In 1220 CE, St. Francis of Assisi tamed a ferocious werewolf terrorizing Gubbio, Italy—transforming “Brother Wolf” from savage beast to peaceful townsperson. But why did Christianity need to conquer the wolf? For millennia, werewolves have stalked the boundaries between civilization and savagery, humanity and monstrosity. From ancient Mesopotamian curses to Greek myths of divine punishment, from medieval theology to early modern courtrooms where hundreds died in werewolf trials, the shape-shifter has embodied our deepest anxieties about human nature itself. Join Marissa and Elizabeth as they uncover the forgotten history of werewolf prosecutions that claimed real lives, explore how economic crises and religious upheaval sparked lycanthropy panics, and trace the transformation of the werewolf from genuine judicial threat to Hollywood monster. This third episode in our Spooky series reveals how the figure of the werewolf has shaped—and been shaped by—Western culture’s evolving understanding of violence, identity, and the wild within us all.
NOTE: This episode contains references to sexual assault, violence against children, and descriptions of gruesome gore. Listen/read with extreme caution.
Researched and Written by Marissa C. Rhodes
Recorded and Produced by Marissa C. Rhodes and Elizabeth Garner Masarik
Marissa: It’s sometime around 1220 CE and you’re in the town of Gubbio, Italy. A ferocious werewolf was terrorizing the people—killing livestock and even attacking humans. It’s all anyone can talk about. The townspeople were so frightened that they wouldn’t go outside the city walls for fear of being killed and mutilated at his hands.
When St. Francis of Assisi heard of this, he decides to go out and meet the werewolf, despite everyone’s warnings. When the werewolf charged at him, Francis made the Sign of the Cross and calmly spoke to it, calling it “Brother Wolf.” To everyone’s amazement, the wolf stopped, listened, and became gentle.
Elizabeth: Francis tells the werewolf that he had been doing great harm and deserved punishment, but if he would promise to stop attacking people, Francis would ensure the townsfolk fed him so he would not go hungry. The werewolf bowed its head and placed its paw in Francis’s hand—a sign of peace and agreement. From then on, the werewolf lived peacefully in Gubbio, cared for by the townspeople, and hurt no one. When the werewolf eventually died of old age, the people mourned him.
Marissa: The moral of popular Christian legend is clear: Christianity has the power to tame even the most wild and savage beasts. Christianity is the religion of the peaceful and the civilized. But why a wolf? A strangely humanized wolf who lives among villagers for the rest of his day? Because he’s the ultimate bogeyman.
For the third episode in this year’s Spooky series, we’re tackling the history of the werewolf. The werewolf or loup-garou is a human who transforms into a wolf or wolf-like creature and it represents one of humanity’s most enduring supernatural beliefs, spanning millennia and crossing cultural boundaries. This phenomenon, called lycanthropy, encompasses not merely folklore and mythology, but also real historical events including trials, executions, and mass panics that claimed hundreds of lives. Today’s episode explores the history of werewolf lore and its impact on the social, cultural, and legal history of the western world with special emphasis on early modern werewolfery trials.
I’m Marissa
And I’m Elizabeth
Marissa: And we are your historians for this episode of Dig.
Elizabeth: We are so thankful for all of our Patreon supporters – especially our Auger and Excavator level patrons: Karl, Alissa, Maria, Colin, Denise, Edward, Jessy, Judy, Karen, Lauren, Lisa, Megan, and Susan! We can’t thank you enough. Listener, if you enjoy what we do here but aren’t yet a patron of this show, it’s easy: just go to patreon.com/digpodcast to learn more.
Marissa: First, a bit of a disclaimer… Episodes like this are so difficult to research. This focuses on poorly documented events from a very long time ago, endlessly transforming lore, highly fictionalized and sensationalized stories, and has the benefit of very few scholarly inquiries. Unlike witches, who have been studied extensively by scholars, werewolves live in an in-between where the topic is so popular in non-academic settings that scholars are afraid to touch it. So I make no claims to the absolute correctness of every single detail in these stories. In fact their factual accuracy is not really the point. I used primary sources and vetted scholarly sources whenever possible. I uncovered many mistakes that have been repeated uncritically by popular sources (for example most popular sources say Jean Bodin oversaw the Burgot/Verdun trial in 1521 when Bodin wasn’t born until 1530—the judge’s name was actually Jean Boin by the way.) I ruthlessly interrogated all of my sources like I normally do but if I have mistakenly repeated any inaccuracies, feel free to let me know so I can fix it. OK with that out of the way…
The oldest werewolf stories were told orally and probably evolved out of the earliest hunter-gatherer societies’ constant vigilance against feral wolves. Wolves were violent predators known to attack vulnerable members of early societies. So when our earliest ancestors had nightmares, they were often about wolf attacks. As human became increasingly civilized (learning to farm, building towns, diversifying their labors and dabbling in the arts), werewolves stood as reminders of humans’ dual nature: as both primal beast and refined and enlightened beings. As humans became more refined and further from their primal selves, the more they feared the werewolf.
Elizabeth: At the same time, early humans (15,000 to 40,000 years ago) tamed one strain of wolf, the earliest breeding dogs, for use in work and as pets. While this likely enhanced humans’ view of themselves as higher-order beings, it also meant that humans had close, intimate, and constant interaction with wolf-like animals as part of their every-day lives. So it must have been somewhat of a love-hate relationship. This is probably why, in the ancient world, werewolfery had many different meanings and many different moral values ascribed to it. No one culture dominated werewolf lore and werewolf stories were as diverse as the cultures that celebrated them.
The concept of human-wolf transformation appears in some of our earliest written records. In ancient Mesopotamia, the Epic of Gilgamesh contains references to humans transformed into wolves by divine curse. In Tablet VI, the Goddess Ishtar makes romantic advances on the story’s hero, Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh rejects Ishtar, in part because of her past cruel treatment of her lovers. Gilgamesh reminds Ishtar that she had once loved an unnamed shepherd but that when she grew tired of him, she turned him into a werewolf. In his wolf form, the shepherd is chased by his own dogs and corralled by his former under-shepherds, humiliating indeed. Gilgamesh uses the story to prove to Ishtar that her love is destructive and that he’s not interested in that drama. It’s with the Epic of Gilgamesh that oral werewolf lore became written culture.
Marissa: Greek and Roman literature provides our most detailed early accounts of lycanthropy—the term itself deriving from the Greek lykos (wolf) and anthropos (human). The Greek “historian” Herodotus (I use scare quotes because he made lots of shit up), writing in the 5th century BCE, described the Neuri people (living in modern Ukraine or Belarus) who allegedly transformed into wolves for several days each year before reverting back to their human form. Historians believe that this tale may have originated from ancient warrior customs of wearing wolf pelts and masks to celebrate the sacredness of the animal.
More significantly, Pausanias recorded the myth of King Lycaon of Arcadia, who was transformed into a wolf by Zeus as punishment for sacrificing a human baby at Zeus’s altar. Immediately after this wicked sacrifice, Lycaon was turned into a wolf. According to Pausanias, the transformation was not necessarily permanent. If he abstains from human flesh while in his wolf form for nine years, he will turn back into a human. But if he tastes human flesh while in his wolf form, he’ll remain a beast forever.[1] This myth established a crucial connection between werewolves and cannibalism that would persist through centuries of European belief (as we shall soon see).
Elizabeth: Roman authors expanded on these themes. Petronius’s Satyricon contains one of the earliest detailed werewolf transformation narratives. The tale is told from the point of view of a slave called Niceros and goes like this:
“While I was yet a slave, we lived in a narrow alley; the house is now Gavilla’s. There, the gods willed that I fell in love with the wife of Terentius the innkeeper: you remember her, Melissa from Taranto, a lovely plump little woman. But, by heavens, it wasn’t a physical thing, a sexual passion, but rather because she was kindly by nature. If I asked her for anything, she never refused me; if she earned any money I had half; whatever I had I put in her purse, and was never cheated.
Now one day her husband died at the country house. So I decided to find a way to come at her, by hook or by crook: furthermore, in dire straits your friends become apparent. By chance, my master had gone to Capua, to discharge some business. Seizing the opportunity, I persuaded a guest of ours to come with me as far as the fifth milestone. He was a soldier too, and brave as anything. So we took ourselves off about cockcrow, the moonlight bright as noon.
We arrived among the wayside tombs: my companion began to do his business behind the gravestones; I sat down, my heart singing, and counted the same. Glancing round at my friend, I saw he had stripped off his clothes and placed them by the roadside. Heart in mouth, I stood there like a dead man, as he pissed all round his clothes, then suddenly turned into a wolf. Don’t think I’m joking; No amount of money would make me lie about this.
Marissa: Niceros the slave continues, “Well, as I started to tell you, after he’d turned into a wolf, he began to howl, and fled into the woods. I hardly knew where I was, at first, then I went to gather his clothes: but they’d all turned to stone. Who could be more terrified than I was? But I drew my sword and went along slaying shadows, all the way to my love’s house. A mere ghost, I entered, boasting barely a breath of life, sweat pouring down my legs, eyes like the dead, scarce able to be revived.
Dear Melissa began expressing surprise at my arriving so late, and said: ‘If you’d come earlier you could have helped us, at least; a wolf got into the yard, worried all the sheep, and shed their blood like a butcher. However he won’t be laughing, even though he fled, since our man pierced his neck with a spear.’ On hearing this, I could open my eyes no wider, but rushed back to my master’s house, in broad daylight, as if I’d been robbed and, when I reached the spot where the clothes were turned to stone, found nothing but a pool of blood.
Yet when I arrived home, my soldier was lying in bed like an ox, with a doctor dressing his neck. I realised he was a werewolf and could never sit down to eat with him thereafter, not if you’d threatened me with death. Others can decide on an explanation; but your guardian spirits may torment me if I lie.”[2]
Elizabeth: Pliny the Elder, on the other hand, attempted to rationalize lycanthropy as a form of madness rather than actual transformation in his Natural History. He scoffed at the credulity of the Greeks who believed in the tales by Herodotus and Pausanias. Completely out of left field, Virgil’s Eclogues VIII described the use of herbs and poisons to achieve wolf transformation, “Moeris himself gave me these herbs and poisons | gathered from Pontus (many grow there in Pontus)| I’ve often seen Moeris, with these, change to a wolf and hide| in the woods, often call ghosts from the depths of the grave, | and draw sown corn into other men’s fields.”[3] Here, Virgil is introducing the concept of voluntary lycanthropy through magical means. He’s suggesting, for the first time, that someone might WANT to become a werewolf. This idea will become quite powerful in the early modern period during the werewolfery trials.
Marissa: Siding with Pliny, the medical writer Marcellus Sidetes coined the term “lycanthropy” as a medical condition in the 2nd century CE. He described the condition as a form of melancholy in which patients believed themselves to be wolves and exhibited wolf-like behaviors. This dual understanding of lycanthropy (as both supernatural transformation and medical condition) would characterize werewolf lore for centuries to come.
Elizabeth: The medieval period witnessed significant evolution in werewolf beliefs, influenced by Germanic, Slavic, and Celtic traditions, Christian theology, and changing social conditions. Gradually, the werewolf began to represent the pagan threat to Christian purity in medieval society. The anecdote at the top of the show featuring St. Francis of Assissi and the Wolf of Gubbio is the perfect illustration of this. However, also demonstrated by the Gubbio story, this doesn’t mean that werewolves were seen as devils and hunted down by pious Christians (that comes later). In fact, most people who experienced werewolf transformations were regarded as unfortunate victims deserving of Christian pity and compassion
Marissa: The werewolf’s association with paganism came primarily from Germanic and Slavic folk traditions that spread across Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Early medieval sources like the Völsunga Saga described úlfheðnar (OOLF-heth-nar) which were Norse warriors who wore wolf pelts and fought with beast-like fury. The úlfheðnar were a type of berserker warrior, differing from most berserkers in only one aspect: they wore wolf skins instead of bear skins. Must like what we suspect about Herdotus’s Neuri people, these berserker traditions suggest transformation through ritual and battle-fury rather than curse or magic. In these situations, the wolf acts as a totem giving the very human warrior beast-like fury, courage, and strength.
The Slavic Wilkołak (vil-ko-wak) is quite similar in that they transform from human to beast to achieve some cause that required strength or courage. But Wilkołak myths have more complexity in that the cause and purpose of the transformation varies. Some Wilkołak inherit their shapeshifting powers while others use magic to achieve the wolf-like state or are cursed with it as punishment for some sin. In the Wilkołak, we can see nearly all of the other werewolf lore themes combined in one. EXCEPT no Wilkołak ever achieved transformation as the result of a bite from another werewolf. This part of the lore appears to have developed outside of the Slavic context.
Elizabeth: In addition to Germanic, Slavic (and Celtic) pagan influences, medieval Europe came to be dominated by the Roman Catholic church. Up until this point, werewolf lore had been the dominion of pagan cultures. Unsurprisingly, Christian theology fundamentally reshaped werewolf beliefs. Augustine of Hippo argued that only God could truly transform substances, thus any werewolf transformation must be either divine punishment or demonic illusion. He wrote: “These things are either false, or so extraordinary as to be with good reason disbelieved. But it is to be most firmly believed that Almighty God can do whatever He pleases, whether in punishing or favoring, and that the demons can accomplish nothing by their natural power (for their created being is itself angelic, although made malign by their own fault), except what He may permit, whose judgments are often hidden, but never unrighteous.”[4]
Marissa: Augustine’s theological framework would later prove crucial during the witch trials, as authorities debated whether werewolves physically transformed or merely believed they did under Satan’s influence (note how this demonic illusion sounds very similar in symptoms to the mental illness the pagan Pliny posited over a millennium earlier.) Either way, Augustine’s questions reflect a tension between physical transformation (either by totemic beliefs, magic, or curse), and an illusion that the sufferer labors under (caused either by demon or mental illness). This tension between physical and mental transformation are key to the confusing web of werewolfery trials that will flourish in the early modern period.
Medieval literature reflected this tension. Still, the sufferers themselves were sympathetic figures, not vehicles of damnation or cannibalistic murderers. Marie de France’s 12th-century lyrical poem “Bisclavret” portrayed a sympathetic werewolf. Bisclavret was a beloved baron in the French countryside. His wife starts noticing that he disappears for days at a time every month. After being pressed by his wife, Bisclavret admits he’s a werewolf and that he sheds his clothes, transforms into a wolf and frolics in the forest for days at a time. At the end of a few days, he returned and dons his clothes again which triggers his transformation back to human.
Elizabeth: Shocked and disgusted, Bisclavret’s wife solicits the aid of a knight who is in love with her. She has him steal her husband’s clothes during his next werewolf frolic so that he can’t transform back into a human. Everyone assumes he is dead and his wife is free to marry the knight. Some time later, the king is out on a hunt and his party encounters a peculiarly well-behaved wolf who prostrates himself before the king. Delighted by this oddity, the party brings him back to court. At court this wolf (obviously Bisclavret) attacks both the knight who stole his clothes AND his former wife, biting off her nose.
The king grows suspicious of the wolf’s targeted hostility toward Bisclavret’s ex and new husband so he orders the wife to be tortured and interrogated. Under duress, the wife admits her scheme. The king has Bisclavret’s clothes brought to him. After changing, the wolf emerges as a fully human Baron Bisclavret. His ex-wife and the knight are exiled and Bisclavret is granted all of his lands and titles back. It is also said that the nose-less wife went on to have several nose-less children as punishment.
Marissa: While this is a lovely medieval tale of betrayal and justice, it says less about werewolfery than it does about the medieval penchant for stories that supported the divine right of kings and the nobility’s authority over their feudal estate. Note: the king is just, all-knowing, and all-powerful and Bisclavret is a beloved baron and not some evil overlord. But it’s still an interesting episode in werewolf lore. It adds a new detail: the role of clothing in marking out civilized men from wild beasts. This theme will be revisited.
Around the same time, Gerald of Wales described Irish werewolves in his Topographia Hibernica. The story takes place about three years before John de Courcy arrived in Ireland (around 1182), when a priest was traveling from Ulster to Meath with a young companion. While camping for the night in a wood, sitting by their fire, a wolf approached them and spoke in human speech, saying “Do not be afraid!”
Elizabeth: Naturally terrified, the priest and his companion were astonished when the wolf continued speaking “orthodox words referring to God” in a reasonable manner. The priest then adjured the wolf by God and the Trinity not to harm them and to explain what kind of creature could speak human words in a beast’s form. The wolf explained that he was a native of Ossory, where an ancient curse – attributed to the imprecation of Abbot Natalis – compelled a man and woman every seven years to take the form of wolves and go into exile from their territory. After surviving seven years in wolf form, they would be replaced by another couple and restored to their human status.
The wolf then revealed that his companion, a she-wolf, was lying nearby in the hollow of a tree, close to death and “groaning and grieving like a human being.” He begged the priest to perform the last rites for her. The priest performed the last rites but initially refused to give communion, claiming he didn’t have the elements with him. However, the wolf pointed out that the priest’s wallet contained consecrated hosts and begged him not to deny his partner this sacred gift.
Marissa: In the most striking moment of the story, the male wolf then “pulled the skin off the she-wolf from the head to the navel, folding it back with his paw as if it were a hand,” revealing the torso of an elderly woman underneath. Terrified but convinced, the priest administered the sacrament, after which the skin resumed its former place. The male wolf then kept the priest and his companion company through the night at their fire, “behaving more like a man than a beast.”
In the morning, he led them out of the woods, pointed out the best road toward Meath, and gave prophecies about the future of Ireland and its English invaders before departing with words of gratitude. Later, the priest was summoned to a synod convened by the Bishop of Meath to explain his actions. On Gerald’s advice, the priest was ordered to travel to Rome to present his story to the Pope, though the outcome of this papal consultation is not recorded.
Elizabeth: Obviously this story blends Celtic folk traditions with Christian theology. But this story is peculiar as it’s the only account where werewolves speak, and they are depicted not as conventional shapeshifters but as cursed humans wearing wolfskins that can be pulled back to reveal their true form. The cause and form of medieval werewolves continued to shift over the medieval period. This was clear in the Otia Imperialia written by Gervase of Tilbury. Gervase, perceiving the ever-expanding nature of werewolf lore, attempted to catalogue various werewolf accounts, applying systematic classifications based on different transformation types.
Marissa: Despite this growing diversity in werewolf lore, another trend was emerging in the high middle ages that would have far-reaching consequences for early modern societies. This began with the Canon Episcopi, which was recorded in the 10th century and eventually incorporated into canon law. This text on ecclesiastical discipline condemned belief in physical transformation as heretical. However, following Augustine of Hippo’s lead, the text acknowledged that demons could create illusions of such physical changes. The incorporation of this idea into canon law made werewolves vulnerable to accusations of demonic influence but it also put medieval people in the strange position if they were to serve as witnesses in ecclesiastical, civil, and common courts.
If Canon Episcopi was to be believed, all such witnesses were either (1) heretics proclaiming a theological impossibility or (2) under the influence of demons themselves. This was an untenable predicament for a society that was suddenly itching to persecute (and prosecute) werewolves within their ranks. As a result, werewolf prosecutions became the jurisdiction of secular courts who were not bound by theological realities in the same way.
Elizabeth: By why WERE early modern Europeans suddenly compelled to identify and prosecute werewolfery when it had never been a concern to earlier generations? This is a complicated question that many historians have tried to answer. One obvious option is that werewolfery, as a form of shapeshifting, was encapsulated into the early modern witch hunts and panics. There is significant overlap between werewolf accusation and those of more traditional witchcraft.
Marissa: There certainly was a feeling amongst early modern Europeans that there was a werewolf “epidemic” happening. The publication of Malleus Maleficarum in 1487 exacerbated this panic. This tome (which we’ve discussed many times on the pod) was both a theological and proto-scientific treatise that linked shapeshifting to black magic.
Another reason has to do with a sudden shift in the meaning of werewolf narratives. Unlike the polite and sympathetic werewolves of the 12th century, the 16th century’s werewolves were exceedingly monstrous and violent, real threats to polite society. There is no way to tell, of course, whether this was a CAUSE of increased prosecutions or the RESULT of more prosecutions increasing stigma. Social tensions of the time didn’t help. Hysteria over 16th century werewolves’ supposed targeting of livestock and small women and children may have reflected Europeans’ deep-seated fears over a volatile economy which also (like the werewolf) targeted society’s most vulnerable.
Elizabeth: Another theory revolved around the religious conflict characterizing the 16th and 17th centuries. Anxieties about religious orthodoxy could have triggered ordinary early moderns to redirect their hostilities toward a perceived “enemy within.” The werewolf was a convenient scapegoat because it caused people to wrestle, once again, with humanity’s dual nature: as beast and intelligent being. This paralleled several other dual natures that were exposed by the fissures in the early modern church: people as both sinful and holy, both vile and worthy of salvation, and as torn between the old religion and the new.
Lastly, the printing press can account for much of the viral werewolf panics that bloomed across Europe between 1450 and 1700. This period witnessed the most intense werewolf persecution in European history, with hundreds executed for alleged lycanthropy. These trials occurred primarily in France, Germany, and Switzerland, often overlapping with witch trials but maintaining distinct characteristics. The most gruesome of these cases were reported in pamphlets, translated and circulated around Europe, perhaps heightening the panic further.
Marissa: The case that triggered successive waves of werewolf (or in French loup-garou) panics began in 1521. According to his later confession, Pierre Burgot was out looking for his lost sheep in a storm. The desperate Burgot was approached by three men in black who promised to return his sheep and grant him untold riches if he renounced God. He agreed. Shortly after, he met Michel Verdun who revealed himself to be a werewolf and initiated Burgot into the world of witchcraft.
The two spread a magic salve over their naked bodies which transformed them into werewolves before launching a violent crime spree throughout the French countryside. They committed a constellation of crimes, including murder, bestiality, and cannibalism. For example they admitted to the kidnapping of a nine-year-old girl whose neck they broke (while in human form) before eating her corpse (in wolf form). According to the trial transcripts, the two murdered and ate almost a dozen children. The pair were charged with witchcraft and cannibalism by the Inquisitor General in Besancon, France and tried in ecclesiastical court. Both men were convicted of sorcery and burned at the stake.
Elizabeth: The 1521 trial of Burgot and Verdun was not immediately recorded and disseminated across Europe as some future trials would be. But it still had an outsized impact on werewolf panics because famous French jurist Jean Bodin included the story in his widely read De la démonomanie des sorciers (On the Demon-Mania of Witches) which was published in 1580. Between 1580 and 1600, Demon-Mania was translated into four languages and demand was such that 20 editions were printed in those decades.
But even before Jean Boudin’s wild success, another werewolf trial had already taken France by storm. In 1573 Gilles Garnier was arrested for killing and eating six children as a “loup-garou.” He claimed to have torn the children’s bodies apart with his wolf’s paws, tearing one of the boy’s legs off his torso. He also admitted to eating the corpses. He was caught between murdering and devouring his last victim. The court was shocked and appalled that it had been a Friday and he not only planned to eat meat but to eat human meat on that day of abstention.
Marissa: There were no witnesses to his shapeshifting but witnesses claimed to recognize Garnier’s features in the attacking wolf. Unlike Burgot and Verdun, Garnier was tried in a secular court on charges of “lycanthropy and witchcraft.” He was found guilty and burnt at the stake. The jurisdiction that handled Garnier’s case, the Parliament of Dole, also issued an official werewolf hunting decree, deputizing citizens to kill werewolves on sight. The case was publicized heavily by a pamphlet titled “Arrest memorable de la Cour de Parlement de Dole” (Memorable Arrest in the Court of the Parliament of Dole).
While France was fertile ground for werewolf trials, the most heinous and most extensively documented case hails, instead, from Germany. Peter Stumpp (also Stubbe or Stumpf) was arrested in Bedburg, Germany in 1589. After his arrest Stumpp confessed to an array of horrific crimes in wolf form. According to Stumpp, Satan had given him a hairy girdle (in some stories it’s translated as a belt) and when he donned it, it:
“transformed him forthwith into the likeness of a greedy devouring wolf. It was strong and mighty, with great eyes which in the night sparkled like brands of fire. Its body was huge, and the mouth great and wide with most sharp and cruel teeth. No sooner should he put off this girdle, but the mighty paws would again become hands, and presently he would appear in his former shape as if he had never changed.”
Elizabeth: Unlike most earlier werewolves, Stumpp was caught in the act. His arrest was prompted by several witnesses who reported having seen him remove the girdle and transform from a viscious beast into ordinary Peter Stumpp. Until then, Stumpp had never been suspected of wrongdoing. He was an ordinary farmer in rural Bedburg. After his arrest, and in the haze of torture, Stumpp told fantastical stories his lycanthropic crimes and a life dedicated to black magic since the age of 12.
For example, he admitted to raping women in a desolate field in human form and then donning the girdle and transforming into a werewolf to murder and devour them. Sometimes he raped women while in his wolf form, adding bestiality to his crimes. Also under torture, Stumpp admitted to mutilating and eating goats, lambs, sheep, and over a dozen children. He claimed to have murdered two pregnant women, ripped out their fetuses and “ate their hearts panting hot and raw,” which he later described as “dainty morsels.”
Elizabeth: Townspeople testified that folks who had disagreements with Stumpp often ended up dead, their bodies mutilated beyond recognition. During the trial, Stumpp was also accused of many sexual crimes, including incest with his daughter and another female relative. Regarding the rape of his daughter, the court recorded that “cruelly he committed most wicked incest with her …. But such was his inordinate lust and filthy desire toward her that he begat a child by her, daily using her as his concubine.” While the identity of the other female relative is still up for debate (it’s recorded as his girlfriend, sister, and mother), some records say, “Furthermore, this insatiable and filthy beast, given over to works of evil, with greediness lay even with his own sister. He frequented her company long times according to the wicked dictates of his heart.”
Stumpp was sentenced to death on October 31, 1589. The Bedburg authorities sentenced Stumpp to the most horrific death that they could devise. According to the diary of a German jurist whose jurisdiction was nearby, “He was first pierced in the flesh with a pair of glowing pincers, then cut in two with an axe, his head chopped off, his likeness burned… his head stabbed on [a pike] and thus left for an example.”[5] His daughter and the other female relative were put to death as well because of their participation in incest, bestiality, and their possible association with the black arts.
Marissa: Immediately after his death, Stumpp’s trial and execution were recorded in German-language pamphlets which circulated widely on the continent, with editions in Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Cologne. It took less than a year for an English-language pamphlet to appear in England. The concurrence of Stumpp’s trial with the first generation of mass media heightened the werewolf panic to fever pitch. We can see the results of this salacious media in subsequent werewolf trials. The threshold for evidence becomes lower and the stories bear striking resemblance to the Stumpp case, always including child murder, cannibalism, and sexual deviance (Again.. think about what a difference these stories have to the medieval werewolf lore we discussed earlier in the show).
Elizabeth: The next big French werewolfery case was a family affair. In 1598, two children were picking wild strawberries in Jura, France, when they were attacked by a young girl acting like a wild animal. A four-year-old boy defended his sister with a knife, but Pernette Gandillon wrenched the knife from him and gashed his throat. He died of the wound after communicating the news that the wolf had human hands. Pernette was found in the vicinity and torn to pieces by the enraged villagers. She was not given a trial but was killed by mob justice.
Following Pernette’s death, three other family members were arrested and tried: Pernette’s brother Pierre, sister Antoinette, and nephew Georges. Antoinette confessed to being a werewolf, and also to sleeping with the devil (who had taken the form of a goat), attending a Sabbath, and producing magical hailstorms. Her brother Pierre was also accused of making hailstones, luring children to a Sabbath, turning himself into a wolf, and killing and eating people.
Marissa: After being tortured, Pierre cracked and confessed that the accusations were true. He admitted that the Devil gave his family magical wolf-skins, which had the power to turn the Gandillons into werewolves. Pierre’s son, Georges, also confessed to having an ointment that had the same magical power. With the help of his aunts, he said that he killed two goats while in the form of a wolf. Unfortunately for the Gandillons, witch- and werewolf-hunting jurist Henri Boguet was involved in the case.
While visiting the Gandillons in jail, Henri Boguet noted that Antoinette, Georges, and Pierre walked on all fours and howled. Their faces, hands, and legs were marked with scratches. Pierre was so badly disfigured, in fact, “that he bore hardly any resemblance to a man and struck all those who looked at him with horror.” Their eyes turned red and gleaming; their hair sprouted; their teeth became long and sharp; their fingernails turned horny and clawlike.
Elizabeth: The Gandillons never transformed into wolves during their captivity, but Boguet attributed this to a lack of magical ointment. The Gandillons’ behavior in their cells was proof enough for Boguet, and he sentenced all three family members to be burnt at the stake. More than most werewolf trials, this one appears to be on dubious legal footing. Pernette Gandillon may have been suffering from mental illness before she was lynched. The other Gandillons confessed only under torture and much of the evidence came from a zealous werewolf-hunter who was, himself, involved in the case. This suggests that the Peter Stumpp sensationalism and the pamphlets circulating about earlier werewolf trials may have influenced French jurisprudence in this case. But change was on the horizon.
Marissa: The same year as the Gandillon case, a beggar named Jacques Roulet was found shivering in the French countryside, clothed in rags, covered in blood, and with shreds of human skin under his nails. Victorian author Montague Summers described the scene thusly:
“The limbs, drenched in blood, were yet warm and palpitating, and as the companions approached two wolves were seen to bound away into the boseage [the forest]. Being armed and a goodly number to boot, the men gave chase, and to their amaze [sic] came upon a fearful figure, a tall gaunt creature of human aspect with long matted hair and beard, half-clothed in filthy rags, his hands dyed in fresh blood, his long nails clotted with garbage of red human flesh.”[6]
Elizabeth: A short ways away, the mutilated body of a 15 year old boy was found. Roulet was arrested and brought in for questioning. Again, under torture, Roulet admitted to being a werewolf. He claimed that his mother had sold his soul to the devil and that he could transform into a wolf using a special ointment. He confessed to murdering and cannibalizing several young children in the area. He gave so many details on one of the murders that the authorities were convinced of his guilt. He was sentenced to death but the Parlement of Paris worried about his mental state and commuted his sentence to lifelong imprisonment in a mental hospital, St. Germain.
If Roulet’s case marked a precedent, then Jean Grenier’s 1603 trial in Bordeaux marked a turning point. This fourteen-year-old boy confessed to werewolf transformations and attacks but was ultimately confined to a monastery rather than executed, with the court determining he suffered from mental illness rather than supernatural transformation. This case reflected growing skepticism among educated elites about literal lycanthropy. This is quite a turnaround from the handling of the Gandillon case by Henri Boguet only 5 years earlier.
Marissa: The printing press affected these panics in more ways than one. Sure, there were pamphlets and broadsides circulating around the continent and Britain. But the theological and legal frameworks for these trials derived from demonological texts. These texts’ popularity are also owed to the printing press and exponentially growing readership in the early modern era.While Jean Bodin’s De la Démonomanie des Sorciers (1580) argued for the reality of werewolf transformation through demonic power, Johann Weyer’s De Praestigiis Daemonum (1563) maintained that alleged werewolves suffered from mental illness or demonic delusion rather than physical transformation. The debate between these positions shaped trial proceedings and verdicts.
Despite the dominance of French werewolf trials, werewolf beliefs varied significantly across European regions, reflecting local folklore, economic conditions, and religious contexts. In Eastern Europe, particularly in Slavic regions, werewolf beliefs often remained distinct from witch trials. The Serbian vlkodlak [vil-KOD-lak] and Russian volkodlak[voo-koh-dlak] were frequently associated with vampirism, believed to become vampires after death.
Elizabeth: Baltic regions maintained unique werewolf traditions. Thiess of Kaltenbrun’s 1692 trial in Livonia presents a remarkable case—he claimed to be a “hound of God,” fighting witches and demons in werewolf form to ensure good harvests. The benandanti (good walkers in English) were benevolent werewolves who purportedly lived in Northeast Italy and shapeshifted into wolves at night to fight witches. Some benandanti were brought to trial during the Roman Inquisition but they were deemed innocuous by the court and let off with light sentences. This benevolent werewolf tradition contrasted sharply with Western European demonological interpretations.
Marissa: This means, the virulent werewolf-hunting in France and Germany were not a sign of the times so much as a sign of the specific time and place. In Italy and the Iberian Peninsula, werewolf trials remained relatively rare, possibly due to the Inquisition’s focus on other heresies and its generally skeptical stance toward shape-shifting claims. The Spanish Inquisition typically treated lycanthropy allegations as delusion or fraud rather than heresy.
In France and Germany, werewolf trials declined dramatically after 1650, earlier than witch trials in most regions. Several factors contributed to this decline. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) ended the Thirty Years’ War, bringing greater stability to Central Europe. Improved agricultural conditions and wolf population control reduced human-wolf conflicts. Most significantly, intellectual and legal changes made courts increasingly skeptical of lycanthropy claims.
Elizabeth: The Scientific Revolution promoted naturalistic explanations for previously supernatural phenomena. Works like Reginald Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft (1584) had argued against the possibility of physical transformation, influencing later skeptics. By the late 17th century, educated elites generally rejected literal lycanthropy, though popular beliefs persisted.
The last major werewolf trials occurred in the early 18th century. The case of the Beast of Gévaudan (1764-1767) in France, while generating massive publicity and royal intervention, was ultimately attributed to actual wolves rather than werewolves, marking a shift in official responses to such incidents.
Marissa: As legal prosecution ceased, werewolf beliefs transformed into folklore and literature. The 18th-century Enlightenment relegated lycanthropy to superstition, though popular beliefs persisted in rural areas. Folklorists began collecting and categorizing werewolf legends, preserving oral traditions that might otherwise have disappeared.
The Gothic revival and Romantic movement renewed literary interest in werewolves. Works like Sutherland Menzies’ “Hugues, the Wer-Wolf” (1838) and Prosper Mérimée’s “Lokis” (1869) explored lycanthropy through Romantic lenses, emphasizing passion, nature, and the beast within humanity. These literary werewolves differed significantly from their medieval and early modern predecessors, often serving as metaphors for repressed desires or humanity’s animal nature.
Elizabeth: Victorian anthropologists and folklorists systematically studied werewolf beliefs as “survivals” of primitive thought. Sabine Baring-Gould’s The Book of Were-Wolves (1865) attempted comprehensive documentation of lycanthropy across cultures and centuries. Wilhelm Hertz’s Der Werwolf (1862) traced the myth’s Indo-European origins. These works, while often problematic in their evolutionary frameworks, preserved valuable historical and ethnographic data.
In the last century, medical authorities attempted to explain lycanthropy through natural causes. The condition of “clinical lycanthropy”—the delusion of transforming into a wolf—was recognized in ancient, medieval, and early modern medical texts. Physicians identified various potential causes including melancholy, mania, hallucinogenic substances, and rabies.
Marissa: The use of hallucinogenic ointments received particular attention. Trial records frequently mention suspects rubbing their bodies with mysterious salves before transformation. Modern analysis suggests these may have contained psychoactive plants like belladonna, henbane, or datura, which can cause hallucinations and sensation of flying or transformation. Johannes Nider’s Formicarius and other texts described recipes for such ointments.
Rabies likely explained some werewolf cases. The disease’s symptoms—aggression, hypersensitivity, hallucinations, and hydrophobia—could suggest wolf-like behavior. Several historical werewolf accounts describe symptoms consistent with rabies infection. Porphyria, a group of genetic disorders affecting hemoglobin production, has been proposed as explaining some werewolf cases. Symptoms can include photosensitivity, excessive hair growth, and psychological disturbances. However, modern medical historians generally consider this connection speculative and unsupported by historical evidence.
Elizabeth: Some scholars have identified cases of serial killers or individuals with severe mental illness being prosecuted as werewolves. The emphasis on cannibalism and child murder in many trials suggests crimes that communities could only understand through supernatural frameworks. In 1844, for example, Spain’s first serial killer, Manuel Blanco Romasanta, attempted to blame his murderous rampages on a 13-year curse that allowed him to turn into the wolf form. Rather than take his werewolfery seriously, jurists in 1844 Spain imprisoned him and sought doctors to study what they perceived to be a mental illness. Romasanta died before he could be studied. But his case suggests that perhaps there is merit to the idea that humans who commit (or witness) traumatizing violence are likely to project those traumas onto an otherworldly beast, as a means of coping with the violence of which humans are capable.
Marissa: The 20th century witnessed lycanthropy’s transformation from folk belief to psychological condition and popular culture icon. Psychoanalysts, particularly Freudians, interpreted werewolf beliefs as expressions of repressed sexuality or primitive aggression. Jung’s concept of the “shadow” provided another framework for understanding the werewolf as representing rejected aspects of the psyche.
Clinical lycanthropy continued to be documented as a rare psychiatric condition. Researchers identified cases where patients genuinely believed they transformed into wolves or other animals, typically associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or other psychiatric conditions. Modern brain imaging has revealed neurological abnormalities in some clinical lycanthropy patients, particularly in areas associated with body image.
Elizabeth: The werewolf emerged as a staple of popular culture through literature, film, and later media. Universal Pictures’ The Wolf Man (1941) established many modern werewolf conventions—full moon transformations, silver bullets, and tragic curse narratives—that actually had limited historical precedent. This popular culture werewolf often bore little resemblance to historical beliefs but profoundly influenced contemporary perceptions.
Remarkably, the 20th century also witnessed occasional “werewolf” panics, though without official trials. The “Beast of Bray Road” reports from Wisconsin in the 1980s-1990s generated substantial local concern and media coverage. Similar cryptozoological claims have emerged globally, suggesting the persistent power of werewolf imagery in expressing anxieties about wilderness, violence, and the boundaries between human and animal.
Marissa: The history of werewolf mythology reveals far more than simple superstition or folklore. It provides a window into changing worldviews, from ancient shape-shifting myths through medieval theological debates to early modern judicial persecution and modern psychological interpretation. The werewolf trials represent a crucial but often overlooked aspect of early modern European history, claiming hundreds of lives and reflecting deep anxieties about identity, violence, and the boundaries of humanity. The transformation of werewolf beliefs—from lore to literal fear to metaphorical exploration—parallels broader changes in European thought. The shift from supernatural to naturalistic explanations, the development of modern medicine and psychology, and the emergence of folklore studies all shaped how societies understood and responded to lycanthropy claims.
Elizabeth: The study of historical werewolf beliefs also offers methodological lessons for historians. It demonstrates the importance of taking historical beliefs seriously while maintaining analytical distance, of recognizing the complex relationships between elite and popular culture, and of understanding how economic, environmental, and social factors shape supernatural beliefs. The werewolf trials remind us that historical actors operated within fundamentally different conceptual frameworks, and that understanding the past requires careful reconstruction of these worldviews.
Marissa: The persistence of werewolf imagery in contemporary culture suggests that despite our scientific understanding, the figure of the shape-shifter continues to embody fundamental anxieties and fascinations that transcend historical periods.
Elizabeth: Thank you for joining us today. We invite you to follow us on BlueSky and Instagram at dig_history. If you have a comment or question or want to share some kind words with us, you can always email us at hello@digpodcast.org – we love listener mail! If you’re an educator, we’ve got a compendium of episodes you can use in the classroom – and free teaching resources, including full lesson plans! – on our website, digpodcast.org. You’ll also find full bibliographies, the scripts for all of our episodes, resources, and a link to our swag store and our bookshop at digpodcast.org.
[1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/Pausanias_s_Description_of_Greece_Transl/yVQzAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=pausanias+Lycaon&pg=PA375&printsec=frontcover pp. 375-376
[2] https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/PetroniusSatyriconPartIII.php#anchor_Toc506115100
[3] https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/VirgilEclogues.php
[4] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_II/City_of_God/Book_XVIII/Chapter_18
[5] Hermann von Weinsberg’s diary, quoted in Appendix D, Baillie, Monstrous Lessons.
[6] Summers, Montague. The Werewolf. E. P. Dutton & Company New York, 1934
Show Notes
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Macfarlane, Karen E. 2025. Were Wolf Short Stories : Anthology of New & Classic Tales. London: Flame Tree Publishing.
Scot, Reginald, and Stephen James Forrester. 2000. The Annotated Discovery of Witchcraft, Booke XIII (Reginald Scot). Calgary, Alta.: [Stephen Forrester].
David I. 2014. “Christians and Jews in the Twelfth-Century Werewolf Renaissance.” Journal of the History of Ideas 75 (4): 521–43.
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Summers, Montague, and Heinrich Institoris. 2016. The Malleus Maleficarum. [Place of publication not identified]: CreateSpace.
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