Peter Stumpp, Werewolf of Bedburg

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class

Podcast: iHeartPodcasts
Episode: Peter Stumpp, Werewolf of Bedburg
Date: October 8, 2025
Hosts: Holly Fry & Tracy V. Wilson

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the grisly historical account of Peter Stumpp (also Stump, Stube, Stubbe), the so-called "Werewolf of Bedburg," whose 1589 trial and execution for crimes including murder, cannibalism, incest, and lycanthropy became both a cautionary tale and a template for later European werewolf lore. Holly and Tracy situate Stumpp’s story within the broader context of witchcraft and werewolf panics, the risks posed by wolves in early modern Europe, and the sensationalism of the era’s print media. The episode examines what is known (and not known) about the case, while exploring its enduring mythic resonance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Werewolves and Witchcraft: Historical Context

• Previous episodes on witch trials set the stage: Varda (1621), Matthew Hopkins (1640s), Goody Garlic (1657), and earlier discussions like Gilles Garnier, the "Werewolf of Dole" (1573).
• "The concepts of witchcraft and lycanthropy were interconnected during this period. Cultures all around the world have stories... about people who can shapeshift into animals." (Tracy, 01:37)
• The focus is specifically Western Europe (now Germany and surrounding areas) in the early modern period (~16th-17th centuries).
• Content warning: The episode is "grisly and disturbing... gruesome murders and cannibalism and incest and rape, among other things." (Tracy, 01:24)

2. The Realities of Wolves in Early Modern Europe

• Unlike today, wolf attacks on people (especially children), and livestock were common.
• Possible causes:
  • Little Ice Age — Harsher winters, scarcer food, wolves encroached on populated areas (Tracy, 03:49).
  • Warfare — Wolves scavenging battlefields led them to become “habituated” to humans. (Holly, 04:28)
• Even where attacks weren't frequent, the fear of them became part of a cultural mythology.

3. The Evolution of Werewolf Legends

• Werewolves in this period weren't just humans who became wolves, but "someone who became a wolf and then did monstrous things." (Holly, 05:57)
• Associations with cannibalism, rape, gluttony, lust—reflecting societal fears.
• Lycanthropy and witchcraft:
  • Witches often accused of enchanting or transforming into wolves, but werewolf accusations more often targeted men (with exceptions, e.g., She Wolves of Ulich, 07:25).

4. Intersecting Panics: Magic, Devilry, and Sensationalism

• Manuals detailed how to identify and extract confessions from witches; belief in their reality was widespread.
• Lycanthropy debated: Some saw it as a real transformation, others (church authorities) as a devilish delusion or mass hysteria (Tracy, 08:17).
• Transformation often attributed to magical objects (belt, girdle, unguent) bestowed/gifted/cursed by a demon or the Devil (Holly, 09:06).
• Werewolf trials paralleled and were often conflated with witch trials—burnings, confession under torture, etc.

Notable Quote:
"A werewolf was not just a person who could transform into a wolf, but someone who became a wolf and then did monstrous things." (Holly, 05:57)

5. Peter Stumpp: Historical Case Study

a. Sparse Biographical Facts & Name Variations

• No birth record or life details—known only through trial accounts (Tracy, 15:13).
• Many versions/spellings of the name. “Stump” possibly refers to the loss of a hand; some versions omit that detail (Holly, 16:29).

b. Contemporary Sources: ‘A True Discourse’

• The fullest account is a 1590 English translation of a German pamphlet:
  • Frames Stumpp as evil from his youth, practicing magic from age 12
  • Made a pact with the devil for a "girdle" that enabled his transformation into a wolf (Tracy, 18:10–19:42)
  • The pacts and powers are consistent with contemporaneous beliefs about magical tools for lycanthropy.

c. Alleged Crimes

• 25 years of murders, including:
  • 13 children and 2 young women—ripping babies from wombs, cannibalism
  • Rape, incest (with his daughter Beale and sister), and keeping company with a ‘she-devil’ (Holly, 21:22–23:13)
  • Murder of his own son (Tracy, 27:51): "Peter was insensible and killed his son and ate his brain."
• Some accounts differ on details and numbers, reflecting the sensational nature of media at the time.

d. Capture and Execution

• Captured after a failed child abduction where a little girl escaped due to a stiff collar and stampeding cattle (Holly, 28:31).
• Hunters claimed to have seen him transform from wolf to man; captured and brought to magistrates (Tracy, 29:41).
• Confessed to all under fear or presence of torture (Tracy, 30:16).
• Executed via breaking wheel, pincers, beheading, burning; daughter and ‘gossip’ (Catherine Trompin) also executed as accomplices (Tracy, 31:04).
• Public postmortem display: “a tall pole was erected… with the wheel Peter had been broken on… a wooden likeness of a wolf, and above that was Peter Stumpf’s head.” (Holly, 31:50)

Notable Quote:
"Peter Stumpp, as principal malefactor, was judged first to have his body laid on a wheel and with red hot burning pincers in 10 several places to have the flesh pulled off from the bones..." (Tracy, 31:04)

e. Broadsheets and Sensational Print Culture

• Multiple pamphlets, woodcuts, and broadsheets printed in Germany and translated abroad; standardized and sensationalized the story (Holly, 32:59–33:47).
• Early print media contributed heavily to the spread and embellishment of such tales.

Notable Quote:
"Since these works were made to be sold, they were often heavily sensationalized..." (Holly, 34:20)

f. Enduring Legacy

• Stumpp’s story featured in later dictionaries/encyclopedias (e.g., Richard Verstigen’s 1605 etymological dictionary).
• Became the archetype for the ‘werewolf’ in Europe through the 17th–19th centuries.

Notable Quote:
"For centuries after this, Peter Stumpf was one of the go to illustrations for what it meant to be a werewolf." (Tracy, 37:14)

6. Analysis and Broader Implications

• Confessions obtained under torture—truth of the killings and supernatural claims highly dubious.
• Political and cultural context:
  • Warfare (Cologne War, 1583–88) led to displacement, death, and conditions for wolf attacks and moral panic.
  • Print technology fueled rumor and mass hysteria (Tracy, 39:40).
• Witch and werewolf manias had explicit religious overtones, reinforcing social control (Holly, 40:12), intersecting with era's Reformation and Counter-Reformation strife.

Notable Quote:
"This is a really gruesome story that was part of a centuries-long moral panic that played out alongside these multiple intense social and cultural and religious changes and strikes." (Tracy, 40:46)

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Memorable Moments & Quotes with Timestamps

• "This episode is grisly and disturbing..." (Tracy, 01:24)
• "Wolves starting to see humans as potential food sources rather than as something to stay away from..." (Holly, 04:28)
• "A werewolf was not just a person who could transform into a wolf, but someone who became a wolf and then did monstrous things." (Holly, 05:57)
• "He only requested that at his pleasure he might work his malice on men, women and children in the shape of sin, some beast..." (Tracy, 19:04)
• "He died with very great remorse, desiring that his body might not be spared from any torment, so his soul might be saved." (Holly reading Verstigen, 36:27)
• "It's hard to take that confession just at face value." (Tracy, 37:40)
• "This is a really gruesome story, but also a really gruesome story that was part of a centuries long moral panic..." (Tracy, 40:46)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:16 — Introduction; context for witch/lycanthropy trials
• 03:49 — Realities of wolf attacks in early modern Europe
• 05:57 — Werewolf beliefs and criminal accusations
• 09:49 — Rise of werewolf witch trials
• 15:13 — Historical sources on Peter Stumpp
• 16:29 — Name variants and ‘missing hand’ legend
• 18:10 — The ‘True Discourse’ account
• 21:23 — Alleged crimes and heinous acts
• 27:51 — Account of Stumpp killing his own son
• 29:41 — Capture after failed child abduction
• 31:04 — Description of execution
• 32:59 — Broadsheets and the power of print
• 34:20 — Sensationalism in news media
• 35:57 — Verstigen's etymological dictionary
• 37:14 — Stumpp as werewolf archetype
• 38:18 — Context: Cologne War and plague
• 39:40 — Religious overtones and witchcraft panic
• 40:46 — Summary: moral panic and societal anxiety

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Tone & Style

The hosts maintain a careful balance of scholarly rigor, dark humor, and compassion for historical figures. Warnings for disturbing content are explicit and frequent, and the language—especially in sections quoting the 16th-century pamphlets—is appropriately archaic and sensationalized, reflecting the tone of the original sources.

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Conclusion

The tale of Peter Stumpp illustrates how fear, propaganda, and print could converge to create enduring legends blending fact and fantasy. Witch and werewolf trials weren’t just products of superstition but complex social phenomena, fueled by religious war, political instability, and new mass media. While the truth of Stumpp’s crimes is lost to history, his story survives as the ultimate European werewolf myth.

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For More:

• See earlier episodes: The Witchfinder General, Gilles Garnier (“Werewolf of Dole”), The Beast of Gévaudan
• For full source text: "A True Discourse Declaring the Damnable Life and Death of one Stuba Peter" (1590)

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is an I Heart podcast.

[Holly Fry]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We have done several episodes about witch trials that took place in Europe and North America during the early modern period, especially especially in the 16th and 17th centuries. So that includes our episodes on the Varda witch trials of Norway in 1621, Matthew Hopkins, who framed himself as Witchfinder General in East anglia in the 1640s, and the trial of Goody Garlic on Long island in 1657. There are some really old episodes by prior hosts on the infamous Salem witch trials that started in 1692 as well. And of course, there is our very recent episode on Alice Kittler involving the first person to be burned at the stake for witchcraft in Ireland in 1324. So that was really centuries before these kinds of trials really peaked. We also have a past episode about someone who was tried for both witchcraft and lycanthropy. That was Gilles Garnier, known as the Werewolf of Dole, who was convicted in 1573. We are talking about another convicted werewolf today. That is Peter Stube or Peter Stump, also known as the Werewolf of Bedburg. And these two, Peter Stube and Gilles Garnier, they were not isolated cases. The concepts of witchcraft and lycanthropy were interconnected during this period. Cultures all around the world have stories and legends and folklore about people who can shapeshift into animals or animals that take on human form. This episode is not a remotely comprehensive overview of this kind of shape shifting or even of werewolves in general. This is just focused on Western Europe, specifically in what is now Germany and the surrounding area in the early modern period. Also, this episode is grisly and disturbing. The charges against Peter Stumpp included things like gruesome murders and cannibalism and incest and rape, among other things. If there's anything that you might want to be warned about, it's probably in here. Honestly.

[Holly Fry]

Spiders.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There's no spiders. I exactly was thinking spiders and I was like, there's no spiders, no snakes either.

[Holly Fry]

Our arachnophobes are safe. But what we are going to start with is wolves. Today in Europe and North America, it is extremely rare for a person to be attacked by a wolf. And especially in the wild, the biggest exceptions involve sick wolves, including rabid wolves, and attacks involving people who are out with their dogs. The dogs are really what the wolf is seeing as prey, not the person. Wolves can sometimes prey on livestock, but they prefer wild animals like deer and elk. And the very large majority of livestock deaths in these parts of the world are not predator related. But none of that was true in early modern Europe. Wolf attacks on livestock and on people, especially children, were a much bigger issue. We talked about this a little bit in our episode on the Beast of Gevaudan, which was about a series of animal attacks in 18th century France. And we ran that as a Saturday classic in October of 2019.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There is some speculation about why wolves seem to have been a bigger threat to humans during the early modern period, even when they didn't have rabies or some kind of other disease affecting their behavior. One is the period of regional cooling known as the Little Ice Age, which was well underway by the start of the 16th century. This led to longer winters and cooler temperatures in some parts of the world, including parts of Europe. So wolves usual food sources might have been more scarce, leading them to feed on more livestock, which put them into closer contact with humans.

[Holly Fry]

Another possibility is warfare with wolves scavenging bodies from battlefields. This isn't about developing a so called taste for human flesh, but about wolves becoming more habituated to people and human environments. In today's world, at least in North America, we see this kind of habituation more with bears, when people either feed bears on purpose or don't take steps to keep their food and garbage away from bears. But it is the same basic idea, wolves starting to see humans as potential food sources rather than as something to stay away from, eventually leading to confrontations between the two. In a world where wolf attacks were more common, people were also more focused on them and worried about them, which probably led to a perception that they were even more frequent than they really were.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Like I said at the top of the show, there are stories of people turning into or being turned into various animals, including wolves, all across legends and folklore all around the world. Other ideas that were related to that, but a little more disconnected, are things like Germanic and Norse peoples wearing wolf skins in battle with the idea that they would bestow a wolf like ferocity on them. In medieval Europe, those kinds of ideas combined with the fear of wolves and wolf attacks, and all of that coalesced into the idea of the werewolf.

[Holly Fry]

A werewolf was not just a person who could transform into a wolf, but someone who became a wolf and then did monstrous things. Sometimes these monstrous deeds were carried out only when they were transformed, but it could be all of the time, regardless of whether they were in the shape of a wolf or a human. If a community started Experiencing a lot of livestock deaths or animal attacks. People might blame a werewolf for them, not just a regular wolf. Werewolves were associated not just with gruesome attacks on people and animals, but also with other crimes like rape and cannibalism and with sins like gluttony and lust.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And wolves were also connected to the idea of witchcraft. There were stories about witches enchanting wolves so that they could ride them or use them as beasts of burden, and stories about witches transforming themselves or other witches into wolves for that same reason. But that kind of transformation wasn't quite the same thing as being a werewolf. A witch was someone who was believed to be using magic to harm people. And similarly, a werewolf was someone who was believed to be transforming into a wolf in order to do harm. So witches only became werewolves if they were hurting people while they were transformed, not if they were just kind of running around in wolf form or carrying other witches on their backs.

[Holly Fry]

Most of the time, people who were accused of witchcraft were women, but people who were accused of lycanthropy or lycanthropy and witchcraft together were more likely to be men. One notable exception is the she wolves of Ulich, who were described in a broadsheet by George Kress of Augsburg. This broadsheet said there were 300 female werewolves in what is now northwestern Germany who terrorized and slaughtered men and boys until 85 of them were captured and burned at the stake on May 6, 1591. No records of this trial have been unearthed, and there are no individual women named in the broadsheet. So it is possible this was fictionalized or heavily embellished based on a smaller incident. We're going to return to the idea of sensationalized broadsheets later.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Generally speaking, while there were people who criticized these ideas and dismissed witchcraft as superstition or nonsense, a lot of people in this time and place did believe that witches and witchcraft were real. There were manuals about how to identify witches and extract their confessions and execute them. And they took for granted that witchcraft was a real phenomenon. But there was more debate about werewolves. One idea was that witches really were doing nefarious magic. But werewolves were a delusion brought on either by the witch or by the devil. So a person was deluded into believing that he could turn into a wolf, or the people of a community were deluded into believing that there was a werewolf in their midst.

[Holly Fry]

Other accounts treated lycanthropy as a real phenomenon, and there were some common themes among them. Often a magical item caused the transformation usually either a belt or a girdle or an unguent. A few accounts describe the skin of a wolf being used for this purpose. Most of the time, whatever it was came from a man in black or from a demon or even the devil himself, who gave someone the object or the knowledge of how to make it. Sometimes this was a gift or something that was part of a bargain, and sometimes it was a curse, or sometimes the person thought thought it was going to help them, but then it turned out to be more of a curse.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

These intersecting ideas of witchcraft and lycanthropy led to werewolf trials that were very similar to the witch trials that were happening at the same time in the same regions of the world, and they're sometimes framed as werewolf witch trials. For example, in Bessasson, France, in 1521, shepherds Pierre Bourgau and Michel Verdun claimed to have made a pact with demons for food and money and protection for their flocks. In exchange, they said, they were given an ointment that would turn them into wolves and were made to hunt and eat children. They were both convicted and burned at the stake. Gilles Garnier, who we covered on the show before, was found guilty of both lycanthropy and witchcraft in 1573 after a series of killings in Dole, France, and they were similarly burned to death. Henri Bouget, who was grand Judge of the St. Claude Region of Franche Comte in what's now eastern France, carried out a whole series of trials for witchcraft and lycanthropy in the 1590s, and he sentenced the convicted werewolves to being burned alive.

[Holly Fry]

Peter Stumpf's conviction for lycanthropy took place in what is now Germany in 1589, and we're going to get into that after we pause for a sponsor break.

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[Ed Helms]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

What was that like for you to soft launch into the show?

[Ed Helms]

Sorry, Jenna. I'll be asking the questions today.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I forgot whose podcast we were doing.

[Ed Helms]

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[Holly Fry]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

We don't really know much about Peter stumppf, since various 16th century accounts of him do exist, but they really don't go beyond the werewolf stuff. There's no birth record for him or records of life outside of this context. There are also a lot of different spellings of his name, which isn't really unusual for the time, especially considering that some of these documents only survive as translations. In the words of Montague summers in his 1933 book the Werewolf Quote, one of the most famous of all German werewolf trials was that of Peter Stumpp, or Stumpf Stube Stubbe Stub as the name is indifferently spelled and there are other variants. He was executed for his horrible crimes at Bedburg, near Cologne on 31st March 1590. Uh, I don't know where Montague Summers got that date of March 31, 1590. Most other sources say this was in October of 1589. Some of them specifically say October 31, 1589, and that includes something that Summers reprints in his book immediately after saying that it was in March.

[Holly Fry]

Some version of Stump may or may not have even been this man's actual surname. A broadsheet that was published in Nuremberg in 1589 does not name the perpetrator, but is clearly about this story. It describes a farmer who had a belt that let him turn into a wolf. He attacked another farmer while in wolf form, and that farmer fought back, cutting off the wolf's paw. The wolf fled, and when the farmer told a neighbor about what had happened, he pulled out the paw as evidence he was telling the truth, but the paw had transformed into a human hand. When the werewolf was apprehended in his human form, his missing hand became part of the evidence against him. Various sources draw a connection between the missing hand and the name Stump, but some accounts of this don't mention a missing hand at all.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Today, the longest and most detailed contemporary account of this is a true discourse declaring the damnable life and death of one Stuba Peter, a most wicked sorcerer who, in the likeness of a wolf, committed many murders. Continuing this devilish practice 25 years killing and Devouring men, women and children, who for the same fact was taken and executed. 31st October last passed in the town of Bedburn, near the city of Colin in Germany. This document was translated from high Dutch, meaning German, and printed in 1590. And there are no known copies of the original German text today. It's the same one that Montague Summers reprinted in its entirety in his werewolf book.

[Holly Fry]

We are going to tell Peter's story as it was described in this text and point out some moments where other accounts have different details. The pamphlet describes Stubbe Peter as growing up around Bedburg, which is west of Cologne. From his youth he was, quote, greatly inclined to evil and the practicing of wicked arts. And even from 12 years of age till 20, and so forwards till his dying day, Peter wanted magic, necromancy and sorcery. So he acquainted himself with, quote, many infernal spirits and fiends, insomuch that, forgetting the God that made him and that savior that shed his blood for man's redemption in the end, careless of salvation, gave both soul and body to the devil forever for small carnal pleasure in this life that he might be famous and spoken of on earth, though he lost heaven thereby.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The devil had a ready ear for, quote, the lewd motions of cursed men. So the devil promised to give Peter whatever his heart desired. During his mortal life. Peter desired neither riches nor external outward pleasure, but, quote, having a tyrannous heart and a most cruel bloody mind. He only requested that at his pleasure he might work his malice on men, women and children in the shape of sin, some beast whereby he might hew without dread or danger of life, and unknown to be the executor of any bloody enterprise which he meant to commit.

[Holly Fry]

The devil saw Peter as, quote, a fit instrument to perform mischief, as a wicked fiend pleased with the desire of wrong and destruction. So the devil gave Peter a girdle that would turn him into, quote, a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like unto brands of fire. A mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body and mighty paws. When Peter removed the girdle, he would go back to his human form as though nothing had happened.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This account describes Peter as very happy about this development. Since he was already inclined to blood and cruelty. He, quote, proceeded to the execution of sundry most heinous and vile murders. For if any person displeased him, he would incontinent thirst for revenge, and no sooner should they or any of theirs walk abroad in the fields or about the city, but in the shape of a wolf. He would presently encounter them and never rest until he had plucked out their throats and tear their joints asunder.

[Holly Fry]

Peter had already been prone to cruelty and violence, and being given this girdle fed those tendencies. So over time, he developed a real lust for blood. He would also put on a quote, comely habit and walk through the towns where the friends and relatives of his victims lived. He would observe them and also pick out people who appealed to him so he could stalk and murder them later. This included finding attractive women who he would rape before killing them.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This account of Peter's life as a werewolf is truly horrifying. Quote, Thus continuing his devilish and damnable deeds within the compass of few years, he had murdered 13 young children and two goodly young women, big with child, tearing the children out of their wombs in most bloody and savage sort, and after eat their hearts panting hot and raw, which he accounted dainty morsels and best agreeing to his appetite. Moreover, he used many times to kill lambs and kids and such like beasts, feeding on the same, most usually raw and bloody, as if he had been a natural wolf indeed, so that all men mistrusted nothing less than his devilish sorcery.

[Holly Fry]

Peter also committed incest with his daughter Beale, who he fathered when he was, quote, not altogether so wickedly given. She was thought of as beautiful and graceful and commended by all who knew her. Beal had a child. As a result of this assault, Peter also committed incest with his sister, and he had a relationship with a woman named Catherine Trompin, who is described as his gossip. At the time, the word gossip had several meanings that it does not today, including godparent, godchild and chummy friend. And one broadsheet describes Catherine as Peter's godmother. Catherine Trompin is described as, quote, a woman of tall and comely stature, of exceeding good favor, and one that was well esteemed among her neighbors. And for seven years, Peter also kept company with a, quote, she devil, a wicked spirit in the form of a beautiful woman sent by the devil, who knew that Peter would not be able to resist her.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Multiple 16th century documents describe Peter stump, by various spellings, as living as a werewolf for about 25 years, during which time he killed 16 people, 13 of them children, as well as various livestock. Some accounts say the adults were two women and a man, and others say they were two men and a woman. But when he put on that comely habit and appeared around town, people were not suspicious of him, we'll talk about how he was eventually apprehended after a sponsor break.

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[Ed Helms]

Hey, it's Ed Helms. And welcome back to snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu Every single episode.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

32 Lost Nuclear Weapons Wait, stop. What?

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid.

[Ed Helms]

70S basketball player who still wore knee pads. Yes, it's gonna be a whole, whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Scheer made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow, Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched you're here.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

What was that like for you to soft launch into the show?

[Ed Helms]

Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I forgot whose podcast we were doing.

[Ed Helms]

Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to talk. Lost that sandwich. So let's, let's, let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart.

[Guest on Heavyweight]

How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old.

[Holly Fry]

And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. And he got down. And I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother try to solve my problems through hypnotism.

[Jay Shetty]

We could give you a whole brand.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

New thing where you're like super charming all the time. Being more able to look people in the eye, not always hide behind a microphone.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Listen to heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jay Shetty]

Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. I had the incredible opportunity to sit down with the one, the only cardi b my marriage.

[Guest on Heavyweight]

I felt the love dying. I was crying every day. I fell in the deepest depression that I had ever had.

[Jay Shetty]

How do you think you're misunderstood?

[Guest on Heavyweight]

I'm not this evil, mean person that people think that I am. I'm too compassionate. I have sympathy for that. My man, you put so much heart.

[Jay Shetty]

And soul into your work. What's the hardest part for you to take that criticism?

[Guest on Heavyweight]

This was not given to me. I worked my ass off from it even when I was a stripper. I'mma beat the best pole dancer in here.

[Jay Shetty]

When was the moment you felt I did it?

[Guest on Heavyweight]

I still to this day don't feel comfortable. I fight every day to keep this level of success because people want to take it from you so bad.

[Jay Shetty]

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In addition to his daughter Beal, Peter Stumpf had a son. It's not clear who the son's mother was from the accounts that I read, but Peter is described as calling this boy, quote, his heart's ease. Peter seemed to take more delight in his son than in almost anything else. But that anything else was violence, rape and murder. One day, father and son were walking in the woods together, and the son went ahead to answer the call of nature. While he was gone, Peter turned into a wolf. And then he encountered his son again while he was still in wolf form. Peter was insensible and killed his son and ate his brain.

[Holly Fry]

Then one day, Peter was in his wolf form and came upon some children who were playing in a meadow near some cattle. Peter attacked one of the little girls, trying to grab her by the neck and drag her away. But she was wearing a coat with a very high, stiff collar and he couldn't bite through it. She started screaming and the cattle stampeded, thinking the wolf was trying to take one of their calves. The little girl escaped and the stampeding cattle drove Peter away.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This little girl was related to Maester Tice Artine, a brewer who lived in London and had already gotten some letters from other people around Bedburg about the murders and livestock killings. There family wrote to him about this attack as well. Other people in London and people living elsewhere in Germany had also heard about the deaths of people and livestock around Bedburg and about various unsuccessful efforts to try to catch the culprit, keep everyone safe. This included people raising mastiffs and other large dogs to try to protect themselves. The assault on the children who were out with the cattle led to a bigger hunt for the culprit.

[Holly Fry]

A True Discourse declaring the damnable life and death of one Stuba Peter presents the turning point in this search as the moment that God allowed some hunters to see Peter in the act of removing his girdle and changing from a wolf to a nicely dressed man carrying a walking stick. As he made his way to town, the hunters walked home with him to make sure he was a real person and not a delusion or some other fantastical occurrence. And once they were sure that Peter was real, they captured him and took him before the magistrates.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Peter was put to the rack. That's the torture device that slowly pulled a person by their wrists and ankles until their joints dislocated. Some accounts make it sound like he confessed under torture, but a True Discourse declaring the damnable life and death of one Stubbo Peter describes him as fearing torture and voluntarily confessing his whole life, including all the murders, and getting the werewolf girdle from the devil, seemingly before actually being tortured.

[Holly Fry]

Peter was condemned to death for these crimes. His daughter Beale, who you'll recall was a victim of incest, and his gossip, Catherine Tromkin, were both found to be accessories to the murders. Judgment was pronounced on all three of them on October 28, 1589.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In the words of the True Discourse quote Stuba Peter, as principal malefactor, was judged first to have his body laid on a wheel and with red hot burning pincers in 10 several places to have the flesh pulled off from the bones. After that, his legs and arms to be broken with a wooden axe or hatchet, afterward to have his head struck from his body, then to have his carcass burned to ashes. Also his daughter and his gossip were judged to be burned quick to ashes, ashes the same time and day with the carcass of the aforesaid Stuba Peter. And on the 31st of the same month they suffered death accordingly in the town of Bedbur, in the presence of many peers and princes of Germany.

[Holly Fry]

Afterward, a tall pole was erected in the town of Bedburg with the wheel Peter had been broken on, mounted horizontally at the top. On top of the wheel was a wooden likeness of a wolf, and above that was Peter Stumpf's head. Sixteen pieces of wood were hung around the edges of the wheel for the 16 people that he had confessed to killing.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This kind of monument was of course, partly a warning to other werewolves. And the True Discourse described itself as, quote, a warning to all sorcerers and witches which unlawfully follow their own devilish imagination to the utter mind and destruction of their souls eternally, from which wicked and damnable practice. Elsewhere this document says it is quote, published for example's sake, and lastly to censure thereof, as reason and wisdom doth think convenient, considering the subtlety that Satan useth to work the soul's destruction. Four people witnessed to the document as true. Those were Ty Sartine, William Brewer, Adolf State and George Borras. Quote with diverse others that have seen the same.

[Holly Fry]

Multiple broadsheets and pamphlets relating this story and illustrated with woodcuts were printed in Germany in 1589 and 1590. A lot of them share the same basic details about a werewolf near Bedburg who killed 16 people and committed incest with his daughter, and whose execution involved a wheel, hot pincers and beheading. Some of the broadsheets used the same woodcut illustration which focused mainly on the execution, including Peter Beale and Catherine being burned at the stage and showing the pole topped with the wheel, a model of a wolf and Peter's head. In addition to being published around Germany, these were translated into other languages and printed in other parts of Europe, including the English translation of the True Discourse that we have been reading from.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

These pamphlets and woodcuts were connected to the witchcraft and lycanthropy trials that were happening across Europe. More broadly, Johannes Gutenberg had developed his movable type printing press in what's now Germany in the mid 15th century. While this was not the world's first printing press or the world's first use of movable type, it had a dramatic impact on print culture in Europe. It became so much easier to print and distribute broadsheets and woodcuts like these.

[Holly Fry]

Since these works were made to be sold, they were often heavily sensationalized and they leaned into people's fears. They also incorporated moralistic themes like associating werewolves with carnality and lust. The she wolves of Ulish Broadsheet that we talked about earlier framed the she wolves as bad mothers and by extension, as bad women, since one of them had a son who was able to find and use her werewolf belt and she left him alone while she ran around in wolf form.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In addition to the broadsheets about stupid Peter by many similar names and other purported werewolves and witches, there were also books and broadsheets about how to identify and hunt them. These all fed into each other with reports of witches and werewolves leading to new broadsheets describing gruesome crimes and grisly executions. And those broadsheets and other print materials circling back to reinforce the idea that witchcraft and lycanthropy were ongoing threats. Broadsheets also reinforced the idea of what witches and werewolves looked like and what kinds of crimes they committed and how they could be identified and how they could be executed to make sure were that they would not be supernaturally returned to life.

[Holly Fry]

The story of Peter Stumpf appeared in other contexts as well. For example, Richard Rowlands, also known as Richard Verstigen, published an etymological dictionary called A Restitution of decayed intelligence in 1605. Here's its definition of the word werewolf.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Quote.

[Holly Fry]

The werewolves are certain sorcerers who, having anointed their bodies with an ointment which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certain enchanted girdle, do not only unto the view of others seem as wolves, but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they wear the said girdle. And they do dispose themselves as very wolves in worrying and killing. And most of human creatures of such sundry have been taken and executed in sundry parts of Germany and the Netherlands. One Peter Stump, for being a werewolf and having killed 13 children, two women and one man, was at Bedburg not far from Cullen in the year 1589, put unto a very terrible death. The flesh of diverse parts of his body was pulled out with hot iron tongs, his arms, thighs and legs broke on a wheel, and his body lastly burnt. He died with very great remorse, desiring that his body might not be spared from any torment, so his soul might be saved. The werewolf, so called in Germany, is in France called Loupgarou. For centuries after this, Peter Stumpf was one of the go to illustrations for what it meant to be a werewolf.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yes, I was looking for stuff on him. I found so many, like into the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, anytime there was mention of a werewolf, it was like, yeah, like Peter Stumpp. That's a great example. Because these broadsheets and other works tended to be very heavily sensationalized and the people creating them often copied from one another, it's hard to know what was really going on in and around Bedburg in the late 16th century, Peter Stumpf confessed to murders and to incest, but he also did so either under torture or under the threat of torture. And he did also confess to being able to turn into a wolf. So it's hard to take that confession just at face value. It is possible that he really was a serial killer who did murder numerous people, including children. It's also possible that the real culprit was someone else, or that at least some of those killings were really wolf attacks, or that the number of deaths was a lot smaller than what was described in these broadsheets and pamphlets.

[Holly Fry]

We mentioned earlier that wolf attacks could be connected to warfare. The purported werewolf activities around Bedburg partially coincided with the Cologne War of 1583-1588, which was connected to the Reformation and Counter Reformation and to wider conflicts in Europe. Back in 1555, the Peace of Augsburg had been negotiated to try to end conflict between Catholics and Lutherans in the Holy Roman Empire, which covered a lot of what is now Germany and adjacent areas. One provision of this agreement was that any ecclesiastical prince who converted to Protestantism had to give up his lands and his office. In 1582, the Archbishop Elector of Cologne converted to Calvinism and refused to surrender his land and title. In addition to violating the Peace of Augsburg, this threatened to give Protestants a majority in the College of Electors. So this was seen as a major issue, and it led to five years of fighting, with cities and towns besieged and plundered, until the conflict finally ended in a Catholic victory. This fighting would have caused the kinds of conditions that were connected to spikes in wolf attacks, as well as the uncertainty, unrest and fear that were connected to reports of witchcraft and lycanthropy.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The witch trials of the early modern period were, of course, also interconnected with religion. The same printing technology that was being used to produce all these broadsheets about witches and werewolves was also being used to print religious materials. That flourishing print culture of the era was a critical part of the Reformation and the Counter Reformation and all the upheaval that were associated with them. And that upheaval was again part of what fed into these witch and werewolf panics.

[Holly Fry]

The resulting witch and werewolf hunts also had explicitly religious underpinnings beyond the idea that the devil was involved. As examples, Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, was the son of a Puritan clergyman, while Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches, was one of the era's best known treatises on witchcraft. And it was written by Catholic clergymen who had been inquisitors. The Inquisition's investigations into heresy and blasphemy also included investigations into alleged witchcraft.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, there was a lot going on. Like we haven't even mentioned the second plague pandemic which was also happening at the same time, also causing a lot of chaos and death and uncertainty. Long story short, this is a really gruesome story, but also a really gruesome story that was part of a centuries long moral panic that played out alongside these multiple intense social and cultural and religious changes and strikes. Life that's the werewolf story for today.

[Holly Fry]

Do you have listener mail to go with it?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I do. I have listener mail that is from Noel. They wrote and said Dear Holly and Tracy, in your recent awesome eponymous diseases episode, you read a listener mail asking for research tips in the age of AI and had an extended discussion about finding reputable sources. I know y' all love libraries, so I just wanted to note that depending on where a person lives, they may be able to access peer reviewed articles through their local library. Libraries in some major cities, including New York City and Boston, offer access to databases like jstor. I know not everyone is going to want to read or be able to easily read something out of a medical journal, but research on history, for example, is a bit more accessible. And obviously print books and libraries are safe from LLMs for now. I look forward to your show every week. For Pet Tax, I've attached a photo of my 7 year old goldendoodle Tater Tot cat who still acts like a baby and my five year old cats, Mira long hair and Jojen short hair. The former is our home's resident monarch while the latter is a gremlin but a cuddly one. Warmly, Noel. Thank you Noel. These are some cute pictures, baby. We have a dog in a vest sitting on a beach looking happy, little curly hair dog, three animals, two cats and a dog taking up the entirety of a bed. We have a kitty cat sitting in the bathtub. That happens at our house. Not as much anymore. Our cats used to like to play around the shower curtain and kind of duck back and forth out of there and pounce on each other. And a kitty cat in a basket. Thank you Noelle for these adorable pictures. Yeah, so the answer for information about finding reputable sources was kind of in the context of like you're on the Internet. You're surrounded by things like TikTok and YouTube videos and Wikipedia and ChatGPT. Like how do you find reputable information? A question about more formal academic research would have totally different answers. Boston Public Library does have JSTOR access. Anyone in Massachusetts can get a Boston Public Library digital library card. I don't actually use Boston Public Library for JSTOR because I have JSTOR access through other means. But yeah, even if the library doesn't have JSTOR specifically, most of the public libraries that I have been part of do have some EBSCO and Gale databases that have access to some other peer reviewed journals. And I feel like that is the most useful when somebody is doing like a formal research project, like a school project, or if you are writing a novel and you want to make sure that your novel is historically accurate. That kind of peer reviewed stuff might be good for informing that. It's not so much what I would recommend if like you're just trying to get quick answers to something on the Internet, which is sort of how I interpreted the original question that we were responding to. And I also, at this point in my life, I don't actually advocate most people trying to read the, the journal articles about things like vaccine research and medical developments and stuff like that, because a lot of those papers really do need background information and expertise to really understand and make sense of. And at this point I've seen so many blog posts and news articles and whatnot where folks have really misinterpreted things that are normal in the field of something like medical research, have like interpreted that as scary just because of not having the background information and context to interpret things and to understand like why things in research papers and big studies and things like that are framed in the way that they are. Every once in a while I will see a bunch of like very scary headlines about like, study finds alarming levels of arsenic in sugar snap peas. That's made up. And there will be just a whole big kind of panic in the media about the sugar snap peas. And then a couple of people who do have that background and the kind of research that the paper was reporting will read it and go, okay, that that's really not what this is saying. That 300% increase is from a tiny amount, almost too small to be measured, to a larger amount that is still so small that it can almost not be measured. There's been a big like, do your own research kind of vibe in a lot of things related to healthcare. And I think a lot of that has fed into misinformation about healthcare spread by people who like just don't have the background to be able to read and understand and correctly interpret those kinds of documents. So yeah, there are tons of resources available. Holly and I are big advocates of going to the library. A lot of libraries still have reference librarians of some sort who can help people find accurate information. Sadly, we already do have print books being entirely written through large language models that are making their way into print. That does seem to be more of an issue with people ordering things off of something like Amazon and getting something that was clearly written by a chatbot more so than things that have been and curated into a library collection. Because typically the librarians who do that work know what to look out for.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, collection development is an entire field.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, we love the library. I love the access. I think I have three different library cards. Might be four now. There's the library card for the library network that I live in. There's Boston Public Library, because I live in Massachusetts. There's another library network for the place that I lived previously, which is also one that like, the card number is still active, but it's still accessible to other people who live in the in the area. And then a membership library that I pay for. And then the library where my husband works. I have wealth of library resources. I love libraries. So those are additional tips for other kinds of of research. If you would like to write to us about this or any other podcast, we're at history podcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app. Anywhere else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the I iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is an iHeart podcast.