Bohemia anno 1567

One of the examples of the inaccuracy of Montague Summers is his retelling of the incident concerning 'the vampire of Treautenau' Stephen Hubner in The Vampire in Europe (p. 159 and 327). Summers probably learned of it from Dudley Wright who mentions Hubner on p. 168 of his Vampires and Vampirism with Jacob Döpler as his source. Döpler's Theatrum poenarum, suppliciorum et executionum criminalium, oder Schau-Platzes derer Leibes- und Lebens-Strafen, however, is from 1697, but the story can be found elsewhere. E.g. in Thomas Bromhall's A Treatise of Specters (1658), as David Keyworth points to in his book from 2007 Troublesome Corpses, and even earlier in Andreas Hondorff's Theatrum historicum (1598), which Thomas Schürmann quotes in Nachzehrerglauben in Mitteleuropa (1990).

There is no reason to waste more time and space on Summers here. What I find particularly interesting in the text, is the description of Hübner's haunting. Apart from the explanation that it was, in fact, Satan who made the cadaver roam about, it says:

'corpus eius ... plurimos hominum arctis adeo complexibus compressit, vt multi eorum morentur, multi etiam ex morbo reualescerent, qui omnes vno ore confessi sunt, se ab opulento isto viro, eo corporis habitu, quo viuum ipsum vidissent, compressos esse.'

So the victims all said that they had been pressed by the body of the opulent man. In fact he had pressed them down with so tight clasps or embraces (arctis complexibus compressit), that many of them died, whereas others recovered. As one would expect, there is no mention of blood sucking, although blood (cruor) flows from the corpse during the posthumous execution.



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As Stephan Hübner was a wealthy and well-known citizen of Trautenau (today: Trutnov), we know more about him. On the internet there is an excerpt of a town history, Aus der Geschichte der Stadt Trautenau by Ernst Kröhn-Gießdorf, which mentions an incident in Oktober 1563 when a formidable house recently erected by Stephan Scholz or Stephan Hübner just across from the Town Hall in Trautenau collapsed.

'Am 22. Oktober stürzte um 17 Uhr der steinerne Neubau des Stephan Scholz oder Stephan Hübner gegenüber dem Rathause zu Trautenau ein, welcher von dem Baumeister Orban Hirsch aus Lemberg in Schlesien aufgeführt und schon in allem, auch mit dem Erker, Gesims usw., 3 Schwibbogen lang, vorn auf 4 Steinsäulen ruhend, fertig war. Der Bau hatte 71 Schock gekostet. Auf Geheiß des Bauherrn hatte der Baumeister die Errichtung des hölzernen Baugerüsts unterlassen, weshalb der Schaden entstand. Stephan Scholz verdingte den Baumeister den Abraum wieder wegzuräumen und gab dafür den Maurern 7 Schock, einen Scheffel Korn und 1 Fass Bier. Darnach aber ließ er das Haus von einem böhmischen Maurer Simon N. aus Königinhof wieder aufbauen.'

However, the house was rebuilt and later on became the Town Hall. According to a local and contemporary chronicler, Simon Hüttel, people claimed that Stephan had allied himself with the Devil (this suspicion probably had to do with his success as a businessman, and would also explain why he returned as a revenant) and died on June 6 1567. Hüttel no doubt is the original source for later writers. Unfortunately, I have not had access to his chronicle (some excerpts can be found here, cf. also this Czech page). An excerpt concerning Hübner, however, is online on - of all things - the web site of a restaurant situated in the heart of Trutnov, so if you happen to be in that town, maybe you should visit the Radnice (i.e. town hall) grill restaurant. Their web site says that Stephan Scholz/Hübner continued haunting the town despite his posthumous execution. Apparently, he became part of local lore.

The use of two alternate surnames for Stephan is, I guess, because Hübner signified a farmer owning an allotment of land, cf. this entry on German Wikipedia. Scholz might be a variant of Schulz, in Czech Šolc.