All available evidence suggests that Assassin’s Creed Hexe will take place during the German witch trials in Würzburg, an especially bloody crusade that unfolded in the early 17th century. Assuming this is the case, Assassin’s Creed Hexe can be expected to be an unusually dark and grim entry in the series, its historical backdrop characterized by vast, indiscriminate brutality.
Wurzburg’s history paints a disturbing picture of religious hysteria and autocratic, state-sanctioned murder. Like many of the witch trials that unfolded throughout Europe and the United States in the 17th century, the Wurzburg trials of 1625-1631 are generally attributed to the struggle between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran and Protestant Reformations. With Catholicism’s grip loosening, accusations of heresy and blasphemy were backed by interrogations, torture, imprisonment, and, in the case of roughly 900 Germans in the Wurzburg region, death. What set Wurzburg apart from the other witch trials of its era was its indiscriminate nature, as men, women, and children of all classes and demographics were tried without compunction. This could inform AC Hexe’s story in a number of ways, but especially as it pertains to its cast of historical characters.
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Prince Bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn
Although he did not oversee the Wurzburg witch trials that began in 1625, Prince Bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn played an important role in the prelude. Appointed to the office of Prince Bishop of Wurzbug in 1573, Echter’s role as civil ruler and Church representative saw him take a hardline counter-Reformation stance. To this end, he banished Lutherans from the Wurzburg Prince-Bishopric and reinstated the University of Wurzburg as a Catholic education center.
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Broadly speaking, the result of Echter’s reign was a greater turn to Catholicism, with an estimated 100,000 Reformed Christians reverting to the Vatican-approved sect during his tenure. He even presided over comparatively smaller witch trials, which of course involved executions, setting the bar for an “acceptable” level of violent prejudice against non-Catholics. These trials reportedly slowed around 1617, likely due to Echter’s death and the incoming Thirty Years War, but his nephew Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg would escalate his designs a handful of years later, sparking the witch trials that Assassin’s Creed Hexe will reportedly focus on.
Prince Bishop Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg
Appointed Prince Bishop of Wurzburg in 1624, Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg was every bit as radical as his uncle and predecessor, if not more. His mission, which was perhaps galvanized by growing tensions between Catholics, Protestants, and Lutherans due to the ongoing Thirty Years’ War, was to create a uniformly Catholic region. This involved dispatching a special commission to handle reports of witchcraft, which resulted in a continually growing list of accused.
It’s impossible to be sure about this, but many historians believe that the wide-spanning nature of the Wurzburg trials was a result of the illegal torture methods used by Adolf’s witch-hunting commission. While being tortured, those accused of witchcraft were encouraged to name accomplices, and as is often the case with torture, they quickly spilled names in the hope of a reprieve, or perhaps even a release. This practice, coupled with the greater paranoia and hysteria characteristic of Reformation-era Europe, essentially meant that no one was safe from the witch hunters’ wrath.
Ernst von Ehrenberg
As previously mentioned, the Wurzburg trials were unique in their relative lack of discrimination; many elite-ranking members of society, most of whom would have been virtually immune to criminal condemnation in any other case, were swiftly arrested, tried, and executed on charges of witchcraft during this time. This unconventional scenario is typified by the case of Ernst von Ehrenberg, Adolf von Ehrenberg’s own nephew, who was found guilty of witchcraft, beheaded, and his body burned.
While Ernst was not especially influential during the Wurzburg trials, his situation is certainly an interesting one, which Assassin’s Creed Hexe could meaningfully explore. After all, we are all probably accustomed to stories wherein nepotism and rank spare evil-doers from justice. It’s not typical to see stories where the polar opposite happens.
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Johannes Junius
While not actually tried in Wurzburg, Johannes Junius was arrested and executed for witchcraft during the Bamberg trials, which occurred simultaneously. Shockingly, Junius was actually the mayor of Bamberg and confessed to several bizarre and unsettling deeds, including sacrificing a horse to Satan and attending witch sabbaths on the back of a flying dog. However, it’s said that he initially denied all accusations and only confessed after weeks of horrific torture, which he illuminated in a letter to his daughter Veronica, wherein he characterized his confession as the result of coercion. He was executed in 1628.
Again, I wouldn’t expect Johannes Junius to be particularly impactful with respect to Assassin’s Creed Hexe’s plot, but his heartbreaking story is emblematic of the era’s greater problems. He outlines, in plain, intimate language via his letter, the methods that Germany’s witch hunters used to draw confessions from their victims, and his case serves as a particularly visible and well-documented example of the horrors spearheaded by the Church during this time.
Friedrich Spee
Here we have another denouncer of 17th-century witch trials, but on the other side of the pulpit. Friedrich Spee was a confessor of witches in Wurzburg and thus played a crucial role in the hundreds of witchcraft arrests. But Spee would make a bold about-face in the later years of the Wurzburg trials, writing in his book Cautio Criminalis that he didn’t believe any of the executions he oversaw were just. Spee seemed to believe, as many historians do today, that virtually all confessions obtained via torture are worthless, and that the Wurzburg trials were largely misguided.
Spee’s hair is said to have turned suddenly white as a result of his experiences during Wurzburg, which, while a little unrealistic, could make for a striking visual in a video game like Assassin’s Creed Hexe.
Perhaps Spee could be one of the player-character’s allies in Assassin’s Creed Hexe, serving as a “man on the inside” of sorts. Spee’s internal ethical conflict is ripe for meaningful narrative interrogation, as AC Hexe could follow his change of heart and provide a glimpse of hope for the Catholic Church; Spee is evidence that not everyone involved in the Wurzburg trials was devoid of honor and humanity.
