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http://www.nd.edu/~dharley/witchcraft/t ... Peter.html

This is the transcript of a pamphlet put out by the medieval church. I made reference to it in my own novel. It shows what religious fanatics unimpeded by law or reason do to those of us who dare to follow the hearts of our own imagination. Granted, for all we know, Peter Stubbe (or Stump) may have had problems in his own right prior to his arrest, torture, and conviction.

Montague Summers (who was a priest who firmly believed that werewolves were real, in the twentieth century) included this full transcript in his reference, The Werewolf.

Hi Scott, I have that Montague Sommers book you referenced. Is your novel published? or are you working on it now?

It's finished and ready to read. It's not formally published, but if you want to read it, the link is right there, in my signature:

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The problem I have with popular Werewolf lore is that, after the 15th century, most of the historical events centered around, not Werewolves, but clinical lycanthropes who were basically just very mentally sick people. 80 percent of what we usually run into about "Werewolves" are related either directly or indirectly to those people.

Werewolves, who were virtually wiped out during the Inquisition, are pretty much forgotten, but the older Werewolf lore continues in places like Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Yeah whats with Peter Stubbe why did the murder him? the whole of lycanthropy seems to be peppered with his name.

He gets mentioned often because he's one of the most heavily documented cases of accused and convicted lycanthropy during the "burning times" period of European history, when a combination of unfortunate events intermixed with superstition, resulting in mass hysteria, leading to a number of horrific and brutal killings.

Peter Stubbe may or may not have himself been a brutal killer. He might have just been a quirky recluse who got scapegoated. Either way, the people who caught him were hunting what they believed to be a werewolf, and the hunters managed to convince each other that he was it. Stubbe confessed under torture, but then again, who wouldn't? After his confession, he was put to a horrific death.

The story of what happened was at the time marketed by the prevailing church of the region as a reason not to go against the presumed will of God, the same presumed will described and maintained by the church itself. Ominously, the well-circulated pamphlet of the time said specifically something to the effect of "this is what will happen to those of you who follow the heart of your own imagination." I today see this as an example of what unchecked fanatic extremism can do, and as evidence that fundamentalist extremist Christianity can be every bit as toxic to humanity as is fundamentalist extremist Islam. The Christians should be the least happy about this piece of history, but there are factions like Pat Robertson that are exhibiting signs of the same fanatical devotion.

I cannot access this link...

it says its not there any more