Twice ToldTheresianisches Gesetzbuch, no. 385: Maria Theresa's order of 1 March 1755 against superstition
- Language
- German
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 5 October 2026
The Austrian National Library’s ALEX site holds a printed collection of Maria Theresa’s laws and orders. This is number 385 in it, headed in the margin “Den 1. März 1755. Der Aberglauben ist abzustellen”, that is, “1 March 1755. Superstition is to be stopped.” It is the order the Hermersdorf case is usually said to have produced. The page before it ends with an order of 22 February 1755 on another subject.
Nro. 385.
Da die Landesinnwohner in ihrer Leichtgläubigkeit nicht nur so weit gehen, daß sie dasjenige, was ihnen ein Traum, oder Einbildung vorstellet, oder durch andere betrügerische Leute vorgespiegelt wird, für Gespenster und Hexerei halten, nicht minder den für besessen sich ausgebenden Leuten alsogleich Glauben beimessen, sondern daß sie auch in dieser ihrer Leichtgläubigkeit öfter von einigen mit Vorurtheile eingenommenen Geistlichen gestärket werden; wie dann letzthin in Marggrafthum Mähren die Sache soweit getrieben worden ist, daß von der Geistlichkeit verschiedene Körper unter dem Vorwande, daß sie mit dem sogenannten Magia posthuma behaftet gewesen, aus dem Freudhofe ausgegraben, und einige davon verbrennet worden, wo doch hiernächst bei der erfolgten Untersuchung sich nichts anders, als was natürlich war, befunden hat. Mithin wird verordnet, daß künftighin alle dergleichen Sachen von der Geistlichkeit, ohne Beitretung des Politikums nicht vorgenommen, sondern allemal, wenn ein solcher Fall eines Gespenstes, Hexerei, Schatzgräberei, oder eines angeblichen von Teufel Besessenen vorkommen sollte, derselbe der politischen Instanz sofort angezeiget, mithin von dieser mit Beiziehung eines vernünftigen Phisikus die Sache untersuchet, und eingesehen werden soll, ob, und was für Betrug darunter verborgen, und wie sodann die Betrüger zu bestrafen wären.
Verordnung Wien vom 1. März 1755.
Translation
Since the people of the country are so credulous that they take what a dream or their imagination shows them, or what other deceitful people make them believe, for ghosts and witchcraft, and just as readily believe people who claim to be possessed, and since in this credulity they are often encouraged by some clergymen who are full of prejudice, as has lately gone so far in the Margraviate of Moravia that the clergy had various bodies dug up out of the churchyard on the pretext that they were afflicted with so-called magia posthuma, and some of them burned, although the investigation that followed found nothing but what was natural: it is therefore ordered that from now on the clergy may not take up any such matters without the participation of the political authority. Whenever a case of a ghost, witchcraft, treasure-digging or an alleged possession by the devil comes up, it is to be reported at once to the political authority, which, with the help of a sensible physician, is to look into it and find out whether and what fraud lies hidden in it, and how the frauds are then to be punished.
Order, Vienna, 1 March 1755.
Notes
- Who and why: an order of the empress, sent to the provincial governments, so it is general and names no village. The case it points to is the burning at Hermersdorf, as Enenklová (2021, pp. 215 to 216) and Linzbauer’s protocol of 17 March both say. Linzbauer prints the operative sentence in a footnote and calls it the “Generale” of 1 March.
- The text says Moravia, where Vienna’s letters of 8 and 9 February and the protocol of 17 March say Silesia. Why the order says Moravia we do not know.
- It says “some” of the bodies were burned and gives no number. The investigation it mentions had already found “nothing but what was natural”: the order is dated 1 March, about two and a half weeks after the commission reached the village on 11 February (Enenklová 2021, p. 213).
- It does not name van Swieten.
- “Marggrafthum”, “Phisikus” and “Politikum” are printed so. “Politikum” is the civil authority, as against the church. The margin note reads “Den 1. März. 1755. Der Aberglauben ist abzustellen.”
- Transcription conventions: the long s is printed as s, line-end hyphens are closed up, and the numeral is “Nro. 385”.