A Medieval Macabre Criminal
Medieval German bandit Peter Niers (died 1581) was a dark arts practitioner, and one of history’s scariest people. Over a fifteen-year-period, he took the lives of over 600 people, and cut the fetuses out of the wombs of 24 pregnant women. The fetuses were used as ingredients in his black magic, and consumed in cannibalistic acts. Niers began his criminal career as a highwayman in Alsace, present day France, and eventually led a gang that numbered about 24 bandits. He also became a key figure in a loose network of bandit and highwayman gangs, that joined forces on occasion to conduct major operations that required large numbers of men.
Niers’ criminal activities spanned a large territory that included western France, the Rhineland, and Bavaria in southern Germany. What set him apart from other bandits was his bloodthirstiness and gratuitous cruelty. He was not content to simply rob or kill his victims. Niers also liked to torture those who fell into his hands, and often slew them in a variety of fiendishly inventive ways. He was captured in 1577, and under torture, confessed to 75 murders in the previous 11 years. However, before he could be executed, he managed to escape.
