Today’s word of the day, thanks to Dictionary.com (https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/), is soothfast. Soothfast, pronounced / ˈsuθˌfæst /, is an adjective that means “based on the truth” (ibid.).

According to Etymonoline.com, the modern English word comes from “Middle English sothfast, from Old English soðfæst ‘true, trustworthy, honest, just, righteous;’ see sooth (n.) + fast (adj)” (https://www.etymonline.com/word/soothfast). It’s a compound word, formed by the words sooth and fast. Sooth means “’truth, reality, fact’” and comes from the “Old English soð ‘truth, justice, righteousness, rectitude; reality, a true situation, certainty,’ noun use of soð (adj.) ‘true, genuine, real; just, righteous,’ originally *sonð-, from Proto-Germanic *santhaz (source also of Old Norse sannr, Old Saxon soth, Old High German sand ‘true,’ Gothic sunja ‘truth’)” (ibid.). The website goes on, “Archaic in English, it is the root of modern words for ‘true’ in Swedish (sann) and Danish (sand). It was in common use until mid-17c. then obsolete until revived as an archaism early 19c. by Scott, etc. It was used for Latin pro- in translating compounds into Old English, such as soðtacen ‘prodigy,’ soðfylgan ‘prosequi’” (ibid.).

Fast also come from Old English, specifically the “Old English fæst ‘firmly fixed, steadfast, constant; secure; enclosed, watertight; strong, fortified,’ probably from Proto-Germanic *fastu- ‘firm, fast’ (source also of Old Frisian fest, Old Norse fastr, Dutch vast, German fest), which is reconstructed to be from PIE root *past- “firm, solid” (source of Sanskrit pastyam ‘dwelling place’)” (ibid.). If you’re wondering how the PIE root *past- becomes the Proto-Germanic *fastu-, it has to do with Grimm’s Law. Part of Grimm’s Law says that “Proto-Indo-European voiceless stops change into Proto-Germanic voiceless fricatives” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm%27s_law), so the voiceless stop p becomes the voiceless fricative f. I remember this example of Grimm’s Law because it gets used in History of the English Language classes, with the Latin ped compared to the Deutsch Fuß (“foot”) and the Latin pater compared to the Deutsch Vater (“father”).

On this date in 1603, according to On This Day (https://www.onthisday.com/events/june/19), “Merga Bien arrested for witchcraft in Fulda, Germany, part of Fulda witch trials. She and about 250 people later burned at the stake.”

The villain in this story is Prince-Abbot Balthasar von Dernbach (1548-1606). Though born into a Lutheran family, he was raised from the age of 12 in a Roman Catholic monastery (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balthasar_von_Dernbach). He became a zealous Catholic. In 1570 he became the Prince-Abbot when his uncle, who had had that title, died. Dernbach decided that Counter Reformation was the way to go, and he invited the Jesuits to found a school in the city of Fulda, which is in the Land Hesse (the state of Hesse) in Deutschland. He also ordered that the people of the Fulda district return to the Roman Catholic faith or leave his territory.

The reaction of the people of Fulda was not what Dernbach might have expected. “After Balthasar repeatedly ignored threats of violence, the knights allied themselves to Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn, prince-bishop of neighbouring Würzburg. In 1576, the combined opposition forced Balthasar at Hammelburg to sign a letter of abdication and made Julius Echter administrator on the condition that he would tolerate the knights’ religion. Balthasar fled to the Archbishop of Mainz, who gave him Castle Bieberstein as residence” (ibid.).

But Balthasar revoked his abdication and asked the Pope to reinstate him. The resulting legal battle last for decades, and Balthasar did not regain his position until 1602. He did not learn anything from his forced abdication and exile. He started the Counter Reformation in his district once again.

In 1603, Dernbach ordered an investigation into witchcraft in Fulda. “The witchcraft persecutions were presided over by Balthasar Nuss, who had attached himself to the abbot during his exile and afterward was appointed Zentgraf of Hofbieber and Malefizmeister. Investigations began in March 1603, and shortly thereafter, the arrests begun[sic]  in the city. One of the first and the most well-known victim [sic] was Merga Bien, whose case even concerned the Imperial Chamber Court. Dornbach was a follower of the Counter-Reformation, and Nuss arrested crypto-protestants on charges of witchcraft alongside others” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulda_witch_trials).

Merga Bien was an interesting character. At the time of her arrest, she was on her third husband. The previous two had died, and she was the heiress of their estates. “Her husband protested before the Reichskammergericht in Speyer and pointed out that she was pregnant. In jail, she was forced to confess to the murder of her second husband and her children with him and one member of the family of her husband’s employers, and that she had taken part in a sabbath of Satan. Her pregnancy was considered an aggravating circumstance; she and her husband had no children although they had been married for fourteen years. She was forced to confess that her current pregnancy was the result of intercourse with the Devil. Bien was convicted of witchcraft and burnt alive at the stake in Fulda in late 1603” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merga_Bien).

Now you might wonder exactly why Merga Bien was targeted with the witchcraft charge. One possibility is that she had money, specifically what she inherited from her first two husbands. If you are thinking, “No, women couldn’t own property in Europe before 1900” or something like that, you would be understandably mistaken. For another example of a woman who inherited from her husband, perhaps, you might read “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. In a Deutsch wiki, it reads, “Nach dem Tod des Fürstabts 1606 wurde Nuss verhaftet und 12 Jahre in Haft gehalten. Schließlich wurde ihm der Prozess wegen Bereicherung im Zusammenhang mit den Hexenprozessen gemacht. Er wurde 1618 aufgrund eines Gutachtens der Ingolstädter Juristenfakultät enthauptet” (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balthasar_Nuss : “After the Prince Abbot’s death in 1606, Nuss was arrested and imprisoned for 12 years. He was eventually tried for profiteering in connection with the witch trials. He was beheaded in 1618 based on an expert opinion from the Ingolstadt law faculty” [translation by Google Translate]).

As someone who grew up in the USA, my only experience with witch trials is not even the Salem witch trials, though I have been to Salem, MA. The real experience is Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, which is really more about the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s than about what actually took place in Salem in the 1690s. What I do know about both the Salem witch trials and the McCarthy hearings, and what I can then assume about the Fulda witch trials, is that what was lacking was soothfast.

Today’s image is a photograph of the Hexenturm (“witch tower”) in Fulda. It was used as a prison for those accused of witchcraft. The photo was taken by Heinrich Stürzl on the 29^th of August, 2015 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fulda_Hexenturm_von_SO.JPG).