Peter Stumpp: The Werewolf of Bedburg
Hannah Pringle takes a closer look at the man who was accused of being a werewolf in 16th century Germany. From his crimes, trial, torture and eventual execution we take a closer look.
In the German town of Bedburg, a series of cattle mutilations and monstrous killings took place between the years of 1564 and 1589. The investigation went beyond suspected wolf attacks to circulating lycanthropy accusations in the 1580s. Rumours of a wolf-like creature initially stemmed from an attack of a local girl who called on divine intervention and was saved by a cattle stampede. It was in this stampede, men from the village encountered a wolf and cut off its left forepaw. This tale provides the basis for the peculiar trial of Peter Stumpp that took place in 1589.
Peter Stumpp had a variety of alias’ such as Peter Stube, Peter Stumpf, Abalm Griswold, Abil Groswold and Ubel Griswold. Born in Cperadt, near the town of Bedburg, he was a wealthy farmer and a father to two children, assumed to have been widowed by his wife at some point in the 1580s. His age is uncertain due to the lack of records surviving the Thirty Years War, but he is estimated to have been born between 1545-1550. After years of the tale surviving only in folklore, The Most Damnable Life and Death of Stubbe Peeter was rediscovered by occultist Montague Summers in 1920, detailing the heinous crimes and execution of Peter Stumpp. The pamphlet describes him as:
“a most wicked Sorcerer who… transfourmed into the likness of a greedy deuouring Woolf. Strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkeled like vnto brandes of fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharpe and cruell teeth, A huge body, and mightye pawes.”
The English translation of the 16-page German pamphlet differed slightly from the one circulating in the Netherlands, which discussed the link between the wolf who had its forepaw removed by villagers, and Stumpp’s impairment. When taking into consideration the literature produced on Peter Stumpp, we can begin to see how rumours of lycanthropy and diabolical pacts began to circulate. Running parallel to witchcraft trials in the early modern period, the pamphlet was referenced by Edward Fairfax in Daemonologia: A Discourse on Witchcraft during the persecution of his daughters for witchcraft in 1621.
For a village such as Bedburg, already experiencing great religious and political instability due to the Cologne War 1583-88, the evolution of these violent attacks encompassing cattle, children and even foetus’ caused an uproar. The unpredictable and vicious nature of these crimes encouraged villagers to establish a hunting party in 1589 to track down this suspected werewolf who had been terrorising the town.
The villagers eventually cornered a creature in the wood, witnessing a wolf without its left forepaw. They were convinced this was the same wolf from the earlier attack on the local girl in the field, whose paw they had cut off. When this wolf disappeared, Peter Stumpp emerged missing his left hand. This was considered all the evidence needed to prosecute the tormentor of Bedburg. They were convinced that he was the werewolf responsible for these monstrous crimes and apprehended him.
Similar to the earlier French werewolf trials of Pierre Burgot, Michel Verdun and Jacques Roulet, Peter Stumpp was accused of committing appalling crimes such as child murder, rape, incest and cannibalism in the form of a werewolf over “fiue and twenty yeerers”. As a sociable character, he was said to have lured people into traps, which saw him accused of mutilating many men, women, and children. Two of these women were pregnant as he proceeded to tear “the children out of their wombes, in most bloody and sauedge sorte, and after eate their hartes panting hotte and rawe, which he accounted dainty morsels & best agreeing to his appetite.”
Faced with being stretched on the excruciating rack, Stumpp confessed to practising lycanthropy, sorcery, and necromancy since the age of 12. He indulged the magistrates by detailing how the devil had appeared to him and gifted him a girdle a few years later. The belt possessed magical properties, which enabled him to transform into the Werewolf of Bedburg. He admitted to using this girdle to commit many atrocities in the form of a wolf, including at least 16 murders, the rape of young women and acts of incest concerning his sister and daughter whom he “begat a childe”. The girdle mentioned was never recovered and Stumpp confessed to discarding the girdle upon apprehension and returning it to the devil.
Stumpp also shockingly confessed to the murder of his own son, who he lured into the forest under false pretences. He claimed to have used the girdle to transform into a wolf, proceeding to “cruelly slewe him…[and] eat the brains out of his head…to staunch his geedye apetite”. This was significant, as the reason Stumpp was not suspected of the crimes from the beginning was the untimely murder of his son, which villagers thought him incapable of committing following the death of his wife.
As with many crimes of this nature, torture found its place in the trial of Peter Stumpp not only with the extraction of a confession, but with his execution. He was executed alongside his mistress, Katherine Trompin, and daughter, Sybil, on 31 October 1589. Both were executed through the act of flaying and strangling, as Katherine was believed to have been a she-wolf sent by the devil, and Sybil for merely harbouring Stumpp’s existence. The ecclesiastical principality continued to make a statement with this trial and proceeded to execute Stumpp by strapping him to the breaking wheel. As flesh was torn from his body, his arms and legs were broken via the hard side of an axe. The mutilation did not stop there as he was later beheaded and his body was burned, with his head being mounted upon a spear for all to see. This warning acted as a deterrent for people using maleficia, sorcery and conspiring with the devil, in a highly anxious society.
The gruesome trial of Peter Stumpp was retold in countries across Europe including England, the Netherlands and France. Although there is a wealth of material produced on Stumpp, we still do not have a definitive answer as to who he really was. His life has been indulged by popular culture, blurring the line between fact and myth. What we do know is that he lived in a religiously divided electorate where anxieties were high, and violence was commonplace. The combination of a politically charged society, folkloric tales and monstrous crimes of a probable serial killer fostered an environment for the peculiar case of Peter Stumpp - the Werewolf of Bedburg.
Hannah Pringle is the deputy editor of Inside History Magazine. She specialises in 16th and 17th-century witchcraft. This article was featured in Issue 10 of Inside History which is available from our online store.