Background
There are a number of details of the text of the London pamphlet that are inconsistent with the historical facts.
The years during which Stumpp was supposed to have committed most of his crimes (1582-1589) were marked by internal warfare in the Electorate of Cologne after the abortive introduction of Protestantism by the former Archbishop Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg. He had been assisted by Adolf, Count of Neuenahr, who was also the lord of Bedburg.
Stumpp was most certainly a convert to Protestantism. The war brought the invasion of armies of either side, the assaults by marauding soldiers and eventually an epidemic of the plague.
When the Protestants were defeated during 1587, Bedburg Castle became the headquarters of Catholic mercenaries commanded by the new lord of Bedburg - Werner, Count of Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck, who was a staunch Catholic determined to re-establish the Roman faith.
So it is not inconceivable that the werewolf trial was but a barely concealed political trial, with the help of which the new lord of Bedburg planned to bully the Protestants of the territory back into Catholicism. If it had only been just another execution of a werewolf and a couple of witches, as occurred about this time in various parts of Germany, the attendance of members of the aristocracy – perhaps including the new Archbishop and Elector of Cologne – would be surprising. Furthermore, the trial remained a singular event.
Read more about this topic: Peter Stumpp
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