The burning that took place thanks to the evil son-in-law (9 photos)

Stories about the confrontation between mother-in-law and son-in-law are a fertile topic for jokes. And inexhaustible. But in this case, the relationship between forced relatives led to a unique tragedy of its kind.





Elisabeth Pleinacher, also known as Elsa Pleinacher, (born c. 1513 in Pilamund - died 27 September 1583 in Vienna) was convicted and executed as a witch during the witch hunts. She became the only victim of the witch hunt in Vienna.



Vienna in the Middle Ages

Elsa Pleinacher was born around 1513 in a small settlement near the city of Melk in Lower Austria, where the Pilach River flows into the Danube.

Her parents ran a mill on the right bank of the Pilach on behalf of the city council. She had several brothers and sisters.





Elsa married a miller about whom little is known except the surname Paumgartner. He probably died early, since divorce could not be expected at that time, and Elsa married a second time. At least two children are known from this marriage: Achatius, who took over his father's mill and became rich, and Margaret. This was followed by another marriage to a small farmer named Pleinacher.

Daughter Margaret married farmer Georg Schlutterbauer in 1550. Margaret and Georg first had three children: Katharina, Ursula and Hensel. After this, they apparently had no further plans to have children. Due to health problems, or the woman simply decided to settle on these heirs. Be that as it may, 10 years later, when Margaret was no longer particularly young, the couple had a daughter, Anna. Her mother Margaret died in childbirth.



The woman probably felt something. Because before giving birth, she made her mother promise to look after the girl, since Georg Schlutterbauer was increasingly addicted to drinking and became aggressive after drinking libations. From this moment, a typical conflict between mother-in-law and son-in-law probably began. All three Schlutterbauer children died suspiciously one after another within a year: they allegedly simply did not wake up in the morning. Only Anna survived, living with her grandmother.

The pursuit



Schlutterbauer began denouncing his mother-in-law, who had converted to Protestantism in Catholic Austria, as a witch. The accusations boiled down to the fact that she did not want to return his only child and was bewitching him more and more. She brought it only to services in Protestant churches and prepared it to serve the devil.

In adolescence, as often happens, Anna developed epilepsy. And the father immediately announced that it was the grandmother who had bewitched the girl. The girl, who is developmentally delayed, suffers from epilepsy, and is also at the stage of puberty, was unable to refute the accusations. And church investigators quickly labeled her as possessed by the devil. At that time, epilepsy was considered a strong sign of this.



Under pressure during interrogation, Anna obviously mixed up a lot of things. And the results were clearly manipulated. For example, she stated that her grandmother fed milk to the snakes in the barn. Supposedly the snake one day found its way to the milk that farmers often put out in the barn for the cats. She also talked about a big black shaggy man whom her grandmother introduced her to. The grandmother allegedly asked: “Annele, will you take it?” He was probably a guy planning to marry a girl.

The clergy exorcized the unfortunate woman three times. But apparently the ritual did not bring any improvement. After the third time in Vienna, the girl was declared insane and placed in a hospital. But the stubborn Schlutterbauer did not give up. He put more and more pressure on the authorities, so that in mid-1883 Elsa Pleinacher was arrested and taken to Vienna. However, Viennese doctors and priests considered her simply old and slightly out of her mind. They argued that the old woman should also be placed in the city hospital.



But then the Jesuit and preacher Georg Scherer entered the scene. In front of St. Stephen's Cathedral, he preached a sermon against witches in general and Elsa Planacher in particular. The excited crowd demanded that the unfortunate woman be tortured to force her to confess. In a basement on the Rauchensteingasse street in Vienna, the old and sick Elsa Pleinacher was subjected to three terrible tortures, during which she, of course, confessed to everything that they wanted to hear from her. The elderly woman was sentenced to death at the stake, and on September 27, 1583, she was tied to a board attached to the tail of a horse and dragged to the place of execution.



Burning of Elisabeth Pleinacher as a witch in Vienna. (M. Bermann, 1880)

70-year-old Elsa Planacher, whose only “guilt” was caring for her unhealthy granddaughter and preparing decoctions of medicinal herbs, was burned at the stake. Her ashes were scattered over the Danube.

Her granddaughter Anna was given by her patrons to a Viennese convent. The rest of her life is lost in the darkness of history. Georg Scherer died in 1605 when he was struck from the pulpit during a similar incendiary sermon in church. Georg Schlutterbauer, who handed over the farm to his illegitimate son, ended his life as a day laborer for someone else.



In the Vienna district of Donaustadt there is a street called Plainachergasse, named after the victim of the witch hunters, which might not have existed if not for the mind clouded by alcohol and malice and dark human superstitions.