On the feast of St. Michael, September 1659, a thirteen-year-old peasant girl left her family's rural home to work as a maid in the nearby city of Braunschweig. Just two years later, Grethe Schmidt found herself imprisoned and accused of murdering her bastard child, even though the fact of her pregnancy was inconclusive and no infant's body was found to justify the severe measures used against her. The tale spiraled outward to set a defense lawyer and legal theorist against powerful city magistrates and then upward to a legal contest between that city and its overlord, the Duchy of Brunswick, with the city's independence and ancient liberties hanging in the balance. Death and a Maiden tells a fascinating story that begins in the bedchamber of a house in Brunswick and ends at the court of Duke Augustus in the city of Wolfenbettel, with political intrigue along the way. After thousands of pages of testimony and rancorous legal exchange, it is still not clear that any murder happened.

Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Grethe 1. In Brunswick, Near Hannover City 2. Anatomy of a Crime 3. A Girl, Purportedly a Maiden 4. Family Values 5. Common Repute: Women and Neighbors 6. Corpus Delicti 7. Knowledgeable Women: The Midwives' Tale 8. Legal Maneuvering and the Question of Torture 9. Terror, Torture, and Grethe Schmidt Part II: Justus10. Case for a Defense 11. Defending Grethe 12. The Thick Wilderness of Lies 13. The Way to a Confession 14. "Even to the Devil Himself" Conclusion: Many Vigorous Enemies Notes Bibliography Index