Page - 69 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

Material Traces of a Religious Trial | 69www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 67–93 Church authorities did not usually try the defendants – they had neither the authority to do so nor an official interest in this aspect of dealing with witch- craft. In the overwhelming majority of known cases, the sentence in witch- craft trials was passed by a municipal judge and executed by the hangman. In the particular case of Ludwig Teschler, the subject of the case these papers address, the two authorities coincided, for the Archbishop of Salzburg was also secular ruler of the considerably smaller duchy of Salzburg. We should note that although the result of the case described in this article resonated with the humanist ideals of Archbishop Paris Lodron, just 35 years later his successor had 150 persons tried and executed for similar accusations.3 Materiality: A Description The complete corpus of scans and transcriptions is published in Wessely/ Knappitsch 2015. The publication is available as an open access PDF and con- tains all the documents mentioned here and more, in high resolution. The document numbers in this article (#xx) reflect the order in which the docu- ments were found; in the online version of this journal, they are linked to the scans in the open access repository.4 Unless otherwise indicated, all transla- tions are by the author. The corpus of finds contains 52 documents, each consisting of one or more pages for a total of 136 pages including the seals or the placement of lost seals. The material is paper; the paper watermarks have not yet been docu- mented and classified. Of the documents, 51 are handwritten in ink; one is printed with handwritten amendments to the greeting (#115). The language is German except for #8 and #100, which are in Latin. The handwriting in- cludes the cancelleresca script used in Austria and Salzburg in the 17th centu- ry, but some documents are written in an individual style. It has been possible to identify 9 hands that composed more than one document and 16 hands for gemeynschafft mit zaubern oder zauberin hat / oder mit solchen verdechtlichen dingen / geberden / worten vnd weisen / vmbgeht / die zauberey auf sich tragen / vnd die selbig person des selben sonst auch berüchtigt / das gibt eyn redlich anzeygung der zauberey / vnd gnuogsam vrsach zuo peinlicher frage.” Kohler/Scheel 1968, XLIV. The Peinliche Gerichtsordnung was issued in 1532 and contained strict regulations limiting the previously uncontrolled practice of torture (“peinlich” refers to “pain”). 3 Fürweger 2015. 4 http://irenaeus.uni-graz.at/index.php?/category/202 [accessed 16 September 2020].