The Malleus Maleficarum

Taken from 'The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology' by Rossell Hope Robbins

Malleus Maleficarum - The Hammer of Witches or Hexenhammer, (first printed in 1486) without question the most important and most sinister work on demonology ever written. It crystallised into a fiercely stringent code previous folklore about black magic with church dogma on heresy, and, if any one work could, opened the floodgates of the inquisatorial hysteria. It sought to make effective the biblical command of Exodus xxii. 18, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." This handbook for witch hunters was republished and republished, in at least thirteen editions up to 1520, and revived in another sixteen between 1574 and 1669 - many early editions lack place and date of publication. There were at least sixteen German editions, eleven French, two Italian, and several English (mainly late, eg: 1584, 1595, 1604, 1615, 1620, 1669). The Malleus Maleficarum was the source, inspiration, and quarry for all subsequent treatises on witchcraft, and still held its pre-eminent position even after Remy (1595 and Del Rio (1599) had become the recognised authorities.

It owed its authority and pride of place over other contemporary works to several features: first, the scholastic reputation of its two authors, both Dominicans, Jakob Sprenger (1436-95), Dean of Cologne University, and Prior Heinrich Kramer [Latinised as Institor] (about 1430-1505); second, the papal bull of 1484 which Kramer obtained from Innocent VIII to silence opposition to the witch hunt; and third, the detailed procedure for witchcraft trials, "in order, then, that the judges, both ecclesiastical and civil, may have a ready knowledge of the methods of trying, judging, and sentencing." Much of its argument was taken from the Formicarius (1435) and the Praeceptorium of the Dominican prior, Johannes Nider.

The Malleus Maleficarum is divided into three parts. Part I discusses the need for administrators thoroughly comprehending the enormity of witchcraft, which generally comprised the renunciation of the Catholic faith, devotion and homage to the Devil, the offering of unbaptised children, and carnal intercourse with incubi or succubi. Disbelief in witchcraft is (pace the Canon Episcopi) heresy. The Bible says there are witches: therefore, "any man who gravely errs in an exposition of Holy Scripture is rightly considered a heretic." The form of abjuration (given later in part III) for those who are strongly suspected of heresy (but against whom there is no legal evidence) includes: " I abjure, renounce, and revoke that heresy, or rather infidelity, which falsely and mendaciously maintains that there are no witches in the world." This law allows that any witness whosoever is to be admitted to give evidence, inasmuch as witchcraft is high treason against God's majesty. Consequently, witnesses not ordinarily admitted are allowed to give evidence on suspicion of witchcraft: excommunicates, criminals, and even convicted perjurers; and furthermore, their names may be kept secret.

Part II treats the three types of maleficia of witches and how these evils may be counteracted. Here Sprenger and Kramer sanction all the fables about the doings of witches: the compact with the Devil, sexual relations with devils, transvection, metamorphosis, ligature, injury to cattle and crops - in fact, the whole range of sorcery.

Part III (probably the work of Kramer, who had much practical experience) gives formal rules for initiating legal action against witches and securing a conviction and passing sentence. The Malleus distinguishes the jurisdiction of inquisatorial, episcopal, and civil courts, and incites the two latter to be active in prosecuting witches. There was a point to this generosity: witches who could not, on some technicality, be prosecuted by the Inquisition as heretics, could be taken care of by the other two courts. Part III concludes with discussing witnesses, their examination, the arrest, imprisonment, questioning, and torture of a witch; and such practical issues as how to break down the taciturnity of a witch - technically a witch could not be condemned without her own confession. It also establishes that the identity of an accuser could be withheld from the prisoner (and defending counsel, if any).

Throughout the whole quarter of a million words, the argument depends on the fantastic sacrifice of logic and common sense to a preconceived theological line. For example, femina [woman] is derived, quite erroneously, from fe [faith] and minus [less]; and diabolus [devil] from dia [two] and bolus [death], which kills body and soul. Even in the first chapter, rational arguments are ignored. Those are heretics who say "the imagination of some men is so vivid that they think they see actual figures and appearances which are but the reflection of their thoughts, and then these are believed to be the apparitions of evil spirits or even spectres of witches." The Malleus, however, rejoins: "But this is contrary to the true faith, which teaches us that certain angels fell from heaven and are now devils, and we are bound to acknowledge that by their very nature they can do many wonderful things which we cannot do." Although Charles Williams calls it "almost of the first order," Lea summarises the intellectual caliber of the book: "The wretched style is fairly uniform throughout and the divagations endless and perplexing, representing a wandering mind, unused to concentration of thought and diverted to following every intrusive idea."

Apologists for the demonologists, as well as independent thinkers, point out that it is illogical and unfair for the twentieth century to judge the sixteenth by modern standards of right and wrong. In this, they are correct; but since a rational, humanist, and scientific approach was being offered as an alternative at that time and was rejected, than a thinking man has the right and duty to condemn the demonologists as obscurantists who set back the orderly development of civilisation several hundred years.

Kramer was first active in the Tyrol, where he aroused great hostility from the local populace. To justify his witch hunt, Kramer had encouraged a dissolute woman to hide in an oven, making believe the devil lodged there. Her voice denounced many people, whom Kramer cruelly tortured. The Bishop of Brixen finally managed to expel Kramer, not before he had been rewarded by the Archduke Sigismund (for whom Ulrich Molitor wrote his book in 1489).

Another side light is thrown on in the integrity of the two inquisitors by what purports to be an official letter of approbation from the Theological Faculty of the University of Cologne in 1487, appended to the Malleus. This letter is purposely misleading, however, for as Hansen shows, only four teachers in the whole university signed it, and their approval was limited to saying that nothing in parts I and II was repugnant to Catholic teaching, and that part III was held true because of the character of the eminent witnesses quoted there. Another four teachers, according to the university beadle, approved a further statement against incautious preachers who denied witchcraft. This statement, however, does not appear in the Cologne editions until 1494, the year of the beadle's death, whereas it was inserted (in an unusual position) in early editions for sale outside Cologne. The inference is that the letter is a forgery to add prestige to the book. Sprenger, at his death on December 6, 1495, was not given a requiem mass by his colleagues on the university faculty; this omission may have been due to his demise away from Cologne, but on the other hand may have been occasioned by his academic dishonesty. The authors of the Malleus Maleficarum would go to any lengths to make sure the witches burned.

What is especially significant is that the Protestants, who otherwise so strongly opposed the Inquisition, accepted the Malleus Maleficarum as their authority and code against witches.