Malleus Maleficarum

The Malleus Maleficarum,[2] usually translated as the Hammer of Witches,[3][lower-alpha 1] is the best known treatise on witchcraft.[6][7] It was written by the Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer (under his Latinized name Henricus Institoris) and first published in the German city of Speyer in 1486.[8][9] It endorses extermination of witches and for this purpose develops a detailed legal and theological theory.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16] It has been described as the compendium of literature in demonology of the 15th century.[17] The top theologians of the Inquisition at the Faculty of Cologne condemned the book as recommending unethical and illegal procedures, as well as being inconsistent with Catholic doctrines of demonology.[18]

For the album, see Malleus Maleficarum (album). For the Supernatural episode, see Malleus Maleficarum (Supernatural). For the song by AFI, see Black Sails in the Sunset.
"Hammer of witches" redirects here. For the Cradle of Filth album, see Hammer of the Witches. For the film, see Witchhammer.
Malleus Maleficarum
Hammer of Witches
Title page of the seventh Cologne edition of the Malleus Maleficarum, 1520 (from the University of Sydney Library).[1]
Full titleMalleus Maleficarum
Also known asHammer of Witches
Author(s)Heinrich Kramer
LanguageLatin
Date1486
Date of issue1487

The Malleus elevates sorcery to the criminal status of heresy and recommends that secular courts prosecute it as such. The Malleus suggests torture to effectively obtain confessions and the death penalty as the only certain remedy against the evils of witchcraft.[19][20] At the time of its publication, heretics were frequently punished to be burned alive at the stake[21] and the Malleus encouraged the same treatment of witches. The book had a strong influence on culture for several centuries.[lower-alpha 2]

Jacob Sprenger's name was added as an author beginning in 1519, 33 years after the book's first publication and 24 years after Sprenger's death;[25] but the veracity of this late addition has been questioned by many historians for various reasons.[26][27]

Kramer wrote the Malleus following his temporary expulsion from Innsbruck by the local bishop, he was refused assistance by the local ecclesiastical authorities, who maintained that as the letter of deputation did not specifically mention where the inquisitors may operate, they could not legally exercise their functions in their areas. This expulsion led the other tribunal members to suspend the trial of one of the accused, Helena Scheuberin.[28] This decision was subsequently reversed by Pope Innocent VIII in the Papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus (1484), which reaffirmed his jurisdiction and authority as an inquisitor.

It was later used by royal courts during the Renaissance, and contributed to the increasingly brutal prosecution of witchcraft during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Background
See also: Witch trials in the early modern period, Summis desiderantes affectibus, Demonology § Christianity, and European witchcraft

Witchcraft had long been forbidden by the Church, whose viewpoint on the subject was explained in the Canon Episcopi written in about AD 900. It stated that witchcraft and magic were delusions and that those who believed in such things "had been seduced by the Devil in dreams and visions".[29] However, in the same period supernatural intervention was accepted in the form of ordeals that were later also used during witch trials.[30]

Possessions by the Devil are considered real even in present times by some Christians and it is an element of doctrine that demons may be cast out by appropriate sacramental exorcisms.[31][lower-alpha 3] In the Malleus, exorcism is, for example, one of the five ways to overcome the attacks of incubi.[32] Prayer and transubstantiation are excluded from the category of magical rites, as they emanate from God.[33]

In 1484 clergyman Heinrich Kramer made one of the first attempts at prosecuting alleged witches in the Tyrol region. It was not a success: he was expelled from the city of Innsbruck and dismissed by the local bishop as "senile and crazy".[25] According to Diarmaid MacCulloch, writing the book was Kramer's act of self-justification and revenge.[34] Ankarloo and Clark claim that Kramer's purpose in writing the book was to explain his own views on witchcraft, systematically refute arguments claiming that witchcraft did not exist, discredit those who expressed skepticism about its reality, claim that those who practised witchcraft were more often women than men, and to convince magistrates to use Kramer's recommended procedures for finding and convicting witches.[35]

Some scholars have suggested that following the failed efforts in Tyrol, Kramer requested explicit authority from the Pope to prosecute witchcraft. Kramer received a papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus in 1484. It gave full papal approval for the Inquisition to prosecute what was deemed to be witchcraft in general and also gave individual authorizations to Kramer and Dominican Friar Jacob Sprenger specifically.[36] Other scholars have disputed the idea that Sprenger was working with Kramer, arguing that the evidence shows that Sprenger was actually a persistent opponent of Kramer, even going so far as to ban him from Dominican convents within Sprenger's jurisdiction while also banning him from preaching. In the words of Wolfgang Behringer:

Sprenger had tried to suppress Kramer's activities in every possible way. He forbade the convents of his province to host him, he forbade Kramer to preach, and even tried to interfere directly in the affairs of Kramer's Séléstat convent... The same day Sprenger became successor to Jacob Strubach as provincial superior (October 19, 1487), he obtained permission from his general, Joaquino Turriani, to lash out adversus m[agistrum] Henricum Institoris inquisitorem (English: against Master Heinrich Kramer, inquisitor).[37]

The preface also includes an alleged unanimous approbation from the University of Cologne's Faculty of Theology. Nevertheless, many historians have argued that it is well established by sources outside the Malleus that the university's theology faculty condemned the book for unethical procedures and for contradicting Catholic theology on a number of important points: "just for good measure Institoris forged a document granting their apparently unanimous approbation." [38]

The book became the handbook for secular courts throughout Renaissance Europe, but was not used by the Inquisition, which "denied any authority to the Malleus" in the words of historian Wolfgang Behringer.[39]

In modern times, the book has often been viewed as a typical inquisitorial manual, a perception that many historians have refuted. According to historian Jenny Gibbons:

in the 1970s, when feminist and Neo-Pagan authors turned their attention to the witch trials, the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches) was the only manual readily available in translation. Authors naively assumed that the book painted an accurate picture of how the Inquisition tried witches. Heinrich Kramer, the text's demented author, was held up as a typical inquisitor. His rather stunning sexual preoccupations were presented as the Church's "official" position on witchcraft. Actually the Inquisition immediately rejected the legal procedures Kramer recommended and censured the inquisitor himself just a few years after the Malleus was published. Secular courts, not inquisitorial ones, resorted to the Malleus.[40]

Before 1400 it was rare for anyone to be persecuted for witchcraft, but the increasingly common persecution of heresy and failure to fully defeat these heretics paved the way for later criminal prosecution of witchcraft.[41] By the 15th century belief in witches was widely accepted in European society. Previously, those convicted of witchcraft typically suffered penalties no more harsh than public penances such as a day in the stocks,[34] but their persecution became more brutal following the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum, as witchcraft became widely accepted as a real and dangerous phenomenon.[42] The most severe persecutions took place between the years 1560 and 1630, largely ending in Europe around 1780.[43]

Particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries an intense debate on the nature of witches preoccupied demonologists across Europe and they published many printed sermons, books and tracts. The Catholic Church played an important role in shaping of debate on demonology, but the discourse was not much affected by the Reformation. Martin Luther was also convinced about the reality and evil of witches, and facilitated development of Protestant demonology.[44]

Catholic and Protestant demonologies were similar in their basic beliefs about witches [45] and most writers agreed on the severity of the crime of witchcraft.[46][lower-alpha 4] It was accepted by both Catholic and Protestant legislatures[47] and witch-hunting was undeniably sponsored by both Protestant and Catholic governments.[48][lower-alpha 5][lower-alpha 6] Witches became heretics to Christianity and witchcraft became the greatest of crimes and sins.[51] Within continental and Roman Law witchcraft was the crimen exceptum, a crime so foul that all normal legal procedures were superseded.[52]

During the Age of Enlightenment, belief in the powers of witches to harm began to die out in the West. For the post-Enlightenment Christians, the disbelief was based on a belief in rationalism and empiricism.[53]

Summary of contents

The Malleus Maleficarum consists of the following parts:[54]

  1. Justification (introduction, Latin Apologia auctoris)
  2. Papal bull
  3. Approbation by professors of theology at University of Cologne
  4. Table of contents
  5. Main text in three sections[54]

Justification (Apologia auctoris)
Lucifer (Le génie du mal) by Guillaume Geefs (Cathedral of St. Paul, Liège, Belgium)

In this part it is briefly explained that prevalence of sorcery which is a method of Satan's final assault motivated authors to write the Malleus Maleficarum:[55]

[...] [ Lucifer ] attacks through these heresies at that time in particular, when the evening of the world declines towards its setting and the evil of men swells up, since he knows in great anger, as John bears witness in the Book of Apocalypse [12:12], that he has little time remaining. Hence, he has also caused a certain unusual heretical perversity to grow up in the land of the Lord – a Heresy, I say, of Sorceresses, since it is to be designated by the particular gender over which he is known to have power. [...] In the midst of these evils, we Inquisitors, Jacobus Sprenger together with the very dear associate [Institoris] delegated by the Apostolic See for the extermination of so destructive a heresy [...] we will bring everything to the desired conclusion. [...] naming the treatise the "Hammer for Sorceresses," we are undertaking the task of compiling the work for an associate [presumably, an ecclesiastic] [...][56]

Papal bull

Copies of the Malleus Maleficarum contain a reproduction of a papal bull known as Summis desiderantes affectibus that is addressed to Heinrich Institoris and Jakob Sprenger.[55] According to it, Pope Innocent VIII acknowledges that sorceresses are real and harmful through their involvement in the acts of Satan.[57]

According to the date on the document, the papal bull had been issued in 1484, two years before the Malleus Maleficarum was finished. Therefore, it is not an endorsement of a specific final text of the Malleus. Instead, its inclusion implicitly legitimizes the handbook by providing general confirmation of the reality of witchcraft and full authority to Sprenger and Institoris in their preachings and proceedings:[58][59]

And they shall also have full and entire liberty to propound and preach to the faithful Word of God, as often as it shall seem to them fitting and proper, in each and all of the parosh churches in the said provinces, and to do all things necessary and suitable under the aforesaid circumstances, and likewise freely and fully to carry them out.

— Summis desiderantes affectibus[60]

Approbation

This part of the Malleus is titled "The Approbation of The Following Treatise and The Signatures Thereunto of The Doctors of The Illustrious University of Cologne Follows in The Form of A Public Document"[61] and contains unanimous approval of the Malleus Maleficarum by all the Doctors of the Theological Faculty of the University of Cologne[62] signed by them personally.[63] The proceedings are attested by notary public Arnold Kolich of Euskirchen, a sworn cleric of Cologne with inclusion of confirmatory testimony by present witnesses Johannes Vorda of Mecheln a sworn beadle, Nicholas Cuper de Venrath the sworn notary of Curia of Cologne and Christian Wintzen of Euskirchen a cleric of the Diocese of Cologne.[64]

Text of approbation mentions that during proceedings Institoris had a letter from Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor which is summarized in the approbation: "[... Maximilian I] takes these Inquisitors under his complete protection, ordering and commanding each and every subject of the Roman Empire to render all favor and assistance to these Inquisitors and otherwise to act in the manner that is more fully contained and included in the letter."[65]

The approbation consists of a preamble and is followed by a resolution in two parts.[66]

Preamble

It begins with a general statement about circumstances:

IN THE NAME OF Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Let all those who will read, see or hear the present public document know that in the year since the Birth of Our Lord 1487, in the fifth indiction, on Saturday, the nineteenth day of May, at five in the afternoon or thereabouts, in the third year of the Pontificate of Our Lord, the Most Holy Father in Christ, Lord Innocent VIII, by Divine Providence Pope, in the presence of my notary public and of the witnesses written below who had been specifically summoned and asked for this purpose, the venerable and religious Brother Henricus Institoris, Professor of Holy Theology and member of the Order of Preachers, who was appointed as Inquisitor into Heretical Depravity by the Holy See along with his colleague, the venerable and religious Brother Jacobus Sprenger, also a Professor of Holy Theology and Prior of the Convent of Preachers in Cologne[...][67]

Then, signatories complain that "Some curates of souls and preachers of the Word of God feel no shame at claiming and affirming in their sermons to the congregation that sorceresses do not exist"[68] and notice that the intention of the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum is not primarily to alleviate this ignorance but rather "toil to exterminate the sorceresses by explaining the appropriate methods of sentencing and punishing them in accordance with the text of the aforementioned Bull and the regulations of the Holy Canons, thereby achieving their extermination";[68] finally, signatories explain why they are providing their expertise:

It is consonant with reason that those things that are done on behalf of the common good should also be confirmed through the common approval of the Doctors, and therefore, lest the aforementioned poorly educated curates and preachers think, in their ignorance of Holy Scripture, that the aforesaid treatise, which was composed in the manner mentioned above, is poorly supported by the determinations and pronouncements of the Doctors, they offered it for examination and comparison against Scripture to the illustrious University of Cologne or rather to certain Professors of Holy Theology, in order that if any things were found to be worthy of censure or incompatible with the Catholic Truth, they should be refuted by the judgment of those Professors, and that those things found to be compatible with the Catholic Truth should be approved. This was in fact done in the ways written below.[69]

Resolution

There are two signings, sometimes also referenced as two approbations. The difference is that four signatories of the first part testify that they have examined the treatises and endorse its text while in the second signing signatories do not assert that they have read the treatises but nonetheless express approval by explicitly restating some general propositions of the treatises and endorsing them instead.[70]

In the first part, the opinion of a "temporary Dean of the Faculty of Holy Theology at Cologne" namely Lambertus de Monte of 's-Heerenberg[lower-alpha 7] is expressed and then professors Jacobus Straelen of Noetlinck, Andreas Schermer of Ochsenfurt and Thomas Lyel of Scotland testify that they agree with his opinion.[71] The following is an excerpt from the opinion:

[I proclaim] that this three part treatise, which has been examined by me and carefully compared against Scripture with regard to its first two parts, contains nothing, in my humble judgment at least, that is contrary to the pronouncements of the non-erroneous philosophers, or against the Truth of the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith, or against the determinations of the Doctors approved or admitted by the Holy Church, and that the third part should certainly be upheld and approved in regard to the punishments of those heretics whom it treats, in that it does not contradict Holy Canons, and also because of the personal experiences described in this treatise, which are believed to be true because of the reputation of such great men, particularly since they are inquisitors. It should be ensured that this treatise will become known to learned and zealous men, who will then, on the basis of it, provide various healthy and appropriate advice for the extermination of sorceresses [...][72]

The second part is signed by those from the first signing and in addition by professors Ulrich Kridweiss of Esslingen, Konrad Vorn of Kampen, Cornelius Pays of Breda and Dietrich of Balveren (Bummel).[73] Signatories attest that:

1) The Masters of Holy Theology written below commend the Inquisitors into Heretical Depravity appointed by the authority of the Apostolic See in conformity with the Canons, and urge that they think it right to carry out their office zealously.
2) The proposition that acts of sorcery can happen with God's permission through sorcerers or sorceresses when the Devil works with them is not contrary to the Catholic Faith, but consonant with the statements of Holy Scripture. Indeed, according to the pronouncements of the Holy Doctors it is necessary to admit that such acts can sometimes happen.
3) It is therefore erroneous to preach that acts of sorcery cannot happen, because in this way preachers impede, to the extent that they can, the pious work of the inquisitors, to the prejudice of the salvation of souls. Nonetheless, secrets that are heard at any time by inquisitors should not be revealed to everyone.
4) All princes and Catholics should be urged to think it right to assist such pious vows on the part of the Inquisitors in defense of the Holy Catholic Faith.[74]

Main text
Title page of an edition dated 1669

The Malleus Maleficarum asserts that three elements are necessary for witchcraft: the evil intentions of the witch, the help of the Devil, and the permission of God.[75] The treatise is divided into three sections. The first section is aimed at clergy and tries to refute critics who deny the reality of witchcraft, thereby hindering its prosecution.

The second section describes the actual forms of witchcraft and its remedies. The third section is to assist judges confronting and combating witchcraft, and to aid the inquisitors by removing the burden from them. Each of the three sections has the prevailing themes of what is witchcraft and who is a witch.

Section I

Section I examines the concept of witchcraft theoretically, from the point of view of natural philosophy and theology.[76] Specifically it addresses the question of whether witchcraft is a real phenomenon or imaginary, perhaps "deluding phantasms of the devil, or simply the fantasies of overwrought human minds".[77] The conclusion drawn is that witchcraft must be real because the Devil is real. Witches entered into a pact with Satan to allow them the power to perform harmful magical acts, thus establishing an essential link between witches and the Devil.[77]

Section II

Matters of practice and actual cases are discussed, and the powers of witches and their recruitment strategies.[78] It states that it is mostly witches, as opposed to the Devil, who do the recruiting, by making something go wrong in the life of a respectable matron that makes her consult the knowledge of a witch, or by introducing young maidens to tempting young devils.[78] It details how witches cast spells, and remedies that can be taken to prevent witchcraft, or help those who have been affected by it.[79]

Section III

Section III is the legal part of the Malleus Maleficarum that describes how to prosecute a witch. The arguments are clearly laid for the lay magistrates prosecuting witches. The section offers a step-by-step guide to the conduct of a witch trial, from the method of initiating the process and assembling accusations, to the interrogation (including torture) of witnesses, and the formal charging of the accused.[80] Women who did not cry during their trial were automatically believed to be witches.[81]

Theological foundations and major themes
See also: Thomas Aquinas, Formicarius, Directorium Inquisitorum, Book of Exodus, and Canon Episcopi

Jakob Sprenger was an appointed inquisitor for the Rhineland, theology professor and a dean at the University of Cologne in Germany.[82] [83] Heinrich Kraemer (Institoris) was an appointed inquisitor of south Germany, a professor of theology at the University of Salzburg, the leading demonologist and witch-hunter in late medieval Germany.[82][84] Pope Innocent VIII in Papal Bull Summis desiderantes affectibus refers to them both as "beloved sons" and "professors of theology";[85] also authorizes them to extirpate witchcraft.[86]

The Malleus Maleficarum was intended to implement Exodus 22:18: "You shall not permit a sorceress to live."[87] and explicitly argues that Canon Episcopi does not apply to the new, formerly unknown heresy of "modern witchcraft".[88]

Kramer and Sprenger were the first to raise harmful sorcery to the criminal status of heresy. [...] If harmful sorcery is a crime on the order of heresy, Kramer and Sprenger argue, then the secular judges who prosecute it must do so with the same vigor as would the Inquisition in prosecuting a heretic. The Malleus urges them to adopt torture, leading questions, the admission of denunciation as valid evidence, and other Inquisitorial practices to achieve swift results. Moreover, the authors insist that the death penalty for convicted witches is the only sure remedy against witchcraft. They maintain that the lesser penalty of banishment prescribed by Canon Episcopi for those convicted of harmful sorcery does not apply to the new breed of witches, whose unprecedented evil justifies capital punishment.[88]

The treatise often makes references to the Bible and Aristotelian thought, and it is heavily influenced by the philosophical tenets of Neoplatonism.[89] The first section of the book's main text is written using the scholastic methodology of Thomas Aquinas characterized by a mode of disputed questions most notably used in his Summa Theologica. It was a standard mode of argumentation in scholastic discourse with a long tradition.[90][91] Most of the citations in the Malleus come from multiple works of Aquinas, a highly influential author in theology. Aquinas is a main source for Section I but is cited in all sections; Formicarius by Johannes Nider is the important source for Section II, and Directorium Inquisitorum by Spanish inquisitor Nicholas Eymeric is a crucial source for Section III.[92]

The ancient subjects of astronomy, philosophy, and medicine were being reintroduced to the West at this time, as well as a plethora of ancient texts being rediscovered and studied. The Malleus also mentions astrology and astronomy, which had recently been reintroduced to the West through the ancient works of Pythagoras.[93] The Malleus is also heavily influenced by the subjects of divination, astrology, and healing rituals the Church inherited from antiquity.[94]

Importantly, Kramer and Sprenger were convinced that God would never permit an innocent person to be convicted of witchcraft.[95][96]

Torture and confessions
See also: Strappado (torture), Rack (torture), and Category:Medieval instruments of torture
Burning of three alleged witches in Baden, Switzerland (1585), by Johann Jakob Wick.

The Malleus recommended not only torture but also deception in order to obtain confessions: "And when the implements of torture have been prepared, the judge, both in person and through other good men zealous in the faith, tries to persuade the prisoner to confess the truth freely; but, if he will not confess, he bid attendants make the prisoner fast to the strappado or some other implement of torture. The attendants obey forthwith, yet with feigned agitation. Then, at the prayer of some of those present, the prisoner is loosed again and is taken aside and once more persuaded to confess, being led to believe that he will in that case not be put to death." [97]

All confessions acquired with the use of torture had to be confirmed: "And note that, if he confesses under the torture, he must afterward be conducted to another place, that he may confirm it and certify that it was not due alone to the force of the torture." [97]

However if there was no confirmation, torture could not be repeated, but it was allowed to continue at a specified day: "But, if the prisoner will not confess the truth satisfactorily, other sorts of tortures must be placed before him, with the statement that unless he will confess the truth, he must endure these also. But, if not even thus he can be brought into terror and to the truth, then the next day or the next but one is to be set for a continuation of the tortures – not a repetition, for it must not be repeated unless new evidences produced. The judge must then address to the prisoners the following sentence: We, the judge, etc., do assign to you, such and such a day for the continuation of the tortures, that from your own mouth the truth may be heard, and that the whole may be recorded by the notary."[97]

Victims

The treatise describes how women and men become inclined to practice witchcraft. The text argues that women are more susceptible to demonic temptations through the manifold weaknesses of their gender. It was believed that they were weaker in faith and more carnal than men.[98] Michael Bailey claims that most of the women accused as witches had strong personalities and were known to defy convention by overstepping the lines of proper female decorum.[99] After the publication of the Malleus, it seems as though about three quarters of those individuals prosecuted as witches were women.[100]

The execution of alleged witches in Central Europe, 1587

Witches were usually female. The reasons for this is the suggestion that women are "prone to believing and because the demon basically seeks to corrupt the faith, he assails them in particular."[101] They also have a "temperament towards flux" and "loose tongues".[101] They "are defective in all the powers of both soul and body"[101] and are stated to be more lustful than men.

The major reason is that at the foundation of sorcery is denial of faith and "woman, therefore, is evil as a result of nature because she doubts more quickly in the faith."[102] Men could be witches, but were considered rarer, and the reasons were also different. The most common form of male witch mentioned in the book is the sorcerer-archer. The book is rather unclear, but the impetus behind male witches seems to come more from desire for power than from disbelief or lust, as it claims is the case for female witches.

Indeed, the very title of the Malleus Maleficarum is feminine, alluding to the idea that it was women who were the villains. Otherwise, it would be the Malleus Maleficorum (the masculine form of the Latin noun maleficus or malefica, 'witch'). In Latin, the feminine maleficarum would only be used for women, while the masculine maleficorum could be used for men alone or for both sexes if together.[103] The Malleus Maleficarum accuses male and female witches of infanticide, cannibalism and casting evil spells to harm their enemies as well as having the power to steal a man's penis. It goes on to give accounts of witches committing these crimes.

Arguments favoring discrimination against women are explicit in the handbook. Those arguments are not novel but constitute a selection from the long tradition of Western misogynist writings. However, according to Brauner, they are combined to produce new meanings and result in a comprehensive theory. It mixes elements borrowed from Formicarius (1435), Preceptorium divinae legis (1475) and Lectiones super ecclesiastes (1380).[104]

Kramer and Sprenger develop a powerful gender-specific theory of witchcraft based on a hierarchical and dualistic view of the world. Everything exists in pairs of opposites: God and Satan, Mary and Eve, and men (or virgins) and women. Each positive principle in a pair is delineated by its negative pole. Perfection is defined not as the integration or preservation of opposites, but rather as the extermination of the negative element in a polar pair. Because women are the negative counterpart to men, they corrupt male perfection through witchcraft and must be destroyed.[104]

Although authors give many examples of male witchery in the second part of the handbook, those witchcraft trials that are independently confirmed and that were led by Kramer himself are related to persecution of women almost exclusively. They took place in Ravensburg near Constance (1484) and Innsbruck (since 1485).[105][106] According to Brauner, trial records confirm that Kramer believed that women are by nature corrupt and evil. His position was in harmony with the scholastic theory at the time.[107]

In contrast, Sprenger never conducted a witch trial[108] though he was consulted in a few cases.[109] Kramer and Sprenger use a metaphor of a world turned upside down by women of which concubines are the most wicked, followed by midwives and then by wives who dominate their husbands. Authors warn of imminent arrival of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible and that men risk bewitchment that leads to impotence and sensation of castration.[110] Brauner explains authors' prescription on how a woman can avoid becoming a witch:

According to the Malleus, the only way a woman can avoid succumbing to her passions – and becoming a witch – is to embrace a life of devout chastity in a religious retreat. But the monastic life is reserved to the spiritually gifted few. Therefore, most women are doomed to become witches, who cannot be redeemed; and the only recourse open to the authorities is to ferret out and exterminate all witches.[111]

Elaborated concept of witchcraft
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, c. 1797, 21.5 cm × 15 cm.

Strixology in the Malleus Maleficarum is characterized by a very specific conception of what a witch is, one that differs dramatically from earlier times. The word used, malefica, carries an explicit condemnation absent in other words referring to women with supernatural powers. The conception of witches and of magic by extension is one of evil. It differs from earlier conceptions of witchcraft that were much more generalized.[112]

This is the point in history where "witchcraft constituted an independent antireligion". The witch lost her powerful position vis-a-vis the deities; the ability to force the deities comply with her wishes was replaced by a total subordination to the devil. In short, "[t]he witch became Satan's puppet."[113] This conception of witches was "part of a conception of magic that is termed by scholars as 'Satanism' or 'diabolism'". In this conception, a witch was a member of "a malevolent society presided over by Satan himself and dedicated to the infliction of malevolent acts of sorcery (maleficia) on others."[114]

According to Mackay, this concept of sorcery is characterized by the conviction that those guilty engage in six activities:[114]

  1. A pact entered into with the Devil (and concomitant apostasy from Christianity),
  2. Sexual relations with the Devil,
  3. Aerial flight for the purpose of attending;
  4. An assembly presided over by Satan himself (at which initiates entered into the pact, and incest and promiscuous sex were engaged in by the attendees),
  5. The practice of maleficent magic,
  6. The slaughter of babies.[114]

Demonology
See also: Demon § Christianity, Christian demonology, Exorcism in Christianity, Exorcism in the Catholic Church, Demonic possession § Christianity, and Sexuality in Christian demonology
The female demon Lilith under the appearance of a snake cavorting with herself as personified within the Garden of Eden, by John Collier, 1892

In the Malleus demons are the ones who tempt humans to sorcery and are the main figures in the witches' vows. They interact with witches, usually sexually. The book claims that it is normal for all witches "to perform filthy carnal acts with demons."[115] This is a major part of human-demon interaction and demons do it "not for the sake of pleasure, but for the sake of corrupting."[116]

It is worth noting that not all demons do such things. The book claims that "the nobility of their nature causes certain demons to balk at committing certain actions and filthy deeds."[117] Though the work never gives a list of names or types of demons, like some demonological texts or spellbooks of the era, such as the Liber Juratus, it does indicate different types of demons. For example, it devotes large sections to incubi and succubi and questions regarding their roles in pregnancies, the submission of witches to incubi, and protections against them.

Controversies

Approbation and authorship

Joseph Hansen, a historian who was appalled by the witch-craze and those who carried it out, proposed that coauthorship by Sprenger was a falsehood presented by Institoris (Kramer) and that approbation is partially a forgery.[118] This had never been proposed before until Joseph Hansen in the 19th century.[118]

Christopher Mackay, author of the modern academic translation of the Malleus into English offers rebuttals to arguments of proponents of this theory[119][118] and in an interview gives an accessible summary:

The argument was made in the nineteenth century by a scholar hostile to what the Malleus stood for that the approbation was a forgery by Institoris and that Sprenger had nothing to do with the composition. The evidence for this is in my view very tenuous (and the main argument is clearly invalid). Nonetheless, once the argument was put forward, it took on a life of its own, and people continue to advance arguments in favor of the idea that Sprenger's involvement was a falsification perpetrated by Institoris, despite the fact that this argument was vitiated from the start.[120]

In addition, Mackay points out that allegations raised in support of this theory that supposedly two of the signatories had not in fact signed the approbation are unsubstantiated.[118]

A similar response is offered by the author of the first translation of the Malleus into English Montague Summers. In his introduction, he ignores completely the theory that joint authorship or approbation could be a mystification. Nonetheless, he mentions briefly that it was questioned whether Kramer or Sprenger contributed more to the work. He comments that "in the case of such a close collaboration any such inquiry seems singularly superfluous and nugatory".[lower-alpha 8]

Broedel, a historian who writes that it is likely that Sprenger's contribution was minimal, nonetheless says that "Sprenger certainly wrote the Apologia auctoris which prefaces the Malleus and agreed to be a coauthor.[121]

Encyclopædia Britannica and The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca ignore completely Hansen's theory and list Sprenger and Kramer as co-authors.[122][123]

Wolfgang Behringer argues that Sprenger's name was only added as an author beginning in 1519, thirty-three years after the book was first published and decades after Sprenger's own death.[25] One of Sprenger's friends who was still alive denounced the addition of Sprenger's name as a forgery, stating that Sprenger had nothing to do with the book.[26] Many historians have also pointed out that Sprenger's actual views in his confirmed writings are often the opposite of the views in the Malleus, and Sprenger was unlikely to have been a colleague of Kramer since Sprenger in fact banned Kramer from preaching and entering Dominican convents within his jurisdiction, and spoke out against him on many occasions.[124]

The alleged approval from the theologians at Cologne, which Kramer included in the Malleus with a list of names of theologians who he claimed approved the book, has also been questioned by many historians, since in 1490 the clergy at Cologne condemned the book and at least two of the clergy listed by Kramer, Thomas de Scotia and Johann von Wörde, publicly denied having approved the Malleus.[125][126]

Jacob Sprenger's name was added as an author beginning in 1519, 33 years after the book's first publication and 24 years after Sprenger's death.[25]

Jenny Gibbons, a Neo-Pagan and a historian, writes: "Actually the Inquisition immediately rejected the legal procedures Kramer recommended and censured the inquisitor himself just a few years after the Malleus was published. Secular courts, not inquisitorial ones, resorted to the Malleus".[40]

The preface also includes an allegedly unanimous approbation from the University of Cologne's Faculty of Theology. Nevertheless, many historians have argued that it is well established by sources outside the Malleus that the university's theology faculty condemned the book for unethical procedures and for contradicting Catholic theology on a number of important points : "just for good measure Institoris forged a document granting their apparently unanimous approbation."[38]

Authors' whereabouts and circumstances

Preceding publication

In 1484 Heinrich Kramer had made one of the first attempts at prosecuting alleged witches in the Tyrol region. It was not a success and he was asked to leave the city of Innsbruck. According to Diarmaid MacCulloch, writing the book was Kramer's act of self-justification and revenge. Ankarloo and Clark claim that Kramer's purpose in writing the book was to explain his own views on witchcraft, systematically refute arguments claiming that witchcraft does not exist, discredit those who expressed skepticism about its reality, claim that those who practiced witchcraft were more often women than men, and to convince magistrates to use Kramer's recommended procedures for finding and convicting witches.[35]

Kramer wrote the Malleus following his expulsion from Innsbruck by the local bishop, due to charges of illegal behavior against Kramer himself, and because of Kramer's obsession with the sexual habits of one of the accused, Helena Scheuberin, which led the other tribunal members to suspend the trial.[127]

Kramer received a papal bull, Summis desiderantes affectibus, in 1484. It directed Bishop of Strasburg (then Albert of Palatinate-Mosbach) to accept the authority of Heinrich Kramer as an Inquisitor, although the motivation of the papal bull was likely political.[128] The Malleus Maleficarum was finished in 1486 and the papal bull was included as part of its preface, implying papal approval for the work.[129]

Post-publication

Kramer was intensely writing and preaching until his death in Bohemia in 1505.[130] He was asked by Nuremberg council to provide expert consultation on the procedure of witch trial in 1491.[131] His prestige was not fading. In 1495 he was summoned by the Master General of the Order, Joaquin de Torres, O.P. to Venice and gave very popular public lectures and disputations. They were worthy of presence and patronage of Patriarch of Venice.[130]

He also wrote treatises Several Discourses and Various Sermons upon the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist (Nuremberg, 1496); A Tract Confuting the Errors of Master Antonio degli Roselli (Venice, 1499); followed by The Shield of Defence of the Holy Roman Church Against the Picards and Waldenses which were quoted by many authors. He was appointed as papal nuncio and his assignment as inquisitor was changed to Bohemia and Moravia by Pope Alexander VI in 1500.[130]

Sprenger continued his work as Inquisitor Extraordinary for the Provinces of Mainz, Trèves and Cologne. Later, he was elected Provincial Superior of the whole German Province (in 1488). He had enormous responsibilities. He received a letter from Pope Alexander VI praising his enthusiasm and energy in 1495.[132]

Summers observes that 17th century "Dominican chroniclers, such as Quétif and Échard, number Kramer and Sprenger among the glories and heroes of their Order".[23]

Popularity and influence

Gender-specific theory developed in the Malleus Maleficarum laid the foundations for widespread consensus in early modern Germany on the evil nature of witches as women.[133] Later works on witchcraft have not agreed entirely with the Malleus but none of them challenged the view that women were more inclined to be witches than men.[134] It was accepted so that very few authors saw the need to explain why witches are women. Those who did, attributed female witchery to the weakness of body and mind (the old medieval explanation) and a few to female sexuality.[134]

Some authors argue that the book's publication was not as influential as earlier authors believed.[135][136][137] According to MacCulloch, the Malleus Maleficarum was one of several key factors contributing to the witch craze, along with popular superstition, and tensions created by the Reformation.[34] However, according to Encyclopædia Britannica:

The Malleus went through 28 editions between 1486 and 1600 and was accepted by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike as an authoritative source of information concerning Satanism and as a guide to Christian defense [against acts of Satan].

— Encyclopædia Britannica

Factors stimulating widespread use

Between 1487 and 1520, twenty editions of the Malleus Maleficarum were published, and another sixteen between 1574 and 1669.[138] The Malleus Maleficarum was able to spread throughout Europe rapidly in the late 15th and at the beginning of the 16th century due to the innovation of the printing press in the middle of the 15th century by Johannes Gutenberg. The invention of printing some thirty years before the first publication of the Malleus Maleficarum instigated the fervor of witch hunting, and, in the words of Russell, "the swift propagation of the witch hysteria by the press was the first evidence that Gutenberg had not liberated man from original sin."[139]

The late 15th century was also a period of religious turmoil. The Malleus Maleficarum and the witch craze that ensued took advantage of the increasing intolerance of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Europe, where the Protestant and Catholic camps respectively, pitted against one another, each zealously strove to maintain what they each deemed to be the purity of faith. The Catholic Counter-Reformation would eventually even out this religious turmoil, but until then both the Catholics and Protestants constantly battled for what they believed was right.[140]

Translations

The Latin book was firstly translated by J. W. R. Schmidt into German in 1906; an expanded edition of three volumes was published in 1923. Montague Summers was responsible for the first English translation in 1928.

YearTarget languageDescription
2009EnglishThe Hammer of Witches: A Complete Translation of the Malleus Maleficarum, trans. by Christopher S. Mackay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
2007EnglishThe Malleus Maleficarum, ed. and trans. by P.G. Maxwell-Stuart (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007) (partial translation, this work excludes or summarizes crucial sections[6])
2006EnglishHenricus Institoris and Jacobus Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum, ed. and trans. by Christopher S. Mackay, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) (edition in vol. 1 and translation in vol. 2)
2000GermanDer Hexenhammer: Malleus Maleficarum, trans. by Günter Jerouschek, Wolfgang Behringer, Werner Tschacher
1928[lower-alpha 9]EnglishMalleus Maleficarum - The Witch Hammer, J. Sprenger, H. Kramer, trans. by Montague Summers
1923[lower-alpha 10]GermanDer Hexenhammer von Jakob Sprenger und Heinrich Institoris, trans. by Johann Wilhelm Richard Schmidt (available online 1923 edition)

See also

General

People

References

Notes
  1. Alternative translations: The Witch Hammer,[4] Hammer for Sorceresses,[5] Hammer Against Witches, Hammer For Witches
  2. Amongst the authors on witchcraft it had an ultimate authority[22] and even 17th century "Dominican chroniclers, such as Quétif and Échard, number Kramer and Sprenger among the glories and heroes of their Order".[23] The Malleus was ubiquitous, but at the end of the 16th century its role as a theoretical authority was superseded by Demonolatry by witch-hunter Nicholas Rémy and Magical Investigations by Jesuit Martin del Rio.[24]
  3. not a sacrament, but sacramental
  4. According to Summers, the Malleus "lay on the bench of every judge, on the desk of every magistrate".[47]
  5. Additional note: "Such thinking was also mirrored in the groundbreaking work of the German scholars Wilhelm Gottfried Soldan (1803-1869) and Joseph Hansen (1862-1943) both of whom blamed witchhunts on the overweening power of the Roman Catholic Church and saw the demise of witch trials as a natural corollary of the progress of reason and science."[49]
  6. Additional note: "But although Catholics have been fed comforting errors by overeager apologists about the Church's part in persecuting witches, we must face our own tragic past. Fellow Catholics, to whom we are forever bound in the communion of saints, did sin grievously against people accused of witchcraft. If our historical memory can be truly purified, then the smoke from the Burning Times can finally disperse."[50]
  7. Broedel 2003, p. 93: He was one of the advocates of Aristotelian thought and opponents of via moderna, he was "one of Sprenger's most distinguished colleagues at Cologne, and the man whose name appears first on the faculty endorsement of the Malleus, [he] even went so far as to lead an abortive drive to obtain beatification for Aristotle."
  8. According to Summers, "It has been asked whether Kramer or Sprenger was principally responsible for the Malleus, but in the case of so close a collaboration any such inquiry seems singularly superfluous and nugatory."[47]
  9. second version; first was published in 1928
  10. expanded edition; first was published in 1906

Citations
  1. The Latin title is "MALLEUS MALEFICARUM, Maleficas, & earum hæresim, ut phramea potentissima conterens." (generally translated into English as The Hammer of Witches which destroys Witches and their heresy as with a two-edged sword).The English translation is from this note Archived 2013-10-06 at the Wayback Machine to Summers' 1928 introduction Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine.
  2. Translator Montague Summers consistently uses "the Malleus Maleficarum" (or simply "the Malleus") in his 1928 and 1948 introductions. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-07-18. Retrieved 2016-02-05.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-06-07. Retrieved 2007-06-01.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. In his translation of the Malleus Maleficarum, Christopher S. Mackay explains the terminology at length – sorcerer is used to preserve the relationship of the Latin terminology. '"Malefium" = act of sorcery (literally an act of 'evil-doing'), while "malefica" = female performers of sorcery (evil deeds) and "maleficus" = male performer of evil deeds; sorcery, sorceress, and sorcerer."
  4. Guiley (2008), p. 223'.
  5. Mackay (2009).
  6. Mackay (2009), p. 1.
  7. Summers (2012), p. vii, Introduction to 1948 edition: "It is hardly disputed that in the whole vast literature of witchcraft, the most prominent, the most important, the most authoritative volume is the Malleus Maleficarum" (The Witch Hammer) of Heinrich Kramer (Henricus Institioris) and James Sprenger."
  8. https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0004/bsb00043229/images/index.html?seite=00001&l=en
  9. Ruickbie (2004), 71, highlights the problems of dating; Ankarloo (2002), 239
  10. Broedel (2003), p. 175: "Institoris and Sprenger's innovation was not their insistence that women were naturally prone to practice maleficium – in this they were simply following long-standing clerical traditions. Rather, it was their claim that harmful magic belonged exclusively to women that was new. If this assertion was granted, then the presence of maleficium indicated decisively the presence of a female witch. In the Malleus, the field of masculine magic is dramatically limited and male magicians are pointedly marginalized; magic is no longer seen as a range of practices, some of which might be more characteristic of men, some of women, and some equally prevalent among both sexes. Instead, it was the effects of magic that mattered most, and harmful magic, the magic most characteristic of witches, belonged to women. Men might be learned magicians, anomalous archer wizards, or witch-doctors and superstitiosi, but very seldom did they work the broad range of maleficium typical of witches."
  11. Pavlac (2009), p. 57: "Many historians also blame Krämer for encouraging witch hunters to target women more than men as witches. Even his spelling of "maleficarum," with an a in a feminine gender instead of the usual masculine-gender "maleficorum" with an o, seems to emphasize his hostility toward women. Krämer's misogynistic arguments list many reasons why women were more likely to be witches than men. They were less clever, vainer, and more sexually insatiable. While these were not new criticisms against women, Krämer helped to entrench them in strixological literature."
  12. Guiley (2008), p. 223: "Kramer in particular exhibited a virulent hatred toward women witches and advocated their extermination. The Malleus devotes an entire chapter to the sinful weakness of women, their lascivious nature, moral and intellectual inferiority and gullibility to guidance from deceiving spirits. In Kramer's view, women witches were out to harm all of Christendom.
    Scholars have debated the reasons for Kramer's misogyny; he may have had a fear of the power of women mystics of his day, such as Catherine of Siena, who enjoyed the attentions of royalty as well as the church."
  13. Burns (2003), p. 160`: "One element distinguishing Malleus Maleficarum from other demonologies is its obsessive hatred of women and sex, which seems to reflect Kramer's own twisted psyche.
    [...] Kramer's interpretation of why women were more likely to be witches also differed somewhat from the standard. Kramer did accept the standard argument of misogynist demonologists that the female propensity for witchcraft was in part due to female weakness. He even derived the Latin word for woman, femina, from fe minus — 'less in faith.' He placed more emphasis on supposedly insatiable female sexuality than on female weakness, however. Kramer saw sex as the root of all sin, as that for which Adam and Eve originally fell. [...] He also suspected that the reluctance of many great ones in the land to prosecute witches was caused by their reception of demonic sexual favors. Kramer also discussed witch-caused impotence at length, going so far as to claim that witches had the ability to steal men's penises through illusion."
  14. Brauner (2001), pp. 35-36: "Kramer and Sprenger present an array of observations from the Bible, the church fathers, and the poets and philosophers of antiquity to support their contention that women are by nature greedy, unintelligent, and governed by passions. They argue that the evil of women stems from their physical and mental imperfections, a notion derived from Aristotle's theory that matter, perfection, and spirituality are purely expressed in the male body alone, and that women are misbegotten males produced by defective sperm. Women speak the language of idiots, Aristotle contends; like slaves, they are incapable of governing themselves or developing into the 'zoon politicon'. Thomas Aquinas adapted these views to Christianity, arguing that because woman is less perfect than man, she is but an indirect image of God and an appendix to man. Citing such views, Kramer and Sprenger find that women are 'intellectually like children,' credulous and impressionable, and therefore easily fall prey to the devil. 'Since [women] are feebler both in mind and body,' the Malleus concludes, 'it is not surprising that they should come more [than men] under the spell of witchcraft.
    Lack of intelligence prevents women not only from distinguishing good from evil, but from remembering the rules of behavior. Amoral and undisciplined, women are governed primarily by passion. 'And indeed,' Kramer and Sprenger declare, 'just as thorough the first defect in their intelligence women are more prone to abjure the faith; so through their second defect of inordinate affections and passions they search for, brood over, and inflict various vengeances, either by witchcraft, or by some other means.' [...] 'Wherefore it is no wonder that so great a number of witches exist in this sex,' concludes the Malleus."
  15. Britannica: "By 1435–50, the number of prosecutions had begun to rise sharply, and toward the end of the 15th century, two events stimulated the hunts: Pope Innocent VIII's publication in 1484 of the bull Summis desiderantes affectibus ("Desiring with the Greatest Ardour") condemning witchcraft as Satanism, the worst of all possible heresies, and the publication in 1486 of Heinrich Krämer and Jacob Sprenger's Malleus maleficarum ("The Hammer of Witches"), a learned but cruelly misogynist book blaming witchcraft chiefly on women. Widely influential, it was reprinted numerous times."
  16. Levack (2006), p. 145: "Explanations for the predominance of women as witches often focus on the treatises written by demonologists, many of which comment on the fact that most witches were women. This literature is in most cases intensely misogynistic, in the sense that it is demeaning, if not blatantly hostile, to women. The common theme in these demonological treatises is that women were more susceptible to demonic temptation because they were morally weaker than men and more likely, therefore, to succumb to diabolical temptation. This idea, which dates from the earliest days of Christianity, is expressed most forcefully in the Malleus Maleficarum, but it can be found in many places, even in the sceptical demonological treatise of Johann Weyer."
  17. Børresen, Kari Elisabeth; Valerio, Adriana (2015-11-20). The high middle ages. Børresen, Kari Elisabeth, 1932-, Valerio, Adriana, 1952-. Atlanta. p. 106. ISBN 9780884140511. OCLC 933762735.
  18. Jolly, Raudvere, & Peters(eds.), "Witchcraft and magic in Europe, Volume 3: the Middle Ages", page 241 (2002)
  19. Brauner (2001), pp. 33-34.
  20. Broedel (2003), p. 33: "Ultimately, however, the bewitched cannot hope for an infallible remedy, for the power of witches is too strong. There is only one completely reliable way to combat witchcraft, and this is to eliminate the witches, the course of action Institoris and Sprenger endorse in one of the most impassioned passages of the Malleus [...]"
  21. Mackay (2009), p. 28: "but it was understood by everyone that the heretic was to be executed (normally by being burned alive) in accordance with secular laws against heresy"
  22. Summers (2012), p. xxxviii, Introduction to 1928 edition: "There can be no doubt that this work had in its day and for a full couple of centuries an enormous influence. There are few demonologists and writers upon witchcraft who do not refer to its pages as an ultimate authority."
  23. Summers (2012), p. ix, Introduction to 1948 edition: "The Dominican chroniclers, such as Quétif and Échard, number Kramer and Sprenger among the glories and heroes of their Order"
  24. Burns (2003), p. 160: "In the Catholic world, the works of Nicholas Remy and Martin del Rio replaced the Malleus as a theoretical authority in the late sixteenth century. Its ubiquity, however, must have made it an important contributor to the ideas that many educated people held of witches and the proper way to deal with them.
  25. Behringer, Wolfgang. Malleus Maleficarum, p. 2.
  26. Klose, Hans-Christian. Die angebliche Mitarbeit des Dominikaners Jakob Sprenger am Hexenhammer, nach einem alten Abdinghofer Brief. pp. 197–205 in Paderbornensis Ecclesia. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Erzbistums Paderborn. Festschrift für Lorenz Kardinal Jäger zum 80. Geburtstag. Edited by Paul-Werner Scheele.
  27. Behringer, Wolfgang. Malleus Maleficarum, pp. 2-3.
  28. Burns, William. Witch Hunts in Europe and America: An Encyclopedia, pp. 143-144.
  29. Pavlac (2009), p. 29.
  30. Pavlac (2009), p. 31': "Both compurgation and ordeal were believed to take place under the beneficent care of God, who would ensure that the guilty would be punished and the innocent freed. Such trials accepted a degree of the miraculous. Quite common until the 12th century, they went into decline after improved legal procedures reestablished themselves in western Europe at that time. The cold water ordeal, however, would rise again during the witch hunts."
  31. Mohr, M. D., & Royal, K. D. (2012). "Investigating the Practice of Christian Exorcism and the Methods Used to Cast out Demons", Journal of Christian Ministry, 4, p. 35. Available at: http://journalofchristianministry.org/article/view/10287/7073.
  32. Kramer, Heinrich and Sprenger, James (1486), Summers, Montague (translator – 1928), The Malleus Maleficarum, Part 2, Chapter 1, The Remedies prescribed by the Holy Church against Incubus and Succubus Devils, at sacred-texts.com
  33. Mackay (2009), p. 30: "First, we have to be specific about the concept that is understood by the terms "witchcraft" and "magic." For present purposes, we will take it to mean the manipulation of the physical world through the use of special words and procedures. It could easily be argued that the practices of the medieval Church would fall under this definition, but since most contemporaries would have excluded such practices from the category, we will also ignore these here, and consider as "magical" only such practices as would not have been considered legitimate rites of the Church."
  34. MacCulloch, Diarmaid (2004). Reformation: Europe's House Divided. Vintage Books, 2006. pp. 563–68. ISBN 0-14-028534-2.
  35. Ankarloo & Clark (2002), p. 240.
  36. Russell, 229
  37. Behringer, Wolfgang. Malleus Maleficarum pp 2–3.
  38. Jolly, Karen et al., Witchcraft and Magic In Europe, p. 115 (2002)
  39. Behringer, Wolfgang. Malleus Maleficarum, p. 7.
  40. Gibbons, Jenny. "Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt", in Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, issue number 5, August 1998; pp 2 - 16"
  41. Pavlac (2009), p. 31.
  42. Trevor-Roper (1969), pp. 102–105.
  43. Levack (2013), p. 74.
  44. Levack (2013), pp. 75-76.
  45. Levack (2013), p. 79: "As noted, Catholic demonologists did not differ much from their Protestant counterparts in their basic beliefs concerning witches."
  46. Levack (2013), p. 77.
  47. Summers (2012), p. viii, Introduction to 1948 edition.
  48. Ankarloo & Clark (2002b), p. 10: "It is undeniable that both Protestant and Catholic governments sponsored witch-hunting. Sometimes, as in the Saarland, Catholic overlords (the Duke of Lorraine and the Archbishop of Trier) were more likely to sponsor witch-hunts than Protestant sovereigns (in this case, the Lutheran Count of Nassau and the Calvinist Count of Zweibrucken). But in other regions, for example French-speaking western Switzerland, Protestant rulers were more severe than Catholic overlords in prosecuting witches (Monter 1976)."
  49. Levack 2013, p. 550.
  50. Catholic Education Resource Center: Who Burned The Witches?
  51. Thomas (1971), pp. 542–543.
  52. Robbins (1959), p. 498.
  53. Hayes (1995), pp. 339-354.
  54. Mackay (2009), p. 12.
  55. Mackay (2009), p. 8.
  56. Mackay (2009), p. 69: excerpts from translation
  57. Mackay (2009), p. 8': "the general harm that sorceresses are inflicting in Germany is first described at some length, and the connection of these activities with Satan is emphasized."
  58. Mackay (2009), p. 10.
  59. Halsall (1996), Innocent VIII: BULL Summis desiderantes, Dec. 5th, 1484.
  60. Halsall (1996), Innocent VIII: BULL Summis desiderantes, Dec. 5, 1484.
  61. Mackay (2009), p. 74.
  62. Summers (2012), p. xxxvii, Introduction to 1928 edition: "The Malleus Maleficarum when submitted by the authors to the University of Cologne was officially approved by all the Doctors of the Theological Faculty on 9 May 1487."
  63. Mackay (2009), pp. 76–79: phrases like "with his own hands" are used
  64. Mackay (2009), p. 80.
  65. Mackay (2009), p. 79.
  66. Mackay (2009), pp. 74–79.
  67. Mackay (2009), pp. 74–75.
  68. Mackay (2009), p. 75.
  69. Mackay (2009), pp. 75–76.
  70. Mackay (2009), pp. 74–80.
  71. Mackay (2009), p. 77.
  72. Mackay (2009), p. 76.
  73. Mackay (2009), p. 78.
  74. Mackay (2009), pp. 77–78.
  75. Russell, 232
  76. Broedel (2003), p. 20.
  77. Broedel (2003), p. 22.
  78. Broedel, 30
  79. Mackay (2006), p. 214.
  80. Broedel (2003), p. 34.
  81. Mackay (2006), p. 502.
  82. Britannica: "The Malleus was the work of two Dominicans: Johann Sprenger, dean of the University of Cologne in Germany, and Heinrich (Institoris) Kraemer, professor of theology at the University of Salzburg, Austria"
  83. Burns (2003), p. 158': "Sprenger, a theology professor at Cologne, had already been appointed inquisitor for the Rhineland in 1470."
  84. Burns (2003), p. 158: "The fifteenth-century German Dominican inquisitor Heinrich Kramer, was a leading demonologist and witch-hunter in late medieval Germany."
  85. Halsall (1996), Innocent VIII: BULL Summis Desiderantes, Dec. 5th, 1484 (2): "And, although our beloved sons Henricus Institoris and Jacobus Sprenger, of the order of Friars Preachers, professors of theology, have been and still are deputed by our apostolic letters as inquisitors of heretical pravity, the former in the aforesaid parts of upper Germany, including the provinces, cities, territories, dioceses, and other places as above, and the latter throughout certain parts of the course of the Rhine;"
  86. Britannica: "In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII issued the bull Summis Desiderantes, in which he deplored the spread of witchcraft in Germany and authorized Sprenger and Kraemer to extirpate it."
  87. Britannica: "The Malleus codified the folklore and beliefs of the Alpine peasants and was dedicated to the implementation of Exodus 22:18: "You shall not permit a sorceress to live.""
  88. Brauner (2001), pp. 33–34.
  89. Kieckhefer (2000), p. 145.
  90. Broedel (2003), p. 28: for information that only the first part is written using scholastic methodology of disputed questions
  91. Mackay (2009), pp. 17–18.
  92. Mackay (2009), pp. 16–17.
  93. Kieckhefer (2000), p. 146.
  94. Ankarloo & Clark (2002), p. 77.
  95. Guiley (2008), p. 224: "Kramer and Sprenger piously maintained that God would never permit an innocent person to be convicted of witchcraft"
  96. Burns (2003), p. 159: "Kramer and Sprenger endorsed deception and torture to win confessions from accused witches, pointing out that God would never allow an innocent person to be convicted."
  97. Halsall (1996), Extracts from THE HAMMER OF WITCHES [Malleus maleficarum], 1486.
  98. Bailey (2003), p. 49.
  99. Bailey (2003), p. 51.
  100. Russell, 145
  101. Mackay (2009), p. 164.
  102. Mackay (2009), p. 166.
  103. Maxwell-Stewart (2001), p. 30.
  104. Brauner (2001), p. 38.
  105. Brauner (2001), p. 45.
  106. Burns (2003), p. 143: "there were only 2 men among 50 accused" (Innsbruck)
  107. Brauner (2001), p. 47.
  108. Brauner (2001), p. 44.
  109. Mackay (2009), p. 3.
  110. Brauner (2001), pp. 42–43.
  111. Brauner (2001), p. 41.
  112. Ben Yehuda, Nachman (October 1992). "Witchcraft and the Occult as Boundary Maintenance Devices". In Neusner, Jacob; Frerichs, Ernest S.; McCracken Flesher, Paul Virgil (eds.). Religion, Science, and Magic: In Concert and in Conflict. Oxford University Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-19-507911-1. Retrieved 2019-02-08.
  113. Ben Yehuda, Nachman (October 1992). "Witchcraft and the Occult as Boundary Maintenance Devices". In Neusner, Jacob; Frerichs, Ernest S.; McCracken Flesher, Paul Virgil (eds.). Religion, Science, and Magic: In Concert and in Conflict. Oxford University Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-19-507911-1. Retrieved 2019-02-08.
  114. Mackay (2009), p. 19.
  115. Mackay (2009), p. 125.
  116. Mackay (2009), p. 283.
  117. Mackay (2009), p. 309.
  118. Mackay (2009), p. 5.
  119. Mackay (2006), p. 128.
  120. Interview with Christopher Mackay by John W. Morehead, 2008
  121. Broedel (2003), p. 18.
  122. Britannica
  123. Guiley (2008), pp. 223–224.
  124. Behringer, Wolfgang. Malleus Maleficarum, p. 3.
  125. Jolly, Raudvere, & Peters(eds.), Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Middle Ages, page 241 (2002)
  126. Behringer, Wolfgang. Malleus Maleficarum p. 3.
  127. Burns, William. Witch Hunts in Europe and America: An Encyclopedia, pp. 143–144.
  128. Darst, 1979, p. 298.
  129. Russell, pp. 229–231
  130. Summers (2012), pp. viii–ix, Introduction to 1948 edition.
  131. Burns (2003), p. 160'.
  132. Summers (2012), p. ix', Introduction to 1948 edition.
  133. Brauner (2001), p. 49.
  134. Brauner (2001), p. 48.
  135. "The effect that the book had on witch-hunting is difficult to determine. It did not open the door 'to almost indiscriminate prosecutions' or even bring about an immediate increase in the number of trials. In fact its publication in Italy was followed by a noticeable reduction in witchcraft cases", Levack, The Witch-Hunt In Early Modern Europe, p. 55 (2nd edition 1995)
  136. Jolly, Peters & Raudvere (2001), p. 241: "Nor was the Malleus immediately regarded as a definitive work. Its appearance triggered no prosecutions in areas where there had been none earlier, and in some cases its claims encountered substantial scepticism (for Italy, Paton 1992: 264–306). In 1538 the Spanish Inquisition cautioned its members not to believe everything the Malleus said, even when it presented apparently firm evidence. Long before then, however, the Malleus was the subject of considerable debate among both clerics and lay thinkers (Caro Baroja 1990: 19–43). Indeed, the chief function of the work was to serve as a centerpiece in demonological theory whose arguments might be expanded and added to by such works as that of Grillandus, as well as a focus for arguments and debates concerning particular points it made, some of the latter reflecting traditional rivalry between religious orders and ecclesiastical schools of theology. For example, an attack on some of the central arguments of the Malleus was made by the Francisan Samuel de Cassini in 1505 and answered in favour of the Malleus by the Dominican Vincente Dodo in 1507 (Max 1990: 55–62; Lea 1957: 366–8; Hansen 1901: 262–84; Bibliotheca Lamiarum 1994: 114–15; Clark 1997: 486–7, 538). A similar criticism by Gianfrancesco Ponzinibio of Florence in 1520 was countered by the support of the Malleus position by the Dominican Bartolommeo de Spina in 1523 (Caro Boja 1990: 32; Max 1993: 55–62; Lea 1957: 385–95; Hansen 1901: 326–7; Bibliotheca Lamiarum 1994: 120–2). The cautionary advice of the Spanish Inquisition in 1538 was merely another instance of the kinds of interests, and objections, that Malleus raised."
  137. "In its own day it was never accorded the unquestioned authority that modern scholars have sometimes given it. Theologians and jurists respected it as one among many informative books; its particular savage misogyny and its obsession with impotence were never fully accepted", Monter, The Sociology of Jura Witchcraft, in The Witchcraft Reader, p. 116 (2002)
  138. Russell, 79
  139. Russell, 234
  140. Henningsen (1980), p. 15.

Secondary sources
  • Broedel, Hans Peter (2003). The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft: Theology and Popular Belief. Manchester University Press. ISBN 9780719064418.
  • Halsall, Paul, ed. (1996). "Witchcraft Documents [15th Century]". Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies.
  • Mackay, Christopher S. (2006). Malleus Maleficarum (2 volumes) (in Latin and English). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-85977-8.
  • Mackay, Christopher S. (2009). The Hammer of Witches: A Complete Translation of the Malleus Maleficarum (1 volume). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-53982-4.
  • Summers, Montague (2012). The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger. Courier Corporation. CITEREFHalsall1996 }}

Tertiary sources
  • Ankarloo, Bengt; Clark, Stuart, eds. (2002). Witchcraft and Magic in Europe Volume 4. The Period of the Witch Trials. The Athlone Press London. ISBN 0-485-89104-2.
  • Ankarloo, Bengt; Clark, Stuart, eds. (2002). Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Volume 3: The Middle Ages. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1786-1.
  • Bailey, Michael D. (2003). Battling Demons: Witchcraft, Heresy, and Reform in the Late Middle Ages. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-02226-4.
  • Brauner, Sigrid (2001). Fearless Wives and Frightened Shrews: The Construction of the Witch in Early Modern Germany. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1-5584-9297-6.
  • Burns, William (2003). Witch Hunts in Europe and America: An Encyclopedia. Greenwood. ISBN 0-3133-2142-6.
  • "Malleus maleficarum". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  • "Witchcraft". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  • Guiley, Rosemary (2008). The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca. Checkmark Books.
  • Hayes, Stephen (1995). "Christian responses to witchcraft and sorcery". Missionalia. 23 (3).
  • Henningsen, Gustav (1980). The Witches' Advocate: Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition. University of Nevada Press.
  • Kieckhefer, Richard (2000). Magic in the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press.
  • Levack, Brian P. (2013). The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America. Oxford University Press.
  • Levack, Brian P. (2006). The Witch-hunt in Early Modern Europe. Pearson Education Limited. ISBN 0-5824-1901-8.
  • Maxwell-Stewart, P. G. (2001). Witchcraft in Europe and the New World. Palgrave.
  • Pavlac, Brian (2009). Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9780313348747.
  • Robbins, Rossell Hope (1959). The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. Peter Nevill.
  • Thomas, Keith (1971). Religion and the Decline of Magic – Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-013744-6.
  • Trevor-Roper, H. R. (1969). The European Witch-Craze: of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries and Other Essays. Harper Collins. ISBN 0-06-131416-1.
  • Jolly, Karen; Peters, Edward; Raudvere, Catharina (2001). Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Volume 3: The Middle Ages (History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe). Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 0-4858-9103-4.

Further reading
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