the Reformation; it had commenced at an earlier period, but became general in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
In the fourteenth century the Council of Trèves condemned the belief in witches, and declared their supposed nightly expeditions to be a fabulous invention; but in the fifteenth century the belief came suddenly back with fresh force, Pope Innocent VIII., in 1485, affirming the existence of witches.
Old women were more persecuted by the Lutherans than they had been by the Inquisition. They were accused of being in league with the devil, and with his help raising storms, depriving cows of milk, carrying off corn through the air, striking men and cattle dead, or afflicting them with sickness, exciting love by potions, and unnatural hate by spells.
For all these, and many other imaginary crimes, poor old women were dragged from their homes and subjected to different ordeals. Firstly, came the shaving of the head; and if any mole or scar was found, she was proclaimed a witch. Secondly, if no mole or scar, she was usually tried by either water or weight; if the former, her right thumb was tied to her left great toe, and her left thumb to her right great toe, and she was thrown into the water: if she floated, she was a witch; if weight was the test, little shrivelled-up women had no hope, for they were generally declared under weight, and tortured till they confessed. Under these tortures they confessed whatever their persecutors thought fit, and were then burned. There were many other ordeals practised in different places.
The Archbishop of Trèves, in 1589, sentenced so many women to the stake, that in two districts only two women remained. This Archbishop also condemned the Rector of the University of Trèves as a sorcerer.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, Trèves suffered much from the different armies that repeatedly traversed her territories; and in the beginning of the eighteenth century, one of its Electors had the temerity to declare war against Louis XIV., without waiting for the decision of the Empire.
Louis determined to seize on the person of the Elector, who he jeeringly named the “Little Curé of Trèves.” For this purpose he despatched a regiment of Hussars from Sarre-Louis, with orders to bring him dead or alive. The Hussars endeavoured to surprise the Elector while hunting; but a certain Postmaster warned him of the plot and he fled to Ehrenbreitstein, closely followed by the Hussars. The Elector rewarded the Postmaster, by ordering that whenever he came to Ehrenbreitstein he should be allowed to eat and drink his fill of whatever he chose, that was in cellar or larder.
In 1803 the spiritual Electorates were abolished, and Trèves included in France. It now forms a portion of Rhenish Prussia.
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Having touched on the leading historical events connected with Trèves, from the earliest times to the present century, we will take a survey of the city as it now exists.