Episode 1: The Bokkenrijders

In this night’s episode we talk about a local legend! We’ll be talking about the Bokkenrijders, or Billy Goat Riders in English. It’s a legend that took place in parts of Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany. The legend goes that there were people or ghosts riding in the air on Billy Goats the Devil himself gave them. They rode around at night to steal food, money and other things from rich people, farmers and anyone who was more wealthy than they were basically. They later got compared to Robin Hood as well. It’s uncertain if it actually was one big massive gang or if they were small, unrelated groups. So we’ve done our research about as much as we could find and we share all this and our personal thoughts about in this episode.

Laurens

FIRST PERIOD 1734-1745 & 1749- 1752

I like to start by giving a rough outline about the periode and especially the people and the way they lived. Our story takes place in parts of The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany in 1734-1752. We would call the legend of the bokkenrijders a Flemish legend, as it takes place in the current Flemish region of Belgium, but this is incorrect. At the time of the legend Belgian Limburg was not yet part of Belgium, Belgium didn’t exist till 1830 when we gained independence from The Netherlands. Belgium at this time was ruled by Austria. The Netherlands had a huge financial boom in the 1600’s, in part to de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or the Dutch East-Indian Company. Their trade in spices and slaves greatly boosted the economy at the time. In the 1700’s the economy took a big hit. The linen industry had to compete with the high wages. All the different factors at the time didn’t make the rich poorer, the rich stayed rich and the divide between rich and poor became bigger which meant that there was a big class system at the time. Farmers and workers worked 6 days a week, man and woman. They were set for life, due to the profits gained in the trade a century before, and due to owning factories, farms and important roles in governance. Our story takes us away from the large, densely populated cities of the times and to the countryside. Our story talks about the bokkenrijders, a thief’s gang who gained legendary fame with their actions.

The gang was active in different periods in and around the 18th century. Each period had a different gang leader and a different location where the crimes were committed.

MATHIAS PONTS

The bokkenrijders got their famous name because it was said that every member flew a billy goat through the sky to commit their crimes. In a process in 1773 a man on trial named Mathijs Smeets from a little town called Beek, claimed to have flown a single giant goat together with 42 other gang members. Now, I have done a little calculation. A regular person uses about 40 cm of sitting space. 43 people would require about 1720 cm of space to sit or 17.2 meter. The average goat is about 100 cm or 1 meter long. So with a very rough calculation I think a 18 meter long, 13.5 meter high goat is pretty unheard of. This is the height of a 5 story building.

The gang operated in cell structure, meaning they used military ranking, captain, sergeant, etc... Many subordinates didn’t know the leaders' names. To become part of the bokkenrijders gang every initiate had to swear an oath, denounce God and swear to The Devil. They also swore not to reveal any other members under torture. Part of their Robin Hood status can be found in the oaths that are said to be sworn in the town of Heerlen. That oath made initiates swear to share their wealth with the poor. After the ceremony, which is said to be a reversed mass or a black mass, the members drank a brandy which made them move and act like animals. It was supposedly laced with a herb from the nightshade family. The gang members then started their crime spree. This mostly was the members of the gang violently robbing people, scamming others or, with the use of burn letters, blackmailing someone. They focused on farms and parishes. Parishes had a lot of wealth and farms were owned by rich men.

Mathias Ponts was said to be a leader of the gang. He was a skinner from the small town of Hoensbroek. Mathias and his wife Barbara had 9 children. It was more common to have big families at that time. Mathias was named by other gang members who under torture gave his name up. He in turn gave the names of about 40 people, of which 6 of his children, as gang members. I actually found and read his testimony. It reads very difficult for me, because it's written in Old Dutch, which most of us these days are not familiar with. His eldest son Joannes was able to escape detention, but he was caught and hanged anyway. The middle son Peter was executed for his part in the robberies. The eldest daughter Ida and her husband Joannes, who was also a skinner, also took part in the robberies and were executed. The middle daughter Maria actually took part in the robberies dressed as a man, she got the death sentence and was executed. The fate of the youngest son Hendrik and daughter Margareta are not clear. Mathias himself was arrested on april 10 1743. He was tortured at the end of July, where he confessed to dozens of robberies, murders and plundering of parishes. Mathias was killed 12 november 1743, together with his son Peter and daughter Maria. In the years 1743-1745, the years Mathias was thought to be the leader of the gang, it’s speculated that 140 people were accused of being bokkenrijders, 87 were executed.

Rei

SECOND PERIOD 1754-1774

I’ll be talking about the second period of the Bokkenrijders, which was estimated between 1754 and 1774, and more specifically about a man named Joseph Kerckhoffs who apparently was the leader of the notorious gang.

JOSEPH KERCKHOFFS

Henricus Joseph Kerckhoffs (DUTCH), (also known as Joseph Kirchhoffs in German,) was born in 1724, Herzogenrath, Germany as the son of Nicolaas Kerckhoffs and Catharina Douveren. He was the youngest of 6 children.

Joseph was a really smart kid and eventually joined the army in Austria in 1743 as a Junior Officer and later became a healing practitioner. When he came back to Herzogenrath in 1752 he became the town’s official surgeon. (Just like his uncle, Franciscus Conradus, was in another town called Schinnen (Nederland).) He got married to Anna Elisabeth Mans in 1759 and they got 6 children.

So far Kerckhoffs had a really good reputation amongst the other people in town. He was a respected, wealthy man who attended church every Sunday. He was loved by many important people too, such as Earl Maximiliaan Hendrik Hoen van Carthils.

So during this time period, the Bokkenrijders were already known and active in and around Herzogenrath. During the tortures of captured gang members, Joseph Kerckhoffs name was mentioned more than once. The Bokkenrijders said Joseph was their leader, their captain and because so many of them said that it would eventually lead to his arrest. Earl Hoen heard about the plans to arrest Kerckhoffs. He warned Joseph and even offered him shelter in one of his properties in another town. Joseph declined the offer and -after attending Sunday church- was arrested in the morning of August the 17th in 1771.

The people in Herzogenrath were very surprised, was their surgeon really living this double life? People back then believed the Devil came to Earth to seduce poor and uneducated people into becoming what, for example, the Billy Goat Riders had become. That didn't sound like Kerckhoffs at all, but of course (!), the Billy Goat Riders needed an educated leader and that is where Joseph's profile did fit in.

Joseph's torture began in October of 1771. As with many of the Billy Goat Riders, they used Thumbscrews (thumbs or other fingers got placed in between two metal pieces that got screwed tighter and tighter), the Spanish Boot (a sort of cast they would put around your leg and/ or foot that had metal pins on the inside) and eventually the Strappado, a device where your hands were tied behind your back and your arms were lifted up until your feet didn't reach the ground anymore. In most cases this would not only cause your arms or shoulders to break but it would also stretch and even rip apart your internal organs. If people hadn't confessed before, after the use of the thumbscrews or spanish boot, they definitely confessed now. But not Joseph, he didn't confess to anything, he said “Gentlemen, don't you have enough satisfaction? You can tear my body to pieces, throw me into the fire, you won't know more about me than you know about me now.”

So after days of torture his body was in such bad shape they actually decided to give him a “break”, before recontinuing his torture in November of the same year. He would eventually give names of important people, saying they were also gang members. It is said that he would even call out Earl Hoen van Carthils, who was present during these tortures, but he said that Kerckhoffs was only trying to mock the Court.

At the start of May 1772, the Council of Brabant in Brussel sentenced him to death by hanging, preceded by another round of torture. Even in his last living hours, he didn't confess to anything at all. They based their sentence on confessions of other members of the Billy Goat riders, but even with that they could only come up with 9 burglaries in a time span of 9 years.

On May 11th 1772 at 11 a.m the executioner put the loop of the rope around Joseph's neck. Joseph Kerckhoffs last words were “Jesus for Thee i live, Jesus for Thee i die” before meeting his end.

CONCLUSION

His sentence was unique, because normally the suspect had to confess to the crime before getting the death penalty. It's also apparently unique that he still got tortured after getting his sentence.

The original legal records about Kerckhoffs and the Bokkenrijders are being held in the archives in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Many experts who studied these records also have the opinion that, because they basically had no evidence on him, he was probably just an innocent man. And he wasn't the only innocent one, over 400 other men and women, so called bokkenrijders, were hanged, broken on the wheel or burned to death. Besides, the records also show that many people in the town actually testified in his favor.

Now, he was a man of high status, would he really join a gang?

It's actually not that uncommon for rich, known men or men with a status to become gang leaders or members. Born leaders like Kerckhoffs are actually the best gang leaders, you see it in modern gangs as well. For example, Young Bloods leader Steven Touch was a gang leader by night but during the day he helped troubled kids and teens to stay away from gangs! Shaun Harrison was a pastor and high school dean who shot a 17 year old student in the face who was selling Marijuana for him. Police found out that he was also leading a double life.

So for Joseph, it actually is possible that he was indeed leading a double life. Besides, his name got mentioned in other hearings/ tortures from Billy Goat Riders even 4 years after his execution.

MY THOUGHTS

I think it's possible that the actual Billy Goat riders said his name because he was very wealthy and successful and they hated him for it. So they said his name during the tortures as a way to get back at him or punish him, basically.

I also still think it's very possible, like mentioned before, that he actually was leading a double life, but his followers weren't as loyal as he had hoped them to be. And maybe he just had too much pride to admit his deeds.

Now I actually have a little bit more possible evidence. As I said, Kerckhoffs had a lot of brothers and a sister. Now his youngest brother, Balthasar Kerckhoffs, also got accused and arrested for being a leader of the Bokkenrijders. Sadly he passed away on the night between the 6th and 7th of March 1771 after being violently tortured. It is said that when Balthasar got arrested, Joseph was actually not surprised that he was up to no good, since they hadn’t spoken in two years, and Joseph was really disappointed to find out the truth about his brother. But was it the truth though?

Sadly I think we will never know what really happened.

Joseph Kerckhoffs took his secret to the grave.