Dragged to Hell: Family Annihilation and Brotherly Love in the Age of the Apocalypse

Abstract

For modern criminologists, the relationship between perpetrator and victim is a social fact. Although relatively rare, family annihilations (the murder of a family by a member followed by their suicide) are particularly sensational because the affective relationship between murderer and victim traditionally presupposes an individual duty of care. While also true for the early modern period, media representations of family annihilations mitigated individual responsibility through reference to famine during the Little Ice Age. A genre of hardheartedness ballads appeared as broadsheets and pamphlets. Invariably, the ballads accused a wealthy local nobleman or burgher of refusing bread, thereby neglecting their communal duty of love for one’s neighbors. In punishment, they were dragged to hell, condemned by moralist authors (presumably Lutheran) for their failure of brotherly love.