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.

Pope Innocent VIII and Prince Cem

When Cem, brother of Sultan Bayezid II, came to be incarcerated in Rome as the "guest" of Pope Innocent VIII, he had a very comfortable life. Bayezid wanted to keep his rival claimant far away from Constantinople and Ottoman lands, and was willing to pay to do so.

Innocent wanted a Crusade against the Ottomans, but he needed military support from Christian rulers. The death of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary—who had seized Ottoman-held territories in Bosnia—in 1490 created a delay in the plans.

To hold off Innocent, Beyazid promised not to attack Rome or Venice or Rhodes and to pay 40,000 ducats to the pope annually to keep Cem under guard. 10,000 of the ducats were to go to the Knights of St. John in Rhodes, who initially took Cem into custody when he asked for their help against Bayezid. Bayezid also gave Innocent 120,000 crowns—a sum greater than all papal revenues combined—and the Holy Lance. 

Innocent's attempt to convert Cem to Christianity was unsuccessful, and despite the comfort of his lifestyle in Rome, Cem wished fervently to die in Muslim lands. When Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494 to conquer Naples (at Innocent's urging, although Innocent had died two years before), he stopped in Rome and made Pope Alexander VI surrender Cem. Perhaps Charles wanted to start receiving payments from the Sultan. He took Cem with him on campaign, but Cem died on 24 February 1495.

Sultan Bayezid (no doubt relieved that there was no longer a rival claimant and that he no longer had to pay a fee to keep Cem imprisoned) declared a three-day period of national mourning. He requested Cem's body for a proper Islamic funeral, but Charles kept it, hoping to ransom it for more gold. It took four years for Cem's body to reach Ottoman lands and be buried in Bursa. (The illustration shows his tomb alongside siblings.)

We are not done with Pope Innocent, however, and tomorrow we'll see the statement he made about a different campaign...against witchcraft.

Cem's Offer

When Bayezid II became sultan of the Ottoman Empire in 1481, he had a rival: his half-brother Cem (22 December 1459 - 25 February 1495). Cem was the third son of Sultan Mehmed II, who conquered Constantinople and then died without choosing a successor. Cem and Bayezid each ruled provinces, and each believed himself ready and able to become the next sultan.

The Grand Vizier tried to arrange things so that Cem could arrive at his father's funeral before Bayezid and claim the throne at Constantinople. Bayezid, however, already had several important pashas and the Janissaries in his corner. The Janissaries entered the palace, lynched the Grand Vizier, and Bayezid was urged to reach Constantinople as soon as possible.

Cem fled west with an army loyal to him, declaring himself Sultan of Anatolia and proposing that the empire be split; Bayezid could have the western half. Bayezid disagreed, and sent his army after Cem. A battle ensued in which Cem's side lost, and Cem fled to Cairo.

While in Cairo, he received a letter from Bayezid, offering him 1,000,000 akçes (a silver coin that was the standard unit of Ottoman currency) to give up his claim. Instead, Cem tried to conquer the city of Konya in Turkey, but failed. He then fled to Rhodes and asked for the protection of the Knights of St. John, also known as the Hospitallers.

Cem's offer to them was to create a perpetual peace between the Ottoman Empire and Christianity if they would help him overthrow Bayezid. The grand master of the Knights, Pierre d'Aubusson, knew a war with Bayezid could be disastrous, so when he had a message from Bayezid making a counter-offer, he accepted it. 

The counter-offer was simple: Bayezid would make an annual payment in gold to the Knights if they would take and keep Cem captive. He was sent to France under the saintly King Louis IX (who did not like having a Muslim in his lands), and kept for a year in the Duchy of Savoy, and then five years at Pierre d'Aubusson's birthplace, Limousin. (The illustration shows the tower built specially to hold him in comfort.) After Charles VIII came to the throne, Bayezid asks that Cem be transferred back to Rhodes. His value as a hostage meant several leaders wanted to "host" him, but ultimately Pope Innocent VIII won out.

In March 1489, Cem was transported to Rome and the custody of Pope Innocent VIII. Whenever word came that Bayezid was about to launch an offensive against Christians, Innocent would send a message to Bayezid, threatening to release Cem from captivity and giving the Ottomans an alternative sultan around whom they could form an insurrection.

Bayezid ultimately sent Innocent 120,000 crowns, a relic of the Holy Lance (stored in Constantinople), and an annual fee of 45,000 ducats for Cem's "room and board." Bayezid sent spies to ensure that Cem was kept under lock and key, and even tried to assassinate him.

...and then Innocent wanted a Crusade against the Ottomans. I'll continue that story—and Cem's end—tomorrow.

Pope Innocent VIII

Giovanni Battista Cibo was born in Genoa on 5 November 1432. His father was a prominent politician in Naples and then Rome, and Giovanni grew up exposed to Naples politics. He became a Canon of the Cathedral in Capua, and was given the Priory of Santa Maria d'Arba in Genoa. He resigned these positions at the urging of the Archbishop of Genoa after antagonizing King Alfonso. He went to Padua and then Rome to study.

There he came under the influence of several popes. Pope Paul II made him Bishop of Savona, but in 1473 he became a cardinal by Pope Sixtus IV, after being supported by the man who became Pope Julius II. When Sixtus IV died (1484), the conclave to elect his successor was chaotic because of two opposing factions. One faction disliked the other so much that they gave their votes to Giovanni Cibo to prevent Cardinal Marco Barbo (a cousin of Paul II) from the papacy. Giovanni Cibo won the next vote and became Pope Innocent VIII.

One of the new pope's first acts was to call a Crusade against the Turks—the Ottoman Empire was expanding rapidly, and had conquered Constantinople a generation earlier. This did not get off the ground due to King Ferdinand I of Naples, mostly due to his own orneriness that led to the 1485 Conspiracy of the Barons, a revolt against Ferdinand's attempt to strengthen his own power at the expense of the feudal hierarchy. Innocent excommunicated Ferdinand in 1489 and asked King of France Charles VIII to come to Italy and take over Naples.

Charles was intrigued, because his paternal grandmother was Marie of Anjou, the eldest daughter of Louis II of Anjou who had been a claimant to the throne of Naples (and ruled part of it from 1390 to 1399). In September 1494 (Innocent had died two years earlier!) Charles invaded with 25,000 men, using gunpowder artillery to march practically unopposed through Pavia, Pisa, Florence, and then Naples. (That, however, is an entirely different story that we might never get to; back to Innocent now.)

Innocent could not get his Crusade against the Turks off the ground, but another opportunity to do something about them came because of Bayezid II, who had become sultan of the Ottomans in 1481. Bayezid was opposed by his brother, Cem, who first tried to get help from the Mamluks of Egypt, and then from the Knights of St. John in Rhodes. Cem made an offer to the Christian world that was very tempting; I'll explain tomorrow.

Guillaume Caoursin

Yesterday's post on Mesih Pasha mentions the Siege of Rhodes in 1480, when a small garrison of Knights Hospitallers at Rhodes withstood an attack by the Ottomans. The garrison was led by Grand Master Pierre d'Aubusson. The vice-chancellor of the order was Guillaume Caoursin, who wrote (among other things) an account of the event.

Caoursin was born in 1430 in Douai in northern France, and joined the Order of Saint John (also know as the Hospitallers) as a young man. By 1462 he was vice-chancellor of the Order in Rhodes, and in 1462 he accompanied the Grand Master Piero Raimondo Zacosta to Rome for the holding of a general chapter under the guidance of Pope Paul II.

While in Rome, Zacosta died (he was in his 60s), and Giovanni Battista Orsini succeeded him. Caoursin went back to Rhodes with the new Grand Master, but was sent back to Rome in 1470 to request help from the pope for dealing with the Turks. Orsini died in 1476, and Caoursin now worked under Grand Master Pierre d'Aubusson.

In 1480, Mesih Pasha led an Ottoman force of 160 ships and 70,000 men against Rhodes. While the Turks bombarded the walls, the citizens dug a new moat and new fortification within the city walls near the Jewish quarter in case the bombardment breached the walls.

On 27 July the Janissaries managed to enter the city. d'Aubusson led the fighting, though wounded in five places. A three-hour battle forced the Turks back, and the Knights pursued all the way back to the Ottoman tents, taking booty and the holy standard of Islam. Caoursin reported that between three and four thousand Turks were slain that day. The Ottomans gave up on 17 August.

Caoursin married shortly after 1480. He was rewarded by d'Aubusson with 1000 gold florins for his services to the Order. His "next act" came in 1484, when he became ambassador to Pope Innocent VIII. Innocent was so impressed by Caoursin that he made him his apostolic secretary. Caoursin remained there, writing about his Order and about Rhodes.

Innocent VIII might also have kept Caoursin close because of his knowledge of the Ottomans and the Siege of Rhodes, of which I will have more to say tomorrow.