Editing Malleus Maleficarum (section)

== Background ==
{{See also|Witch trials in the early modern period|Summis desiderantes affectibus|Demonology#Christianity|European witchcraft}}

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".{{sfnp|Pavlac|2009|p=29}} 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.{{sfnp|Pavlac|2009|p=31'|ps=: "Both compurgation and ordeal were believed to take place under the beneficent care of God, who would ensure that the guilty would be punished and the innocent freed. Such trials accepted a degree of the miraculous. Quite common until the 12th century, they went into decline after improved legal procedures reestablished themselves in western Europe at that time. The cold water ordeal, however, would rise again during the witch hunts."}}

It is an element of doctrine that demons may be cast out by appropriate sacramental [[Exorcism in Christianity|exorcisms]].<ref>Mohr, M. D., & Royal, K. D. (2012). "Investigating the Practice of Christian Exorcism and the Methods Used to Cast out Demons", Journal of Christian Ministry, 4, p. 35. Available at: http://journalofchristianministry.org/article/view/10287/7073 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190111110535/http://journalofchristianministry.org/article/view/10287/7073 |date=2019-01-11 }}</ref>{{efn|not a sacrament, but sacramental}} In the ''Malleus'', exorcism is, for example, one of the five ways to overcome the attacks of [[incubus|incubi]].<ref>Kramer, Heinrich and Sprenger, James (1486), Summers, Montague (translator&nbsp;– 1928), ''The Malleus Maleficarum'', Part 2, [http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/mm02b01a.htm Chapter 1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170426065656/http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/mm02b01a.htm |date=2017-04-26 }}, ''The Remedies prescribed by the Holy Church against Incubus and Succubus Devils'', at [http://www.sacred-texts.com sacred-texts.com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191020115406/https://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/rph/rph16.htm |date=2019-10-20 }}</ref> [[Prayer]] and [[transubstantiation]] are traditionally excluded from the category of magical rites.{{sfnb|Mackay|2009|p=30|ps=: "First, we have to be specific about the concept that is understood by the terms "witchcraft" and "magic." For present purposes, we will take it to mean the manipulation of the physical world through the use of special words and procedures. It could easily be argued that the practices of the medieval Church would fall under this definition, but since most contemporaries would have excluded such practices from the category, we will also ignore these here, and consider as "magical" only such practices as would not have been considered legitimate rites of the Church."}}

In 1484 clergyman [[Heinrich Kramer]] made one of the [[Die Scheuberin|first attempts at prosecuting alleged witches]] in the [[History of Tyrol|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".<ref name="Behringer, Wolfgang p. 2"/> According to [[Diarmaid MacCulloch]], writing the book was Kramer's act of self-justification and revenge.<ref name="reform">{{Cite book |last=MacCulloch |first=Diarmaid |title=Reformation: Europe's House Divided |publisher=Vintage Books, 2006 |year=2004 |isbn=0-14-028534-2 |pages=563–68}}</ref> 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 [[magistrate]]s to use Kramer's recommended procedures for finding and convicting witches.{{sfnp|Ankarloo|Clark|2002|p=240}}

Some scholars have suggested that following the failed efforts in Tyrol, Kramer requested explicit authority from the Pope to prosecute witchcraft. Kramer received a [[papal bull]] ''[[Summis desiderantes affectibus]]'' in 1484. It gave full papal approval for the [[Inquisition]] to prosecute what was deemed to be witchcraft in general and also gave individual authorizations to Kramer and Dominican Friar Jacob Sprenger specifically.<ref name="Russell, 229">Russell, 229</ref> Other scholars have disputed the idea that Sprenger was working with Kramer, arguing that the evidence shows that Sprenger was actually a persistent opponent of Kramer, even going so far as to ban him from Dominican convents within Sprenger's jurisdiction while also banning him from preaching. In the words of Wolfgang Behringer:

<blockquote>Sprenger had tried to suppress Kramer's activities in every possible way. He forbade the convents of his province to host him, he forbade Kramer to preach, and even tried to interfere directly in the affairs of Kramer's Séléstat convent... The same day Sprenger became successor to Jacob Strubach as provincial superior (October 19, 1487), he obtained permission from his general, Joaquino Turriani, to lash out ''adversus m[agistrum] Henricum Institoris inquisitorem'' (''English'': against Master Heinrich Kramer, inquisitor).<ref>Behringer, Wolfgang. ''Malleus Maleficarum'' pp 2–3.</ref></blockquote>

The preface also includes an alleged unanimous [[wikt:approbation|approbation]] from the [[University of Cologne]]'s Faculty of Theology. Nevertheless, many historians have argued that it is well established by sources outside the ''Malleus'' that the university's theology faculty condemned the book for unethical procedures and for contradicting Catholic theology on a number of important points: "just for good measure Institoris forged a document granting their apparently unanimous approbation."<ref name="Jolly, Karen p. 115">Jolly, Karen et al., ''Witchcraft and Magic In Europe'', p. 115 (2002)</ref>

The book became the handbook for secular courts throughout [[Renaissance]] Europe, but was not used by the Inquisition, which "denied any authority to the ''Malleus''" in the words of historian Wolfgang Behringer.<ref>Behringer, Wolfgang. ''Malleus Maleficarum'', p. 7.</ref>

In modern times, the book has often been viewed as a typical inquisitorial manual, a perception that many historians have refuted.{{Citation needed|date=September 2022}} According to Jenny Gibbons:{{blockquote|in the 1970s, when feminist and Neo-Pagan authors turned their attention to the witch trials, the ''Malleus Maleficarum'' (''Hammer of Witches'') was the only manual readily available in translation. Authors naively assumed that the book painted an accurate picture of how the Inquisition tried witches. Heinrich Kramer, the text's demented author, was held up as a typical inquisitor. His rather stunning sexual preoccupations were presented as the Church's "official" position on witchcraft. Actually the Inquisition immediately rejected the legal procedures Kramer recommended and censured the inquisitor himself just a few years after the Malleus was published. Secular courts, not inquisitorial ones, resorted to the ''Malleus''.<ref name="Gibbons, Jenny pp 2 - 16">{{cite journal|first=Jenny|last=Gibbons|title=Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt|journal=[[The Pomegranate|Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies]]|publisher=[[Equinox Publishing (Sheffield)|Equinox Publishing]]|location=Sheffield, England|issue=5|date=August 1998|volume=5 |pages=2–16|doi=10.1558/pome.v13i5.2 }}</ref>}}

Before 1400 it was rare for anyone to be prosecuted for witchcraft, but the increasingly common prosecution of heresy and failure to fully defeat these heretics paved the way for later criminal prosecution of witchcraft.{{sfnp|Pavlac|2009|p=31}} By the 15th century belief in witches was widely accepted in European society. Previously, those convicted of witchcraft typically suffered penalties no more harsh than public penances such as a day in the [[stocks]],<ref name="reform" /> but their prosecution became more brutal following the publication of the ''Malleus Maleficarum'', as witchcraft became{{Clarification needed|reason=This seems to be implying belief in the efficacy of witchcraft/magic was rare before 1400, but that's certainly not true.|date=March 2025}} widely accepted as a real and dangerous phenomenon.{{sfnp|Trevor-Roper|1969|pp=102–105}} The most severe prosecutions took place between the years 1560 and 1630, largely ending in Europe around 1780.{{sfnp|Levack|2013|p=74}}

Particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries an intense debate on the nature of witches preoccupied [[demonologist]]s across Europe and they published many printed sermons, books and tracts. The [[Catholic Church]] played an important role in shaping of debate on demonology, but the discourse was not much affected by the Reformation. [[Martin Luther]] was also convinced about the reality and evil of witches, and facilitated development of [[Protestant]] demonology.{{sfnp|Levack|2013|pp=75-76}}

Catholic and Protestant demonologies were similar in their basic beliefs about witches{{sfnp|Levack|2013|p=79|ps=: "As noted, Catholic demonologists did not differ much from their Protestant counterparts in their basic beliefs concerning witches."}} and most writers agreed on the severity of the crime of witchcraft.{{sfnp|Levack|2013|p=77}}{{efn|According to Summers, the ''Malleus'' "lay on the bench of every judge, on the desk of every magistrate".{{sfnb|Summers|2012|p=viii|loc=Introduction to 1948 edition}}}} It was accepted by both Catholic and Protestant legislatures{{sfnb|Summers|2012|p=viii|loc=Introduction to 1948 edition}} and witch-hunting was undeniably sponsored by both Protestant and Catholic governments.{{sfnb|Ankarloo|Clark|2002b|p=10|ps=: "It is undeniable that both Protestant and Catholic governments sponsored witch-hunting. Sometimes, as in the Saarland, Catholic overlords (the Duke of Lorraine and the Archbishop of Trier) were more likely to sponsor [[witch-hunts]] than Protestant sovereigns (in this case, the Lutheran Count of Nassau and the Calvinist Count of Zweibrucken). But in other regions, for example French-speaking western Switzerland, Protestant rulers were more severe than Catholic overlords in prosecuting witches (Monter 1976)."}}{{efn|Additional note: "Such thinking was also mirrored in the groundbreaking work of the German scholars Wilhelm Gottfried Soldan (1803-1869) and Joseph Hansen (1862-1943) both of whom blamed witchhunts on the overweening power of the Roman Catholic Church and saw the demise of witch trials as a natural corollary of the progress of reason and science."{{sfn|Levack|2013|p=550}}}}{{efn|Additional note: "But although Catholics have been fed comforting errors by overeager apologists about the Church's part in prosecuting witches, we must face our own tragic past. Fellow Catholics, to whom we are forever bound in the communion of saints, did sin grievously against people accused of witchcraft. If our historical memory can be truly purified, then the smoke from the Burning Times can finally disperse."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/common-misconceptions/who-burned-the-witches.html|title=Who Burned the Witches?|website=www.catholiceducation.org|access-date=2020-08-12|archive-date=2020-10-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201002192525/https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/common-misconceptions/who-burned-the-witches.html|url-status=live}}</ref>}} Witches became heretics to [[Christianity]] and witchcraft became{{Clarification needed|reason=The word "became" implies that previously, witchcraft was not considered among the most serious crimes, but that is obviously not true and is contradicted by the very next sentence, which says even in Antiquity it was considered the worst crime of all.|date=March 2025}} the greatest of crimes and sins.{{sfnb|Thomas|1971|pp=542–543}} Within continental and Roman Law witchcraft was the ''crimen exceptum'', a crime so foul that all normal legal procedures were superseded.{{sfnb|Robbins|1959|p=498}}

During the [[Age of Enlightenment]], belief in the powers of witches to harm began to die out in [[Western world|the West]]. For the post-Enlightenment Christians, the disbelief was based on a belief in [[rationalism]] and [[empiricism]].{{sfnp|Hayes|1995|pp=339-354}}