Eschen — the Golden Boos

OVERVIEW

Maria Barbara Erni (1743–1785), known as the Goldene Boos, was a vagrant and thief who was the last person executed in the Principality of Liechtenstein. Her fate soon entered Liechtenstein's legends and is one of the better known of them.

HISTORY

Born in Altenstadt near Feldkirch to a vagrant couple, she married Franz Schindele, 'Tyrolean Franz', in 1779. On 27 May 1784 she was caught in the act of a sneak theft 'auf Müsnen' above the village of Eschen; she admitted seventeen thefts. Having been proved guilty of more than three, she was sentenced to death under the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, in a trial held before the chapel on the Rofenberg. On 26 February 1785 she was beheaded with the sword by the executioner of Bregenz at the place of execution at Güdigen near Eschen, before several thousand spectators. Liechtenstein abolished the death penalty in 1989.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

In the legend, the Golden Boos was a strong, red-blonde woman who travelled Europe with a great chest or backpack. Wherever she stopped, she demanded it be locked in the best and safest room, since it held a fabulous treasure; at night a small man crept out of it, gathered the valuables, and the two fled. The identity of the little man — and his fate — are unknown. The legend is collected in Liechtenstein's books of sagas (Walser and Renner, 1948; Otto Seger, 1966) and in the song 'Gefangenenlied der goldenen Boos' (c. 1800).

VISITING

The Goldene Boos-Gasse in Eschen is named after her; the pin marks the village.