1661: Maeyken de Smet, Olsene witch
February 12th, 2016 Headsman
On this date in 1661, 62-year-old Maeyken de Smet was strangled and burned in Olsene
Implicated a sorceress by the last “witch” they tortured during the witch trials of Olsene-Dentergem in the early 1660s, Maeyken had little likelihood of resisting her own bout with enhanced interrogation and duly settled upon a vast register of infernally aided mischief plus 23 more humans to accuse.
On the advice of five witchcraft lawyers, Maeyken De Smet was sentenced to burning at the stake and the confiscation of all of her property. Because she had concluded a written contract with the devil, which she had signed with her own blood; had renounced God, Our Lady and all of the saints; had had sex with the devil several times; had attended several meetings of witches and their devils; had bewitched people and cows with a grey powder; and had contaminated flax with flee-beetles and trees with pernicious insects, she was strangled at the stake on a scaffold on the gallows-field and then burnt to ashes. All of her goods were confiscated. The trial had lasted eighteen days and had cost 301 pounds, 8 Schellings and 10 groats. (Six Centuries of Criminal Law: History of Criminal Law in the Southern Netherlands and Belgium)
The hecatomb this situation would seem to portend did not quite come to pass, as many of the other accused mounted vigorous defenses — often successfully exploiting judicial mechanisms to tie up the juggernaut long enough that they could get out of its way. (One even successfully used a hunger strike to avoid execution.) This particular witch hunt fizzled out by the end of 1662.
On this day..
- 1728: Joseph Barret - 2020
- 1945: Walraven van Hall, banker to the Resistance - 2019
- 1584: Five Catholic priests - 2018
- 1584: Five young thieves - 2017
- 1858: Henry Fife and Charlotte Jones, exonerating Monroe Stewart - 2015
- 1943: France Bloch-Serazin, bombmaker - 2014
- 2012: Three drone strike spies in Yemen - 2013
- 1937: Tom Steinbock and Juan Mirbol in Sartre's The Wall - 2012
- 2004: Former vice-governor Wang Huaizhong - 2011
- 1554: Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days' Queen - 2010
- 2003: Richard Edwin Fox, bogus job interviewer - 2009
- 1942: Avraham Stern, a strange bedfellow - 2008
- Themed Set: Unruly Britannia - 2008
Entry Filed under: 17th Century,Belgium,Burned,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,Habsburg Realm,History,Public Executions,Torture,Witchcraft,Women
Tags: 1660s, 1661, february 12, maeyken de smet, olsene, witch hunt
