Twice ToldReichs-Post-Reuter, 6 May 1755: Vienna's notice of 23 April
- Language
- German
- Read from
- page 2, right column (Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, PPN818036818, issue of 6 May 1755)
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 5 October 2026
A Hamburg newspaper printed this item under the dateline Vienna, 23 April. It reads as an official statement: it speaks for the emperor and empress, answers “newspapers” that had spread the story, and mentions a circular order to all provincial governments. The village is spelled “Herrinsdorf”.
Wien, vom 23 April.
Nachdem durch die aus Oberschlesien eingelangte Nachrichten, der Ruf ausgebreitet worden, als ob sich dort zu Lande zu Herrinsdorf einige sogenannte Vampyren oder Blutsauger spüren liessen, und derowegen von den dortigen Einwohnern die wirkliche Ausgrabung und Verbrennung einiger bey ihnen in Verdacht gefallenen Körper vorgenommen worden wäre; so haben Ihro Kayserl. Königl. Majest zu gründlicher Erforschung der Sache eine eigene Commißion von erfahrnen und dem Werke gewachsenen Männern dahin abgeordnet, von welchen nach genauester Untersuchung aller Umstände befunden worden, daß dieses Vorgeben bloß von der durch die seit vielen Jahren her eingewurzelte betrügliche Vorurtheile, und einem sträflichen Aberglauben, verderbten Einbildungskraft der dortigen Bauersleute herrühre, folglich auch alles, was davon in verschiedenen Zeitungsblättern ausgestreuet worden, grundfalsch, und diese greuliche Execution einzig und allein aus eigenem Antriebe der dortigen Einwohner ohne Vorwissen der gehörigen Landesstelle vollzogen worden sey. Welches ärgerliche Beginnen Ihro Majest. nicht nur gegen alle diejenige, die hieran Theil genommen, scharf geahndet, sondern auch mittelst eines an alle Dero Länderrepräsentationes erlassenen Circularescripts allen, sowohl geist- als weltlichen Obrigkeiten allergnädigst anbefehlen lassen, daß sie ihre untergebene von solchen sträflichen und abergläubischen Irrthümern ableiten, auch bey schwerster Ahndung abhalten sollen, auf solche ärgerliche und abergläubische Art hinführo zu verfahren.
Translation
Vienna, 23 April. News from Upper Silesia had spread the rumour that in that country, at Herrinsdorf, some so-called vampyren or bloodsuckers had been showing themselves, and that for this reason the inhabitants there had actually dug up and burned some bodies they had come to suspect. Her Imperial and Royal Majesty therefore sent a commission of experienced men equal to the task to look into the matter thoroughly. After the most exact examination of all circumstances they found that this claim comes merely from the corrupted imagination of the peasants there, spoilt by deceptive prejudices long rooted in the country and by a punishable superstition. Everything that has been spread about it in various newspapers is therefore completely false, and this horrible execution was carried out solely and entirely on the inhabitants’ own initiative, without the knowledge of the proper provincial office. Her Majesty is severely punishing this scandalous undertaking in everyone who took part in it, and has also, by a circular order to all her provincial Representations, most graciously had all authorities, spiritual and secular, instructed to steer their subordinates away from such punishable and superstitious errors, and, on pain of the heaviest penalty, to stop them from proceeding in so scandalous and superstitious a manner in future.
Notes
- Who speaks: an unsigned item with a Vienna dateline, printed in Hamburg two weeks after its date. It is the government’s account of the affair for the newspapers, and the only place we found where Vienna says in public who was to blame.
- It puts the whole blame on the “inhabitants”. The church’s file as Enenklová reads it, and the empress’s own letters of 22 March, name the Olomouc consistory, its commissioners and the manor’s court as well. Whether “the proper provincial office” had known is a separate question: the empress wrote that the manor’s official should have reported “much earlier” (Enenklová 2021, p. 218).
- “Länderrepräsentationes” means the provincial offices (Representationes) of the Habsburg lands.
- Transcription conventions: the long s is printed as s; line-end hyphens are closed up; “geahndet” is printed “geahn-” at the line end and “det” at the start of the next.