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Malleus Maleficarum
The Malleus Maleficarum, usually translated as the Hammer of Witches, is the best known treatise about witchcraft. It was written by the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer (under his Latinized name Henricus Institor) and first published in the German city of Speyer in 1486. Some characterize it as the compendium of preexisting demonological literature of the 15th century. Kramer presented his text as an official position of the Roman Catholic Church.
The book was condemned by top theologians of the Inquisition at the Faculty of Cologne for recommending illegal procedures, and for being inconsistent with Roman Catholic doctrines of demonology. However, Kramer received praise for his work by Pope Innocent VIII in the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus. Kramer was never removed and even enjoyed considerable prestige thereafter.
The Malleus calls sorcery heresy, which was a crime at the time, and recommends that secular courts prosecute it as such. The Malleus suggests torture to get confessions and death as the only certain way to end the "evils of witchcraft." When it was published, heretics were often sentenced to be burned alive at the stake and the Malleus suggested the same for "witches." Despite, or perhaps because of, being condemned by some members of the church, the Malleus was very popular.
Jacob Sprenger was credited as a coauthor from 1519 onward, although his role in the text and authorial relationship with Kramer is subject to debate.
The book was later revived by royal courts during the Renaissance, and contributed to the increasingly brutal prosecution of witchcraft during the 16th and 17th centuries.
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". However, in the same period supernatural intervention was accepted in European Christian culture in the form of ordeals that were later also used during witch trials.
It is an element of doctrine that demons may be cast out by appropriate sacramental exorcisms. In the Malleus, exorcism is, for example, one of the five ways to overcome the attacks of incubi. Prayer and transubstantiation are traditionally excluded from the category of magical rites.
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". 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 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.
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Malleus Maleficarum
The Malleus Maleficarum, usually translated as the Hammer of Witches, is the best known treatise about witchcraft. It was written by the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer (under his Latinized name Henricus Institor) and first published in the German city of Speyer in 1486. Some characterize it as the compendium of preexisting demonological literature of the 15th century. Kramer presented his text as an official position of the Roman Catholic Church.
The book was condemned by top theologians of the Inquisition at the Faculty of Cologne for recommending illegal procedures, and for being inconsistent with Roman Catholic doctrines of demonology. However, Kramer received praise for his work by Pope Innocent VIII in the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus. Kramer was never removed and even enjoyed considerable prestige thereafter.
The Malleus calls sorcery heresy, which was a crime at the time, and recommends that secular courts prosecute it as such. The Malleus suggests torture to get confessions and death as the only certain way to end the "evils of witchcraft." When it was published, heretics were often sentenced to be burned alive at the stake and the Malleus suggested the same for "witches." Despite, or perhaps because of, being condemned by some members of the church, the Malleus was very popular.
Jacob Sprenger was credited as a coauthor from 1519 onward, although his role in the text and authorial relationship with Kramer is subject to debate.
The book was later revived by royal courts during the Renaissance, and contributed to the increasingly brutal prosecution of witchcraft during the 16th and 17th centuries.
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". However, in the same period supernatural intervention was accepted in European Christian culture in the form of ordeals that were later also used during witch trials.
It is an element of doctrine that demons may be cast out by appropriate sacramental exorcisms. In the Malleus, exorcism is, for example, one of the five ways to overcome the attacks of incubi. Prayer and transubstantiation are traditionally excluded from the category of magical rites.
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". 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 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.