Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger
    Unavailable
    The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger
    Unavailable
    The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger
    Ebook913 pages16 hours

    The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger

    By Dover Publications

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    For nearly three centuries Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches' Hammer) was the professional manual for witch hunters. This work by two of the most famous Inquisitors of the age is still a document of the forces of that era's beliefs. Under a Bull of Pope Innocent VIII, Kramer and Sprenger exposed the heresy of those who did not believe in witches and set forth the proper order of the world with devils, witches, and the will of God. Even if you do not believe in witchcraft, the world of 1484 did.
    Contemporary cases illustrate methods by which witches attempt to control and subvert the world: How and why women roast their first-born male child; the confession of how to raise a tempest by a washwoman suspended "hardly clear of the ground" by her thumbs; methods of making a formal pact with the Devil; how witches deprive men of their vital member; and many others. Methods of destroying and curing witchcraft, such as remedies against incubus and succubus devils, are exemplified and weighed by the authors.
    Formal rules for initiating a process of justice are set down: how it should be conducted and the method of pronouncing sentence; when to use the trial by the red-hot-iron; how the prosecutor should protect himself; how the body is to be shaved  and searched for tokens and amulets, including those sewn under the skin. As Summers says, it was the casebook on every magistrate's desk.
    Montague Summers has given a very sympathetic translation. His two introductions are filled with examples of witchcraft and the historical importance of Malleus Maleficarum. This famous document should interest the historian, the student of witchcraft and the occult, and the psychologist who is interested in the medieval mind as it was confronted with various forces which could be explained only by witchcraft.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateApr 20, 2012
    ISBN9780486122694
    Unavailable
    The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger

    Related to The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger

    Related ebooks

    Wicca / Witchcraft For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Building A Spell

      Mar 27, 2020

      Building A Spell
      1 min read

    • Article

      On The Prowl

      Mar 17, 2022

      On The Prowl
      4 min read

    • Article

      15 Most Notorious Witches

      Jan 31, 2024

      15 Most Notorious Witches
      14 min read

    • Article

      Witch Hunting

      Jan 31, 2024

      Witch Hunting
      7 min read

    • Article

      James VI And The Witches

      Jan 31, 2024

      The fearful abounding at this time in this country. of these detestable slaves of the Devil, the Witches or enchanters. hath moved me (beloved reader) to dispatch in post, this following treatise of mine, not in any way (as I protest) to serve for a

      9 min read

    • Article

      The Curse of the Unlucky Mummy: When science and fear collide, a supernatural story thrives.

      Apr 10, 2014

      Sometime in the 1860s, five recent Oxford graduates took a trip to Egypt. Together they sailed down the Nile, a tourist attraction even then. To remember their trip, they bought a souvenir in the mummy pits of Deir el-Bahri—the coffin lid of a priest

      10 min read

    • Article

      Six Centuries Of Fear And Persecution

      Mar 17, 2022

      At least 367 people are tried for witchcraft in the Duchy of Savoy (now part of southeastern France and Switzerland) in what is widely considered to be Europe’s first series of witch trials. Many of the victims are accused of being werewolves. Joan

      3 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jan 20, 2022

      Further to Dr Wragg Sykes’s fascinating feature on early female archaeologists (Spades, Soil and Sisterhood, December), it’s worth stating that recent research suggests that Christian MacLagan may not have been the earliest female archaeologist in Br

      3 min read

    • Article

      Miscellany

      Nov 23, 2023

      Miscellany
      9 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Dec 28, 2021

      Q&A
      3 min read

    • Article

      He Made The World A Better Place

      Jan 12, 2022

      THE name Dr John Coakley Lettsom will be familiar to historians of gardens and of medical practice in Britain, but this is the first major effort to place him in the wider context of enlightened middle-class men of taste and science in Georgian Engla

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Popish Plot

      Aug 4, 2022

      The Popish Plot
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Pendle Witch Trials

      Sep 6, 2019

      The Pendle Witch Trials
      2 min read

    • Article

      The History Of Witches

      Jul 14, 2022

      The History Of Witches
      9 min read

    • Article

      How New Gods Are Made

      Mar 24, 2022

      TO SEND REVIEW COPIES, CONTACT THE BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR AT DVBARRETT@FORTEANTIMES.COM On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine Anna Della Subin Granta Books 2022 Hb, £20, 460pp, ISBN 9781783785018 Many of the subjects of this delightfully curious book had no

      11 min read

    • Article

      Viking Realities And Imaginings

      Apr 21, 2022

      TO SEND REVIEW COPIES, CONTACT THE BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR AT DVBARRETT@FORTEANTIMES.COM The Story of a Founding Myth Gordon Campbell Oxford University Press 2021 Hb, 272pp, £20, ISBN 9780198861553 The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women Nancy Marie B

      11 min read

    • Article

      A Muddy Refuge

      Oct 8, 2020

      Lost and Found on the River Thames Lara Maiklem Bloomsbury 2020 Pb, 317pp, £9.99, ISBN 9781408889237 As children, nearly all of us have an instinct for curiosity and collecting. I still have a stone with a hole in it I found on Chesil beach as a thre

      9 min read

    • Article

      Templars On Trial

      Aug 31, 2023

      They arrived with no warning, striking swiftly as a guillotine blade. As dawn broke over France on Friday 13 October 1307, hundreds of royal troops stormed the residences of Templar knights, rounded up the brethren and put them in chains. The knights

      9 min read

    • Article

      The Story Behind…

      Apr 14, 2023

      The Story Behind…
      3 min read

    • Article

      Fitzroy’s Hand Of Glory

      Apr 12, 2023

      Fitzroy’s Hand Of Glory
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Tichborne Claiment

      Nov 2, 2023

      The Tichborne Claiment
      7 min read

    • Article

      The History Of Witchcraft

      Mar 17, 2022

      The History Of Witchcraft
      1 min read

    • Article

      Dark Forces

      Sep 30, 2021

      Dark Forces
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Allure Of Knowledge

      Aug 12, 2021

      TO SEND REVIEW COPIES, CONTACT THE BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR AT DVBARRETT@FORTEANTIMES.COM Mark A Waddell Cambridge University Press 2021 Pb, 232pp, £19.99, ISBN 9781108441650 Reading Mark Waddell’s excellent book brought back to mind the time I gave a tou

      11 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Jun 10, 2022

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    Reviews for The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger

    3.5/5

    134 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Certainly in the running (in retrospect) as one of the most evil books of all time. The Hammer of the Witches is a VERY serious treatise on the Catholic legal view of witchcraft; what it is, how to identify perpetrators, and how witches should be punished. A legal guide book on procedures, as well a statement as to how serious the crime of witchcraft truly is. For scholars of Europe through the 15th-18th centuries. And useful for those who think our current legal system is terribly flawed; the Malleus is a record of how the law used to be practiced.
    • 4/5
      What we have here in Kramer and Sprenger is an artifact. And as an artifact it is a splendid example of historical Christian thought. Part I; Question XIV contains a subheading that summarizes the point of this tome: "That Witches Deserve the heaviest Punishment above All the Criminals of the World." The "Hammer" was written to offer a protocol for trying and adjudicating (read: killing) alleged witches. It is safe to say that Salem and other incidences of spurious witch trials would not have been legitimized but by reference to this 15th century work of folklore. There is no doubt that Kramer and Sprenger were learned canons of the Church and they were attempting to remedy the problem of falsely accused witches being lynched by torch-and-pitchfork mobs. What they accomplished instead was bringing witch-hunts under the authority of the Church. The Malleus Maleficarum facilitated the further enmeshment of Church and State by prescribing the manner in which these cases should be adjudicated in the ecclesiastical and civil courts. If you enjoy studying mythology or Church History (they often overlap)this is a compelling read. More than any other single artifact, this book sheds light on what was plaguing the collective mind of Christendom in the late middle ages. A read well worth the time.
    • 3/5
      Not exactly a page-turning book, but it is useful to have as reference when reading about the Dark Ages and early Renaissance. This handbook for witch hunters is a useful tool for understanding how simple actions are mistaken for nefarious acts.
    • 4/5
      Montague Summers’ translation of Heinrich Kramer & James Sprenger’s Malleus Maleficarum reproduces the 1486/1487 text in its entirety. In the book, Kramer and Sprenger outlined the theological underpinning for belief in witchcraft as well as the justifications for exterminating suspected witches. Further, the book situates sorcery among other heresies while advocating for inquisitions and torture in order to locate suspects and obtain confessions.Sprenger’s name first appeared in connection with the book in 1519, leading some historians such as Joseph Hansen, to question this practice. Others, including Montague Summers, refute Hansen’s claims, so the book continues to be credited to both authors. The Malleus further linked witchcraft with “deviant” sexual practices between witches and demons, thereby adding to the belief among Western Christian nations that women were weaker or possessed of inherent sin. This patriarchal attitude, coupled with the chaos of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, fueled witch panics in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.The increase in witch trials naturally generated further works on witchcraft, including Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), which attempted to critique witch trials as un-Christian, King James I’s Daemonologie (1597), which discussed necromancy and other black magic, Richard Bernard’s A Guide to Grand-Jury Men (1629), which encouraged more evidence and witnesses in witchcraft investigations, and Increase Mather’s Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits (1692), which defended the Salem witch trials while also cautioning against overreliance on spectral evidence. For those interested in the history of witchcraft, this translation of the Malleus Maleficarum will be an invaluable resource as, like the aforementioned works, it sheds light on the cultural milieu in which the various trials occurred.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      LMFAO No, but seriously, how the hell does someone come up with such whacked-out ideas and believe them to be reality? I seriously would like to know what drugs they were on when they wrote this. Now I understand some of the dumbest superstitions about witches that we still see pop up in movies and TV today (like how witches can't cry). Good grief.What really makes me sad, is the fact that this book was used as the textbook for How to Kill Strong Women (especially midwives) 101. The witch hunting trade was BIG business in it's time and people got rich off pointing their fingers to have innocent people tortured and murdered so they could divvy up their possessions. And this stupid book with it's insane ideas helped them all do it. It's a low point in history that we see being repeated over and over. So very sad. Despite hating this book, the authors, it's users and everything this book stood for... I would still recommend anyone interested in the subject to give it a read. It is a piece of our human history and a testament as to just how low we can go. Even though the content of this book is so horrible it's one of the most infamous books in all of history, I feel better now for having actually read it and knowing for myself exactly what's written in it. But it is pretty hard core. READER BEWARE!
    • 3/5
      LMFAO No, but seriously, how the hell does someone come up with such whacked-out ideas and believe them to be reality? I seriously would like to know what drugs they were on when they wrote this. Now I understand some of the dumbest superstitions about witches that we still see pop up in movies and TV today (like how witches can't cry). Good grief.What really makes me sad, is the fact that this book was used as the textbook for How to Kill Strong Women (especially midwives) 101. The witch hunting trade was BIG business in it's time and people got rich off pointing their fingers to have innocent people tortured and murdered so they could divvy up their possessions. And this stupid book with it's insane ideas helped them all do it. It's a low point in history that we see being repeated over and over. So very sad. Despite hating this book, the authors, it's users and everything this book stood for... I would still recommend anyone interested in the subject to give it a read. It is a piece of our human history and a testament as to just how low we can go. Even though the content of this book is so horrible it's one of the most infamous books in all of history, I feel better now for having actually read it and knowing for myself exactly what's written in it. But it is pretty hard core. READER BEWARE!
    • 3/5
      The "Hammer of Witches". The instruction manual for how to detect witches. Originally published in 1489, this book is now only worthy for historical interest. The typeface is old and the repoduction is not always great. Stil very interesting reading.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Considered as a scholarly edition of an important historical source, this is very useful for those (like me) who cannot afford the complete new Latin text edition. It is far superior to the old Montague Summers version. Its content, of course, is fairly horrible.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Fascinating review to come this weekend.