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There Came a Contagion is a work of historical literary fiction set in the Territory of Trier, Germany late in the sixteenth century. The reformation is ongoing but the Territory has remained Catholic, ruled by an archbishop who is also a prince and elector of the empire.
The novel tells the story of the Helgen family, three brothers who are respected in their village as skilled and resourceful farmers. With their widowed mother, their wives and children, they build a stable if difficult life together raising rye, barley and swine. In 1570 Elsebett Helgen is born to Basil, the eldest son and his beloved wife Arved, though Arved dies a tragic death shortly after the birth. When Elsebett is eight, she leaves the direct care of her grandmother and begins to live and study with Rachel Mueller, a wisewoman, a midwife and herbal healer.
When the weather turns erratic and harvests begin to fail, a scapegoat is sought. Jews are banished from the Territory as are the followers of Luther and Calvin. The Archbishop then discovers a pestilence of witches: people believed to have forsaken God and sworn allegiance to the Devil. The wise Rachel recognizes that the ever-growing frenzy to expose and kill witches is a contagion of engulfing madness, but she is nearly alone in her understanding. Elsebett’s brother, Johannes, is enthusiastic for the trials; Frans, the young man she is coming to love, works for the Archbishop. Elsebett’s father suspects that some behind the contagion desire the family’s holdings, and insists that the Helgens remain quiet and do nothing to oppose it. Elsebett is twenty when the prosecutors arrive in the village. Before the contagion has burned itself out, more than three-hundred people in the Territory of Trier will have been convicted of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Among them will be Rachel, Elsebett and Katharina, Basil’s second wife.
