William David Myers,Death and a Maiden: Infanticide and the Tragical History of Grethe Schmidt

Reviewed by: Joel F Harrington, Vanderbilt University, USA

This microhistory examines the various economic, legal, religious, and other cultural dimensions of one particular infanticide case in the Duchy of Brunswick (Braunschweig), beginning in the autumn of 1659. The book is divided into two sections: the first part, comprised of nine chapters, focuses on 13-year-old Grethe Schmidt and the circumstances of her arrest and interrogation; the second part, made up of five chapters, deals mainly with the legal defence led by Justus Oldekop. Many aspects of Schmidt’s case resonate with infanticide prosecutions elsewhere in the empire, particularly the significance of social status and sexual reputation. The most unusual characteristic of this case, however – the absence of a body or even definitive proof of Schmidt’s alleged pregnancy – allows David Myers to explore in greater depth the actual mechanics and coercive potential of late seventeenth-century criminal procedure. In that sense the book has a strong affinity to recent microhistories of witchcraft cases, particularly Thomas Robisheaux’s recent The Last Witch of Langenberg – in both instances privileging depth and context over comparative and chronological breadth. The result is a compelling yet consistently scholarly narrative that conveys the nature and experience of early modern justice for one teenaged peasant girl, her parents, her attorney, and a cast of many others.

The story Myers tells covers almost an entire year, entailing an unusually long imprisonment for young Grethe. Like Robisheaux, he follows a chronology largely from the unfolding forensic point of view – in accordance with the bulk of archival evidence. At the same time, he is able to weave in various relevant cultural and legal analyses, ranging from issues of contraception and midwifery to torture and magic. Myers also successfully conveys the perspectives – to the extent that his sources allow – of diverse players in the drama and thus gives an experiential texture to scholarly treatments of early modern infanticide that is often lacking (even in the perceptive studies of Richard van Dülmen and Otto Ulbricht). Finally, he skilfully conveys how a case with no solid evidence goes as far as it does, bringing into the picture the political struggles of municipal and ducal authorities.

In every sense this is a well-executed case study, unfailingly scrupulous in its methods and conclusions. The work with challenging archival sources is adept, the translations fluid, and the requisite level of expertise in the legal system of the day admirable. Myers effectively makes his point about the malleability of early modern justice – for all parties concerned, including ‘marginal’ individuals – and I completely concur with his conclusion about the seventeenth-century rise of criminal defence work. Most impressively, the book does an excellent job of conveying the zigzag nature of most litigation of the day, the disproportionate importance of personal reputation in decisions, and the genuine anxiety associated with all infanticide cases.

Myers is perhaps a bit over-reliant on a few secondary works at times, but my only genuine reservation about the book is the limitations of the story itself. Even with ample primary sources, few early modern legal cases are capable of sustaining an entire monograph. We are all familiar with exceptions to this rule – Carlo Ginzburg, Natalie Davis, Steven Ozment – but the celebrated works of these scholars each involved innovative methodologies and/or colourful recreations of whole worlds. Since Myers himself appears most interested in legal questions – and ones that many of us find both interesting and important – the book risks falling in the crack between two audiences: too detailed on criminal procedure and other legal intricacies for a general audience; too much play-by-play and cultural background for a more specialized readership. This would be a great loss for both audiences. As he does an astonishingly effective job with the material at hand (with only occasional digressions), my suspicion is that the difficulty lies not with the author’s impressive scholarly or stylistic abilities but with the selected case itself, ‘spectacular’ though it may be. That said, this meticulously reconstructed ordeal of one seventeenth-century peasant girl has much to teach scholars and general readers of all backgrounds about the evolution of continental law, the constancy of human fear, and the revelatory potential of the microhistorical method itself.