Malleus Maleficarum, or, The Hammer of Witches

Belief in magic and witchcraft was common in Europe during the early Middle Ages. However, despite rumors to the contrary, neither the public nor the Church was (originally) hysterical about it. Witchcraft was occasionally punished, however it was generally seen as more of a petty crime, charlatans selling snake oil, rather than women eating children.

That changed when Heinrich Kramer (c. 1430 – 1505) came upon the scene. Kramer was a German Inquisitor whose enthusiasm for the job was excessive even by the standards of the time. He was so bad he was kicked off a trial where he was attempting to prove a woman had killed a man through witchcraft. As Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder, host of the podcast Books in the Wild, says:

But even the other members of the tribunal can’t help but notice Kramer’s alarming obsession with Ms. Scheuberin’s sexual history and appalling disgust and disdain for women in general. His behavior is so unsettling, that the local bishop of Innsbruck subsequently dismisses Kramer from his position, and all seven women including Scheuberin are released with minor or no punishment. Let me repeat this point in case you aren’t yet convinced of how unsettling this guy must have been: Heinrich Kramer was fired. by the Catholic church. for how he treated women. in medieval Europe in 1484.^1

Indeed, the Inquisition doesn’t have a reputation for kindliness. One imagines it would take a great deal to fire an Inquisitor for mistreating a woman, especially a woman who was thought to be promiscuous. Kramer was not a sweet and gentle man.

Kramer didn’t take it lying down. He went running to Pope Innocent VIII to explain just how prevalent and dangerous witchcraft actually was. The pope believed him and issued a papal bull (decree) which essentially said Kramer could do his work where he pleased because witches were so dangerous they must be rooted out wherever found.

Summis desiderantes  (1484)
by Pope Innocent VIII

It has recently come to our ears, … that in some parts of upper Germany, … many persons of both sexes, heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the catholic faith, give themselves over to devils male and female, and by their incantations, charms, and conjurings, and by other abominable superstitions … ruin and cause to perish …[ed note: here follows a long list of evils done by witches, ending with:]…and hinder men from begetting and women from conceiving, and prevent all consummation of marriage; that, moreover, they deny with sacrilegious lips the faith they received in holy baptism;…

[It] shall be permitted to the said inquisitors in these regions to exercise their office of inquisition and to proceed to the correction, imprisonment, and punishment of the aforesaid persons…^2

In the bull Pope Innocent explicitly empowers the Inquisition to prosecute witches (and sorcerers.) The sorcerers go into parentheses because for Kramer that’s where they belonged. Despite the clear message from the pope that men could also do evil, Kramer’s focus was on women.

Kramer was so intent on his mission that even the backing of the pope wasn’t enough to get other Inquisitors to welcome him. His reputation remained (one bishop flatly called him crazy) and so he retired to write his opus Malleus Maleficarum, in English the Hammer of Witches. 

In Malleus Maleficarum Kramer laid out a clear path for finding and dealing with witchcraft. It is an incredible document listing the evils of women and when and how to torture them into confessions. It was so bad many in the Catholic Church denounced it. Yes, this is still the Inquisition we are talking about here. However, others ate it up. It went through numerous editions and was the best selling book after the Bible for many years.

I should add that Jacob Sprenger is listed as co-author of the Malleus, however, current research suggests his name was added to give the book some respectability. He wasn’t listed until the 1519 edition, 33 years after it was first published (and 24 years after Sprenger’s death.)

According to Kramer, while men could be witches, most witches were women. As he informs the reader:

[A] greater number of witches is found in the fragile feminine sex than among men. … And without in any way detracting from a sex in which God has always taken great glory… various men have assigned various reasons for this fact….Ecclesiasticus xxv: All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman. … Seneca says in his Tragedies: … When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil…. [ed note: it goes on in this vein for some time to the conclusion] But the natural reason is that she is more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal abominations.^3

It was sex that Kramer focused on and described in pornographic detail in Malleus (an explanation for its popularity?) I simply have to quote the marvelous Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder again:

The Malleus Maleficarum consists of 3 parts: one – what witches are and what they do, 2 – how to identify them, and: 3 – how to witch trial, aka properly punish and eradicate them. Kramer purports that there are many types of witches but what they all have in common is that they practice the carnal copulation with the devil, and are responsible for all sorts of evil deeds…. In fact, there are no less than 3 full paragraphs on demons and witches stealing semen, probably more, but I only made it through three. This includes a part about demons gathering spilled semen from the dirt to give to witches for their rituals, so be mindful of where you misplace your semen men….which is just….i have so many questions…

Kramer also includes an uncomfortably long section in the book about all the many ways that witches make men’s penises disappear. Sometimes the penis is gone completely, sometimes it just appears to be gone but isn’t really, and sometimes the man is just bewitched into thinking that his penis is gone, sometimes the penis goes away in the middle of the night and comes back the next day. … Because you know, witches.^4

By the late 1700’s over 80,000 people, 80% of them women, had been killed in the witch hysteria that flooded Europe – this at a time when the entire population of Europe was less than 80 million. That’s a lot of death, not to mention all those who were given lesser punishments (such as Johannes Kepler’s 68 year old mother who was chained to the floor for 14 months.) Not a good time to be an independent minded woman, or unpopular man.

To be fair it wasn’t Kramer alone who started the hysteria over witchcraft. It was an unsettled time in Europe and the population was looking for scapegoats. In fact, in those countries where burning witches wasn’t popular Jews and Muslims often took their place over the flames instead, even if not accused of witchcraft.

I’d also like to point out that while the Middle Ages have a reputation for being hard on witches, the worst of the killing occurred in roughly 100 years from the mid 1500’s to 1600’s. The Salem witch trials occurred between 1692 and 1693. This is not an ancient phenomena, but rather one which ushers in the modern era.

References:

^1 https://www.booksinthewild.com/show-notes-and-reading-list/2017/10/29/episode-9-a-guide-to-witch-hunting-the-malleus-maleficarum-transcript [12/29/19]

^2 from George Lincoln Burr’s “The witch-persecutions” (Translations and reprints from the original sources of European history; v. 3, no. 4, 1907: bibrec). https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Summis_desiderantes [12/21/19]

^ 3 Malleus Maleficarum Part 1, Question V

^4 https://www.booksinthewild.com/show-notes-and-reading-list/2017/10/29/episode-9-a-guide-to-witch-hunting-the-malleus-maleficarum-transcript [12/29/19]

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thanks for reading,

Kate
Feb 2020