Sigismund Hosmann. Fürtreffliches Denck-Mahl Der Göttlichen Regierung.

(GERMANY).

Hoffmann

Braunschweig & Hamburg

1700

First illustrated edition. Includes frontispiece, 13 engraved portraits and 3 folding plates.

In 1698, the infamous criminal Nickel (or Nikol) List (c. 1656-99) robbed St. Michael’s Church in Lüneburg (Lower Saxony) of its gold treasures, committing the largest known church theft of its time. In 1699, he and his companions, many of whom were Jews, were apprehended, and on account of confessions made under torture, sentenced to death. With almost no exception they were indeed all executed - their limbs smashed, they were then decapitated. The author of this account, Sigismund Hermann (1660-1701), was the pastor assigned as prison chaplain to the criminals while they were detained in the German town of Celle. See Jürgen Martschukat & Silvan Niedermeier (eds.) Violence and Visibility in Modern History, pp. 46-8.