Of Love and Witches: the Tragic story of Agnes Bernauer

This episode explores a familiar, oft-repeated tale of the ill-fated love shared between the lowly Agnes Bernaur and noble Albrecht, the future Duke of Bavaria. In a story that has come to shape the history and lore of the German city of Augsburg, we will see how a love shared between people from different worlds is ripped apart as Albrecht’s father took extreme measures to keep the two apart by accusing Agnes of being a witch.

Sources:

Anna Bond, “A Study of Agnes Bernauer,” Master’s Thesis, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (1906).

Henry Garland and Mary Garland, eds., The Oxford Companion to German Literature, third edition (Oxford University Press, 1997).

P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, Witch Beliefs and Witch Trials in the Middle Ages: Documents and Readings (2011).

Ritchie Robertson, “Hebbel: Agnes Bernaur (1852),” German Political Tragedy (2024).

Lyndal Roper, The Witch in the Western Imagination, University of Virginia Press (2012).

Written and recorded by: Kenyon Payne

Theme music: "Southern Gothic" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Outro music: “D´vil,” anrocomposer

Additional featured music:

“Virtutes Instrumenti,” “Mourning Song,” and “Night Vigil” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

“Space Ambient SiFi,” Lexin_Music

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