Katharina Kepler (née: Guldenmann; 1546 – 13 April 1622) was a woman from

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the Sw ...

Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Württ ...

, who was the mother of the famous astronomer

Johannes Kepler Johannes Kepler (; ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws ...

. She was accused of

witchcraft Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have ...

in 1615, but was defended by her son and released.

Life

Katharina Kepler was married to Heinrich Kepler and had one daughter and three sons, one of whom was Johannes Kepler. In 1615, a witch trial was initiated by Lutherus Einhorn who in his reign as

vogt During the Middle Ages, an (sometimes given as modern English: advocate; German: ; French: ) was an office-holder who was legally delegated to perform some of the secular responsibilities of a major feudal lord, or for an institution such as ...

of the

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

town of Leonberg (1613 - 1629) accused 15 women of sorcery and executed 8 of them. He acted in accordance with the will of the government and the public, which had asked for an investigation of sorcery, and issued an arrest of Katharina Kepler in 1615. Ursula Reinbold had accused Katharina Kepler of giving her a potion after an argument that had made her sick. Johannes Kepler defended his mother himself, with the assistance of his university in Tübingen. One of his student friends, Christopher Besoldus, assisted her juridically. Her son took her away to

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital ...

in December 1616. When she returned to Leonberg in the summer of 1620, she was arrested and imprisoned for fourteen months. She was told how she would be tortured, as a means of frightening her, but she refused to confess anything. In October 1621, Kepler was able to effect her release. Katharina Kepler died the following year.

Legacy

Rivka Galchen Rivka Galchen (born April 19, 1976) is a Canadian-American writer. Her first novel, ''Atmospheric Disturbances'', was published in 2008 and was awarded the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. She is the author of five books and a con ...

's 2021 novel '' Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch'' presents a fictionalized account of Kepler's life story.

References

Artikel „Württemberg, Herzogtum - Hexenverfolgungen”

Diskussionsbeitrag aus der Mailingliste Hexenforschung mit weiteren Links

Abbildung des Aktenauszugs aus dem Prozess
* Kurt Baschwitz: ''Hexen und Hexenprozesse'', C. Bertelsmann Verlag, München, 1990, S. 252 - 260 * Berthold Sutter: ''Der Hexenprozeß gegen Katharina Kepler'', Weil der Stadt, Kepler-Ges., 1979 1546 births 1622 deaths Johannes Kepler People from Leonberg People from the Duchy of Württemberg 16th-century German people 17th-century German people Witch trials in Germany {{germany-bio-stub