Køge Huskors was first published in 1674 by Johan Brunsmand (1637–1707), a Norwegian-born author, pastor and theologian, and given its five editions in thirty-six years, it may be characterised as an early modern ‘bestseller’ in Denmark–Norway. The book was both an account of demonic possession and a defence of the reality of the phenomenon, published at a time when such views were challenged by increasing scepticism and emerging Enlightenment philosophy.
1 Scepticism about supernatural phenomena such as witchcraft and demonic possession were on the rise in learned circles in Europe at the time. Brunsmand’s book was a Lutheran-Orthodox defence against such ideas. The central story, referenced in the title, concerned the demonic possession of a house and its inhabitants in the Danish town of Køge at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The central narrative was, according to Brunsmand’s preface, recounted by Anna Hans Bartskærs (d. 1642), the mother in the possessed household, and it includes vivid descriptions of demonic possession.
2 Brunsmand obtained the story from several circulating manuscripts, but the original from Anna’s hand was not available to him. Similar manuscripts may be found in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, e.g. one from 1663, see A. Bæksted, ‘Indledning og noter’, pp. 28–32. Here she describes how a young boy was tormented by the entity possessing him:
The evil spirit ran up and down in him like a pig, and it raised his stomach. It was a horrible sight: it shot his tongue out of his neck and curled it like a piece of cloth, so blood ran from his mouth. It joined his limbs together so that four strong men could not pull them apart. He crowed like a rooster and barked like a dog, and he was borne up to the ceiling joists in the living room […].
3 J. Brunsmand, Et forfærdeligt Huus-Kaars (1674), pp. 44–5. My translation. The original wording is: ‘Den onde aand løb op oc ned i hannem som en griis, oc reyste hans bug op, at det var grueligt at see: skiød tungen ud aff hans hals, oc trillede den tilsammen som et klæde, saa blodet fløed aff munden. Hand smaskede i hans bug som en griis, oc knytted hans lemmer saa hart tilsammen, at fire føre karle vare ikke sterke nok til at skill dennem fra hin anden. Hand goel som en hane, giødde som en hund, førde hannem op paa vore bielker i stuen […].’The symptoms described above (characteristically for this text, invoking many images of animals) conform to several common signs of demonic possession: convulsions, expulsion of blood, rigid limbs, supernatural strength, inhuman voices and levitation. The book also includes examples of a demon apparently speaking through the demoniac’s mouth, which included displays of supernatural knowledge and uttering blasphemies, all common signs of demonic possession throughout early modern Europe. In addition, the demon revealed that Anna’s husband Hans Bartskær was the original target of the possession.
4 For a list of common symptoms, see B. P. Levack, The Devil Within, pp. 6–15.In the book Anna Hans Bartskærs’ tale was flanked by Brunsmand’s own writings. This was preceded by an introduction in which he explained how Anna’s story should serve as a warning against witchcraft and a declaration by two mayors and a council member of Køge town council that affirmed the account’s truthfulness. Following Anna’s story, Brunsmand supplied a historical account based on his own investigation into the documents from the subsequent witchcraft trials as well as a theological reflection on Anna’s story. In addition to the Køge account, Brunsmand’s book also included five narratives of possession in an appendix. Four of these were translated by Brunsmand from German texts by Lutheran theologians Andreas Hondorff, Andreas Angelus and Johann Dannhauer; they described cases of demonic possession in the German-speaking world. The final narrative, which played out in Bergen in Norway, was translated from a Latin text by Thomas Bartholin.
5 According to A. Bæksted, the original texts were Andreas Hondorff, Promptuarium illustrium exemplorum (Leipzig, 1582); A. Angelus, Wider- Natur- und Wunder-Buch (Frankfurt am Main, 1597) and Th. Bartholin, Epistolarum Medicinalum: Centuria III (Copenhagen, 1667). The text by Johann Dannhauer cited by Brunsmand has not been identified (Bæksted, ‘Indledning og noter’, pp. 287–8). Brunsmand’s translation of them into Danish made them and the transnational genre of possession narratives available to a Danish and Norwegian readership, exemplifying the importance of translation in the transnational circulation of texts.
6 On the transnational circulation of texts in early modern Europe, see W. Boutcher, ‘Intertraffic: Transnational Literatures and Languages in Late Renaissance England and Europe’, in M. McLean and S. Barker (eds), International Exchange in the Early Modern Book World (Leiden, Boston, 2016), pp. 343–73.The many editions of
Køge Huskors printed in Copenhagen in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries indicate that it was a very popular book. The first edition of the small book, in octavo format, was published in 1674 and comprised 135 pages of text.
7 J. Brunsmand, Et forfærdeligt Huus-Kaars (1674). Brunsmand published a second edition in 1684 with two additional narratives of possession from northern Germany which he had received from his friend Christian Kortholt (1633–94), professor of theology in Kiel, and expanded the text to 153 numbered pages.
8 J. Brunsmand, Et forfærdeligt Huus-Kaars (Copenhagen, 1684). The third edition (1691) was essentially a reprint of the second edition, which probably indicates that the original print run sold out.
9 J. Brunsmand, Et forfærdeligt Huus-Kaars (Copenhagen, 1691). The fourth edition (1700) had further additions but was mostly a modernised and decorated print of the third.
10 J. Brunsmand, Et forfærdeligt Huus-Kaars (Copenhagen, 1700). The fifth edition, a reprint with an added index, was published in 1710 following Brunsmand’s death in 1707.
11 J. Brunsmand, Et forfærdeligt Huus-Kaars (Copenhagen, 1710). Five editions in thirty-six years suggest that it was a steady seller and that Brunsmand’s warning against demonic possession reached a wide audience in Denmark–Norway.
12 The sixth edition (1757) was another reprint but was advertised as a superstitious relic of the past (‘Da den for lang tid siden…’, Kiøbenhavnske Danske Post-Tidender, 27 May 1757; J. Brunsmand, Et forfærdeligt Huus-Kaars [Copenhagen, 1757]). Subsequent editions (1820, 1870) drastically abridged the book and reassigned its genre from edifying literature with a sincere warning against witchcraft, to fiction (J. Brunsmand, Kiøge Huuskors en original dansk Folke-Roman i 8 Kapitler [Copenhagen, 1820]; J. Brunsmand, Et forfærdeligt Huus-Kaars, ed. L. Pio [Copenhagen, 1870]). This change corresponds closely to historian Henrik Horstbøll’s analysis of how certain ‘stories’ were gradually shortened throughout the eighteenth century to save on paper costs and reach a broader audience. The story of Faust, for example, went through changes very similar to Køge Huskors’ (H. Horstbøll, ‘De ‘Små historier’ og læserevolutionen i 1700-tallet’, Fund og Forskning, 33 [1994], 77–99). Also see A. Bæksted, ‘Indledning og noter’, pp. 46–85.Brunsmand’s book crossed linguistic and territorial boundaries when it was translated into Latin and published in Amsterdam (1693), Leiden (1693) and Leipzig (1695) under the title
Energumeni Coagienses (…).
13 J. Brunsmand, Energumeni Coagienses (Amsterdam, 1693); J. Brunsmand, Energumeni Coagienses (Leiden, 1693); J. Brunsmand, Johannis Brunsmanni Energumeni Coagienses (Leipzig, 1695). It was also translated from Latin into German and printed in Leipzig (1696) as
Das geängstigte Köge.
14 J. Brunsmand, Das geängstigte Köge (Leipzig, 1696). All four editions were printed in the small duodecimo format. It reached a transnational audience, among them the Dutch sceptic Balthasar Bekker, who criticised it harshly in the fourth book of his Cartesian work
De betoverde Weereld (1691–3).
15 B. Bekker, Der betoverde Weereld, vol. IV (Amsterdam, 1693), pp. 226–34. Køge Huskors became part of a transnational polemic on the reality of witchcraft and demonic possession, both highly transnational phenomena.
16 This is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that the instances of demonic possession in Thisted occurred at the same time as the notorious Salem witch trials, which were also the outcome of claims of demonic possession. By the time of the possession in Thisted, it had been published thrice in both Danish and Latin and once in German.
The translations did not have the same popular impact as the Danish version did in Denmark. Most translations were in Latin, which made them available to a transnational community of learned men, but not to the general populace. The translations also came rather late, at a time where the ideas presented in the text were challenged by new scepticism and early Enlightenment thought. Its narrative was no longer accepted as fact, at least not by its learned readership. Other possession narratives had a greater popular impact. Philip C. Almond has shown how English possession narratives influenced each other and became an established genre that was used as propaganda in a confessional battle between the Church of England, Puritan preachers and Catholics.
17 P. Almond, Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern England, pp. 1–42. Furthermore, Brian P. Levack highlights how the possession of the Throckmorton children in 1589–93 was used as a model for other possession cases and how the narrative of Thomas Darling’s possession 1596–1600 firmly linked possession with witchcraft, which also influenced later cases of demonic possession in England.
18 B. Levack, The Devil Within, pp. 148–51. Køge Huskors had a similar impact, but only in Denmark.