The Witch of Cologne

DEUTZ

RUTH BAS ELAZAR SAUL Midwife, 23, only child of Elazar ben Saul.

MIRIAM Ruth’s assistant, 15.

ELAZAR BEN SAUL Ruth’s father, chief rabbi of the Jewish quarter of Deutz.

SARA BEN SAUL née NAVARRO Ruth’s deceased mother.

ROSA Ruth’s old Spanish nursemaid.

TUVIA HOROWITZ Elazar’s assistant, Polish, 21, follower of the self-proclaimed Messiah, Shabbetai Zevi.*

COLOGNE

DETLEF VON TENNEN Canon to the cathedral, 33, cousin to Archbishop Maximilian Heinrich, a Wittelsbach aristocrat.

GROOT Priest, Detlef’s clerk.

CARLOS VICENTE SOLITARIO Spanish Dominican, inquisitor under the Inquisitor-General Pascual de Aragon.*

JUAN Carlos’s secretary.

ARCHBISHOP MAXIMILIAN HEINRICH* (b 1621) Archbishop of Cologne and Bonn, a Wittelsbach prince of the house of Bavaria.

WILHELM EGON VON FÜRSTENBERG* Minister to the cathedral, spy for the French. (Arrested by Leopold I in 1674.)

BIRGIT TER LAHN VON LENNEP Detlef’s mistress, wife to the merchant Ter Lahn von Lennep.

PETER TER LAHN VON LENNEP Birgits husband, cloth importer, powerful town councillor.

DAS GRÜUNTAL (Green Valley)

COUNT GERHARD VON TENNEN Detlef’s elder brother who has inherited the family estate.

HERMANN WOLF Count von Tennen’s gamekeeper and lover.

PRINCE FERDINAND OF AUSTRIA Emperor Leopold’s errant nephew, 17.

ALPHONSO DE LORENZO Italian actor, 18, one of a travelling troupe patronised by the Hapsburgs.

DAS WOLKENHAUS (Cloud House)

HANNA Detlef’s housekeeper at his country residence.

HOLLAND

BENEDICT SPINOZA* (1632-77) Portuguese/Dutch philosopher who was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jewish community of Amsterdam. A humanist, Spinoza was an important expositor of Descartes’ work.

DIRK KERCKRINCK* (b 1639) Doctor and a close colleague of Spinoza. (Ruth apprentices herself to him in his early years as a medical student.)

FRANCISCUS VAN DEN ENDEN* (1602-74) Mentor to many. A radical who ran the Latin school where Spinoza taught and where Kerckrinck (and Ruth) studied.

JAN DE WITT* (1625-72) Councillor pensionary of Holland from 1653-72. Led the Dutch Republic after the end of its war of independence.

VIENNA

LEOPOLD I* Holy Roman Emperor of the Hapsburg Empire from 1658-1705.

SAMUEL OPPENHEIMER* (d 1703) Court Jew (Hofjude) and purveyor-general to Leopold I.

The structure of power in late seventeenth-century Cologne.

Etching of Cologne published in 1670 by Créspy in Paris, from a woodcut by H.R.M Deutsch (1548).

Etching of Cologne in the seventeenth century, showing the Holy Free Imperial City on the far bank of the Rhine and the area containing Deutz on the near bank.

– KETER –

The Infinite