SHARP COLLECTION
Malleus Maleficarum (1580)
Heinrich Institoris & Jakob Sprenger
Malleus maleficarum, a professional handbook for witch hunters, has been called the most sinister work on demonology ever written. It sought to execute the biblical command "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" In fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe it served as a powerful tool for church and legal authorities and stirred up anti-witch hysteria across the Continent. The guilty in every corner of society were to be tracked down and killed. By 1520 Malleus maleficarum, a best seller of its age, had been reprinted fourteen times. It is still in print.
In his papal Bull of 1484, Pope Innocent VIII proclaimed that "many persons of both sexes ... have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and sucubi and have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, have blasted the produce of the earth, the fruits of trees...." The pope delegated Heinrich Institoris, also known as Heinrich Kramer, and Jakob Sprenger, both Dominicans, to combat the depravities of black magic in northern Germany. As chief inquisitors, they were granted exceptional powers to pursue their investigation.
In Malleus maleficarum, Institutoris and Sprenger codified folklore about black magic. Witchcraft, they declared, involves renunciation of the Catholic faith, and the devotion of the body and soul to evil. They also described how witches perform the "carnal act" with devils and "change men into the shapes of Beasts." The two Dominicans established an airtight procedure of investigation, torture, sentencing and execution. Sprenger later repented and condemned Institoris.
Malleus maleficarum was required reading for judges across Europe. It set the stage for the Inquisition. Historians agree that Malleus led to the deaths of untold numbers of innocent people.
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