The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger

Publisher Marketing: Like Hitler's Mein Kampf, Kramer and Sprenger's Malleus Maleficarum is a book that is read for historical importance rather than enjoyment. As such it should form a part of every thinking person's library as a warning beacon, if for no other reason that it is a seminal textbook on the inhumanity of humanity. First written in 1484 (and reprinted endlessly), Malleus Maleficarum was immediately given the imprimatur of the Holy See as the most important work on witchcraft, to date. And so it remains-a compendium of fifteenth century paranoia, all the more frightening for its totalitarian modernity. (Anything that is done for the benefit of the State is Good.) In form, it is a how to guide on recognizing, capturing, torturing, and executing witches. In substance, it is a diatribe against women, heretics, independent thinkers, romantic lovers, the sensitive passions, human sexuality, and compassion. In writing the Malleus, Kramer and Sprenger claimed to be doing God's work These men, and those who followed them worshiped only their own arrogance. Read it and be afraid Forming a portion of every working law library for 300 years, there is no estimate of how many women and men were put to death through the mechanism of this book. Some historians estimate that the numbers may run into the millions. The text is rife with case law examples of witchcraft, some of which are clearly delusional and some downright silly, or would be, if they hadn't ended in gruesome deaths for the accused. Take the case of the poor woman who was burned for offering the opinion that it might rain today shortly before it did. Of note are Kramer and Spenger's assertions that prosecutors are (conveniently) immune to witchcraft, and their instructions to Judges to tell the truth to the witch that there will be mercy shown (with the mental reservation that death is a mercy to those prisoner to the devil). Such twisted logic is the cornerstone of the Malleus. The translator, Rev. Montague Summers, waxes rhapsodic on the learning and wisdom of the authors of the Malleus. He was apparently of a mind with Kramer and Spenger, and wrote two embarrassingly effusive and bigoted introductions (in 1928 and 1946), praising the brillance of this work and its importance in this feministic era. Summers' commentary is as frightening as anything Kramer and Sprenger wrote in the text proper, the more so for being 20th century, and particularly post-World War Two. Like the Papal Bull of VIII which is now considered integral with the Malleus, future commentators will make much of the statements of Summers, a modern man. As a license to kill, the Malleus Maleficarum was used too often and far too freely. Kramer and Sprenger's madness did not die with them-though millions have died because of the madness presented in this book. Contributor Bio:  Summers, Montague Heinrich Kramer ( 1430-1505) also known under the Latinized name Henricus Institoris, was a German churchman and inquisitor. Born in Selestat, Alsace, he joined the Dominican Order at an early age and while still a young man was appointed Prior of the Dominican house of his native town. At some date before 1474 he was appointed Inquisitor for the Tyrol, Salzburg, Bohemia and Moravia. His eloquence in the pulpit and tireless activity received recognition at Rome and he was the right-hand man of the Archbishop of Salzburg. By the time of the Bull Summis desiderantes of Pope Innocent VIII in 1484 he was already associated with Jacob Sprenger to make an inquisition for witches and sorcerers. In 1485 he drew up a treatise on witchcraft which was incorporated in the Malleus Maleficarum (literally "The hammer of malefactresses (wrongdoing women - i.e. witches)"). Kramer failed in his attempt to obtain endorsement for this work from the top theologians of the Inquisition at the Faculty of Cologne, and they condemned the book as recommending unethical and illegal procedures, as well as being inconsistent with Catholic doctrines of demonology. Kramer's claimed endorsement from four of the professors may have been forged. He was denounced by the Inquisition in 1490. In 1495 he was summoned to Venice to give public lectures, which were very popular. In 1500 he was empowered to proceed against the Waldensians and Picards. He died in Bohemia in 1505.