The knight and his servant at the stake
A knight and his servant are burned, officially for sodomy. But power politics also lay behind the verdict.
On Sunday 24 September 1482, a large crowd gathered in Zurich. In the market square, two men were burned alive: the Alsatian knight Richard Puller von Hohenburg and his young servant Anton Mätzler. The charge was sodomy. At the time, this covered all sexual practices considered unnatural, including love between men.
Puller was no stranger. The nobleman had been living in Zurich for some years and was demanding the return of an entire inheritance from Strasbourg. Zurich at first scented a profitable feud, but found no allies in the Swiss Confederation. The quarrelsome knight became a political burden.
The charge came at a convenient moment. According to a contemporary chronicler, the relationship attracted attention because Mätzler boasted of precious clothes and fine shirts. Only under torture did the two confess that a lasting love affair lay behind their master–servant relationship. The interrogation record states that the servant had been "most dear" to the knight. The driving force behind the proceedings was Hans Waldmann, the celebrated leader of the Zurich troops against Charles the Bold.
At the place of execution, Puller refused to repeat his confession. The charge, he said, was merely a pretext to get hold of his property. Even contemporaries noticed how well the execution suited relations with Strasbourg. One source even claimed that the city had paid eight thousand guilders for it.
The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland notes that verdicts against so-called sodomites at the time depended heavily on the standing of the person concerned. The Puller case shows how closely morality and power politics were intertwined. Later illustrated chronicles recorded the scene but moved it outside the city walls. Waldmann, mayor from 1483, himself ended up on the scaffold six years later.