Dr. Leonhard Kager

1538-1616

Doktor Leonhard Kager was a lawyer and counselor for the city of Gmünd. He was also one of the wealthiest and most respected men of the city. In addition, Kager was a philanthropist, and he set up a trust for needy students that continued all the way to 1911.

Although Kager was a witch-hunter, he was a very cautious one, determined not to abuse the law to meet witch quotas. He wrote a collection of documents entitled "Consilium in Causa Maleficarum, Lamiarum, et Veneficarum" which cautioned the city Council to use discretion in the treatment of the crime of witchcraft. Kager believed the only law which applied to witchcraft trials was the Carolina law. In recent years, the penalties for not abiding by that code had been severe. Because of this, Gmünd should exercise caution in matters of imprisonment and torture.

Kager believed in witchcraft, but he appealed to theologians for proof that maleficia was the most heinous crime. He did not believe in certain aspects of witchcraft. He considered the flight of witches to the Sabbat to be a hallucination induced by the Devil. Likewise, he considered storm-raising to be illusory.

Kager believed it was necessary to mark a sharp distinction between witches who practiced maleficium from those who merely made a pact with the Devil. "If only the pact could be proved, then the defendant must be given some arbitrary punishment less than death."

Kager's greatest effort, however, went not into the theory of witchcraft but into the procedures by which these evildoers could be discovered and punished. He held that far too often the wrong kinds of evidence were used. Reputation (fama), for example, was valid only when it was supported by men of good character. If instead accusations and arrests were based on "mere talk" or on the "evil claptrap of the common rabble," then it was not truly fama but vana vox populi. Similarly, Kager conceded that a true devil's mark...was a serious indication of guilt. Together with her evil reputation it might justify torture, "but only if the degree and mode of torture permitted by the laws and by the Carolina are properly observed and not exceeded.

To Kager, confessions were a notoriously weak class of proof. Many defendants confessed only to avoid being tortured. In cases such as these, Kager urged that the defendant be set free since grave doubt existed about the veracity of their confession. "For it is better and holier that many criminals be dismissed than that one innocent be condemned" (compare with the viewpoint of Jean Bodin: "It was better that a few unfortunate innocents should burn than that a witch should go unpunished.").

Likewise, Kager considered accusations to be a weak kind of proof. He believed that the "common rabble" often accused people of witchcraft only because they disliked them. Kager drafted an edict which punished such liars severely.

Kager similarly held no respect for the accusations of witches by other witches. He wrote that many defendants were steadfast in their confirmation of denunciation lists only because of "the simple product of agony and fear of further torture (auss lautter Martter unnd forcht nach weitterer tortur beschehen). In addition, the word of a witch was not to be trusted in the first place, for surely witches would try to implicate the innocent. Another reason these denunciations should not be believed was because the Devil could deceive women with illusions.

Unfortunately, the in 1614, Council chose to reject Kager's ideas. The counter-arguments boiled down to these:

1. "Witchcraft is primarily a spiritual crim and need not involve harm to require the death penalty."

2. "Witchcraft is a special crime; therefore the ordinary rules of law do not apply."

3. "Judges must be concerned with the safety of society and should therefore be ready to sacrifice individual rights.

4. Torture and confession have a quasi-religious function in brining a suspect back into the realm of normal humanity; therefore denunciations of others as witches may be believed and acted on legally."

After having his ideas thoroughly discounted, Kager was considered dangerously old-fashioned, suspiciously Protestant, lenient, and dangerous for society. His wife and maid later gained a reputation for witchcraft.