Heinrich and the Hammer of Witches

I've touched on the Malleus Maleficarum ("Hammer of Witches") briefly before. It was written by a Dominican who was frustrated because he wasn't allowed to do everything he wanted as part of the Inquisition.

It was first printed in 1486 in Germany and also known as Hexenhammer. It offers proof that witches exist, explains their powers, and explains how to properly conduct a trial of a witch. It recommends torture to gain confessions.

The Inquisition of the Catholic Church also used torture to extract confessions out of suspected heretics, but officially condemned the Malleus Maleficarum as unethical in 1489. That did not prevent its massive popularity, however. Here is how the book came about.

In 1485, after urging Pope Innocent VIII to make a statement against witches, which led to a papal bull, Heinrich Kramer (c.1430 - 1505) went to Innsbruck to root out witchcraft. Its bishop, Georg Golser, gave him permission to operate in the diocese. He and his personal crusade were well-known, and a woman by the name of Helena Scheuberin, the wife of a prominent burgher, seeing him in the street, spat and said "Fie on you, you bad monk, may the falling evil take you."

Kramer found out that she never attended any of his sermons, and moreover that she was telling others to avoid him, so he accused her of laying a curse and had her arrested. Bishop Golser urged Kraner to drop the investigation, since his accusations of witchcraft had no evidence to support them, but Kramer persisted until Golser demanded that Kramer leave the diocese.

That is when he decided to turn his focus on educating others of the dangers of witches among us, and so wrote his book. He included a forward with Innocent's bull, lending an air of legitimacy to his stance. It was reprinted 13 times up until 1520, and then had a revival between the 1570s and 1660s when it was reprinted 16 times. Its popularity finally started to fade during the Age of Enlightenment, although it is still published as a curiosity today, and paperback copies can be found from several booksellers.

Next time, let's go back to the beginning of the Inquisition, and see how it all started.

Innocent, Kramer, and Witchcraft

On 5 December 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued a papal bull concerning witchcraft. Bulls are known by their opening lines, and so this one is referred to as Summis desiderantes affectibus, "Desiring with supreme ardor," although that opening hardly tells you what the bull addresses.

The rest of the first sentence (or at least most of the very long introduction) makes more sense:

Desiring with supreme ardor, as pastoral solicitude requires, that the catholic faith in our days everywhere grow and flourish as much as possible, and that all heretical depravity be put far from the territories of the faithful,...[source]

The bull was a response to the urging of Heinrich Kramer (c.1430 - 1505), a German Dominican and inquisitor for the county of Tyrol, and for Salzburg, Bohemia, and Moravia. Kramer saw witchcraft as a severe problem, and wanted permission to root it out and punish it everywhere. The local authorities did not support his campaign, so he appealed to Innocent and convinced the pope that this was a crisis that needed addressing. 

The bull continues with a list of the results of witchcraft:

...by their incantations, charms, and conjurings, and by other abominable superstitions and sortileges, offences, crimes, and misdeeds, ruin and cause to perish the offspring of women, the foal of animals, the products of the earth, the grapes of vines, and the fruits of trees, as well as men and women, cattle and flocks and herds and animals of every kind, vineyards also and orchards, meadows, pastures, harvests, grains and other fruits of the earth; that they afflict and torture with dire pains and anguish, both internal and external, these men, women, cattle, flocks, herds, and animals, and hinder men from begetting and women from conceiving, and prevent all consummation of marriage;

Despite the bull, the German authorities limited Kramer's inquisitorial activities. During one trial he brought against the wife of a prominent burgher in Innsbruck, his bishop accused him of not being able to prove any of his accusations, finally demanding that Kramer leave his diocese.

Kramer retired from the Inquisition and turned his attention to warning everyone about witchcraft and related topics. The result was a book that is still in print, the Malleus Maleficarum, or "Hammer of Witches." Let's talk about that next time.