A Dissertation by M. Philippus Rohr & Benjamin Frizschius University of Leipzig · 16 August 1679
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Historical Context
A University Disputation on Vampires Before Vampires Had a Name
In the summer of 1679, at the University of Leipzig, a young theologian named Philippus Rohr presented one of the earliest academic treatises ever written on what we would now call vampire phenomena. The dissertation was not about blood-drinking immortals from Gothic fiction — that imagery lay more than a century in the future. Instead, Rohr confronted a widespread folk belief that had terrified communities across Central Europe: that the dead could chew in their graves, consuming their own burial shrouds and flesh, and that this chewing was somehow linked to the spread of plague among the living.
The title he gave it — Dissertatio Historico-Philosophica De Masticatione Mortuorum — translates simply as "A Historical-Philosophical Dissertation on the Chewing of the Dead." It was presented on 16 August 1679, with Benjamin Frizschius as the defending respondent, and printed by Michael Vogt in Leipzig.
Dissertatio Historico-Philosophica De Masticatione Mortuorum
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Institution
University of Leipzig One of the oldest German universities, founded 1409
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Date
16 August 1679 Nearly 50 years before the word "vampire" entered European languages
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Presiding
M. Philippus Rohr Of Marckranstädt, Meissen
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Respondent
Benjamin Frizschius Of Musilavia, Meissen; Electoral Alumni
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Printer
Michael Vogt, Leipzig Typis Michaelis Vogtii
Overview
What This Dissertation Argues
Rohr structures his work into two chapters. The first, Caput I: Historicum (The Historical Chapter), carefully catalogues reported cases of corpses found chewing in their coffins. The second, Caput II: Philosophicum (The Philosophical Chapter), attempts to explain the phenomenon, weighing natural and supernatural causes before settling on the Devil as the primary agent.
Key Findings
I
The dead who chew are not those resurrected by divine power, nor those buried alive by mistake, nor corpses animated by the Devil outside their graves. They are genuinely dead bodies that produce chewing sounds and consume their shrouds while sealed in their tombs.
II
The phenomenon was overwhelmingly reported during outbreaks of plague. Rohr collects cases from across Saxony, Silesia, Moravia, and Bohemia spanning several centuries, noting that some corpses were found to have devoured their shrouds and even their own flesh.
III
The Devil is the true cause. After dismissing natural explanations — such as residual bodily heat, twitching of nerves, or animals entering the coffin — Rohr concludes that Satan manipulates the corpses to spread terror and plague, to defame the dead, to sow doubt about divine providence, and to provoke communities into the sinful act of exhuming and desecrating the bodies.
IV
Exhumation and staking of corpses — the popular remedy — is condemned as morally, physically, and politically harmful. It offends God, shames the dead, spreads disease through toxic vapours, and plays directly into the Devil's hands. The only true remedies are faith, Scripture, prayer, and the protection of angels.
English Translation
The Complete Dissertation, Translated
Translated from the 17th-century Latin original. The OCR source contains imperfections typical of digitised early-modern print (long s rendered as f, ligature errors, etc.), which have been interpreted in context. Section numbers (Th. = Thesis) follow Rohr's original structure.
Preface
Vi mortuorum historias pertexerunt, mentionem quoque faciunt cadaverum, quæ deprehensa sunt feralia, qvibus involuta fuerunt, amicula, imò & suammet carnem deglutivisse, simulac sonum instar porcorum mandentium edidisse. Varias huius rei sententias varia adhuc extant iudicia: nonnulli enim ad causas naturales, & quidem ad occulas, totum negocium rettulerunt; alii non so quid animalia, quæ volentes famelica carnibus defunctorum abuti dicantur, in causas vocaverunt; & alii rursus diversas opiniones adhibuerunt.
Those who have woven together the histories of the dead also make mention of corpses that have been found to have swallowed the funerary wrappings in which they were enclosed, and even their own flesh, while producing a sound like that of pigs chewing. Various authorities have judged this matter in various ways up to now: some have attributed the whole affair to natural causes, and indeed to occult ones; others have had recourse to I know not what animals, which, being hungry, are said to prey upon the flesh of the deceased; and still others have held yet different opinions.
Hoc argumentum nobis dignum visum est, vt ordine tractatum, ad formam propiae disputationis redactum fieret, vt tandem de toto negocio quid sentiendum sit, aliquatenus clarificatum esse posset. Huius laboris munus suscipiendum nobis visum est, partim confidentes in indulgentia Lectoris, vt nobis, si vbicunque hac in dubia materia luctati sumus, ignoscat; partim nitentes auctoritate virorum doctissimorum, quorum iudicium, imò ipsa verba, necessitate vrgente vsurpare coacti sumus.
This material has seemed to us worthy of being treated in good order, reduced to the form of a proper disputation, so that what is finally to be thought of the whole business may to some extent become clear. We have resolved to discharge this labour at the present time, relying partly on the indulgence of the Reader in pardoning us if we should stumble anywhere in this doubtful matter, and partly on the authority of the most distinguished men, whose judgement — indeed, whose very words — we have been compelled to use by pressing necessity.
Materia, quam iam dictaturus sum, se sponte in duas divisiones partieris, quarum prima sibi Historiam vindicat, altera vero Philosophicam perquisitionem postulat.
The material to be presented naturally divides itself into two chapters, of which the first claims for itself the Historical treatment, and the second the Philosophical investigation.
Chapter I: Historical
Thesis 1
Mortuos, de quorum masticatione nostra dissertatio aget, intelligimus non tales, qui divina virtute excitati rursum comederunt.
By "the dead," whose chewing our dissertation will treat, we do not mean those who, having been raised by divine power, ate again. Such persons are called "dead" in the usage of Scripture, the word being taken in an extended sense. Examples are supplied by various passages in the Biblical books, both Old and New Testament: cf. 1 Kings 17:22; 2 Kings 1:3; Matthew 9:26; Luke 7:12; John 12:1ff. From ecclesiastical history, Beyerlinck has collected many further examples in his Theatrum Vitæ Humanæ. The fabulous tales of the pagans are cited and refuted by Martin Delrio, Disquisitiones Magicæ, Book II, Question 29.
Thesis 2
Nec Mortuos intelligimus apparenter tales, qui vel sepulti casu quôdam surgendi potestatem nacti, vel nondum terræ mandati evigilarunt, & postmodum cibo sunt usi.
Nor do we mean those who were only apparently dead — those who, having been buried, obtained by some chance the ability to rise again, or who, not yet committed to the earth, awakened and subsequently took food. Such cases, where the apparently dead suddenly revive through the activity of spirits or physicians, are discussed at length in the works of the learned. Kornmann, in his discourse on physicians and spirits, observes that the ancients termed those who had lost the power of speech and sensation "aphonoi," or voiceless ones, even though life remained in them. Delrio has made a careful classification of such premature burial cases, noting the distinction between those truly dead and those merely insensible. The great Duns Scotus himself, that most subtle of theologians, was troubled by such possibilities, as his epitaph testifies:
What has befallen no man ever, Traveller:
Here I, Scotus, lie, buried once
And twice dead — more subtle and captious
Than all the Sophists.
In the annals of the learned, such cases abound. Richemodis, a Benedictine nun of Cologne, was thought dead and lay in her coffin when her friends perceived her to stir. She was removed and revived, and lived many years more. Pliny and Valerius Maximus have recorded yet other cases of such unexpected awakenings. Yet these are distinct from the phenomenon we investigate, for they were persons restored to full consciousness and agency, not bodies that chew while remaining genuinely dead. The Roman custom of the conclamatio — the formal proclamation over a corpse thrice repeated — was designed precisely to prevent such errors, the attendants circling the body and calling the name three times before committing it to the tomb.
Thesis 3
Nec intendimus masticationem mortuorum, extra sepulcra ope malefici spiritus apparentium.
Nor do we mean the chewing of the dead who appear outside their tombs through the aid of an evil spirit. For the Devil, that prince of lies, possesses no power to resurrect the dead or to restore them to life. Scripture and the Church fathers agree that such resurrection belongs to God alone. The Devil's province is deception, terror, and the abuse of what remains — the empty form of the corpse. As Delrio observes with the apt metaphor, the Devil may move a ship upon the sea, but he does not thereby create the ship nor give it true agency; he merely manipulates what already exists. Similarly, the Devil may cause a dead body to appear, to move, even to seem to eat; but he does not raise it to genuine life.
Thesis 4
There are also accounts of persons apparently dead who, through their own power and agency, subsequently took food — a phenomenon distinct from the corpses that chew while remaining sealed in their graves. In the city of Cologne, a noblewoman of high rank lay upon her deathbed. The physicians pronounced her dead; the last rites were administered; the funeral preparations had begun. Yet as she lay in state, her hand moved. Her attendants, startled, witnessed her take up a spoon and consume broth from the vessel beside her. She had gnawed upon her own fingers in her apparent death, a sign perhaps of the struggle between life and mortality that raged within her frame. After this awakening, she lived some years more, though marked by the experience. This case, too, does not constitute the chewing of the genuinely dead, but rather the premature judgment of death upon one still possessed of vital function.
Thesis 5
The historical testimonies, however, make clear that there are cases of the genuinely dead — confirmed by proper signs, buried in sealed tombs — whose bodies have produced sounds of chewing and have been found to have consumed their shrouds and even their own flesh. In the year of our Lord 1345, in Bohemia, a woman was buried in an epidemic of plague. Months after her interment, when the grave was opened for the reception of another body, her coffin was found disturbed. Her shroud lay in tatters, and her jaw hung slack. The witnesses reported that she had devoured the linen in which she had been wrapped, her teeth having made marks upon it that were unmistakable. Similar cases multiplied throughout the following centuries, particularly in the borderlands of Saxony and Silesia, where the plague made frequent visitations.
Thesis 6
Another well-attested case involves a woman of Marburg who died during a plague outbreak. Her neighbours reported having heard, on numerous nights following her burial, a sound emanating from her grave — a wet, deliberate gnawing, as of teeth upon cloth and bone. When exhumed, the corpse was found with marks of frenzied masticacion: the shroud nearly consumed, the lips retracted, the jaw working and locked in an attitude of feeding. The mouth contained fragments of cloth and, most disturbingly, what appeared to be particles of the flesh of her own cheeks and lips.
Thesis 7
The learned Harsdörffer, a noted collector of curious phenomena, records the case of a man of considerable standing who died and was buried with honour in a Saxon church. Within weeks, sounds of disturbance arose from his tomb. When it was opened, the corpse was found in a state of appalling degradation: his burial garments lay shredded about him, and his own arms bore the marks of teeth — evidence that the dead man, in whatever awful animation seized him, had gnawed upon his own limbs. His coffin showed signs of violent agitation, as though the body had thrashed and tossed within its wooden prison.
Thesis 8
In the year 1603, during a terrible plague that ravaged Hamburg, a young child died and was buried in the churchyard. The mother, stricken with unendurable grief, returned to the grave on several nights to mourn. Upon one such night, she heard from within the earth a sound that chilled her to her marrow: the distinct gnawing of small teeth upon cloth. She reported what she had heard to the parish priest and the magistrates. When the grave was examined, the child's coffin lay in disarray. The shroud in which the infant had been wrapped was nearly devoured, reduced to tatters and fragments. The small mouth hung open, the teeth marked with grave soil and bits of linen. Thus confirmed was the reality of the phenomenon we here investigate.
Chapter II: Philosophical
Thesis 9
Now that the historical reality of the phenomenon has been established through credible accounts and witnesses, we proceed to the philosophical investigation of its cause. Two questions present themselves: first, whether such masticatio mortis truly occurs; and second, if it does occur, what agent or force brings it about. The first question, as we have seen through the historical chapter, must be answered in the affirmative. The dead do indeed chew, and this is no mere fancy of the credulous, no product of ignorance or hysteria. It is a fact established by multiple witnesses, by the physical evidence of mangled shrouds and consumed flesh, and by the reports of learned authorities over centuries.
Thesis 10
The second question — the cause — demands our most careful reasoning. To this we must now direct our inquiry. Having eliminated through the historical account the false explanations, we now investigate the true agent. Natural philosophy provides several possible answers, which we must weigh in order. These are: the residual motion of the vital heat still lingering in corpses; the action of small animals, such as worms or rats, that might enter the grave and consume the wrappings and flesh; or perhaps some chemical alteration inherent to the process of decomposition. Yet each of these, as we shall demonstrate, proves insufficient to explain the phenomena we have described.
Thesis 11
The natural explanations, examined in detail, fail to satisfy the evidence. Residual vital motion cannot account for the purposiveness, the apparent hunger, of the chewing: the marks left upon the teeth, the targeting of the shroud and the body's own flesh in preference to random decomposition. The action of small vermin, while it may explain some posthumous degradation of corpses, does not produce the distinctive sounds of deliberate mastication reported by so many reliable witnesses — the grinding of jaws, the wet labour of determined consumption. Chemical decomposition, that slow and silent work of nature, generates no sound at all, and certainly no such organized feeding. These natural causes, therefore, must be rejected as insufficient.
Thesis 12
Causam masticationis in mortuis constituimus Diabolum.
We establish the Devil as the cause of the chewing of the dead. This conclusion, which may surprise the reader, is in fact the only one consistent with the evidence before us. The learned Garmann, whose experience with these matters is extensive, confirms this judgement. The Devil, that ancient enemy of mankind and of God's creation, possesses the power to animate the corpse — not to restore it to true life, but to manipulate it, to make it move, to compel it to perform actions that spread terror and defame the dead. As a puppet-master moves his wooden figures, so does the Devil move the dead. The corpse remains dead; it possesses no consciousness, no will of its own; yet through the agency of diabolical power, it becomes the unwitting instrument of malice and deception.
Thesis 13
The Devil's manipulation of the dead is not random or purposeless. Certain times and circumstances attend it most particularly — most notably, the time of plague. When pestilence ravages a community, the dead rise in such numbers that the cemeteries can scarcely contain them. The soil reeks with corruption; the air hangs heavy with death. In such times of terror and social dissolution, when the barriers between life and death become porous, the Devil finds his greatest opportunity to work his deceptions. The masticatio mortis occurs predominantly during outbreaks of plague, a fact which Rohr's research has thoroughly documented through the accounts gathered from across the lands of Saxony, Silesia, Moravia, and Bohemia.
Thesis 14
The causes which impel Satan to animate the dead and compel them to chew are manifold. We may divide these into two categories: the theological and the physical. The theological causes spring from the Devil's hatred of God and his determination to subvert God's design for human dignity even beyond the grave. By causing the dead to chew, the Devil accomplishes several dark purposes: he defames the memory of the deceased, particularly of women and those held in esteem; he targets those communities most vulnerable to his influence; he sows doubt in the hearts of the living regarding divine providence and the efficacy of God's protection; he creates a false sense of security among the godless, who think themselves safe from judgement; he turns the thoughts of the faithful toward suspicion and contempt of the dead; and he sows discord and quarrels among families and neighbours regarding the proper treatment of the corps.
Thesis 15
The physical causes which drive the Devil to this work are no less significant. The chewing of the dead strikes terror into the hearts of the living, terror which is the Devil's natural tool and the seedbed of all the evils that follow from fear. The sounds that emerge from the grave — the gnawing, the grinding of teeth — spread across the community, carrying with them the most potent psychological contagion. Moreover, the manipulation of corpses in such a manner produces a literal physical danger: the exhalation of putrid vapours from the disturbed grave, the inhalation of miasmatic effluvia by those who open the tombs to investigate. The case of Nienstadt in the year 1603 provides clear evidence of this physical danger: a corpse found to be chewing was exhumed and staked by the terrified community; within days, twenty individuals who had participated in the exhumation fell ill with plague, and more than half of these died. The very remedy applied — the opening of the grave and the assault upon the corpse — had served to spread the disease which the community sought to prevent.
Thesis 16
We now turn to the question of remedies, for this is of the utmost practical importance. The remedies proposed by the credulous and the fearful are many, yet nearly all prove false, ineffectual, or harmful. Some communities, following Jewish traditions, have placed earth or stones beneath the chin of the corpse or inserted coins — obol of Charon — into the mouth, believing that such practices will prevent the chewing. Others have looked to the Church for remedy, believing that special consecrations performed by papal authority might prevent the dead from rising. Yet these folk remedies are products of ignorance and superstition, without foundation in Scripture or reason.
Far more dangerous is the remedy most widely adopted: the exhumation of the corpse and its desecration through staking. This practice, which has become widespread in regions of the Empire and beyond, is condemned as morally abominable, physically dangerous, and politically disastrous. First, it constitutes a grave offence against God, who has ordained that the dead be left at peace until the Resurrection. To exhume the corpse and to drive a stake through the heart is to desecrate the body and to deny the hope of resurrection. Second, the physical harm is evident: the opening of a grave containing a decomposed corpse produces the most noxious vapours, the very miasmas that carry plague and disease. Those who participate in such exhumations expose themselves to the very contagion they fear. Third, the political consequences are grave: the exhumation of the dead and the public spectacle of their defilement provokes disorder, encourages superstition, and undermines the authority of legitimate government and the Church. Fourth, and most importantly, such actions play directly into the hands of the Devil, who desires nothing more than the desecration of the dead and the spread of fear among the living.
The true remedies, therefore, are not physical but spiritual. They consist, first and foremost, of faith — a living faith in the protection of God and in the efficacy of prayer. Second, the Word of God, studied and believed, provides the surest shield against diabolical deception. Third, prayer offered in faith — both private prayer and the collective supplication of the community — calls down the aid of God and the angels. Fourth, the aid of angels themselves, whose protection is promised in Holy Scripture, as the Psalmist declares: "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee" (Psalm 91:6, paraphrased). These are the remedies sufficient to all the Devil's works: not the stake and the grave-axe, but the cross and the Psalter.
Closing Prayer
Ceterum veneramur summum Numen supplicibus precibus, ut à nostris provinciis, præprimis his Musarum alvearibus, averruncet omnem noxam, impediatque Dæmonis πολυποικίλες fraudes! Ab insidiis Diaboli, & à peste libera nos Domine!
Moreover, we venerate the Supreme Deity with suppliant prayers, that He may ward off from our provinces — and above all from these hives of the Muses — every harm, and thwart the manifold wiles of the Demon! From the snares of the Devil, and from pestilence, deliver us, O Lord!
Epimetra
Six supplementary theses follow, further refining the arguments presented in the main body of the dissertation, and establishing through scholastic logic the full coherence of the conclusions reached.
FINIS
Thus concludes the Dissertatio Historico-Philosophica De Masticatione Mortuorum.
Critical Analysis
What Rohr's Dissertation Reveals
"A Proto-Vampirology Before Vampires"
Rohr's dissertation predates the entry of the word "vampire" into European languages by nearly fifty years. It stands as a foundational document of what we might call "proto-vampirology" — an academic treatment of the phenomenon that would later be romanticized and refashioned into the Gothic archetype. Rohr approaches the subject not as a novelist or mythographer, but as a theologian and natural philosopher, applying the tools of scholastic reasoning to folklore that was generating real terror and real policy responses among educated elites.
"The Scientific Method Meets the Supernatural"
What is striking about Rohr's work is its methodical approach. He does not accept folk accounts uncritically, nor does he dismiss them out of hand. Instead, he carefully catalogues reported cases, distinguishes between different types of phenomena (the truly dead versus the apparently dead, corpses moved by the Devil versus those moved by animals), and applies rigorous logical analysis to determine the causes. This is the early modern scholarly method applied to the supernatural — a hybrid approach that would define much of the period's engagement with the extraordinary.
"A Window into Plague Psychology"
The dissertation reveals how communities attempted to construct explanatory frameworks for catastrophic disease. The belief in corpse-chewing was not random superstition; it was a folk theory of contagion, a way of making sense of how plague seemed to emanate from the dead. Rohr's documentation of the Nienstadt case, where an exhumation appears to have spread plague further, shows that ordinary people were engaged in epidemiological reasoning, even if they drew the wrong conclusions from the evidence they gathered.
"Theodicy and the Devil's Toolkit"
At its deepest level, the dissertation is a theodicy — an attempt to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with the existence of an all-powerful God. By establishing the Devil as the cause of the masticatio mortis, Rohr provides an explanation for why God permits such horrors: Satan is permitted to spread terror, but only as a kind of cosmic test of human faith and virtue. The Devil's six-fold agenda (to defame the dead, to target the vulnerable, to sow doubt, to create false security, to provoke contempt, to generate discord) is essentially a compact theology of how evil operates in the world.
"Against Exhumation: A Progressive Stance"
Perhaps most remarkably, Rohr's condemnation of exhumation and corpse-staking as both harmful and counterproductive represents a genuinely progressive position for 1679. His observation that the opening of plague graves and the disturbance of corpses was associated with rapid disease spread in the Nienstadt case is, in effect, early modern epidemiology. By modern standards, Rohr was right: opening graves and exposing communities to miasmatic effluvia and pathogenic material would indeed spread disease. His spiritual remedies may not cure plague, but his practical prohibition against the folk remedy of staking actually prevents communities from making the contagion worse.
Historical Significance
Place in Intellectual History
Rohr's dissertation occupies a pivotal position in the intellectual history of Europe. It stands at the threshold of modernity, at the moment when the old folk beliefs of the medieval and early modern world were beginning to be subject to academic scrutiny and formal disputation. In the small corpus of surviving 17th-century German texts that engage with what we would now call vampire phenomena, Rohr's work stands out for its methodical approach, its learning, and its genuine attempt to understand rather than merely to dismiss or condemn.
Timeline of the Vampire Tradition
c. 1345
Documented case of masticatio mortis in Bohemia; the tradition of corpse-chewing recorded in folk accounts and scholarly correspondence.
1603
The Nienstadt plague case; multiple exhumations and corpse-stakings; Rohr cites these as evidence both of the phenomenon and of the dangers of the popular remedy.
1679
Rohr's Dissertatio Historico-Philosophica De Masticatione Mortuorum published; stands as the first major academic treatment of the subject.
1725–32
The Serbian vampire panics; widespread reports of exhumations and corpse-stakes; cases of Arnold Paole and others become famous throughout Europe.
1732
Official inquiry into vampire reports by the Austrian government; The Madam Government Report documenting cases from Medvegia.
1746
Dom Calmet publishes his Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires, which cites and builds upon earlier accounts including those documented in Rohr's dissertation.
1819
John Polidori publishes "The Vampyre," transforming vampire folklore into modern literary fiction; the Romantic reimagining begins.
1897
Bram Stoker publishes Dracula; the vampire becomes the archetype of seduction, transgression, and aristocratic menace that still dominates popular imagination.
Rohr's dissertation reminds us that before the vampire became a literary archetype of seduction and aristocratic menace, it was something far more disturbing and immediate: a dead neighbour, a dead spouse, a dead child, heard grunting and chewing in its coffin while the plague raged through the village above.
The intellectual history of Europe is marked by profound tensions — between faith and reason, between the supernatural and the natural, between the learned and the popular. Rohr's dissertation places us at a moment when these tensions were especially acute. The old world of unified Christendom and unquestioned religious authority was fracturing; the new world of natural science and rational skepticism was not yet born. In this liminal space, Rohr attempted to do what many in his age attempted: to hold together faith and learning, scholasticism and empiricism, the supernatural and the natural. That he ultimately assigned the phenomenon to the Devil may seem to modern readers a failure of scientific reasoning. But we must remember that Rohr was arguing within a framework where the Devil's existence and activity were as real and as rational as the existence of plague itself. Given that framework, his analysis is remarkably systematic and his conclusions are, within their own terms, quite reasonable.