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<p>‘ Broedel has provided an excellent study, not only of the Malleus and its authors,</p><p>but just as importantly, of the intellectual context in which the Malleus must be</p><p>set and the theological and folk traditions to which it is, in many ways, an heir.’</p><p>PETER MAXWELL-STUART, ST ANDREWS UNIVERSITY</p><p>WHAT WAS WITCHCRAFT? Were witches real? How should witches</p><p>be identified? How should they be judged? Towards the end of the</p><p>middle ages these were serious and important questions – and completely</p><p>new ones. Between 1430 and 1500, a number of learned ‘witch-theorists’ attempted</p><p>to answer such questions, and of these perhaps the most famous are the</p><p>Dominican inquisitors Heinrich Institoris and Jacob Sprenger, the authors</p><p>of the Malleus Maleficarum, or The Hammer of Witches.</p><p>The Malleus is an important text and is frequently quoted by authors across</p><p>a wide range of scholarly disciplines.Yet it also presents serious difficulties: it is</p><p>difficult to understand out of context, and is not generally representative of late</p><p>medieval learned thinking. This, the first book-length study of the original text in</p><p>English, provides students and scholars with an introduction to this controversial</p><p>work and to the conceptual world of its authors.</p><p>Like all witch-theorists, Institoris and Sprenger constructed their witch</p><p>out of a constellation of pre-existing popular beliefs and learned traditions.</p><p>Therefore, to understand the Malleus, one must also understand the contemporary</p><p>and subsequent debates over the reality and nature of witches. This book argues</p><p>that although the Malleus was a highly idiosyncratic text, its arguments were</p><p>powerfully compelling and therefore remained influential long after alternatives</p><p>were forgotten. Consequently, although focused on a single text, this study has</p><p>important implications for fifteenth-century witchcraft theory.</p><p>This is a fascinating work on the Malleus Maleficarum and will be essential</p><p>to students and academics of late medieval and early modern history, religion</p><p>and witchcraft studies.</p><p>HANS PETER BROEDEL</p><p>is Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Hamilton College, New York</p><p>The</p><p>M</p><p>alleusM</p><p>aleficarum</p><p>and</p><p>the</p><p>construction</p><p>of</p><p>w</p><p>itchcraft</p><p>B</p><p>R</p><p>O</p><p>E</p><p>D</p><p>E</p><p>L</p><p>COVER ILLUSTRATION</p><p>Witches concocting an ointment to be used</p><p>for flying to the Sabbath,</p><p>Hans Baldung Grien, Strassburg, 1514</p><p>The Malleus Maleficarum</p><p>and the construction of witchcraft</p><p>Theology and popular belief</p><p>H A N S P E T E R B R O E D E L</p><p>broedel.cov 12/8/03 9:23 am Page 1</p><p>H</p><p>an</p><p>s</p><p>Pe</p><p>te</p><p>r B</p><p>ro</p><p>ed</p><p>el</p><p>-</p><p>97</p><p>81</p><p>52</p><p>61</p><p>37</p><p>81</p><p>4</p><p>D</p><p>ow</p><p>nl</p><p>oa</p><p>de</p><p>d</p><p>fro</p><p>m</p><p>m</p><p>an</p><p>ch</p><p>es</p><p>te</p><p>ro</p><p>pe</p><p>nh</p><p>iv</p><p>e.</p><p>co</p><p>m</p><p>a</p><p>t 0</p><p>4/</p><p>27</p><p>/2</p><p>01</p><p>9</p><p>11</p><p>:1</p><p>7:</p><p>42</p><p>AM</p><p>vi</p><p>a</p><p>fre</p><p>e</p><p>ac</p><p>ce</p><p>ss</p><p>The Malleus Maleficarum and</p><p>the construction of witchcraft</p><p>TMMPR 8/30/03 5:36 PM Page i</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>STUDIES IN EARLY MODERN</p><p>EUROPEAN HISTORY</p><p>This exciting series aims to publish</p><p>challenging and innovative research in all areas</p><p>of early modern continental history.</p><p>The editors are committed to encouraging work</p><p>that engages with current historiographical</p><p>debates, adopts an interdisciplinary</p><p>approach, or makes an original contribution</p><p>to our understanding of the period.</p><p> </p><p>Professor Joseph Bergin,William G. Naphy and</p><p>Penny Roberts</p><p>Already published in the series</p><p>The rise of Richelieu Joseph Bergin</p><p>Sodomy in early modern Europe</p><p>ed. Tom Betteridge</p><p>Fear in early modern society</p><p>eds William Naphy and Penny Roberts</p><p>Religion and superstition in Reformation Europe</p><p>eds Helen Parish and William G. Naphy</p><p>Religious choice in the Dutch Republic: the reformation of</p><p>Arnoldus Buchelus (1565–1641)</p><p>Judith Pollman</p><p>A city in conflict:Troyes during the French wars of religion</p><p>Penny Roberts</p><p>Witchcraft narratives in Germany: Rothenburg 1561–1652</p><p>Alison Rowlands</p><p>TMMPR 8/30/03 5:36 PM Page ii</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>The Malleus Maleficarum and</p><p>the construction of witchcraft</p><p>Theology and popular belief</p><p>HANS PETER BROEDEL</p><p>Manchester University Press</p><p>Manchester and New York</p><p>distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave</p><p>TMMPR 8/30/03 5:36 PM Page iii</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Copyright © Hans Peter Broedel 2003</p><p>The right of Hans Peter Broedel to be identified as the author of this work has been</p><p>asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.</p><p>Published by Manchester University Press</p><p>Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK</p><p>and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA</p><p>www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk</p><p>Distributed exclusively in the USA by</p><p>Palgrave, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,</p><p>NY 10010, USA</p><p>Distributed exclusively in Canada by</p><p>UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall,</p><p>Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2</p><p>British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data</p><p>A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library</p><p>Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for</p><p>ISBN 0 7190 6440 6 hardback</p><p>0 7190 6441 4 paperback</p><p>First published 2003</p><p>11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1</p><p>Typeset in Perpetua with Albertus</p><p>by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong</p><p>Printed in Great Britain</p><p>by Bell & Bain Ltd. Glasgow</p><p>TMMPR 8/30/03 5:36 PM Page iv</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Contents</p><p>Acknowledgments page vii</p><p>Note on translation ix</p><p>1 Introduction: contested categories 1</p><p>2 Origins and arguments 10</p><p>3 The inquisitors’ devil 40</p><p>4 Misfortune, witchcraft, and the will of God 66</p><p>5 Witchcraft: the formation of belief – part one 91</p><p>6 Witchcraft: the formation of belief – part two 122</p><p>7 Witchcraft as an expression of female sexuality 167</p><p>Bibliography 189</p><p>Index 205</p><p>TMMPR 8/30/03 5:36 PM Page v</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>TMMPR 8/30/03 5:36 PM Page vi</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Acknowledgments</p><p>I am much indebted to the generous assistance of a number of people on this project.</p><p>I would like to thank especially Robert Stacey for his tireless assistance and encour-</p><p>agement in all aspects of this work. I also owe much to Mary O’Neal’s incisive com-</p><p>ments and encyclopedic knowledge of early-modern witchcraft history. I would like</p><p>also to thank Henning Sehmsdorf, Fritz Levy, and Gerhild Scholz Williams who read</p><p>this manuscript at various stages and offered valuable criticism. I owe special thanks</p><p>to my wife, Sheryl Dahm Broedel, not only for her patience, but also for her invalu-</p><p>able criticisms of my writing and ideas.</p><p>TMMPR 8/30/03 5:36 PM Page vii</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>TMMPR 8/30/03 5:36 PM Page viii</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Note on translation</p><p>The popularity of the Malleus in the English-speaking world stems in large part from</p><p>the ready availability of the Montague Summers translation, but, as has often been</p><p>noted before, this translation suffers from serious defects. In particular, Summers</p><p>relied upon very late Latin editions, which differed substantially from the original. In</p><p>this book I have used as my primary Latin text the 1991 photographic reprint of the</p><p>first edition of the Malleus (1487), supplemented by the 1519 Jean Marion edition. I</p><p>have retained the original Latin throughout in the notes; in addition to noting appar-</p><p>ent errors in the Latin, where necessary I have given the alternative Latin from the</p><p>1519 edition within brackets.The English translations are my own and are my respon-</p><p>to take the witch constructed by learned</p><p>theologians, the witch of traditional legend, folktale, and rumor, and the old</p><p>woman huddled before the inquisitor’s bench and to blend them into a single</p><p>being – a being capable of satisfying the demands of all situations in which her</p><p>existence was meaningful.</p><p>The Malleus was not, then, as Sprenger ingenuously stated in his</p><p>“Apology,” merely a compilation of materials drawn from ancient and author-</p><p>itative sources; it was instead a unique assemblage of experience and author-</p><p>ity juxtaposed in shifting ways.47 Like all medieval academics, Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger were acutely conscious of the value and importance of authorities,</p><p>both to formal argumentation and to more casual discourse. Above all, they</p><p>cite continuously from scripture; but in clear second place come the authors</p><p>of canon and civil law: Gratian’s Decretum, the Decretals of Gregory IX, the Dec-</p><p>retalium Liber Sextus, Justinian’s codification of civil law, and commentators on</p><p>all of these. Among the Malleus’ other frequently cited authorities (such as</p><p>Isidore of Seville, Gregory I, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, Albertus</p><p>Magnus, and the Glossa Ordinaria) there are also more recent works related to</p><p>the Dominican educational background of its authors: these include Raymond</p><p>of Penyafort, Peter of Palude, and, especially, Johannes Nider.48 But there is</p><p>also Institoris and Sprenger’s own personal testimony; for despite our doubts</p><p>as to the precise extent of their inquisitorial experience (it is not even certain</p><p>that Sprenger had ever presided over a witch-trial) they both claimed exten-</p><p>sive personal knowledge, and possessed a fund of narrative accounts taken</p><p>from their own experiences or those of their informants.49</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger begin their text by examining witchcraft at its</p><p>most abstract, from the perspective of the Dominican theological system, and</p><p>the analysis which follows was intended to mimic the forms of Thomist</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 21</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 21</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>disputation. This method, which the authors call “scholastic,” begins with a</p><p>series of propositional questions. Then follows the counterargument, the cita-</p><p>tion of seemingly contrary authorities, a responsio or solution to the problem,</p><p>and finally the replies to specific objections. In capable hands, and applied to</p><p>appropriate subject matter, this sort of analysis was highly persuasive and</p><p>carried considerable prestige – no doubt the reason it was chosen by our</p><p>authors since it was not terribly responsive to their needs. First, and perhaps</p><p>foremost, it appears that Institoris and Sprenger found it difficult to subordi-</p><p>nate their discussion to the rigid logic of the questio; they often embark on</p><p>rambling digressions into related but not strictly relevant topics, occasionally</p><p>even abandoning their chosen method entirely.50 Second, the requirement that</p><p>all objections be answered in full seems to have weighed rather heavily upon</p><p>the authors. Although, to their credit, Institoris and Sprenger address difficult</p><p>questions, their replies are often testy, ranging from terse, unsatisfying dis-</p><p>missals to lengthy and confusing bouts of jargon-filled debate.</p><p>Despite all of this, however, the main contours of their argument remain</p><p>clear.The first part of the Malleus begins with two preliminary questions, both</p><p>of which are necessary to the more detailed argument to follow. First, they</p><p>ask whether the existence of witches is an essential tenet of Catholic teaching</p><p>or whether witchcraft is instead imaginary, the result of some occult but</p><p>natural process, the deluding phantasms of the devil, or simply the fancies of</p><p>overwrought human minds.51 The latter possibilities the authors then emphat-</p><p>ically deny: they point out that because the devil exists and has the power to</p><p>do marvelous things, witchcraft, if done through his aid and with the permis-</p><p>sion of God, could certainly be real as well. They draw a comparable conclu-</p><p>sion from the authorities – scriptures, doctors of the Church, theologians,</p><p>canon and civil law; for, they argue, if witchcraft were imaginary and witches</p><p>non-existent or essentially harmless, they would surely not be so consistently</p><p>and severely condemned.</p><p>Witches, in their view, are beings who are not, and could not be, imag-</p><p>inary, but who “can, with the help of demons, on account of the pact they have</p><p>with them, and with the permission of God, bring about real harmful magical</p><p>effects.”52 In the Malleus, witchcraft is specifically predicated upon this combi-</p><p>nation of an overtly expressed pact with the devil, the active participation of</p><p>the witch in acts of maleficium and consequent actual, physical, harm. All else</p><p>definitionally is not witchcraft and does not fall within the purview of the</p><p>authors’ investigation. The pact is crucial, for it articulates the relationship</p><p>between the witch and Satan through which witchcraft must arise; through her</p><p>pact,</p><p>the witch has offered herself completely and has bound herself to the devil really</p><p>and in truth and not fantastically and in the imagination only, and thus it ought</p><p>22 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 22</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>to be understood that she cooperates with the devil in body and in truth; for</p><p>all works of witches are to this end, whether they always carry out their witch-</p><p>craft through the pact, or through a glance, or through the spoken word, or</p><p>through the operation of some instrument of witchcraft deposited under the</p><p>threshold of a house.53</p><p>Since both the pact and the harm that springs from it are real, witchcraft must</p><p>be real as well.</p><p>This conception of witchcraft is strikingly narrow: maleficium is not</p><p>simply a kind of magical or occult harm, but harm wrought through a coop-</p><p>erative endeavor on the part of both the witch and devil, when bound together</p><p>in a particular kind of contractual relationship. Such a restricted definition</p><p>required defense. In particular, the authors had to prove that occult harm arises</p><p>exclusively from the devil and the witch in concert, since, in practical terms,</p><p>if a witch could raise storms without the help of any demon simply by drop-</p><p>ping rotten sage into running water, or if the devil in his turn could cause tem-</p><p>pests without the aid of any witch, it would be difficult to know when to blame</p><p>inclement weather on witchcraft and when not.54 In a long and convoluted</p><p>response, Institoris and Sprenger argue in effect that although devils can and</p><p>do work evil without the aid of witches, for various technical reasons they</p><p>prefer not to do so. In fact, bad angels find the help of a witch so convenient</p><p>when working physical harm, that they employ them as a matter of course</p><p>whenever they wish to cause malicious injuries (maleficiales).55 As far as the</p><p>witches themselves were concerned, the matter was simpler, since if they</p><p>really were witches, they must definitionally do their evil work through the</p><p>devil. Although a person might employ natural agents to produce occult but</p><p>still natural effects, when a witch employed any object, word, or behavior in</p><p>her magic it was merely as a sign or adjunct to the power of the devil.</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger recognize that this is potentially confusing, and</p><p>attempt to clarify their position using the example of fascinatio, the evil eye.56</p><p>They accept as an established fact that the gaze of certain persons – menstru-</p><p>ating women for example – has a natural power capable of bringing about</p><p>physical effects, and that in some angry or disturbed old women this gaze may</p><p>be sufficient to do real harm to young and impressionable minds and bodies.</p><p>But the authors also insist that such old women are exactly the sort who are</p><p>often witches, in which case the malice of demons inspires and assists the</p><p>natural power of their eyes. The authors’ point, to which they</p><p>will return</p><p>several times, is that the mere possibility of a natural explanation for misfor-</p><p>tune does not mean that all misfortunes are natural. Quite the contrary, where</p><p>there are witches there will be witchcraft, and so only in the absence of pos-</p><p>sible malefactors should natural agencies be considered as possible causes for</p><p>harm. In this way, the Malleus employs the related categories of “witch” and</p><p>“witchcraft” reciprocally, using the presence of one to determine the existence</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 23</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 23</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>of the other. Where there are witches, a category that is inevitably socially</p><p>defined, there must be witchcraft; where there are maleficiales, misfortunes</p><p>that are perceived to be malicious, there must be witches. This link between</p><p>moral behavior and ambiguous harm, between the perception of human malice</p><p>and malicious misfortune, allows the authors to extend their conception of</p><p>witchcraft to an almost limitless number of applications and makes plausible</p><p>their claim that witches constitute a serious threat to Christendom.</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger believed that witchcraft was already endemic</p><p>throughout much of Europe and was increasing daily. They explain that this</p><p>evil had increased in recent times because of an unhappy congruence between</p><p>the three necessary preconditions for witchcraft: the presence of witches (or</p><p>of women ready to fill that role), the active participation of the devil, and the</p><p>permission of God.57 In this complex of interrelated variables, the necessary</p><p>link between natural and supernatural realms was provided by the pact joining</p><p>the witch with the devil. Looking at the problem from this perspective, the</p><p>authors then begin to construct a formal definition of “witch.” Maleficium is not</p><p>a major concern here, for although witchcraft may be a highly visible and fully</p><p>sufficient sign of the witch, it is not a necessary one, for a witch is a witch</p><p>whether she ever casts an evil spell or not, provided only that she has entered</p><p>into an express compact with the devil.This unholy allegiance does determine</p><p>the witch’s behavior, but her acts are those associated more with heresy than</p><p>with the infliction of injury:</p><p>Mark well, too, that among other things, [witches] have to do four deeds for</p><p>the increase of that perfidy, that is, to deny the Catholic faith in whole or in</p><p>part through verbal sacrilege, to devote themselves body and soul [to the devil],</p><p>to offer up to the Evil One himself infants not yet baptized, and to persist in</p><p>diabolic filthiness through carnal acts with incubus and succubus demons.58</p><p>This list is interesting not only for the lack of any mention of maleficium, but</p><p>also for the emphasis placed upon sexuality and reproduction. Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger would argue that it was the specifically sexual link between demons</p><p>and witches which was responsible for the appalling growth of witchcraft in</p><p>their day, serving to lure already immoral women further into sin, holding</p><p>them in sexual servitude, and providing, as well, future generations of witches.</p><p>In the following three questions, the authors examine this curious state</p><p>of affairs in more detail, beginning with an attempt to construct a coherent</p><p>picture of the power and the nature of demons and to explain their interest in</p><p>human sexuality. Logically, they should then turn to the other half of the equa-</p><p>tion and examine the role of the witch herself. But before they do so, they try</p><p>to address a perceived weak point in their argument, and embark on a long</p><p>and confusing questio on the possible influence of the stars, both as the agents</p><p>24 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 24</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>of specific acts of maleficium and upon the growth of witchcraft in general.59</p><p>The latter point is simplest and addressed first: again following accepted</p><p>authorities, Institoris and Sprenger argue that neither “fate,” nor the stars, nor</p><p>the Powers that move them can determine human destinies, much less the sort</p><p>of specific behavior required to become a witch, for the alternative would deny</p><p>free will. Not that the human will is absolutely free, of course, else decisions</p><p>would be made entirely at random: rather the will is informed by various</p><p>extrinsic agents of which the stars are one. But stars affect only the body;</p><p>angels, bad and good, affect the intellect; while God alone influences the will.</p><p>It can happen that stars may give a person bodily appetites or physical predilec-</p><p>tions that make him more prone to witchcraft, but the catalyst for the specific</p><p>sins of witchcraft will still be the temptations of the devil and not the stars,</p><p>just as a choleric person, although naturally prone to anger, must be tempted</p><p>in order to commit murder and is personally responsible for his actions if he</p><p>does so. That the influence of the stars might lie behind specific occasions of</p><p>maleficium is more problematic, and harks back to the unsatisfactory response</p><p>to the possibility of natural causation in the second question. Ultimately,</p><p>although the response is now considerably longer, it remains much the same.</p><p>Celestial bodies cause natural effects, but the works of witches which are called</p><p>malicious harms are not of this kind, in as much as they arise out of harm done</p><p>to creatures contrary to the accustomed order of nature.60</p><p>The logical basis for this argument is the Aristotelian dictum that from the</p><p>effect the cause is known; in this case the works of witchcraft are invariably</p><p>harmful and unnatural and so cannot have a cause that is natural, as are the</p><p>stars, or intrinsically good, as are the Powers that move them. Although not</p><p>compelling, this argument allows Institoris and Sprenger to make an additional</p><p>important distinction before moving on to the subject of witches and women:</p><p>astrologers and magicians may employ operations that resemble the works of</p><p>witchcraft, but because they utilize the natural power of the stars for their own</p><p>private good, they cannot be witches.</p><p>It goes without saying that magicians and astrologers are also invariably</p><p>male; that witches are most commonly female, Institoris and Sprenger accept</p><p>as a simple fact, verified by their own experience and common consensus.61</p><p>This is in part a function of simple feminine frailty, and they assemble a tire-</p><p>some collection of authorities to show that women are more credulous than</p><p>men, more impressionable, more superstitious, more impulsive, more prone</p><p>to emotional extremes: in sum more easily ensnared by the devil due to their</p><p>weaker minds and bodies. More importantly, though, just as the devil’s power</p><p>is greatest where human sexuality is concerned, so too is this woman’s great-</p><p>est weakness, for she is naturally more sexual than men, “as is made plain by</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 25</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 25</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>her many carnal depravities.”62 Throughout the Malleus, women are virtually</p><p>synonymous with the appetites of the flesh, and, in the minds of the authors,</p><p>this carnal desire is without doubt the mainspring of contemporary witchcraft:</p><p>women’s lust leads them to copulate with the devil, to use magic to gain new</p><p>lovers and revenge themselves against former ones, and to all manner of other</p><p>sins. Thus it is no wonder, Institoris and Sprenger conclude, that witches are</p><p>properly called maleficae and not malefici, for “all [witchcraft] comes from</p><p>carnal lust, which is in women insatiable.”63 In this way, the spread of witch-</p><p>craft in modern times is readily explicable through the increasing numbers of</p><p>lustful and ambitious women who fall easily into league with the devil. Because</p><p>this is the case, it is equally clear that lust, and especially lust that is manifested</p><p>in some egregious sin such as</p><p>adultery or fornication, is a reliable behavioral</p><p>indicator of a predisposition toward witchcraft. It is not sufficient in itself, of</p><p>course, as not all adulteresses are witches, but the authors’ point is that many</p><p>are, and so a woman’s sexual behavior is a legitimate subject for inquisitorial</p><p>inquiry and examination.</p><p>Witchcraft in the Malleus thus emerges as a phenomenon that is explic-</p><p>itly gendered and sexual. It arises from the insatiable sexual appetites of</p><p>women; sexual intercourse with her master is the sign of a witch’s servitude,</p><p>and increasing the devil’s progeny is one of her chief goals. Conversely, a</p><p>witch’s magic is especially apt to disrupt the course of benign sexual relation-</p><p>ships and fruitful reproduction, both because the devil’s power in this field is</p><p>so great, and because the witch herself is predisposed toward this sort of mis-</p><p>chief. Just how it is that witches bring about these misfortunes is the subject</p><p>of the next several questions, in which Institoris and Sprenger attempt to map</p><p>out the limits of witches’ power and at the same time to continue to demon-</p><p>strate the close relationship between witchcraft and more conventional moral</p><p>turpitude.</p><p>To begin with, a witch can influence a man’s passions, filling minds with</p><p>excessive love or hatred.64 The devil’s ability to influence or delude the senses,</p><p>and to bring fanciful images directly to mind, allows witches to do this, but it</p><p>is their own desire for the chance to gratify their lusts while ruining the lives</p><p>of others that makes this sort of evil so prevalent. As a rule, witches are just</p><p>as repulsive physically as morally and desperately need the help of the devil to</p><p>obtain the lovers whom they crave. As a result, this kind of magic is regrett-</p><p>ably common, and the authors cannot count the number of times “adulterers</p><p>inflamed with passion for the foulest of women have set aside their most beau-</p><p>tiful wives.”65 Similarly, obstructing procreation is no trick at all for the devil,</p><p>who can either interpose himself invisibly between man and woman during</p><p>procreation, cause an abortion or sterility in the woman’s womb, or, most</p><p>common of all, cause impotence or some other sort of sexual dysfunction in</p><p>26 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 26</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>men. But when this is the result of witchcraft, as is most often the case, it is</p><p>further proof of the libidinous character of witches, who are eager to cast this</p><p>kind of spell because they know that if men cannot perform sexually with their</p><p>wives they will be more likely to submit to the witch’s own adulterous</p><p>embraces.66 And so, the authors point out, “the fact that witches are more fre-</p><p>quently adulteresses, prostitutes, and the like is shown by the evil impediment</p><p>they place on the act of generative power.”67</p><p>One of the most alarming of these impediments is a witch’s ability to</p><p>cause a man’s penis to vanish into thin air, so that he can “see and feel nothing</p><p>except his smooth body, uninterrupted by any member.”68 This is the sort of</p><p>thing that chronically happens to adulterers who are not sufficiently attentive</p><p>to their mistresses’ needs, or worse, who abandon them entirely, thus pro-</p><p>voking vengeance. Fortunately, as the authors reveal, the loss of one’s penis is</p><p>only one of the devil’s illusions, and not a real transformation – although this</p><p>is unlikely to be of much comfort to those afflicted, since, as they go on to say,</p><p>the condition is generally permanent. Similarly, when witches change them-</p><p>selves or others into the shape of animals, this is just another illusion, because</p><p>a real metamorphosis is beyond the devil’s powers.69 But since the deceptions</p><p>of the devil seem substantially real to every test that an average person is likely</p><p>to devise, as a matter of practice it will make little difference whether one is</p><p>assailed by a real wolf or a witch in wolf-form, save that the latter is likely to</p><p>be even more cunning and vicious.</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger conclude their tale of witches’ evil deeds with an</p><p>odd little digression about the abominable practices of midwife witches.70</p><p>These creatures are the worst of all their kind, for they kill infants both in the</p><p>womb and at birth, and are even in the habit of stealing, vampire-like, into</p><p>homes to drink the blood of children. Worse still, even when they do not kill</p><p>the children they deliver, witch-midwives devote them to the devil, dooming</p><p>them to a life of evil.The questio is unusual both because it does not follow the</p><p>normal “scholastic” method – it is a simple series of assertions, supported</p><p>mainly by anecdotal evidence – and because it does not follow logically from</p><p>the proceeding catalogue of kinds of supernatural harm – the question focuses</p><p>completely upon the reprehensible character of the witch-midwives’ crimes.</p><p>In one respect, though, the question does provide a fitting conclusion to</p><p>this portion of the authors’ argument, for it states in the most forceful terms</p><p>yet, Institoris and Sprenger’s contention throughout, that although a witch</p><p>may utilize the devil’s power to do evil, she does it for reasons that are her</p><p>own: witchcraft may be perilously tied to the demonic, but it is an entirely</p><p>human sin.</p><p>This is a necessary point, for Institoris and Sprenger are about to tackle</p><p>the difficult question of why, since all witchcraft is dependent upon the per-</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 27</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 27</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>mission of God, God should be inclined to permit it.71 This is an especially</p><p>important problem since, as the authors observe with annoyance, certain sapi-</p><p>entes among the clergy argue that witchcraft cannot be real, since God does</p><p>not permit such freedom to the devil as the abominable deeds of witches would</p><p>require. In order to avoid meeting this formidable objection head on, the</p><p>authors make a discreet withdrawal, and treat witchcraft in this context simply</p><p>as a part of the larger issue of the existence of evil. God has, of course,</p><p>ordained all things, but he permits witchcraft for the same reasons that he</p><p>permits any other sin. First, because an action which may appear evil from all</p><p>human perspectives may in fact be the cause of much good, and thus witch-</p><p>craft may provide opportunities to test, warn, or purge true Christians. And</p><p>second, because if God did not permit witchcraft, he would be denying a</p><p>measure of freedom to witches. He does not will witchcraft to happen, but</p><p>he has created human beings with the capacity to sin, and just as God per-</p><p>mitted Satan to fall, and Adam and Eve to sin, he is similarly compelled to</p><p>allow witches to work their evil with the devil’s aid.Yet these traditional expla-</p><p>nations for the existence of sin obviously fail to answer the whole objection.</p><p>For although it may be granted that God is required to allow witches to sin,</p><p>it does not seem to follow necessarily that he should also give the devil leave</p><p>to rain down wholesale destruction upon the innocent in the process.The per-</p><p>mission to sin is one thing, the grant of deadly supernatural power is quite</p><p>another. But Institoris and Sprenger put forth the ingenious, if rather circular</p><p>argument that witchcraft is permitted precisely because the witch’s sin enables</p><p>the divine permission necessary for witchcraft.72</p><p>Here, the first section of the Malleus comes to an end.73 Although the</p><p>description of witchcraft that Institoris and Sprenger have built up over eight-</p><p>een dense questiones may seem disturbingly vague and even contradictory, it</p><p>has actually proceeded in reasonably ordered fashion. Each questio approaches</p><p>witches and witchcraft from a slightly different direction, establishing the</p><p>relationships between the natural and supernatural, between women and</p><p>demons, superstition and sin, witchcraft and sexual sin, God and evil, and so</p><p>on. Rather like a pendulum swinging back and forth</p><p>between extremes, the</p><p>Malleus has located witchcraft within a series of arcs described by devils and</p><p>women along one axis, and magic and sin along the other. The length of each</p><p>swing is not always regular, but as the interior of the arcs are drawn and</p><p>redrawn with each subsequent questio, essential characteristics of the category</p><p>gradually emerge.</p><p>In the second part of the book, the authors get down to actual cases; they</p><p>abandon the “scholastic” method, and proceed descriptively, with evidence</p><p>provided by numerous exempla. Institoris and Sprenger are no longer con-</p><p>cerned with what is theoretically possible, but with what, in their experience,</p><p>28 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 28</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>actually happens. The focus of their inquiry shifts accordingly, from abstract</p><p>moral and theological issues to concrete questions about witches’ behavior,</p><p>and especially about maleficium and the possible remedies for it. Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger begin their examination by expanding chiefly upon topics introduced</p><p>in the first section, adding details, clarifications, and frequently lurid illustra-</p><p>tive examples to the dry arguments already presented. The authors’ goal is to</p><p>demonstrate how their theoretical construction of witchcraft is reflected in</p><p>real-world experience, and to prove that there is a “real” witch who is consis-</p><p>tent with both:</p><p>And lest these things [the acts of witches] be thought incredible, they have been</p><p>settled in the first part of this work through questions and the solutions to argu-</p><p>ments, to which, if it is necessary, the skeptical reader can return to investigate</p><p>the truth. For the present, only those acts and deeds discovered by us or written</p><p>by others in detestation of so great a crime are to be considered, in case, by</p><p>any chance, the earlier questions may be difficult for anyone to understand; and</p><p>from these things that are related in this second part, he who thought that there</p><p>are no witches and that no witchcraft can be done in the world may take back</p><p>his faith and rebound from his error.74</p><p>For the most part, their project is now descriptive, and several chapters</p><p>are almost entirely taken up with examples alone. In places, however, they</p><p>must also make some revealing adjustments to their model in order for it to</p><p>remain consistent with reality as they see it.</p><p>In part one of the Malleus, they showed that witches can, with the devil’s</p><p>aid, do fantastic things; now they concede that the situation is more compli-</p><p>cated, and that witches cannot, after all, injure or kill everyone they might</p><p>wish to. In fact, witches operate under a variety of handicaps.75 Some persons</p><p>are under God’s special protection; guardian angels defend saints and holy</p><p>men; others may be “naturally” resistant to witchcraft due to the influence of</p><p>celestial bodies and the angelic intelligences that move them; and the rites of</p><p>the Church can procure similar supernatural protection for devout Christians.</p><p>As the authors’ observe, sacramentals and exorcisms are designed specifically</p><p>to combat demonic power, and so must have the same sort of virtue against</p><p>witchcraft. Institoris and Sprenger also note that men of their own class,</p><p>public magistrates who bring witches to justice, are almost never bewitched.</p><p>Perhaps God has sympathy for their dangerous task and shields them from</p><p>harm; perhaps the devil himself provides them with incidental protection</p><p>since, in order to hasten a witch’s damnation, he deprives her of her powers</p><p>when she is taken by the accredited agents of justice. The authors testify that,</p><p>whatever the cause, they are alive and well despite the best efforts of their</p><p>victims.</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 29</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 29</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>After this introductory digression into the limits of witches’ power, Insti-</p><p>toris and Sprenger turn to the various strategies witches employ to gain new</p><p>recruits, all of which unsurprisingly exploit the immoderate physical appetites</p><p>of women.76 To recruit “honest matrons, little given to carnal vice, but who</p><p>covet more earthly possessions,” witches will often cause milk cows to go dry,</p><p>so that the distraught women will consult some local witch for advice, adopt</p><p>some superstitious and blasphemous remedy, and in this way be led down the</p><p>path to damnation. With “young maidens, more given to ambition and the</p><p>pleasures of the flesh,” the matter is easier, and established witches need only</p><p>find some pretext under which the girls can be discreetly introduced to hand-</p><p>some and desirable young devils.77 Finally, women who have been abandoned</p><p>by their lovers seek out the devil of their own accord, either to satisfy their</p><p>lusts or to gain revenge. Of all witches, these sad women are the most</p><p>common, for “just as young women of this kind are innumerable, as, alas, expe-</p><p>rience teaches, so the witches who arise from them are unnumbered.”78</p><p>Most of the time, the devil is strangely detached from the business of</p><p>finding new recruits, preferring to delegate this sordid business to the witches</p><p>themselves. When the time is right, the devil appears before the assembled</p><p>witches and promises them prosperity and long life in this world.79 In return,</p><p>they produce the novice witch who must abjure her former faith and perform</p><p>an oath of homage to the devil, giving herself to him, body and soul, for ever.</p><p>The devil then commands her to bring as many people as possible under his</p><p>sway, and instructs her in the art of making a magic goo from the bodies of</p><p>unbaptized children.Though some novices may balk at this, the devil is shrewd:</p><p>he asks such women only to do as much as they are willing to do, leaving the</p><p>most horrid acts of sacrilege for later.</p><p>Once a witch has accepted the devil, she immediately acquires the ability</p><p>to fly from place to place and the regular attentions of a demon lover, both of</p><p>which are well attested by current reports and traditional authorities.80</p><p>Witches also acquire the ability to perform magic with the devil’s aid,</p><p>although, somewhat unexpectedly, Institoris and Sprenger admit that not all</p><p>witches’ magic is necessarily malign. For obscure reasons, witches are divided</p><p>into three classes: those who only cause harm, those who heal as well as harm,</p><p>and those who heal, but cannot bring about injuries.81 The most formidable</p><p>kind of witch, possessing the most impressive occult arsenal, is the midwife-</p><p>witch, who specializes in killing and eating unbaptized children; she becomes</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger’s archetype, standing for all the others.</p><p>The remainder of the second part deals with maleficium proper, and con-</p><p>sists of a remarkably thorough catalogue of witches’ powers to do harm.82 As</p><p>mentioned before, witches can prevent procreation in various ways, turn</p><p>themselves or others into animal form, or create convincing illusions of all</p><p>30 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 30</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>sorts. They can also induce the devil to possess people, cause all manner of</p><p>sickness in humans or beasts, raise storms, and steal milk. In short, a large</p><p>proportion of life’s calamities are encompassed by the witches’ extensive</p><p>magical repertoire.</p><p>Unfortunately for the consistency of their argument, Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger recognize that some kinds of misfortune appear to be attributable</p><p>solely to the devil. Lightning strikes, for instance, often occur seemingly</p><p>without the participation of any witch, although it may be that the witch</p><p>responsible simply remains undetected.83 Worse, the authors are also forced</p><p>to admit that maleficium is not quite the exclusive property of witches. Since</p><p>demons are not particularly choosy about whom they aid, it is quite possible</p><p>for someone who is not technically a witch to work harmful magic</p><p>by virtue</p><p>of a tacit pact alone, a pact forged whenever anyone uses superstitious means</p><p>or rites to achieve some end.84 Such was a traditional ecclesiastical under-</p><p>standing of malign magic, but because maleficium is such an important part of</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger’s conception of what witches are it creates an annoy-</p><p>ing gray area around the periphery of the authors’ definition of witchcraft.</p><p>From the authors’ perspective, a more helpful exception to the rule is</p><p>the bizarre miscellany of male wizards which concludes their description of</p><p>witches’ practices.85 Although these men are counted among those “addicted</p><p>to witchcraft,” it is difficult to call them witches: they do not practice con-</p><p>ventional maleficium, have intercourse with the devil, or indulge in most other</p><p>characteristically witch-like activities, and their social roles are relentlessly</p><p>male. Some such men are soldiers, such as the notorious “archer wizards”</p><p>(malefici sagittarii) who shoot their arrows into a crucifix in order to acquire</p><p>diabolically enhanced accuracy. But whatever their occupation, they are not</p><p>obvious social deviants, despite their grievous sins, so that “witchcraft” for men</p><p>does not correspond to a readily identifiable life style.The male witch is known</p><p>strictly on the basis of sacrilegious behavior. He is thus a kind of marginal</p><p>“witch,” who serves to define in different ways the bounds of “normal” femi-</p><p>nine witchcraft.</p><p>Yet despite Institoris and Sprenger’s best efforts to define witchcraft</p><p>clearly, in their next topic, the possible remedies for maleficium, the line</p><p>between witchcraft and other magical operations becomes perilously obscure.</p><p>The problem is that a bewitched person looking for a cure has few options: a</p><p>human curative agency is impossible, because witchcraft is the work of the</p><p>devil and beyond a mortal’s natural capacity to undo; divine help, though pos-</p><p>sible, is extremely unlikely (given that God has permitted the initial affliction,</p><p>He is not often moved to remove it); finally, although the remedies of the</p><p>Church will exorcize demons and keep them at bay, they are not much use</p><p>once a magical spell has taken effect in accordance with divine will.The victim</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 31</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 31</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>is thus in a real quandary, since the only remaining source of relief is the devil</p><p>or his agents:</p><p>It appears besides that [the bewitched] will be freed very rarely, however much</p><p>they may implore divine assistance and the support of saints; therefore they</p><p>cannot be freed except by the help of demons, which, however, it is not per-</p><p>mitted to seek.86</p><p>Yet despite the warning of Aquinas and the theologians that a man may not</p><p>lawfully look to cure witchcraft, certain canonists argued that the situation was</p><p>not so cut and dried, and that in the absence of viable alternatives, the works</p><p>of the devil might be legitimately destroyed through “vain and superstitious</p><p>means.”87</p><p>Throughout this section of the Malleus, Institoris and Sprenger try to rec-</p><p>oncile these contradictory positions, and establish some guidelines by which</p><p>allowable remedies may be distinguished from condemned superstition. Their</p><p>solution is to create a narrow space for acceptable “vanities” between diaboli-</p><p>cally effective but unlawful practices on one side, and perfectly acceptable but</p><p>presumably ineffective remedies on the other. They cannot clearly define this</p><p>acceptable “space,” because the nature of the operator remains much more</p><p>important in the authors’ minds than the nature of the operation. It is unac-</p><p>ceptable under any circumstances to go to a witch to have maleficium removed,</p><p>even if she harms nothing else in the process; on the other hand, “a remedy</p><p>which is performed with certain superstitious rites, but in which no other</p><p>person is harmed, and not done by manifest witches” may be fine.88 No</p><p>wonder, then, that they scrupulously avoided this subject while in a theologi-</p><p>cal discursive mode, for, difficult as it is to justify in practice, it would be</p><p>appallingly hard to do so in theory. In effect, Institoris and Sprenger author-</p><p>ize a limited amount of commerce with a passive, instrumental devil, in pref-</p><p>erence to any association with the more active moral evil of the witch. This</p><p>decision allows them to give tentative approval to a variety of obscure occult</p><p>practices which are perhaps legitimate for that reason alone.89</p><p>The remainder of this section of the Malleus examines both preventative</p><p>and curative responses to various manifestations of maleficium, in a manner</p><p>roughly parallel to the treatment of witchcraft itself in the previous section.90</p><p>Throughout, Institoris and Sprenger are concerned to separate unlawful super-</p><p>stition, identified by principles laid down by Aquinas and Nider, from per-</p><p>missible Christian countermagic. The authors consistently endorse a very</p><p>liberal application of sacramental substances and Christian charms as the best</p><p>possible preventative measures. Houses should be doused liberally with holy</p><p>water, man and beast should be festooned with written charms, and holy wax</p><p>and herbs should be placed on every threshold to ward off witches’ occult</p><p>32 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 32</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>assaults. If it would curb the power of witches, Institoris and Sprenger are</p><p>quite prepared to see the sacramentals of the Church, and the rite of exor-</p><p>cism besides, employed by pious lay men and women, and, in the event that</p><p>such steps should be neglected or prove to be ineffective, the authors recom-</p><p>mend a graduated hierarchy of responses, beginning with a regimen of prayer,</p><p>confession, pilgrimage, and exorcism. Should these too fail, the patient may</p><p>then turn to a broad range of possible folk remedies, which Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger examine with an eye to separating the permissible wheat from the</p><p>condemned chaff.</p><p>Ultimately, however, the bewitched cannot hope for an infallible remedy,</p><p>for the power of witches is too strong. There is only one completely reliable</p><p>way to combat witchcraft, and this is to eliminate the witches, the course of</p><p>action Institoris and Sprenger endorse in one of the most impassioned passages</p><p>of the Malleus:</p><p>But alas, lord God, although all your judgments are just, who will free the poor</p><p>people who have been bewitched, crying out in their continuous pains? Now</p><p>that our sins have aroused him, the Enemy very much has the upper hand.</p><p>Where are those who have the strength to dissolve those works of the devil</p><p>through licit exorcisms? This single remedy seems left to us, that, by punishing</p><p>through various means the witches responsible, judges restrain their outrages,</p><p>whence the occasions for the sick to visit witches will be removed. But, alas,</p><p>no one feels this in his heart.91</p><p>To aid these embattled judges, the final portion of the Malleus provides a</p><p>detailed guide to the conduct of witch-trial. Much of this is fairly technical,</p><p>taken up with sample documents and advice on how to reject troublesome</p><p>appeals, but Institoris and Sprenger begin by making the more general point</p><p>that witchcraft is everyone’s problem and not the exclusive concern of the</p><p>Inquisition alone.92 If witchcraft were purely a matter of heresy this might not</p><p>be true, but the authors make the interesting argument that a witch is a heretic</p><p>in the same way as is a simoniac, only as a convenient legal fiction. Heresy,</p><p>after all, is a matter of belief, and the devil does not really care if witches reject</p><p>Christianity in their hearts or not; the outward show is all that really matters</p><p>to him, as that is all that is needed to ensure damnation. Witches do not nec-</p><p>essarily hold any false opinions about the faith, but are still guilty of apostasy,</p><p>as well as whatever secular crimes they may have committed. Although this</p><p>may seem like unnecessarily legalistic wrangling,</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger were</p><p>in fact entering into an important and contentious debate over the extent of</p><p>the Inquisition’s jurisdiction. The constitutions of Clement V had forbidden</p><p>both the papal Inquisition and local episcopal courts to try cases of manifest</p><p>heresy alone and without the participation of the other. Institoris and Sprenger</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 33</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 33</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>argue that because witchcraft does not “savor of manifest heresy,” it is fair game</p><p>for an episcopal court alone. Further, because witchcraft is generally known</p><p>by physical injuries, the witch may also be tried competently by secular courts</p><p>for crimes against civil law. Particular cases might, it was true, call for the</p><p>overlapping jurisdictions of the Inquisition, and of the episcopal and the secular</p><p>courts, but in general witches could be tried by the episcopate without the</p><p>participation of the Inquisition or, where capital punishment was not called</p><p>for, by the secular arm.</p><p>With this introductory encouragement to their colleagues out of the way,</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger begin a step by step guide to the conduct of a witch-</p><p>trial, from the method of initiating the process and assembling accusations, to</p><p>the interrogation of witnesses, the formal charging of the accused, the inter-</p><p>rogation and torture of the defendant, and the final determination of guilt and</p><p>assessment of the penalty. The treatise is interesting from a legal perspective,</p><p>and reveals much about how the authors accumulated the experience they</p><p>brought to their treatise, but it does not contribute much to the image of</p><p>the witch already developed. In fact, the process is very much the other</p><p>way round: Institoris and Sprenger’s legal procedures would be meaningless</p><p>without recourse to their already established conception of a witch. For</p><p>example, the authors recommend that the accused be asked why she remains</p><p>in a state of adultery or concubinage, because such women are more gravely</p><p>suspected than are “honest women.”93 Similarly, a woman’s guilt is known by</p><p>an inability to weep during torture, since the gift of tears is a gift from God</p><p>denied to witches.94 In short, a witch-trial based upon the model in the Malleus</p><p>is only practical if one accepts at the outset the conception of the witch and</p><p>of witchcraft that it has constructed. This is, in fact, true of the Malleus as a</p><p>whole. The book’s argument is predicated upon a series of assumptions about</p><p>the nature of creation, about man’s relationship with God and with the devil,</p><p>and about witchcraft and witches, assumptions we shall now examine.</p><p>Notes</p><p>1 For biographical accounts of Institoris and Sprenger, see Peter Segl, “Heinrich Institoris:</p><p>Persönlichkeit und literarisches Werk,” in Peter Segl, ed., Der Hexenhammer (Cologne:</p><p>Böhlau Verlag, 1988), 103–26; Joseph Hansen, ed., Quellen und Untersuchungen zur</p><p>Geschichte des Hexenwahns und der Hexenverfolgung im Mittelalter (reprint, Hildesheim:</p><p>Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1963), 360–407; Joseph Hansen, Zauberwahn, Inqui-</p><p>sition und Hexenprozess im Mittelalter (1900; reprint, Munich: Scientia Verlag Aalen, 1964),</p><p>474–500; Jacobus Quétif and Jacobus Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum (1719–23;</p><p>reprint, New York: Burt Franklin, 1960), vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 880–1, 896–7; Amand</p><p>Danet’s introduction to Henry Institoris and Jacques Sprenger, Le Marteau des sorcières,</p><p>ed. and trans. Amand Danet (Paris: Civilisations et mentalités, 1973), 30–45. Sources</p><p>for both lives are conveniently collected in André Schnyder, Malleus Maleficarum. Kom-</p><p>mentar zur Wiedergabe des Erstdrucks von 1487 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1993), 25–102.</p><p>Henricus Institoris is simply the Latin form of the author’s German name, Heinrich</p><p>Krämer (that is, shop-keeper).</p><p>34 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 34</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>2 “propter senium gantz chindisch.” Ammann, “Innsbrucker Hexenprocesse,” 86.</p><p>3 Hansen, Quellen, 380–90.</p><p>4 For Dominican educational practice, see William A. Hinnebusch, The History of the</p><p>Dominican Order, 2 vols. (New York: Alba House, 1973), 2:1–230, and R.F. Bennet, The</p><p>Early Dominicans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937), 55. Like all Domini-</p><p>can convents, Schlettstadt had a priory school for the humanities and, since 1400, had</p><p>also supported a studium artium. Segl, 103.</p><p>5 Prior to being named a professor of theology, Institoris was regularly referred to as</p><p>“Henricus Institoris de Sletstat, artium magister et theologiae lector.” See Schnyder,</p><p>Kommentar, docs. 5, 8, 10, 12, pp. 35–7. For Institoris’ doctorate see ibid., doc. 15, p.</p><p>38. It was not unusual for busy Dominicans to receive advanced degrees while in Rome</p><p>on other business, for which purpose (among others) there was a studium generale</p><p>attached to the papal court. Hinnebusch, 1:43.</p><p>6 Schnyder, Kommentar, doc. 4, p. 34.</p><p>7 “Sententias nostras interdicti et suspensionis divinorum per nos in oppidum Lipczk ob</p><p>praesentiam Bohemorum fautorum haereticorum.” Ibid., doc. 5, p. 35.</p><p>8 “exercere officium inquisitionis, ubi non erit inquisitor vel ubi erit de licentia sua et</p><p>beneplacito.” Ibid., doc. 8, 36. See also Henry Charles Lea, A History of the Inquisition in</p><p>the Middle Ages, 3 vols. (1888; reprint, New York:The Harbor Press, 1955), 1:370.</p><p>9 “Religionis zelus, litterarum sciencia, vite integritas et fidei constancia aliaque laudabilia</p><p>probitas et virtutum merita.” Schnyder, Kommentar, doc. 11, pp. 36–7.</p><p>10 Ibid., doc. 8, 36; Danet, 38.</p><p>11 Schnyder, Kommentar, doc. 10, p. 36.</p><p>12 Ibid., doc. 13, p. 38.</p><p>13 Ibid., doc. 18, p. 40.</p><p>14 Ibid., doc. 19, p. 40.</p><p>15 Further conflicts arose in 1490, apparently over Institoris’ conduct of an inquisition,</p><p>when his Order censured him for “the many scandals which he perpetrated in the</p><p>province” (“propter multa scandala, que perpetravit in provincia”); and again in 1493,</p><p>when he was ordered on pain of excommunication to quit a lucrative but contested posi-</p><p>tion as cathedral preacher in Salzburg (he did not, and the affair dragged on into the</p><p>next year). Ibid., docs. 49, 55–7, pp. 58, 60–1.</p><p>16 Institoris recalled that Reiser, in his confession prior to execution, claimed that the</p><p>heretics, especially the Waldensians and Hussites, “increase daily in strength and</p><p>numbers.” Henricus Institoris, Tractatus Varii (np: 1496), sermon 2.1; Schnyder,</p><p>Kommentar, 33, n. 1.</p><p>17 Schnyder, Kommentar, doc. 16, pp. 38–9.</p><p>18 See especially Institoris’ sermons on eucharistic errors in Tractatus Varii, passim; and</p><p>Schnyder, Kommentar, doc. 16, p. 38. For a full bibliography of Institoris’ works, see</p><p>Quétif and Echard, 897.</p><p>19 Rudolf Endres, “Heinrich Institoris, sein Hexenhammer und der Nürnberger Rat,” in</p><p>Der Hexenhammer, 207.</p><p>20 K.O. Müller, “Heinrich Institoris, der Verfasser des Hexenhammers und seine Tätigkeit</p><p>als Hexeninquisitor in Ravensburg im Herbst 1484,” Württemburgerische Vierteljahreshefte</p><p>für Landesgeschichte N.F. 19 (1910): 397–417.</p><p>21 Hansen, Quellen, 24–7.</p><p>22 Ibid., 27–8.</p><p>23 Ibid., 29.</p><p>24 For accounts of the 1485 witch persecution in Innsbruck, see Hansen, Quellen, 385–6;</p><p>Ammann, passim; and Schnyder, Kommentar, docs. 31–44, 48–54.</p><p>25 Dienst, 80–1.</p><p>26 Malleus, pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 12, p. 136.</p><p>27 Schnyder, Kommentar, doc. 32, pp. 49–50.The grant of an indulgence was standard pro-</p><p>cedure for inquisitorial investigations, see Lea, Inquisition, 1:407.</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 35</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 35</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>28 Malleus, pt. 3, qu. 1, p. 194.</p><p>29 “Si quis scit vidit vel audivit aliquam esse personam hereticam et maleficam diffamatam</p><p>vel suspectam et in speciali talia practicantem que in nocumentum hominum iumento-</p><p>rum aut terre frugum.” Ibid., pt. 3, qu. 1, p. 195.</p><p>30 Schnyder, Kommentar, doc. 35, p. 51.</p><p>As Golser points out in his letter, by the consti-</p><p>tution of Clement V, inquisitors were otherwise at least nominally required to conduct</p><p>their business in association with episcopal authorities. See Lea, Inquisition, 1:387.</p><p>31 Richard Kieckhefer, Repression of Heresy in Medieval Germany (Philadelphia: University of</p><p>Pennsylvania Press, 1979), 99–112, and passim.</p><p>32 Schnyder, Kommentar, doc. 42, p. 53. “Et si non recederet quantocius, tunc vice mea</p><p>paternitas vestra sibi dicere dignetur, quod satis multa scandala sunt suborta propter</p><p>malum processum suum, quod non remaneat in loco, ne deterius aliquid inde sequatur</p><p>aut sibi contingat.” Ibid., doc. 41, p. 53.</p><p>33 “aber in practica sua apparuit fatuitas, quia multa presupposuit, que non fuerunt</p><p>probata.” Ibid., doc. 43, p. 53.</p><p>34 “Quanti enim ceci claudi aridi et diuersis irretiti infirmitatibus iuxta formam iuris ex</p><p>vehementi suspitione super maleficarum eis huiusmodi infirmitates in genere vel in</p><p>specie predicentes.” Malleus, pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 12, p. 139.</p><p>35 Ibid.</p><p>36 Schnyder, Kommentar, doc. 54, p. 54.</p><p>37 The result of the archduke’s inquiry was published by Molitor in the form of a dialogue</p><p>between the two lawyers and Sigismund, in which Sigismund, interestingly enough,</p><p>adopts the voice of skepticism. See Ulrich Molitor, Tractatus de Pythonicis Mulieribus, in</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum (Frankfurt am Main: Nicolaus Bassaeus,</p><p>1580); Lea, Inquisition, 3:541–3.</p><p>38 Hartmann Ammann, “Eine Vorarbeit des Heinrich Institoris für den Malleus Maleficarum,”</p><p>Mitteilungen des Institutes für österriechischen Geschichtsforschung 8 (1911), 461–504.</p><p>39 As early as 1496, shortly after Sprenger’s death, Servatius Fanckel, a professor of the-</p><p>ology at Cologne, wrote that Sprenger contributed nothing to, and knew nothing about</p><p>the compilation of the Malleus: “Es [sic] quidem verum . . . quod malleus maleficarum</p><p>inscribitur magistro Jacobo Sprenger pie memorie et uni altieri inquisitori sed magis-</p><p>ter Jacobus nihil apposuit aut scivit de compilatione dicti libri.” Schnyder, Kommentar,</p><p>doc. 61, p. 62.</p><p>40 Joseph Hansen has persuasively argued that Institoris was virtually the sole author of</p><p>the text, and, in the main, modern scholarship has tended to confirm his view, although</p><p>his evidence is almost entirely circumstantial, centered mostly around the difficulty of</p><p>fitting the authorship of such a lengthy text into Sprenger’s busy schedule. Hansen,</p><p>Quellen, 404–7, and Danet, 43–5; Schnyder is more cautious, Kommentar, 419–22.</p><p>41 Institoris was also perhaps motivated by an order of Sixtus IV which in 1479 had given</p><p>the University of Cologne the power and the obligation to censor books. Innocent VIII</p><p>abrogated this order in 1487, which was perhaps just as well, because the form of Insti-</p><p>toris’ approbation bears no resemblance to the university’s official nihil obstat. Henry</p><p>Charles Lea, Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft, 3 vols., ed. Arthur C. Howland</p><p>(1939; reprint, New York:Thomas Yoseloff, 1957), 1:337–8.</p><p>42 Joseph Hansen, “Der Malleus Maleficarum, seine Druckausgaben und die gefälschte</p><p>Kölner Approbation vom J. 1487,” Westdeutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst 17</p><p>(1898): 119–68.</p><p>43 Schnyder, Kommentar, 422–5. Schnyder’s thesis would be more convincing were it not</p><p>for the testimony of the eighteenth-century Jesuit scholar, Joseph Hartzheim, who</p><p>claimed to have seen documents now lost in which two of the Cologne faculty protested</p><p>against the fraudulent use of their names in the second approbation. Either Hartzheim</p><p>or Institoris would seem guilty of fraud, and Institoris is usually considered the more</p><p>likely suspect.</p><p>36 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 36</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>44 See Amos Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination: From the Middle Ages to the</p><p>Seventeenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 6.</p><p>45 See their discussion of whether the canonists or the theologians should determine</p><p>whether an individual is guilty of heresy, Malleus, pt. 3, p. 189.</p><p>46 “Et quia in morali iam laboramus materia, unde argumentis variis et declarationibus</p><p>ubique insistere opus non est . . . ideo precamur in deo lectorem ne demonstrationem</p><p>in omnibus querat ubi accomodata [sic] sufficit probabilitas ea deducendo qui constat aut</p><p>visus vel auditus propria experientia aut fide dignorum relationibus esse vera.” Ibid., pt.</p><p>2, p. 86.</p><p>47 Malleus, Apology, 2; see also Sydney Anglo, “Evident Authority and Authoritative Evi-</p><p>dence: The Malleus Maleficarum,” in Sydney Anglo, ed., The Damned Art: Essays in the</p><p>Literature of Witchcraft (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), 1–31.</p><p>48 For the purposes of comparison, a rough count of the number of times a given author-</p><p>ity is cited in the Malleus can be obtained from the index of references in Schnyder’s</p><p>Kommentar, 288–98: the Bible (274), Thomas Aquinas (119), Augustine (75), Aristotle</p><p>(34), Johannes Nider (22), Isidore of Seville (18), Gregory I (17), Dionysius the Pseudo-</p><p>Areopagite (13), Henry of Seguso (13), Jerome (12), Albertus Magnus (11),William of</p><p>Paris (10), Cassian (8), Raymond of Penafort (8),Vincent of Beauvais (8), Peter of Palude</p><p>(6). A similar count reveals 270 references to canon and civil law, but this number may</p><p>be high because it counts the citation of a particular canon as reference to all possible</p><p>appropriate collections of canons since Institoris and Sprenger often did not distinguish</p><p>between collections of law.</p><p>49 Of the narratives in the the Malleus that appear to be taken from the inquisitors’ own</p><p>experience, most are situated in the diocese of Constance (20 accounts, 9 from Ravens-</p><p>burg alone); others are taken from the dioceses of Strassburg (10), Brixen (9), Speyer</p><p>(8), Basel (7), Augsburg (2), and Worms (1). There are but two accounts from lower</p><p>Germany, one each from Koblenz and Cologne, while two more are from Rome.</p><p>50 In the Malleus, pt. 1, qu. 12, for example, when the authors set out to show the horri-</p><p>ble crimes of witch-midwives, they simply abandon their method for flat assertions.</p><p>51 Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 1, pp. 7–13.</p><p>52 “malefici sunt qui demonum auxilio propter pactum cum eis initium maleficiales reales</p><p>effectus permittente deo procurare possunt.” Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 1, p. 10.</p><p>53 “[In quo pacto] malefica se totam obtulit et astrinxit diabolo vere et realiter et non fan-</p><p>tastice et imaginarie solum, ita etiam oportet quod cooperetur diabolo vere et corpo-</p><p>raliter. Nam et ad hoc sunt omnia maleficorum opera ubi super [sic: semper] aut per</p><p>pactum aut per visum aut per locutionem seu per alicuius maleficii [sic] instrumenti</p><p>repositi sub limine domus operatione sua maleficia exercent.” Ibid.</p><p>54 Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 2, p. 14.</p><p>55 Ibid., 16.</p><p>56 Ibid., 17.</p><p>57 Ibid., 20.</p><p>58 “Attento etiam quod inter alios actus habent pro augmento illius perfidie quattuor</p><p>exercere videlicet, fidem catholicam in toto vel in parte ore sacrilego abnegare seipsos</p><p>in corpore et anima devovere, infantes nondum renatos ipsi maligno offerre, spurcitiis</p><p>diabolicis per carnales actus cum incubis et succubis demonibus insistere.” Ibid.</p><p>59 Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 5, pp. 29–39.</p><p>60 “Celestia autem corpora effectus causant naturales cuiusmodi non sunt effectus male-</p><p>ficorum qui dicuntur maleficiales utpote in malum creaturarum preter consuetum</p><p>ordinem nature prosilientes.” Ibid., 37. Compare Thomas Aquinas’s similar proof in</p><p>Summa contra Gentiles, bk. 3, pt. 2, ch. 114.</p><p>61 Malleus, pt. 1, qu. 6, pp. 39–46.</p><p>62 “[Ratio naturalis est, quia plus carnalis viro existit] ut patet in multis carnalibus spurci-</p><p>tiis.” Ibid., 42.</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 37</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 37</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>63 “Omnia per carnalem concupiscentiam que quia in eis est insatiabilis.” Ibid., 40.</p><p>64 Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 7, pp. 46–52.</p><p>65 “Quot enim adulteri pulcerrimas uxores dimittentes</p><p>in fetidissimas alias inardescunt.”</p><p>Ibid., 49.</p><p>66 Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 8, pp. 52–9.</p><p>67 “Scilicet quod adultere fornicarie etc. amplius existunt malefice ostenditur per imped-</p><p>imentum maleficiale super actum generative potente.” Ibid., 52.</p><p>68 “Nihil valeat videre et sentire nisi corpus planum et nullo membro interruptum.” Ibid.,</p><p>pt. 1, qu. 9, pp. 55–9, 57.</p><p>69 Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 10, pp. 59–63. For the authorities, see Lea, Materials, 1:179–80; Hansen,</p><p>Quellen, 39.</p><p>70 Malleus, pt. 1, qu. 11, pp. 63–4.</p><p>71 For reasons that are unclear, the authors arbitrarily divide this discussion into two ques-</p><p>tiones; this is a confusing development, as the solutions to the arguments presented at</p><p>the beginning of question 12 are found at the end of question 13. Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 12–13,</p><p>pp. 64–71.</p><p>72 This is a long and at times theologically complex argument, which is made no clearer</p><p>by another arbitrary division into four questions. Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 14–17, pp. 71–81.</p><p>See chapter 4 below.</p><p>73 The first part of the Malleus actually closes with a short aid to preachers, answering</p><p>various common-sense objections to the reality of witchcraft sometimes brought up by</p><p>troublesome laymen. The chapter is interesting but adds little to the main thrust of the</p><p>book’s argument. Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 18, pp. 81–5.</p><p>74 “Et ne hec quasi incredibilia putarentur. Ideo in prima parte operis per questiones et</p><p>argumentorum solutiones sunt decisa. Ad quas si opus sit dubius lector per investiganda</p><p>veritate recurrere potest. Ad presens tantummodo acta et gesta per nos reperta sive</p><p>etiam ab aliis conscripta in detestationem tanti criminis sunt deducenda ut priores ques-</p><p>tiones si fortassis alicui difficiles ad intelligendum forent. Ex his quae in hac secunda</p><p>parte traduntur fidem capiat et ab errore resileat quo nullam maleficam et nullum mal-</p><p>eficium posse fieri in mundo estimavit.” Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 5, pp. 111–12.</p><p>75 Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, pp. 86–92.</p><p>76 Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 1, pp. 92–5.</p><p>77 “Sed erga iuvenculas ambitioni et voluptatibus corporis magis deditas.” Ibid., 93.</p><p>78 “Et sicut talium iuvencularum non est numerus ut heu experientia docet, ita nec</p><p>numerus maleficarum ex eis insurgentium.” Ibid., 94.</p><p>79 Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 2, pp. 95–101. This account is derived principally from those</p><p>found in book 5 of Johannes Nider’s Formicarius.</p><p>80 Malleus, pt. 2, qu. 1, chs. 3–4, pp. 101–11.</p><p>81 Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 2, p. 95.</p><p>82 This topic covers eleven short chapters. Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, chs. 5–15, pp. 111–47.</p><p>83 Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 15, p. 147.</p><p>84 For example, Institoris and Sprenger know of a magus who produced “witch-butter”</p><p>without having made an express pact with the devil. Ibid. pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 14, p. 143.</p><p>85 Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 16, pp. 147–52.</p><p>86 “Apparet etiam quod rarissime liberantur quantumcumque divinum auxilium et suffra-</p><p>gia sanctorum implorant, ergo non nisi auxilio demonum liberari possunt, quod tamen</p><p>non est licitum querere.” Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 2, p. 152.</p><p>87 Provided, of course, that these fall well short of harmful magic and demonolatry. Ibid.,</p><p>153.</p><p>88 “Vero remedium quod quibusdam ceremoniis supersticiosis practicatur non tamen in</p><p>nocumentum alicuius persone aut per manifestos maleficos agitatur.” Ibid., 156.</p><p>89 Ibid., 153, 157.</p><p>90 Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 2, chs. 1–8, pp. 158–84.</p><p>38 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 38</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>91 “Sed heu domine deus cum omnia iudicia tua iusta sunt quis liberabit pauperes male-</p><p>ficiatos et in continuis doloribus eiulantes, peccatis nostris exigentibus inimicus nimis</p><p>praevaluit, ubi sunt qui licitis exorcismis illa opera diaboli dissolvere valeant. Hoc</p><p>unicum ergo superesse videtur remedium ut iudices eorum [sic: earum] insultus adminus</p><p>refrenant [sic: refrenent] variis penis auctrices maleficas castigando, unde et infirmis fac-</p><p>ultas visitandi maleficas amputabitur, sed heu nemo percepit corde omnes que sua.” Ibid.,</p><p>pt. 2, qu. 2, pp. 155–6.</p><p>92 Ibid., pt. 3, pp. 184–94.</p><p>93 Ibid., pt. 3, qu. 6, p. 201.</p><p>94 Ibid., pt. 3, qu. 15, p. 213.</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 39</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 39</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>3</p><p>The inquisitors’ devil</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger begin their analysis of witchcraft by observing that for</p><p>witchcraft to have any effect, three things must concur: the devil, the witch,</p><p>and the permission of God. For them, as for us, the devil provides a convenient</p><p>starting point, because the witchcraft of the Malleus depends upon an unusual</p><p>conception of what the infernal side of the Christian pantheon is all about.</p><p>Like so many late-medieval cultural icons, the inquisitors’ devil is not amenable</p><p>to simple definition; nor is it easy to determine in what form and to what</p><p>extent the devil was actually “present” in peoples’ minds. Jeffrey Burton</p><p>Russell maintains that the sinister presence of the devil was medieval man’s</p><p>ubiquitous companion, that “The eternal Principle of Evil walked in solid, if</p><p>invisible, substance at one’s side and crouched when one was quiet in the dark</p><p>recesses of room and mind.”1 At the same time, however, and with equal</p><p>justice, Richard Kieckhefer can point to the evidence of witchcraft prosecu-</p><p>tions themselves, which suggest that to most people the devil was not of any</p><p>particular concern, appearing instead “more as a legendary figure of folklore</p><p>than as the master of a demonic cult.”2 One might plausibly maintain that these</p><p>divergent views were the products of different levels of culture, one clerical</p><p>and the other “popular,” but the late-medieval devil was also to everyone a sort</p><p>of chameleon, whose particular appearance was dictated more by circum-</p><p>stances and context than by anything else. Further, there was a considerable</p><p>common ground between the conceptions of the diabolic held by learned</p><p>inquisitors and those of their less educated informants. This partial consensus</p><p>was possible because some clerics had come to accept a complicated and not</p><p>wholly consistent vision of the devil, as at once a transcendent principle of</p><p>evil, and at the same time as a being who was present daily in all manner of</p><p>supra-normal encounters and phenomena. Certainly, the location of the tran-</p><p>scendent in the immanent corresponds with a general tendency in late-</p><p>medieval religion, but in the devil’s case it also created difficult problems:</p><p>where a transcendent God could manifest himself in the mundane world</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 40</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>through a variety of mediating agents, a transcendent devil was traditionally</p><p>not so well equipped.3 While God was represented in the various manifesta-</p><p>tions of the Trinity, and had as well an array of angels and saints, to say nothing</p><p>of the Church, the devil had only a multitude of demons to carry out his will</p><p>on earth. Because all demons were perceived as beings of essentially the same</p><p>type, not obviously distinguished from their master, the mere existence of</p><p>minor demons could potentially lead to Satan’s trivialization. To reconcile the</p><p>apparent ubiquity of demonic power with a transcendent principle of evil,</p><p>some clerics began to insist upon the necessity for human mediation of the</p><p>diabolic side of the supernatural.</p><p>Such a striking dislocation of diabolic agency from the being of the devil</p><p>stands in stark contrast to the thinking of earlier ages, and requires some expla-</p><p>nation. The basic Christian devil of the Fathers had been a relatively coherent,</p><p>consistent figure, who competently played out his well-defined role in God’s</p><p>creation. This is not to say that the conception of the devil had ever been</p><p>simple, but in the earlier Middle Ages most clerics would probably have</p><p>accepted as their starting point Augustine’s view of a powerful but strictly</p><p>limited devil.4This</p><p>orthodox Christian demon was a fallen angel, who retained</p><p>his angelic nature despite the loss of grace, and whose aerial body, superhuman</p><p>intellect, and vast experience enabled him to do wonderful things. He was,</p><p>however, entirely separated from the divine, and could not perform true mir-</p><p>acles or do anything truly supernatural: a demon was simply a creature created</p><p>by God, differing from the birds and beasts only in degree, and not in kind.</p><p>Because the devil lacked the capacity for moral goodness, he was man’s supe-</p><p>rior in neither a moral nor an absolute sense, and, despite his remarkable phys-</p><p>ical and intellectual powers, he could always be overcome, albeit with</p><p>difficulty, by pious minds turned entirely toward God.5</p><p>Demons had a job to do, however, and that was to make life miserable</p><p>for people on earth by tempting them to sin and by afflicting them with</p><p>injuries. Tempting men came easily to demons, for their powers of observa-</p><p>tion revealed our weaknesses and inner characters, while their spiritual natures</p><p>allowed them to beguile surreptitiously those already prone to succumb.</p><p>Demons had considerable influence over such unlucky souls, and were able to</p><p>persuade them to sin</p><p>in marvelous and unseen ways, entering by means of that subtlety of their own</p><p>bodies into the bodies of men who are unaware, and through certain imaginary</p><p>visions mingling themselves with men’s thoughts, whether they are awake or</p><p>asleep.6</p><p>This connection between demonic activity and human sin was responsi-</p><p>ble for the prominence of the devil in Augustine’s thought. Not only was man’s</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 41</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 41</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>own fall the direct result of a failure to resist the devil’s lure, but the tempta-</p><p>tions of the fiend continued to inspire all manner of sins and create countless</p><p>roadblocks on the way to paradise. For Augustine, “evil” was first and foremost</p><p>moral evil and an expression of sin; when Augustine’s devil did evil in the</p><p>world, his presence was known principally by human behavior and not by mis-</p><p>chance or misfortune.7</p><p>In comparison, the devil’s power to cause physical harm was of almost</p><p>trivial concern. It was true, Augustine admits, that the natural powers of</p><p>demons enabled them to bring about physical harm – they might cause disease,</p><p>for example, by rendering the air unwholesome – but, since any mundane</p><p>injury was ultimately inconsequential when compared with the death of the</p><p>soul, Augustine was interested in demons’ capacity for physical harm only</p><p>when it complemented their ability to tempt man into sin. Black magic was</p><p>an important example of this kind of behavior: demons used their powers to</p><p>give efficacy to magicians’ spells not because they enjoyed causing suffering,</p><p>but because by doing so they confirmed the efficacy of superstitious magical</p><p>rites.Thus, men who longed to do evil were rewarded by God with the decep-</p><p>tion of demons. For example, when men used superstitious rites to discover</p><p>the future,</p><p>many things happen for the diviners in accordance with their divinations, so</p><p>that, enmeshed in them, they are made more curious and entangle themselves</p><p>more and more in the multiple snares of a most pernicious error.8</p><p>The same principle applied when demons impersonated pagan gods, and</p><p>bestowed benefits upon their deluded worshipers: by so doing they prevented</p><p>the superstitious from turning towards true religion. Similarly, demons de-</p><p>ployed their powers to do harm and to tempt in concert to lure people to have</p><p>recourse to magical remedies:</p><p>How many wicked things [the devil] suggests, how many things through greed,</p><p>how many things through fear! With these allurements he persuades you to go</p><p>to the soothsayers, the astrologers, when you have got a headache. Those who</p><p>abandon God and resort to the devil’s amulets have been beaten by the devil.</p><p>On the other hand, if the suggestion is made to someone that the devil’s reme-</p><p>dies are perhaps effective for the body – and so-and-so is said to have been</p><p>cured by them because when the devil had received a sacrifice from him he left</p><p>off troubling his body, having got possession of his heart; [one should say] “I</p><p>would rather die than employ such remedies.”9</p><p>Yet no matter how terrible demons might be, everything they did, whether it</p><p>was to tempt or punish the evil or to test the merit of the good, was done at</p><p>the express command of God and by his will:</p><p>42 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 42</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>For [demons] can only act within the limits allowed them; and they are given</p><p>liberty of action by the profound and just judgment of God most high, in accor-</p><p>dance with the desserts of men, some of whom rightly endure affliction, but</p><p>no more, at the hands of those demons, while others are, with justice, deluded</p><p>by them, and brought under their sway.10</p><p>Demons remained morally culpable for the evil that they did, for they enjoyed</p><p>it and did it freely, but ultimately responsibility for their actions lay in the just</p><p>but inscrutable will of God. Under such circumstances, one should avoid the</p><p>devil and shun his works, but one need not fear provided one had faith in God.</p><p>Rather, one should say with Augustine’s imaginary headache sufferer, “God</p><p>scourges me and delivers me as he wills.”11</p><p>This Augustinian conception of the devil was never entirely displaced</p><p>during the Middle Ages, but by the twelfth century it was being amended in</p><p>the course of new learned speculation about the devil and his role in creation.12</p><p>Though scholastic theologians, and Thomas Aquinas in particular, added little</p><p>that could truly be called innovative to the conception of the devil, they did</p><p>alter the ways in which he and his works were perceived, in such a way that</p><p>they emerged more powerful, more independent, and more obviously present</p><p>in the quotidian world than before.13</p><p>Systematization was the hallmark of scholastic demonology: Aquinas’s</p><p>great achievement in this field was the creation of a theoretical framework in</p><p>which the devils of Augustine, Dionysius, and the early Church could com-</p><p>fortably reside alongside their more contemporary kin.14 The mere existence</p><p>of such a system, though, had an inevitable effect upon the subject being sys-</p><p>tematized. Aquinas followed Augustine in his insistence that demons were</p><p>naturally created beings, but drew the logical conclusion that both demonic</p><p>behavior and physiology were therefore legitimate objects of investigation and</p><p>analysis. As created beings, demons obeyed the same physical laws which gov-</p><p>erned the rest of the universe; from the observation of demonically inspired</p><p>effects, from knowledge gleaned from scripture and other authorities, and</p><p>from reliable accounts of encounters with devils, Aquinas had at his disposal a</p><p>body of evidence which he could interpret with reason, logic, and certainty</p><p>according to Aristotelian precepts. Consequently, it was possible to know pre-</p><p>cisely the nature of demonic bodies, demons’ intellectual abilities and limita-</p><p>tions, their speed and range of movement, the qualities of their will and</p><p>emotions, and even their sexual proclivities.15 The ambiguity which had char-</p><p>acterized previous descriptions of the devil was now lost: it was possible to</p><p>know exactly who and what the devil was, and how he would behave under</p><p>given circumstances. Further,Aquinas situated demons within an ordered hier-</p><p>archy of creation, in which by their angelic natures they stood mid-way</p><p>between God and man.16 For this reason, so far as Aquinas was concerned, all</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 43</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 43</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>demons were metaphysically superior to man just as they were man’s physical</p><p>and intellectual superiors; from this derived a belief in diabolic</p><p>potency that</p><p>was correspondingly greater and more threatening than Augustine’s. This dia-</p><p>bolic superiority was clearly expressed in the uniform insubstantiality of</p><p>Aquinas’s demons, since unlike most previous writers, he insisted that demons</p><p>lacked any sort of corporeal body whatsoever: demons were powers and intel-</p><p>ligences rather than beings in a physical sense.17</p><p>There was no room in Aquinas’s universe for the ambiguously drawn</p><p>demons of clerical exempla or the spirits of “folk-demonology,” mischievous</p><p>angels who had fallen to earth mid-way between heaven and hell.18 Aquinas</p><p>did not deny that trolls, fairies, incubi, and other sensible manifestations of the</p><p>devil were encountered; he maintained simply that they were of the same order</p><p>as the intangible beings who brought punishment and temptation. In all of their</p><p>guises demons were essentially the same, fallen angels with angelic powers,</p><p>whose proper dwelling place was hell, but who resided in the lower air by</p><p>divine permission for the express purpose of carrying out the divine will.19</p><p>The problem was to make evidence based upon direct observation of sensible</p><p>demons square with evidence of the devil’s unseen presence and with his the-</p><p>ologically determined identity.</p><p>This is the difficulty Aquinas faced when addressing the existence of</p><p>incubus demons. Although it was a necessary condition of their spiritual</p><p>natures that demons could not generate human offspring,Thomas recognized</p><p>that both authority and common experience reported otherwise. To reconcile</p><p>this apparent contradiction, he constructed an elaborate and unconvincing sce-</p><p>nario in which succubi received semen from their human partners and then</p><p>used this as incubi to inseminate women.20 Normally, of course, human semen</p><p>lost its calor naturalis, and hence its potency, when removed from the body, but</p><p>the superhuman speed of demonic motion was sufficient to overcome even</p><p>this obstacle. But if this provided a satisfactory explanation for how demons</p><p>seemed able to generate human offspring, it did not really explain why they</p><p>should want to do so in the first place. For unlike Guibert of Nogent’s demons,</p><p>who sought intercourse with women for “sport alone,” the demons of the</p><p>Summa take no delight in carnal sins and looked only to lead men into</p><p>perdition.21</p><p>This example illustrates how difficult it could be, even for Thomas</p><p>Aquinas, to reconcile a theologically and metaphysically consistent demon with</p><p>his earthly manifestations. Consequently, in scholastic demonology there is a</p><p>perceptible dichotomy between the highly abstracted, impersonal, invisible</p><p>devil of theory, and demons in their more concrete, personal, and sensible</p><p>forms.22 This discontinuity in the devil’s nature is important, because it proved</p><p>compatible with notions of witchcraft in a way that traditional conceptions of</p><p>44 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 44</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>the devil were not; witches could, for some theorists, occupy this gap in the</p><p>diabolic realm, mediating between the demons of theory and the world of</p><p>earthly misfortune. Thus, as a general rule, the less the demons of a late-</p><p>medieval treatise resembled the fallen angels of Augustine, the greater the</p><p>importance, power, and danger of witches.</p><p>For example, consider the comparatively conservative views of Felix</p><p>Hemmerlin, a Swiss reformer, who wrote extensively about demons in the</p><p>generation prior to Institoris and Sprenger.23 He was interested in the devil’s</p><p>immediate and physical appearances in the world, rather than as some abstract</p><p>principle of moral evil: his devil is mainly a cause of tangible misfortune rather</p><p>than of sin. But Hemmerlin’s demons are in other respects quite traditional;</p><p>they do not abdicate their responsibilities to their human followers, and when</p><p>there is mischief to be done, they do it themselves, for their own (or God’s)</p><p>reasons. When Hemmerlin discusses the relationship between man and devil,</p><p>it is the role of demon that is most important. For example, Hemmerlin</p><p>tells us that a woman of Erfurt had a demon, who spoke fluently in German,</p><p>Latin, and Czech. Institoris and Sprenger would doubtless have called her a</p><p>witch for this reason alone, and made her the focus of the narrative. For</p><p>Hemmerlin, however, she is of no further interest; instead, it is her demon</p><p>who claims center stage: this industrious devil bragged that he was the same</p><p>spirit who had seduced the Bohemians away from the true faith, and that he</p><p>then destroyed with hellfire the fortifications of the invading Catholic army,</p><p>because the commanding princes “did not hold God before their eyes but</p><p>divided the territory of the kingdom among themselves before victory had</p><p>been achieved.”24 Not only does Hemmerlin’s devil act without human medi-</p><p>ation, his activities are securely determined by a conventional moral order: he</p><p>punished the Catholic army because of the sins of its leaders.</p><p>Hemmerlin also believed in magic. He knew, for instance, that peasant</p><p>women brewed poisonous herbs and roots together to cause storms.When the</p><p>pot was exposed to the sun, the fumes rose into the air and condensed into</p><p>violent storm clouds, apparently through a process partly natural and partly</p><p>diabolic.25 He describes a “mulier strega,” who could turn herself into a cat</p><p>and killed many infants in their cradle before she was burned, and observes</p><p>that “the world is full of this curse.”26 Yet for Hemmerlin, the devil had not</p><p>been eclipsed by witches, and demons retained a well-defined role in the pro-</p><p>duction of evil. Whereas misfortune in the Malleus is virtually the exclusive</p><p>prerogative of witches, Hemmerlin’s demons might still cause storms of their</p><p>own accord, and were even known to make off with a penis or two.27</p><p>Less consistent and less traditional spirits inhabit the work of Petrus</p><p>Mamoris, regent of the University of Poitiers, who wrote an interesting tract</p><p>on the subject of witchcraft at the request of the bishop of Saintes around</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 45</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 45</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>1460.28 In this work, the Flagellum Maleficorum, Mamoris tries to line up the</p><p>theoretical powers of demons with the most concrete examples possible, since</p><p>there are, regrettably, certain persons who will concede nothing, “unless some</p><p>gross and sensible example is given them.”29 While his examples are certainly</p><p>“gross and sensible,” they also feature demons of unusually trivial appearance.</p><p>Mamoris’ demons included not only the shop-worn inhabitants of exemplary</p><p>stories; they were also the products of his own extensive experience. Like</p><p>Institoris, Mamoris was not a man of high birth – in his youth, he had worked</p><p>as a shepherd – and his considerable first- and second-hand knowledge of</p><p>demons would seem to accord with the views and experiences of most</p><p>common people. He had encountered demons masquerading as ghosts and pol-</p><p>tergeists, as well as the annoying spirits that disturbed the sleep of sheep and</p><p>shepherds alike. He was also extremely credulous; not only was Mamoris pre-</p><p>pared to accept almost any account of strange occurrences as substantially true,</p><p>he also insisted upon interpreting ambiguous phenomena as demonic. In this</p><p>he can be compared with another demonologist, the more traditional, and con-</p><p>siderably more intellectually sophisticated, Johannes Nider (d. 1437).30Where</p><p>Nider contended, following William of Paris, that humans, and not demons,</p><p>go out at night and put tangles in horses’ manes, Mamoris maintained that</p><p>demons regularly did exactly this, and recommended giving one’s horses a</p><p>splash of holy water as a remedy.31 Similarly, while Nider qualified his tales of</p><p>stone-throwing devils, admitting that such things were often attributable to</p><p>the frauds of wicked people, it did not occur to Mamoris to be so cautious.32</p><p>Nor do Mamoris’ narratives serve an</p><p>sibility, but I have benefited from the advice and assistance of Professors Barbara Gold</p><p>and Carl Rubino of Hamilton College’s Classics Department, and from the dedicated</p><p>revisions of the readers for Manchester University Press.</p><p>TMMPR 8/30/03 5:36 PM Page ix</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>TMMPR 8/30/03 5:36 PM Page x</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>1</p><p>Introduction:</p><p>contested categories</p><p>On the morning of October 29th, 1485, dignitaries began to assemble in the</p><p>great meeting room of Innsbruck’s town hall. They included Cristan Turner,</p><p>licentiate in the decretals and the special representative of Georg Golser,</p><p>bishop of Brixen, Master Paul Wann, doctor of theology and canon law,</p><p>Sigismund Saumer, also a licentiate in the decretals, three brothers of the</p><p>Dominican Order, a pair of notaries, and the inquisitor, Henry Institoris.1They</p><p>were there to witness the interrogation of Helena Scheuberin, who, along with</p><p>thirteen others, was suspected of practicing witchcraft. Scheuberin would have</p><p>been familiar to at least some of these men: an Innsbruck native, she had</p><p>been married for eight years to Sebastian Scheuber, a prosperous burger. She</p><p>was also an aggressive, independent woman who was not afraid to speak her</p><p>mind, a trait which on this occasion had landed her in serious trouble. From</p><p>the formal charges against her, we learn that not long after the inquisitor had</p><p>first arrived in Innsbruck with the stated intention of bringing witches to</p><p>justice, she had passed him in the street, spat, and said publicly, “Fie on you,</p><p>you bad monk, may the falling evil take you.”2 Worse still, Scheuberin had also</p><p>stayed away from Institoris’ sermons and had encouraged others to do like-</p><p>wise, even going so far, as the next charge against her reveals, as to disrupt</p><p>one sermon by loudly proclaiming that she believed Institoris to be an evil man</p><p>in league with the devil – a man whose obsession with witchcraft amounted</p><p>to heresy.3</p><p>It is possible that Scheuberin was aware that she had a reputation for</p><p>harmful sorcery, and that her fear of suspicion led her unwisely to take the</p><p>offensive when the inquisitor appeared. If such were the case, her tactics were</p><p>spectacularly ill-conceived. Institoris was a man who treasured his orthodoxy</p><p>above all things, and we may well imagine that he was deeply offended by</p><p>Scheuberin’s slander; more seriously, though, her attack upon the work of the</p><p>Papal Inquisition was manifest evidence that she was herself either a heretic</p><p>or a witch. A searching investigation of Scheuberin’s life and character ensued,</p><p>TMM1 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 1</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>producing additional charges: she had kept company with suspected heretics;</p><p>she had caused a woman’s illness in order to have her husband as her lover;</p><p>and, most seriously, in January of the previous year she had killed, either</p><p>through witchcraft or through poison, a knight with whom she wished to have</p><p>an adulterous affair.4 Scheuberin thus stood accused of using magic to cause</p><p>injury and death, of causing maleficium in the jargon of the court. Since this</p><p>was a charge familiar to all those in attendance at her interrogation, the various</p><p>members of the tribunal must have expected to hear testimony directly rele-</p><p>vant to this crime. If so, they were in for a surprise.</p><p>In the preamble to the charges against Scheuberin, the inquisitor alluded</p><p>to sorcery only indirectly; instead he dwelt upon the relationship between</p><p>witchcraft and sexual immorality, the one being, in his opinion, a necessary</p><p>complement to the other. Institoris observed that,</p><p>[just as it is hard to suspect an upstanding and decent person of heresy,] so on</p><p>the contrary a person of bad reputation and shameful habits of faith is easily</p><p>defamed as a heretic, indeed it is a general rule that all witches have been slaves</p><p>from a young age to carnal lust and to various adulteries, just as experience</p><p>teaches.5</p><p>Helena Scheuberin was an ideal example of this principle: a woman of ques-</p><p>tionable morals, rumored to be sexually promiscuous, and with a reputation</p><p>for maleficent magical power. Hence, for Institoris, she was a witch, and, by</p><p>definition, once this identification was made, she also became guilty of</p><p>demonolatry and of personal and sexual commerce with the devil. For</p><p>Institoris, such an identification was crucial to his thinking about witches, and</p><p>the function of an inquisitorial proceeding was in large part to provide a</p><p>context in which this identification could be made and proved. To this end, he</p><p>began his interrogation with a series of questions about Scheuberin’s virginity</p><p>and sexual history that made his fellow commissioners exceedingly uncom-</p><p>fortable.6 Soon Bishop Golser’s representative asked the inquisitor directly to</p><p>cease this line of questioning since it seemed to him improper and irrelevant</p><p>to the case at hand. Institoris then began to question the witness about several</p><p>specific points of her testimony, but again his manner was so offensive to the</p><p>episcopal commissioners that they protested and called a halt to the morning’s</p><p>proceedings.</p><p>When the court reconvened, it was with a telling addition: the bishop’s</p><p>representatives had sanctioned the presence of Johann Merwais, whom the</p><p>documents reveal to be a licentiate in the decretals and a doctor of medicine.</p><p>From Institoris’ perspective, though, his calling was infinitely more sinister:</p><p>he was an advocate for the defense – a lawyer. Merwais immediately raised</p><p>questions about the trial’s validity, accusing the inquisitor of asking leading</p><p>2 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM1 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 2</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>questions and of making a variety of serious procedural errors. Upon inve-</p><p>stigation, the defense council’s motion to dismiss was approved, and over</p><p>Institoris’ vehement objections the commission vacated the process and</p><p>released the suspects.</p><p>Through this little drama we see clearly revealed the extent to which the</p><p>category “witch” was contested in late-fifteenth-century Germany. All the</p><p>learned men at Scheuberin’s trial believed in witchcraft. If, up to this point,</p><p>Bishop Golser and his representatives had supported the inquisitor with no</p><p>real enthusiasm, they certainly had not interfered with his investigation. Nor</p><p>did they object to prosecuting those who caused injuries through magic. They</p><p>and the inquisitor simply disagreed about how a witch should be recognized,</p><p>and, on a more fundamental level, about what a witch actually was. Moreover,</p><p>this was not simply an isolated confrontation between inquisitorial and local</p><p>authorities but rather a reflection of a much more widespread debate within</p><p>the learned, ecclesiastical community over these same issues. Thus, inspired</p><p>by this local humiliation, Henry Institoris retired to Cologne to write a</p><p>detailed and comprehensive defense of his beliefs. And so, in a way, the insults</p><p>of an otherwise obscure woman were responsible for one of the best-known,</p><p>most quoted, and, indeed, most infamous of all medieval texts, the “Hammer</p><p>of Witches,” the Malleus Maleficarum.</p><p>The study which follows examines the problem of the construction of witch-</p><p>craft in fifteenth-century Europe, with particular reference to this text. Prior</p><p>to the fifteenth century, people spoke in terms of heretics, of maleficium, of</p><p>monstrous female spirits – the lamiae and strigae, but not of a single compos-</p><p>ite category, “witch.” By the mid-sixteenth century, however, educated men</p><p>generally agreed upon the definitions of “witch” and “witchcraft,” definitions</p><p>which drew upon, but were clearly distinguished from, older categories. Since</p><p>the Malleus played a significant role in this evolution of terms, it seems rea-</p><p>sonable</p><p>obvious didactic purpose, as did Nider’s</p><p>more traditional exempla. They were simply intended as evidence of the devil’s</p><p>nature and behavior, although the two do not always exist comfortably side by</p><p>side.</p><p>The most impressive ability of Mamoris’ demons was their powers of</p><p>local motion, for although they could not move anything in an absolute sense,</p><p>as this power belonged to God alone, they could move objects relative to them-</p><p>selves.33 Through this power demons could alter the weather, cause disease,</p><p>carry witches through the air, and so on. As an example, Mamoris relates that</p><p>he once knew a nobleman who had a familiar spirit named “Dragon.” Dragon</p><p>was a minor demon who had the bad luck to encounter another, stronger,</p><p>demon who bound him in a ring, seemingly for no other reason than sheer</p><p>malice.The stronger devil would take poor Dragon with him as he rummaged</p><p>through people’s houses, leaving the ring stuck behind a door or in a hole until</p><p>his business was finished. From this tale, Mamoris concludes that the devil was</p><p>able to manipulate both Dragon, and Dragon’s tangible prison, by his powers</p><p>of local motion: “For demons are of a nature superior to the rational soul which</p><p>cannot move the body.”34 One cannot help but think that if little Dragon is of</p><p>46 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 46</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>a nature superior to that of human beings, the exact extent of his superiority</p><p>is elusive indeed. Similarly unthreatening demons populate Mamoris’ accounts</p><p>of stone-throwing devils, whose mischief also provided painfully direct evi-</p><p>dence of the power of demons to move objects locally.35</p><p>Mamoris evidently thought in terms such as these when he envisioned</p><p>the direct and unmediated influence of demons in human affairs. Demons were</p><p>indeed commonly encountered, but their assaults were more likely to be</p><p>annoying rather than really terrifying, of the order of broken windows rather</p><p>than broken bones. He does not deny that devils can do much greater things,</p><p>and readily admits that since even certain stones have the power to turn the</p><p>mind to love or madness, “so much more can the devil through transmutation</p><p>of the blood and humors and in another subtle way horribly produce hatred</p><p>in the mind and pain in the flesh.”36 Yet it was also entirely characteristic of</p><p>Mamoris to say this in reference to witchcraft rather than to any of the devil’s</p><p>personal endeavors. Like Institoris, Mamoris saw witchcraft as the far more</p><p>frightening aspect of diabolic power: witches were the ones responsible for</p><p>infertility, madness, the slaughter of infants, infestations of werewolves, and</p><p>plague.</p><p>In short, in direct, worldly encounters with the authors of demonological</p><p>treatises and their informants, demons often seemed insufficiently imposing to</p><p>carry plausibly the responsibility for the world’s ills. Nider, in his Formicarius,</p><p>tells of a mildly troublesome demon who haunted the house of a priest living</p><p>near Nuremburg,</p><p>with hissings, whistlings, and blows, not very distinct, but audible; for some-</p><p>times he would beat on the walls of the house, and sometimes the joker would</p><p>blow, as it seemed, on the various pipes of actors, and he would indulge in a</p><p>lot of unrestrained behavior doing these sorts of things, that nonetheless do no</p><p>harm.37</p><p>The worst that this demon could do was frighten those unfamiliar with</p><p>its antics, and hide articles of clothing in out of the way places. Similarly, the</p><p>Franciscan, Alphonso de Spina, who around 1460 devoted the long final book</p><p>of his Fortalitium Fidei to the attacks of demons, was likewise frightened in his</p><p>youth by a noisy but seemingly harmless house spirit.38 Such demons, he says,</p><p>were responsible for beating on wine casks, and pulling off one’s covers at</p><p>night, but could do no other harm. Many demonologists had similar experi-</p><p>ences, and all had heard first-hand accounts of such things.</p><p>The extent to which conceptions of the devil in general were influenced</p><p>by this sort of narrative depended upon the relative weight assigned to the evi-</p><p>dence of eyewitness testimony. For Nider and Hemmerlin, although such nar-</p><p>ratives were important, they did not outweigh the importance of more</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 47</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 47</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>traditional exempla in which the devil retained a more traditionally “hellish”</p><p>role. In the work of Mamoris, Spina, and Institoris and Sprenger, the testi-</p><p>mony of personal experience was given proportionally more authority, and</p><p>their characterizations of demons were more apt to reflect comparatively</p><p>trivial encounters with various spirits.</p><p>As appearances of the devil in late-medieval demonologies become</p><p>increasingly mundane, their authors become more apt to identify as demonic</p><p>all manner of supra-normal encounters, and so to assimilate demons with</p><p>various traditional spirits. This was nothing new: the process of assimilation</p><p>had been going on ever since Christians first identified pagan spirits and deities</p><p>with the devil. But because some fifteenth-century scholastics had come to</p><p>accept appearances of a very concrete and material, but not awesomely pow-</p><p>erful devil as representative, they were also able to accept narrative accounts</p><p>of encounters with such spirits, or with demons sharing many of their char-</p><p>acteristics, as substantially real and meaningful. In this way, as the demono-</p><p>logical conception of the devil began to approximate that of more humble folk,</p><p>demonologists were able to accept as true an increasing number of traditional,</p><p>“popular” narratives, thus validating their increasingly “popular” conception of</p><p>the devil. Hemmerlin reported that in his day, demons “appear frequently in</p><p>Denmark and Norway, and there they are called trolls, and on account of their</p><p>familiarity with people they are not feared, but people make use of their obe-</p><p>dience.”39 One could argue that later demonologists suffered from a similar</p><p>problem, as their devils began to assume the contours of a variety of familiar</p><p>but not overtly demonic spirits.</p><p>Ghosts are a good example of this process, since there was no necessary</p><p>reason why a spirit of the dead should be anything other than what it appeared</p><p>to be. Jacobus de Clusa, a fifteenth-century expert on the subject, was in fact</p><p>convinced that most apparitions around monasteries, churches, cemeteries,</p><p>and houses were actually the insubstantial spirits of the dead. Jacobus explained</p><p>that the reason exorcisms were so often ineffectual these days, a fact which</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger ascribed to witchcraft, was that rites intended to drive</p><p>off demons were being wrongly applied to the Christian dead.40</p><p>While demonologists did not deny that ghosts existed, they believed that</p><p>spirits claiming to be ghosts almost invariably turn out to be demons in dis-</p><p>guise. Mamoris tells of a spirit which haunted a house with the usual cries and</p><p>groans, claiming to the ghost of a dead lady:</p><p>Many people heard this spirit day and night, but saw nothing. He revealed many</p><p>things which had been done in the past, and these revelations were found to be</p><p>true. He also used to admonish the people of the house to do many good</p><p>things.41</p><p>48 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 48</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Yet appearances were deceiving: the ghost interspersed certain superstitiosa</p><p>along with his good advice, and on this basis a “wise man” was able to discover</p><p>that the spirit was actually a demon. Such things, Mamoris concluded, happen</p><p>all the time. By interpreting situations such as this as encounters with the devil,</p><p>Mamoris and his colleagues succeeded not only in demonizing ghosts and</p><p>similar apparitions, but also in giving their demons the characteristics of ghosts</p><p>and nature spirits.42</p><p>This is most</p><p>obvious where the actual appearance of the devil is con-</p><p>cerned. The Christian devil is naturally a master of illusion, and when he was</p><p>required to assume a shape for the benefit of mortal senses, the Church tra-</p><p>ditionally maintained that virtually any form was available to him. But as the</p><p>character of the devil began to merge with those of other supra-normal beings,</p><p>his physical appearance changed also. Like demons, traditional nature spirits</p><p>could assume human form, but in their case it was customary to have some</p><p>signal flaw or abnormality in their appearance so that their true nature might</p><p>be known. Many European nature spirits, for instance, might appear as normal</p><p>or attractive humans from the front, but were hollow when observed from</p><p>behind.43 As early as the thirteenth century, Caesarius of Heisterbach reported</p><p>that when a certain woman inquired why a demon always retreated by walking</p><p>backward, the devil replied: “Although we may assume human form, yet we</p><p>have no backs.”44 By the fifteenth century, similar ideas about the devil’s appear-</p><p>ance were making their way into learned demonologies. Alphonso de Spina</p><p>maintained that although the devil could transform himself into an angel of</p><p>light, or even appear as Christ on the cross, through “diligent inspection,” a</p><p>tail or some similar deformity would give him away.45 Thus for Spina, the tra-</p><p>ditional Scandinavian saying, “When the tail is seen, the troll is known,” could</p><p>just as easily have been applied to the devil.46</p><p>Thinking of the devil as he appeared on earth in these terms encouraged</p><p>demonologists to construct a two-tiered model of the demonic, elaborating</p><p>upon the disjunction already present in scholastic theory between the devil in</p><p>his abstract and his more material forms. The most dramatic example of this</p><p>exercise is found in the fifth and final book of Spina’s Fortalitium Fidei, a lengthy</p><p>discussion of the devil, his nature, origins, and works. There is a hierarchy of</p><p>demons in hell, Spina tells us, and each is charged with oversight of some spe-</p><p>cific sin – Asmodeus rules lust, Mammon greed, Behemoth gluttony, and so</p><p>on. There is, in addition, an army of invisible demons all around us, some</p><p>responsible for specific places, others assigned to tempt particular people, and</p><p>all of us can count on having at least one demon specifically charged with our</p><p>own spiritual ruin. Fortunately, every demon is opposed by a particular good</p><p>angel, and the two spiritual armies are constantly engaged in merciless warfare</p><p>over the fate of human souls. Since the day of creation, Satan has turned all</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 49</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 49</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>his powers toward mankind’s destruction, and there is not a crime, a sin, an</p><p>evil in the world, for which he is not somehow responsible.47</p><p>Thus far, Spina’s account of demons and their works is unusual only for</p><p>its elaboration. As a Franciscan, Spina looked at demons in a traditional way,</p><p>more as the source of sin than of misfortune. Undoubtedly demons did cause</p><p>storms and disease, but more importantly, they excited heretics and Jews</p><p>against the Church, and had built up a fortress of sin in opposition to the citadel</p><p>of God.48 To delineate this earthly city of sin and its legions of heretics, Jews,</p><p>and criminals arrayed against Christendom was Spina’s primary objective, and</p><p>occupies the first four books of the treatise. Nonetheless, Spina concludes his</p><p>text with an elaborate description of demons themselves, and, one is shocked</p><p>to discover, that they are unambiguously the beings of folklore.49 They are the</p><p>duen de casa, who break crockery, disturb sleepers and go bump in the night;</p><p>they are incubi and succubi, who apart from their more direct assaults perch</p><p>on sleepers’ chests and send them erotic dreams; they are the praelia, who</p><p>comprise the phantom armies that appear at times to men; they are the night-</p><p>mares who oppress men in their sleep; they are fates and familiar spirits; and</p><p>finally they are the bruxae, demons who deceive old women into thinking that</p><p>they can fly through the night with Diana and do impossible things. In short,</p><p>Spina demonizes a host of traditional spirits, and grafts their characteristics</p><p>uncomfortably onto a very traditional conception of the devil’s nature and</p><p>duties. This sort of assimilation of folklore and Christian theory had been</p><p>attempted before, of course, but usually in the context of exemplary stories</p><p>intended to educate the unlettered about the “reality” that lay behind tradi-</p><p>tional beliefs. Spina, however, elevated this process to a formal enumeration</p><p>of diabolic types, and in so doing brought into painful clarity the contrast</p><p>between demons as they appeared visibly and as they operated invisibly in</p><p>theory.</p><p>In the Malleus, this dichotomous and non-traditional conception of the</p><p>devil is an integral part of the authors’ argument. Whereas they discuss the</p><p>devil continuously throughout the text, they usually do so in terms of his</p><p>powers and motives in the abstract. These are formidable indeed. Due to the</p><p>fineness of their natures, the scope of their experience, and the revelation of</p><p>higher spirits, demons had knowledge far surpassing man’s.Their will adhered</p><p>immovably to evil, and they sinned always in pride, envy, and malice. Although</p><p>they were intangible spirits, demons could nonetheless do marvelous things</p><p>through the exercise of their intellect and will alone. The authors revealed to</p><p>their curious readers the formidable extent of the devil’s powers:</p><p>They will discover how [the devil] knows the intentions in our hearts, how, too,</p><p>he can transmute bodies, substantially and accidentally, with the assistance of a</p><p>50 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 50</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>second agent, how he can move bodies locally, and alter the inner and outer</p><p>senses so that they perceive something else, and how he can, although indirectly,</p><p>alter a person’s mind and will.50</p><p>That demons used these powers tirelessly to the detriment of mankind,</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger demonstrate through a catalogue of typical diabolic</p><p>activities:</p><p>Rational in mind, yet reasoning without discourse, subtle in evil, desirous of</p><p>doing harm, ingenious in deceit, they alter the senses, they corrupt disposi-</p><p>tions, they agitate people while they are awake, and disturb sleepers through</p><p>dreams, they bring disease, they stir up storms, transform themselves into</p><p>angels of light, they bear hell with them always, they usurp the worship of God</p><p>to themselves through witches; through them they bring about the magic arts,</p><p>they seek to rule over the good and attack them further as much as possible;</p><p>to the elect they are given as a trial, and always they lie in wait for a person’s</p><p>ruin.51</p><p>This demonic agenda represents a considerable change from that assumed</p><p>by earlier authors: where Augustine, for example, saw diabolic evil chiefly in</p><p>terms of temptation and subsequent sinful human behavior, Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger saw the work of demons rather in acts of material harm. While, to</p><p>Augustine, the locus of the demonic threat was essentially interior, manifested</p><p>in the impulse to sin, and resisted through the grace of God, in the Malleus the</p><p>operation of demons is conceptually outside one’s self; even when demons per-</p><p>secute a sleeper through dreams, the dreams are not his own, but have been</p><p>sent, like an unwelcome psychic parcel, to the recipient. This change in the</p><p>locus of demonic activity allows Institoris and Sprenger to make an analogical</p><p>association between demons and witches: since the harm caused by demons</p><p>resembles traditional ecclesiastical definitions of maleficium very closely, and</p><p>since demons and witches share similar goals and means, it was possible to</p><p>elide the earthly presence of one in favor of the other.52</p><p>The devil was, of course, still the power behind</p><p>the witches’ magic: his</p><p>was the aerial body that entered into men and inspired minds to love or hatred,</p><p>his were the illusions that allowed old women to appear as cats or wolves, or</p><p>that made beautiful brides look like disgusting old hags, and his was the power</p><p>of motion that carried witches around on their brooms or that brought storms</p><p>to damage crops and disease to injure men and animals.Yet in the Malleus, the</p><p>devil himself is strikingly absent in all of this. When a witch dips a twig into</p><p>water and then sprinkles that water into the air, rain followed automatically,</p><p>without any overt sign of the devil’s involvement. Similarly, when she pierces</p><p>a wax image, the devil mechanically transfers the injury to the intended</p><p>victim.53 In this, the devil is merely the efficient cause of the effect; he bears</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 51</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 51</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>no responsibility for the injury himself.54 He did not tell the witch whom to</p><p>injure or whom to spare; he was not personally present at all. In fact, magical</p><p>procedures were such a reliable conduit of demonic power that the proper use</p><p>of diabolic countermagic could even induce the devil to injure his own witches.</p><p>In one case, when women wished to determine who was responsible for cows</p><p>going dry, they hung a pail of milk over the fire and beat it with sticks; a demon</p><p>then came and transferred their blows to the witch.55 In short, the powers of</p><p>the devil are utilized very much like any other natural force or property,</p><p>without his overt presence being known in any way.</p><p>This view was not, of course, entirely original. Both Augustine and</p><p>Thomas Aquinas accepted that the demonic component of magic was con-</p><p>cealed, since the whole point was to trick people into sin. But in the Malleus</p><p>this traditional perspective no longer makes sense: witches knew full well that</p><p>their magic came from the devil, or else they were not really witches; instead,</p><p>the devil seemed to act mechanically because either the pact or his own nature</p><p>forced him to accept that role. Furthermore, magic was no longer simply a</p><p>supplementary diabolic project; in the Malleus it has become the principal</p><p>means by which demons work their harm in the world.</p><p>Incubus demons offer an illuminating specific example of Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger’s thinking about demons and witches. Because they define witches</p><p>as such through their personal relationships with the demons, and incubi in</p><p>particular, these spirits had to appear to witches regularly and directly. Fur-</p><p>thermore, as Institoris and Sprenger strongly imply, these are the devils who,</p><p>while invisible, give potency to the witches’ magic. The relationship between</p><p>witch and incubus, therefore, provides the point at which the theoretical</p><p>powers of demons are realized in the form of the witch’s diabolic magic.</p><p>Despite this, incubi are in some ways less than completely formidable</p><p>creatures. The incubi and succubi of Christian tradition were originally minor</p><p>spirits (almost certainly demonized forms of traditional nature spirits, polter-</p><p>geists, and house spirits), and, although the association of witches with incubi</p><p>was a necessary component of witchcraft in the Malleus, the only first-hand</p><p>accounts of such associations came from the witches themselves, who con-</p><p>fessed to such liaisons under torture or its threat.56 Their descriptions of their</p><p>demon lovers were colored by their own traditional or “popular” perceptions</p><p>of supra-normal encounters, demonic and otherwise, and these, in turn,</p><p>informed the inquisitors’ conception of the witches’ devil. The outgrowth of</p><p>this dialogue was a demon that retained many characteristics of traditional</p><p>spirits, and whose very lack of a forcefully diabolic nature served to empha-</p><p>size the witch’s own guilt and responsibility.</p><p>In the experience of Institoris and Sprenger, for example, it was rare for</p><p>a demon to recruit a witch directly; more often, witches themselves acted as</p><p>52 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 52</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>the devil’s agents. The authors had extensive personal knowledge of this pro-</p><p>cedure, and refer to it at least four times. In one instance, they had heard the</p><p>confession of a young repentant witch from Breisach, who confessed that her</p><p>aunt had brought her upstairs to a room filled with fifteen young men, dressed</p><p>in green, after the fashion of knights, and demanded that she take one of them</p><p>as her husband. The girl was beaten until she consented, whereupon she was</p><p>initiated into the society of witches.57 Witches did not always enjoy such luck,</p><p>however, and these stories could end more happily. In an analogous narrative,</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger relate that in order to seduce a certain devout young</p><p>virgin, a wicked old witch took her upstairs to a room full of beautiful young</p><p>devils, warning her first not to make the sign of the cross. But because the girl</p><p>secretly did so anyway, “the demons in that same place were unable to reveal</p><p>their presence to the virgin in their assumed bodies,” and she escaped with</p><p>nothing worse than the witch’s impotent malediction.58</p><p>In these narratives, the incubus plays a markedly passive role. It is the</p><p>witch, and not the devil, who is responsible for luring victims to the erotic</p><p>rendezvous, and it is the witch who must spell out the terms of the encounter.</p><p>Nor is the devil once found very “devilish”: the young knights dressed in green</p><p>suggest fairies more than demons, as does their meeting place on liminal</p><p>ground – in rooms above stairs or ladders. The liminal nature of the demon</p><p>likewise emerges in his choice of season, for, as Institoris and Sprenger remark,</p><p>these encounters typically coincide with periods of sacred time: Christmas,</p><p>Easter, and Pentecost.59 For the witch, herself a liminal figure, the devil is</p><p>present at all times; for the rest of society, the devil was truly “near” only under</p><p>certain special conditions, such as those arising from the person or operation</p><p>of a witch. For a witch, an upstairs room on a feast day could be filled with</p><p>demons, and she could bring guests into their presence; for those fortified with</p><p>the sign of the cross, on the other hand, the demons were quite absent – they</p><p>did not really “exist” at all.60</p><p>To Institoris and Sprenger, witchcraft depended upon this intimate bond</p><p>between woman and demon, close even to the point of identity. In the Malleus,</p><p>the account of Institoris’ prosecutions of witches in Ravensburg describes pre-</p><p>cisely how this relationship was determined.61 They report that about twenty-</p><p>eight miles southeast of the town, a very severe hailstorm had damaged the</p><p>fields and vines in a swathe a mile wide, so that for the space of three years</p><p>scarcely anything would grow there. The people of the town suspected witch-</p><p>craft, “and clamored for an inquisition.” Institoris was duly summoned, and,</p><p>after careful investigation, he seized two suspects, a bath-woman named Agnes</p><p>and Anna of Mindelheim, whom he imprisoned separately. Agnes was inter-</p><p>rogated first, but she stoutly proclaimed her innocence through “very light</p><p>questioning.”This clearly showed that Agnes, like many witches, was provided</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 53</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 53</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>by the devil with maleficium taciturnitatis, the preternatural ability to withstand</p><p>torture in silence, so it was undoubtedly due to the miraculous intervention</p><p>of God that Agnes confessed, and Institoris happily recalls that when she “was</p><p>suddenly freed and released from her chains, although in the place of torture,</p><p>she laid bare all of the crimes which she had perpetrated.”62 Not only did she</p><p>confess to works of maleficium, but under the questioning of an inquisitorial</p><p>notary, “she publicly confessed to</p><p>everything else she was asked about the</p><p>renunciation of the faith and her filthy, diabolical pacts with an incubus</p><p>demon.”63 In Institoris’ mind, if Agnes was indeed a witch, as she manifestly</p><p>was, she had also to be guilty of these crimes, for this was what witchcraft was</p><p>all about.That there was no evidence that she had done these things was unsur-</p><p>prising, because Agnes, like all witches, had been “most secret” in her dealings</p><p>with the devil; proof of her guilt, therefore, depended upon her thorough con-</p><p>fession. But it is characteristic of the inquisitor’s thought that Agnes’s interro-</p><p>gation about the details of her liaisons with the devil had to be completed</p><p>before she was questioned about her use of destructive magic.</p><p>Agnes claimed that she had been lured into the sect by another witch,</p><p>who had brought her to her home to meet the devil in the guise of a young</p><p>and handsome man.64 Having been seduced sexually, Agnes was apparently</p><p>unable or unwilling to do without her demon again, and had been with him</p><p>for some eighteen years. When asked about the hailstorm, she confessed that</p><p>one day at about noon, a demon had come to her house and asked her to bring</p><p>some water out to the plain, because he wanted to make rain. As she was told,</p><p>Agnes met the devil standing under a tree. There she dug a little hole in the</p><p>ground and poured the water into it. She then stirred the water with her finger</p><p>“in the name of the devil and all the other demons,” at which point the water</p><p>disappeared and the devil rose up into the air to produce the hailstorm.65</p><p>Under questioning, Agnes described a world filled with demons, who</p><p>were her lovers, companions, and supervisors. Under their guidance and tute-</p><p>lage she worked her magic and evil deeds, while they rewarded her achieve-</p><p>ments and punished her failures – all of this completely invisibly to her</p><p>neighbors, who suspected her simply of harmful magic. The notary had first</p><p>questioned her about the charges brought against her, that she had done harm</p><p>to man and beast through witchcraft, “since no one had testified against her</p><p>concerning the renunciation of the faith and carnal depravity with an incubus</p><p>demon.”66 To make good this lack was the inquisitor’s objective.</p><p>Agnes was not, however, quite alone in this world of demons, and she</p><p>implicated a confederate, Anna of Mindelheim, in her crimes. “But this was</p><p>remarkable,” says Institoris, that “when on the following day the other woman</p><p>had been exposed for the first time to the very lightest questioning, in as much</p><p>as she was hung by her thumbs scarcely clear of the ground” she freely con-</p><p>54 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 54</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>fessed to everything without the least discrepancy between her testimony and</p><p>that of Agnes.67 There was at least one difference, however: the devil recruited</p><p>Anna directly, without any intermediary. According to Institoris, the devil</p><p>appeared to Anna in the guise of a man, as she went to visit her lover, “causa</p><p>fornicationis,” and made her a proposition:</p><p>“I am the devil, and if you wish, I will always be ready at your good pleasure,</p><p>nor shall I desert you in any necessity whatsoever.”68</p><p>This initial unmediated intimacy with the devil was reflected in Anna’s</p><p>character, for, as Institoris notes, Anna was a much worse witch than Agnes,</p><p>for she had been the sexual slave of the devil for longer, had done more harm,</p><p>and, unlike Agnes, was unrepentant when she was burned. Of course Anna’s</p><p>“confession” was contingent upon that of Agnes, who had the benefit of giving</p><p>her story first, and had also the comparative luxury of negotiating her confes-</p><p>sion with her interrogators. Agnes was thus able to shift her burden of moral</p><p>responsibility onto the unseen and ghostly presence of her demon; the inquisi-</p><p>tors interrogated Anna with a script ready to hand, and so it is unsurprising</p><p>that her relations with the devil should be more intimate than those of her</p><p>colleague.</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger are fully aware that by making the witch the focus</p><p>for demonic encounters on earth, they are suggesting a new paradigm for dia-</p><p>bolic behavior. It is true, they grant, that there had always been incubus and</p><p>succubus demons to plague mankind, but their traditional role had now</p><p>changed. In the past, their mode of attack and their motives were sexual: they</p><p>most often persecuted those whose sins were of a particularly sexual nature,</p><p>and their diabolic rape was intended to be neither pleasant nor welcome. This</p><p>destructive sexuality Institoris and Sprenger now attributed to witches:</p><p>whereas, “in times gone by, incubus demons infested little women against their</p><p>own wills,” nowadays “they subject themselves to a wretched servitude for the</p><p>sake of carnal pleasure, a most disgusting thing.”69 Incubi and succubi now fol-</p><p>lowed a precise order of attack, determined by the willingness of their human</p><p>partners. To those women wholly willing to have them they came freely; to</p><p>those who were unwilling they had to be sent – and this was the work of</p><p>witches.70</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger illustrate this new order of demonic sexual assault</p><p>with the story of a man of Coblenz, who was prone to strange and debilitat-</p><p>ing sexual fits. Although no other person seemed to be present, the man would</p><p>begin to move as if copulating, until, “after enduring fits of this kind for a long</p><p>time, the poor man fell to the ground, destitute of all his strength.”71 The man</p><p>claimed to be completely unable to resist these spasms, and blamed a woman</p><p>who had returned some offense with curses for bewitching him.</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 55</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 55</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Compare this story with the roughly contemporary narrative of the</p><p>Dominican theologian, Jordanes de Bergamo. Jordanes tells of a demon who</p><p>assumed the likeness of a beautiful girl in order to seduce a hermit:</p><p>When he was done and had arisen, the demon said to him, “behold what you</p><p>have done, for I am not a girl or a woman but a demon,” and at once he dis-</p><p>appeared from view, while the hermit remained absolutely astonished. And</p><p>because the demon, with his great power, had withdrawn a very great quantity</p><p>of semen, the hermit was permanently dried up, so that he died at the end of</p><p>a month’s time.72</p><p>Although the demons in each story afflict their victims with a kind of non-</p><p>productive sexual excess, the incubus of the Malleus acts at the behest of</p><p>the witch. Jordanes’ more traditional spirit both tempts and punishes sin.</p><p>Jordanes’ demon is tangibly present, and explains his performance to his</p><p>victim; the demon of the Malleus is invisible, without physical presence or hint</p><p>of personality, existing only as the bearer of an affliction and the instrument</p><p>of a witch.</p><p>In a sense, Institoris and Sprenger’s witch is Jordanes’ demon trans-</p><p>formed: an obviously feminine, insatiably sexual creature, in whom an excess</p><p>of sexuality corresponds with the destruction of sexuality in others. Indeed,</p><p>in the Malleus, at times the two are not even distinguishable. On one occasion,</p><p>the authors tell us, a man was harassed by “a demon in the form of a woman,”</p><p>who persistently sought sexual intercourse. The creature was eventually ban-</p><p>ished with the help of the sacramentals of the Church, “Whereby,” we learn,</p><p>“the devil had either been present in his own person in the form of a witch,</p><p>or with the actual body of a witch, since, with God’s permission, he is able to</p><p>do both of these things.”73 This demon, whose behavior was entirely sugges-</p><p>tive of a succubus, thus appeared to his victim, “as a witch”; the witch, whose</p><p>form or whose body the devil appropriated, was, in turn, identified in appear-</p><p>ance and behavior with the succubus herself.74</p><p>Although in their confessions, witches often sought to portray them-</p><p>selves as tools of the devil, Institoris and Sprenger consistently</p><p>rejected this</p><p>possibility. The work of demons, in their view, depended upon the guiding</p><p>malice of witches, and this applied not just to traditional manifestations of</p><p>maleficia, but to other more definitively demonic behaviors, the most remark-</p><p>able of which was diabolic possession. Prior to the Malleus, possession was an</p><p>entirely characteristic occupation of the devil, having little, if anything, to do</p><p>with witchcraft. Institoris and Sprenger, however, are entirely consistent in</p><p>their subordination of the demons’ earthly activities to the agenda of their</p><p>human minions. Granted, demons were capable of possessing people any time</p><p>God should require; but, Institoris and Sprenger contended, demons usually</p><p>56 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 56</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>possessed their victims at the instance of witches, since God granted demons</p><p>more latitude when acting through witches than otherwise.75 Although they</p><p>cited various traditional cases of demonic possession, it is clear that they con-</p><p>sidered possession through witches a relatively more serious threat.76</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger illustrate their understanding of demonic pos-</p><p>session with a long story – in fact, the longest single narrative account in the</p><p>Malleus. It is taken from Institoris’ own experience: while a young man in</p><p>Rome, Institoris encountered a priest possessed by a demon. Although usually</p><p>lucid, the priest lost his senses whenever he wished to visit holy places or spend</p><p>his time on anything divine; just as bad, he stuck out his tongue involuntarily</p><p>whenever he passed a church or knelt for the salutation of the Virgin. Though</p><p>such behavior was not uncommon for demoniacs, the cause of his affliction</p><p>gave reason for comment: he claimed that</p><p>a certain woman, a witch, brought this infirmity upon me; for when chastising</p><p>her on account of a certain disagreement about Church rules, while I was</p><p>chiding her rather harshly, because her will was stubborn, she said that after a</p><p>few days I would be afflicted with these things which then befell me. But the</p><p>demon dwelling in me also reports this: that a maleficium has been placed by the</p><p>witch under a certain tree, and that unless it is removed, I cannot be freed, but</p><p>he is unwilling to point out the tree.77</p><p>Initially, it appeared as if the demon was correct: a full battery of exorcisms</p><p>in a variety of holy places fails to provide the priest with relief. Only when a</p><p>pious bishop spends forty days in a continuous regimen of fasting, exorcism,</p><p>and prayer is the young man delivered.</p><p>The notable thing about this saga is the way in which demonic posses-</p><p>sion becomes an aspect of witchcraft, almost wholly unrelated to the demon</p><p>himself. The demon even comments in a detached way upon the priest’s</p><p>predicament: he has no stake in the witch’s quarrel; he has nothing personally</p><p>to do with the entire process.This is, in fact, a necessary part of the narrative,</p><p>as it is the demon who identifies the witch and explains the completely mate-</p><p>rial, and not spiritual, basis for the priest’s affliction. Institoris does not even</p><p>consider the demon’s further remarks relevant to the proceedings, despite the</p><p>fact that, as the priest was undergoing exorcism, the demon within him cried</p><p>out:</p><p>“I don’t want to go out.” And when asked for what reason, he responded, “On</p><p>account of the Lombards.” And he was asked again why he was unwilling to</p><p>depart on account of the Lombards. Then he answered in the Italian tongue,</p><p>although the sick priest did not know that language, saying that all of them prac-</p><p>tice such and such, naming the worst vice of lust.78</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 57</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 57</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Under other circumstances, a young man possessed by a demon, raving pre-</p><p>sumably about sodomy, would have at least raised eyebrows. Because sin so</p><p>often provided the occasion for possession, a demon’s dialogue with its exor-</p><p>cist, and especially its commentary upon the spiritual state of the possessed</p><p>and of others, was naturally of considerable interest, yet, to Institoris, the</p><p>words of the demon do not pertain to the subject at hand – witchcraft. Hence</p><p>he reports them merely as curiosities; the cause of possession, Institoris seems</p><p>to suggest, is found buried under trees rather than buried in the soul.</p><p>For Institoris and Sprenger, witchcraft is the key to understanding the</p><p>demonic, and not the other way round. The devil exists in two almost com-</p><p>pletely autonomous forms: the powerful, largely theoretical demons who</p><p>invisibly moved men to sin and caused calamities on earth, and the minor</p><p>spirits who haunt houses and crossroads. The witch, defined by her relation-</p><p>ship with an incubus demon (itself mid-way between these extremes) provides</p><p>a necessary intermediate term in this system, allowing the awesome power of</p><p>the devil to operate on earth without the incongruous presence of decidedly</p><p>unimpressive demons as agents. The witch thus becomes a human extension</p><p>of the diabolic realm, at times capable of assuming the characteristics, motives,</p><p>and behaviors of demons, while still retaining those of women. Further,</p><p>because Institoris and Sprenger identify witches with actual women, they</p><p>locate responsibility for misfortunes in the witches’ own real, socially con-</p><p>structed, moral evil, rather than in some abstract, dualist principle of evil or</p><p>in the malice of nature spirits and preternatural beings. This kind of concep-</p><p>tion of the demonic, I would suggest, corresponds closely with a level of</p><p>anxiety in witch-beliefs that is at least in part responsible for sustained witch-</p><p>prosecutions in the late fifteenth century: on the one hand, it accurately mir-</p><p>rored notions of maleficium and the harmful occult powers of humans found in</p><p>traditional European peasant communities; on the other, it provided a context</p><p>in which these beliefs could be embraced by a learned clerical elite.</p><p>As a point of contrast, let us consider the somewhat earlier work of</p><p>Nicholas Jacquier, an inquisitor in France and Bohemia.79 In his treatise, the</p><p>Flagellum Haereticorum Fascinariorum, witchcraft is largely compatible with that</p><p>of the Malleus, but Jacquier takes a more traditional view of the devil and his</p><p>role. Jacquier conceives of witchcraft principally in terms of a heretical cult:</p><p>to him it is the “abominable sect and heresy of wizards,” in which demons, not</p><p>witches, play the leading roles.80 Whereas other heresies may have been insti-</p><p>gated by the devil, with their perverse doctrines being handed down from one</p><p>generation to the next by men, here, “this worst of sects and most infamous</p><p>of heresies is handed down personally through demons themselves.”81 In con-</p><p>sequence, where the Malleus begins with a discussion of the devil’s theoretical</p><p>powers, Jacquier takes as his point of departure the devil’s ability to appear</p><p>58 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 58</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>actually and sensibly to men.82 Jacquier’s devil is the leader of his cult: he</p><p>appears visibly to men to induce them to renounce God and the Church, and</p><p>to take him instead as their lord; he instructs his followers in evil, providing</p><p>them with poisons and magic potions, as well as with specific instructions con-</p><p>cerning how and where to use them; and he demands offerings from his sec-</p><p>taries – food and drink were acceptable, human semen was better, and the</p><p>blood of innocents was the best of all.83 In sum, the devil of the Flagellum is</p><p>far more personally responsible for the activities of witches than is his coun-</p><p>terpart in the Malleus.</p><p>Jacquier’s conception of the relationship between the devil and his sect</p><p>appears much influenced by a number of stories current in mid-fifteenth-</p><p>century France.These accounts emphasized</p><p>the devil’s desire to usurp the cult</p><p>of God, and hence emphasized the devotional, quasi-religious nature of the</p><p>bond between witches and the devil. Most important to Jacquier was the cel-</p><p>ebrated case of William Adelmo, prior of St. Germain-en-Laye, doctor of the-</p><p>ology, and a man whom Jacquier knew quite well. In 1453, Adelmo publicly</p><p>confessed that he had renounced the faith, entered into the sect of witches,</p><p>and had worshiped the devil. He further confessed that</p><p>When he was introduced into said sect, the devil proposed that Master William</p><p>might well, if he wished, be able to increase the devil’s domain, and instructed</p><p>the same Master William to preach that sects of this kind were nothing except</p><p>illusions.84</p><p>The devil in Adelmo’s account appears as the subtle master of a secret society</p><p>whose members lurk concealed in all walks of life. In the Flagellum Haeretico-</p><p>rum, it is the existence and membership of this society, which the devil so clev-</p><p>erly wished to keep secret, that is at issue, and not maleficia per se. Although</p><p>the fascinarii are sorcerers who deploy diabolic magic by the devil’s will, they</p><p>derive their unique character from their personal dependence upon the devil</p><p>and their membership in his cult, not from their occult powers. Indeed,</p><p>Jacquier recognized that maleficia had nothing necessarily to do with this</p><p>heretical sect; since malign magic could function regardless of whether one</p><p>worshiped the devil or not, there were doubtless many maleficii who were</p><p>not fascinarii.85 Such persons must, or course, be linked with the devil by</p><p>some sort of pact, either tacit or explicit, but this could easily be an individ-</p><p>ual, personal arrangement that did not imply membership in the devil’s</p><p>organized cult.</p><p>This posed a problem for Jacquier’s conception of the fascinarii: since mal-</p><p>eficium was not in itself direct evidence of membership, an inquisitor had to</p><p>look, not for the ambiguous presence of harmful magic, but for witnesses to</p><p>the Sabbat and evidence of the demonic cult itself, which, as Institoris’ expe-</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 59</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 59</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>rience with Agnes and Anna suggests, could be very hard to come by. Direct</p><p>and immediate commerce with the devil, although necessary to witchcraft,</p><p>was likely to be secret and hidden, to be revealed only through torture and</p><p>interrogation once suspects had already been identified on other grounds.</p><p>While Institoris and Sprenger’s construction of witchcraft could readily trans-</p><p>late ideas about malign magic from a popular idiom to the more learned envi-</p><p>ronment of the inquisitors, Jacquier’s could not. His was a model much better</p><p>suited to the testimony of a fallen doctor of theology than to a village brew-</p><p>wife. Certainly, once prosecutions had begun, it was easy to extract the names</p><p>of confederates from accused witches through torture, and Jacquier was at</p><p>pains to defend the legal validity of such tactics, but because his conception of</p><p>the witch was dependent upon heresy and the devil, initial accusations were</p><p>not easy to obtain.86</p><p>Moreover, because Jacquier had a much more unified, conception of the</p><p>devil, in whom power and personality were closely joined, he had no way to</p><p>determine if the blame for any given misfortune lay with a witch or with the</p><p>devil.Where Institoris and Sprenger subordinated the operation of demons on</p><p>earth to the power of witches, blaming supernatural harm on witches as a</p><p>matter of course, Jacquier was more cautious, noting that whatever demons</p><p>did through witches, they could and would do of their own accord.87 As a</p><p>result, while many of Jacquier’s ideas about witchcraft would be accepted by</p><p>theorists of the following century (his notions of the diabolic Sabbat in par-</p><p>ticular), his construction of witchcraft failed to provide the consensus within</p><p>the community of witch-believers – including learned theoreticians, magis-</p><p>trates, and inquisitors as well as unlettered peasants and townsfolk – neces-</p><p>sary for sustained witchcraft prosecutions. For a well-defined, fully threatening</p><p>witch-figure to emerge, the devil as a personality had to be divorced from the</p><p>day-to-day operations of witchcraft. Such a separation would enable demo-</p><p>nologists to accept a more remote, “god-like” conception of Satan, more in</p><p>accord with current theological trends, as well as the ideas of both Protestant</p><p>and Catholic writers of the next century. It was just this consensus that</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger’s model of the demonic would provide.</p><p>Notes</p><p>1 Jeffrey Burton Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,</p><p>1972), 102.</p><p>2 Richard Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials (Berkeley, University of California, 1976), 36.</p><p>See also David Gentilcore, From Bishop to Witch (Manchester: Manchester University</p><p>Press, 1992), 248.</p><p>3 For the late-medieval tendency “to grasp the transcendent by making it immanent,” see</p><p>Carlos M.N. Eire, War Against the Idols:The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin</p><p>(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 11 and passim.</p><p>60 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 60</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>4 See Valerie J. Flint, The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton: Princeton</p><p>University Press, 1991), 146–57; Jeffrey Burton Russell, Satan: The Early Christian</p><p>Tradition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981). St. Augustine wrote extensively on</p><p>the nature of demons, but especially influential were De Divinatione Daemonum and De</p><p>Civitate Dei, books 9–10.</p><p>5 Augustine, City of God, trans. Henry Betteson (London: Penguin, 1972), 8.15.</p><p>6 Augustine, The Divination of Demons, trans. R.W. Brown, in Saint Augustine.Treatises on</p><p>Marriage and Other Subjects, ed. Roy J. Deferrari (New York: Fathers of the Church,</p><p>1951), 430.</p><p>7 For one example among many, see Augustine’s sermon on John the Baptist: “The ancient</p><p>enemy is always on watch against us; . . . He sets lures and traps, he insinuates evil</p><p>thoughts; to goad people to ever worse kinds of fall he sets out advantages and gains,</p><p>it is painful to reject his evil suggestions and willingly accept death as we know it.”</p><p>Augustine, Sermons, trans. Edmund Hill, ed. John E. Rotelle (Brooklyn: New York City</p><p>Press, 1992), pt. 3, vol. 4, sermon 94A, p. 20.</p><p>8 Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, trans. D.W. Robertson, Jr. (Indianapolis:</p><p>Bobbs-Merrill/Library of Liberal Arts, 1958), 23.35.</p><p>9 Augustine, Sermons, sermon on Esau and Jacob, 4:36, pp. 205–6.</p><p>10 Augustine, City of God, 7.35. See also 8.24.</p><p>11 Augustine, Sermons, 4:36, p. 206.</p><p>12 Precisely why this occurred is difficult to say, but see Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle</p><p>Ages, 101–32, and Edward Peters, The Magician, the Witch, and the Law (Philadelphia:</p><p>University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 93–8.</p><p>13 Since we are here ultimately concerned with the work of fifteenth-century Dominicans,</p><p>Aquinas is unquestionably the most relevant scholastic theorist. Charles Edward</p><p>Hopkin argues for the essential conservatism of Thomist demonology in his doctoral</p><p>dissertation, “The Share of Thomas Aquinas in the Growth of the Witchcraft Delusion”</p><p>(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1940). See also Jeffrey Burton Russell,</p><p>Lucifer:The Devil in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984).</p><p>14 Hopkin, 177.</p><p>15 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, ed. Institutio Studiorum Medievalium Ottaviensis</p><p>(Ottowa: Studii Generalis O. Pr., 1941), pt. 1, qu. 50–64; Postilla in Job; De Malo and</p><p>De Potentia in Questiones Disputatae. At the same time, a similar scholarly project defined</p><p>the character and capacities of angels: “Scholastics explored with great logical rigor and</p><p>tenacity the angels’ intellectual and emotional capacities, their personhood, their sim-</p><p>plicity, their problematic relationship with time and space, and even the metaphysical</p><p>bases for their</p><p>being. Indeed, at the university they developed what may properly be</p><p>called an ‘angelology,’ a science of angels.” David Keck, Angels and Angelology in the Middle</p><p>Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 74.</p><p>16 See, for example, Summa Theologiae, pt. 1, qu. 64, art. 4.</p><p>17 Dyan Elliott, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages</p><p>(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 129; see Summa Theologiae, pt.</p><p>1, qu. 50, art. 2, resp. 9.</p><p>18 In the late twelfth century,Walter Map recorded an interview with one of these lesser</p><p>spirits, one of the angels who, “without assistance or consent to Lucifer’s crime, were</p><p>borne by foolishness to wander after the accomplices of sin” (“qui sine coadiutorio uel</p><p>consensu culpe Luciferi vagi post fautores scelerum fatue ferebamur”). He and his</p><p>fellows, he claimed, had no desire for the ruin of cities or the blood and souls of men;</p><p>rather, they were apt to play jokes and make risible illusions with their powers. “Every-</p><p>thing that we can, we do for laughter, and nothing for tears.” (“Omne quod ad risum</p><p>est possumus, nichil quod ad lacrimas”). De Nugis Curialium, ed. M.R. James (Oxford:</p><p>Clarendon Press, 1914), dist. 4, c. 6, lines 8–17.</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 61</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 61</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>19 Summa Theologiae, pt. 1, qu. 64, art. 4.</p><p>20 Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 51, art. 3; De Potestate, Questiones Disputatae, qu. 6, art. 8; and Hopkin,</p><p>77–9.</p><p>21 Although one may wonder how tempting such necessarily hurried couplings could pos-</p><p>sibly have been. Guibert of Nogent, De Vita Sua, Patrologia Latina 156, 958: “Sunt quoque</p><p>quedam in nequitiis infligendis atrocia, aliqua vero solis contenta ludibriis.” See also</p><p>Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, pt. 1, qu. 63, art. 2.</p><p>22 Hans Peter Duerr, Dreamtime, trans. Felicitas Goodman (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985),</p><p>5.</p><p>23 For dates and biography of Felix of Hemmerlin (known in Latin as Felix Malleolus), see</p><p>Hansen, Quellen, 109.</p><p>24 “Nam dicti Principes non proposuerunt deum ante conspectum suum sed inter se</p><p>diviserunt regni terminos terrarum ante Triumphum.” Felix Hemmerlin, Tractatus de</p><p>Credulitate Daemonibus Adhibenda, in Heinrich Institoris and Jacob Sprenger, Malleus</p><p>Maleficarum (Frankfurt, 1600), 2:431.</p><p>25 Felix Hemmerlin, Dialogus de nobilitate et rusticitate, in Hansen, Quellen, 110.</p><p>26 “hac maledictione plena est terra.” Ibid., 110–11. The woman is Finicella, burned in</p><p>Rome in 1424.</p><p>27 Hemmerlin, Tractatus, 429. A devil in the guise of a holy man removes a sinning priest’s</p><p>male member which has been the cause of all his difficulties. Naturally, it returns to</p><p>view, even larger than before, at the worst possible moment.</p><p>28 See Hansen, Quellen, 208–9.</p><p>29 “quod numquam de talibus aliquid concederent, nisi proponeretur eis aliquod grossum</p><p>exemplum sensibile.” Petrus Mamoris, Flagellum Maleficorum (Lugdunum [Lyon], 1621),</p><p>12.</p><p>30 See Hansen, Quellen, 88–9.</p><p>31 Johannes Nider, Praeceptorium Legis s.Expositio Decalogi (Strassburg: Georg Husner, 1476),</p><p>1.11, p; Mamoris, 45.</p><p>32 Nider, Praeceptorium, 1.11, s; Mamoris, 19 and passim.</p><p>33 “Non enim coelum vel aliquod totum elementum mouere potest, quia destrueretur ordo</p><p>Vniuersi, quem Deus instituit: sed potest mouere corpora sibi proportionata.” Ibid.,</p><p>16.</p><p>34 “Sunt enim diaboli superioris naturae ad animam rationalem, quae non potest movere</p><p>corpus.” Ibid.</p><p>35 Institoris and Sprenger use a similarly trivial, not to say humorous, example of demons’</p><p>powers of local motion in the Malleus. A priest, and a friend of one of the authors, was</p><p>fortunate enough to witness a man being bodily transported through the air for some</p><p>distance by a demon.The victim was a student who had been drinking beer with friends,</p><p>and when an associate declined to fetch more, on account of an ominous thick cloud</p><p>blocking the door, he unwisely declared that “Even if the devil were there, I will go to</p><p>get a drink” (“Etsi diabolus adesset potum apportabo”).When he went outside, the devil</p><p>swept him up. Malleus, pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 3, p. 102.</p><p>36 “Multo plus potest daemon per transmutationem sanguinis et humorum et alio subtili</p><p>modo horrorem incutere, in mente odium, et in carne dolorem.” Mamoris, 32.</p><p>37 “strepitibus et sibulis [sic] ac pulsibus, non multum excellentibus sed manifestis; ali-</p><p>quando enim ad parietes percutiebat; aliquando vero ioculator varias mimorum fistulas</p><p>ut videbatur flabat, et talia non nociua multum gestiebat.” Johannes Nider, Formicarius</p><p>(1480; facsimile, Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1971), 5.2, 200.</p><p>38 Alphonso Spina, Fortalitium Fidei (Lugdunum [Lyon]: Gulielmus Balsarin, 1487), book</p><p>5, consideration 10.</p><p>39 “Et his diebus taliter apparet frequenter in Dacia et Nortuvegia, et ibidem Tolli dicuntur;</p><p>et propter assuetudinem ab hominibus non timentur, sed homines ipsorum obsequiis</p><p>utuntur.” Hemmerlin, Tractatus, 428.</p><p>62 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 62</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>40 Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York: Columbia</p><p>University Press, 1934), 4:289. For an overview of this problem, see André Goddu,</p><p>“The Failure of Exorcism in the Middle Ages,” in Albert Zimmerman, ed., Soziale</p><p>Ordnungen im Selbstverständnis des Mittelalters, 2 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,</p><p>1980), 2:540–77.</p><p>41 “Qui quidem spiritus audientibus multis die et nocte, et nihil tamen videntibus, multa</p><p>in tempore praeterito facta revelavit, quae fuere cognita vera fuisse, et ad multa bona</p><p>facienda gentes domus admonebat.” Mamoris, 20.</p><p>42 A great many more examples might be given, but an interesting one is Nider’s</p><p>insistence that the bestial men and women sometimes encountered in the forest are not</p><p>real “wild men,” but demons who appear to deceive the unwary. Nider, Praeceptorium, k</p><p>(qu. 6).</p><p>43 Reimund Kvideland and Henning K. Sehmsdorf, eds., Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend</p><p>(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 216–17.</p><p>44 “Licet corpora humana nobis assumamus, dorsa tamen non habemus.” Caesarius of</p><p>Heisterbach, Dialogus Miraculorum, 2 vols., ed. Joseph Strange (1851: reprint,</p><p>Ridgewood New Jersey: Gregg Press, 1966), 3.6, p. 118.</p><p>45 Spina, consid. 11.</p><p>46 Katherine M. Briggs, The Vanishing People (London: B.T. Batsford, 1978), 76.</p><p>47 Spina, consid. 1–6.</p><p>48 Ibid., consid. 6.</p><p>49 Ibid., consid. 10.</p><p>50 “Invenient etiam qualiter cognoscit cogitationes cordium nostrorum qualiter etiam</p><p>possit transmutare corpora adminiculo alterius agentis substantialiter et accidentaliter,</p><p>qualiter etiam possit movere corpora localiter immutare etiam sensus exteriores et inte-</p><p>riores ad aliquid cogitandum qualiter etiam possit immutare hominis intellectum et vol-</p><p>untatem licet indirecte.” Malleus, pt. 1, qu. 3, p. 22.</p><p>51 “[Enim sunt humani generis inimici,] mente rationales absquam tamen discursu intelli-</p><p>gentes, in nequicia subtiles nocendi cupidi semper in fraude novi, immutant sensus,</p><p>inquinant affectus, vigilantes turbant, dormientes per somnia inquietant, morbos infer-</p><p>unt, tempestates concitant, in lucis angelos se transformant, semper infernum secum</p><p>portant, erga maleficos divinum cultum sibi usurpant, magice artes per eos fiunt, super</p><p>bonos dominari appetunt et amplius proposse infestant, electis ad exercitium dantur,</p><p>semper fini hominis insidiantur.” Ibid., 23.</p><p>52 For example, compare Isidore of Seville’s well-known definition of malefici: “Hi et</p><p>elementa concutiunt, turbant mentes hominum, ac sine ullo veneni haustu violentia</p><p>tantum carminis interiment.” Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, ed. W.M. Lindsay (Oxford:</p><p>Clarendon, 1911), 8.9, lines 9–10.</p><p>53 Malleus, pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 11, p. 132.</p><p>54 Ibid.</p><p>55 Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 2, p. 156. Likewise if one burns the intestines of an animal killed by</p><p>witchcraft, the devil will similarly heat the witch’s bowels. Ibid., 158.</p><p>56 One may compare,</p><p>for example, the incubus reported by Caesarius of Heisterbach, who</p><p>reverted to an annoying house spirit when rebuffed, throwing things and changing food</p><p>on plates to filth, or that of Gobelinus Persona, who “talked freely with all comers,</p><p>played delicately on a musical instrument, played at dice, drank wine, but never allowed</p><p>himself to be seen except his hands which were slender and soft.” Caesarius of</p><p>Heisterbach, Dialogus Miraculorum 3.6; Gobelinus Persona, Cosmodromium, aet. vi, c. 70,</p><p>in Lea, Materials, 1:286.</p><p>57 Malleus, pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 2, pp. 96–7.</p><p>58 “Demones ibidem existentes suam presentiam in assumptis corporibus illi virgini</p><p>nequiebant ostendere.” Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 4, p. 110. This story also appears, with</p><p>slight variations, in pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 1, p. 94.</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 63</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 63</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>59 Demons do this, Institoris and Sprenger explain, so as to mock and offend God. Ibid.,</p><p>pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 4, p. 110.</p><p>60 Institoris and Sprenger maintain that each of us is assigned to the care of two angels,</p><p>one good and one bad. For the normal run of humanity, the angels are “present” only</p><p>in a highly abstract way, for example as the voice of temptation or of conscience; the</p><p>witch, on other hand, will regularly eat, chat, and have sexual relations with her demon.</p><p>Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 3, p. 25.</p><p>61 Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, chs. 1 and 15.</p><p>62 “subito libere et a vinculis absoluta licet in loco torture et cuncta flagitia ab ea perpe-</p><p>trata detexit.” Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 15, p. 146.</p><p>63 “Cetera omnia de fidei abnegatione et spurcitiis diabolicis cum incubo demone pactis</p><p>interrogata publice fatebatur.” Ibid.</p><p>64 Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 1, p. 94.</p><p>65 Perhaps to demonstrate that he is not leading his witness, Institoris relates the ex-</p><p>change between Agnes and the notary as a literal interrogation. In this instance Agnes</p><p>“was asked ‘With what words or in what ways did you stir the water?’ She replied ‘I</p><p>stirred it with my finger, but in the name of that devil and of all the other devils.’ ”</p><p>(“Interrogata demum quibusne verbis aut modis aquam mouisset. Respondit digito</p><p>quidem moui, sed in nomine illius diaboli et omnium aliorum demoniorum.”). Ibid., pt.</p><p>2, qu. 1, ch. 15, p. 146.</p><p>66 “Cum nemo testis de fidei abnegatione ac carnali spurcitia cum demone incubo</p><p>aduersus eam deposuisset, [eo quod illa secretissma sint illius secte cerimonialia.]”</p><p>Ibid.</p><p>67 “Sed et hoc mirabile cum sequenti die altera questionibus etiam leuissimis exposita</p><p>primo fuisset vtpote digito vix a terra elevata post libere soluta, praefata omnia non dis-</p><p>crepando in minimo.” Ibid.</p><p>68 “Demon sum, et si volueris ad tuum beneplacitum semper ero paratus, nec in quibus-</p><p>cumque necessitatibus te deferam.” Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 1, p. 94.</p><p>69 “Incubi demones in retroactis temporibus infesti fuerunt mulierculis contra ipsarum vol-</p><p>untatem.” “Sed sponte pro voluptate re fetidissima miserabili servituti se subiicientes.”</p><p>Ibid., pt. 2, qu.1, pt. 4, p. 108.</p><p>70 Although men too might succumb to the wiles of an attractive succubus, Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger add “not so actively of their own will,” since “from the natural force of reason</p><p>which is stronger in men than in women, they shrink more from such practices” (“Non</p><p>ita voluntarie practicatio reperitur cum ex naturali vigore rationis quo viri mulieribus</p><p>praeeminent talia plus abhorrent”). Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 2, ch. 1, p. 159.</p><p>71 “Post diutinas huiusmodi vexationes pauper ille collisus in terram omnibus viribus</p><p>destituit.” Ibid.</p><p>72 “Quo facto cum surrexisset, dixit illi demon: Ecce quod egisti; non enim sum puella</p><p>sive mulier, sed demon, et statim disparuit ab oculis eius; ille vero attonitus remansit.</p><p>Et quia demon maximam seminis habundantiam virtute eius attraxerat, continue</p><p>heremita ille desiccatus completo mense defunctus est.” Jordanes de Bergamo, Questio</p><p>de Strigis, in Hansen, Quellen, 198. Hansen gives a date of around 1460 for the treatise,</p><p>but Lea (Materials, 1:301) has it composed in 1470–71. Jordanes seems otherwise</p><p>unknown.</p><p>73 “Ubi diabolus per se in effigie malefice, aut cum presentia corporali malefice affuerat,</p><p>cum utrumque facere deo permittente potest.” Malleus, pt. 2, qu. 1, p. 88.</p><p>74 Similar blurrings of the lines between witch and demon can be found in German witch-</p><p>trials, where unholda is at times used as a synonym for the devil. In one trial, cited by</p><p>Hans Peter Duerr, the devil is referred to as “the old Perchtl,” a word which, like unholda,</p><p>was more often used of witches or evil spirits. Duerr, 5.</p><p>75 Malleus, pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 10, p. 126.</p><p>76 As the title of their chapter makes plain: “Concerning how demons sometimes sub-</p><p>64 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 64</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>stantially inhabit people through the operations of witches” (“De modo quo demones</p><p>per maleficarum operationes homines interdum substantialiter inhabitant”). Ibid., 125.</p><p>77 “Mulier inquit quedam malefica hanc mihi infirmitatem contulit; briganti enim contra</p><p>eam ratione cuiusdam displicentie circa regimen curie cum eam durius increpassem quia</p><p>cervicose voluntatis erat dixit: quod post paucos dies haberem intendere his que mihi</p><p>contingerent. Sed et demon in me habitans hoc idem refert quod maleficium sub quadam</p><p>arbore positum sit a malefica, quod nisi amoveatur non potero liberari, sed nec arborem</p><p>vult indicare.” Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 10, pp. 127–8.</p><p>78 “Nolo exire. Et cum interrogaret, qua de causa, respondit propter lombardos. Et inter-</p><p>rogatus denuo, cur propter lombardos egredi nollet, tunc respondit in ytalica lingua</p><p>cum tamen infirmus sacerdos illud ideoma ignoraret dicens, omnes faciunt sic et sic,</p><p>nominando pessimum vitium luxurie.” Ibid., 128.</p><p>79 Jacquier wrote the Flagellum around 1458, and remained an inquisitor until his death in</p><p>1472. Hansen, Quellen, 133.</p><p>80 The phrase, “secta et haeresis maleficorum fascinariorum,” appears repeatedly through-</p><p>out the text. For a summary description of the sect’s activities and organization, see</p><p>Nicholas Jacquier, Flagellum Haereticorum Fascinariorum, ed. Ioannes Myntzenbergius</p><p>(Frankfurt am Main: N. Bassaeum, 1581) ch. 7, pp. 36–51: “De differentia inter sectam</p><p>et haeresin fascinariorum modernorum, et illusionem mulierum de quibus loquitur c.</p><p>Episcopi.”</p><p>81 “Haec pessima sectarum et haeresum nefandissima, traditur per ipsosmet Daemones.”</p><p>Ibid., 44.</p><p>82 Ibid., 7.</p><p>83 Ibid., 50–2.</p><p>84 “Quod quando ipse fuit introductus ad dictam sectam, Diabolus asserebat, quod ipse</p><p>Magister Guilhelmus bene posset si vellet, augmentare eiusdem Demonis dominium,</p><p>praecipiendo eidem Magistro Guilhelmo praedicare, quod huiusmodi secta non erat nisi</p><p>illusio.” Ibid., 27. Mamoris also knew Ediline, and tells substantially the same story,</p><p>67–8.</p><p>85 For example, Jacquier observes that “all witches generally, and especially the heretical</p><p>fascinarii, are betrayers and accustomed to lying in the perpetration of their evil deeds”</p><p>(“Omnes enim malefici communiter, presertim heretici fascinarii sunt proditores et</p><p>fictionibus assueti in maleficiorum perpetratione.”). Jacquier, 111.</p><p>86 Of course once prosecutions had begun, it was easy to extract the names of confeder-</p><p>ates from accused witches under torture, and Jacquier is at pains to defend the validity</p><p>of such procedures. Ibid., 173–4.</p><p>87 Ibid., 117.</p><p>THE INQUISITORS’ DEVIL 65</p><p>TMM3 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 65</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>4</p><p>Misfortune, witchcraft,</p><p>and the will of God</p><p>An obvious corollary to a belief in witches is the perception that certain kinds</p><p>of recognizable injuries or misfortunes are due to witchcraft, and it is clear</p><p>from the sources that many people in medieval Europe were, at times, pre-</p><p>pared to accept certain kinds of misfortunes</p><p>as the result of witchcraft or</p><p>harmful magic.1 Not everyone, however, understood the relationship between</p><p>magic and its effects in the same way. For unlettered peasants and townsfolk</p><p>– for everyone, in fact, but a small elite of educated men and women – the</p><p>relationship between “magic” and its intended result was probably a straight-</p><p>forward case of cause and effect, in which the witch or sorcerer who deployed</p><p>occult powers for harmful ends was as much responsible for the resulting</p><p>injuries as was a person wielding a knife with murderous intent.</p><p>For the theologically more sophisticated elite, however, the relationship</p><p>between a witch, her magic, and associated injuries, was fraught with diffi-</p><p>culties of considerable complexity. From their perspective, since the witch</p><p>could not be the immediate cause of magical harm, both because a demon</p><p>actually effected the injury, and because the witch had no power to compel</p><p>the demon to do her bidding, the extent to which witches were actually</p><p>culpable for the injuries inflicted by demons in their name was questionable.</p><p>The matter was further complicated by the fact that demons could act only</p><p>with the permission of God. Hence, if demons acted merely in accordance</p><p>with divine will, why should either the witch or the demon be blamed for</p><p>the outcome? And why, too, should God have chosen to give the witch or the</p><p>demon free latitude to carry out magical assaults of their own volition in the</p><p>first place? To endorse witch persecution, educated Christians had to answer</p><p>these questions in such a way that the witch would emerge as the efficient</p><p>cause of worldly misfortune. When she was not, when either a witch’s power</p><p>to cause harm or her moral responsibility for it were called into question, late-</p><p>medieval writers tended to dismiss the dangers posed by witchcraft.The wide-</p><p>spread skepticism about the reality of witchcraft in the late Middle Ages</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 66</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>responded precisely to this concern that the belief in witchcraft as, say, Insti-</p><p>toris and Sprenger understood it, was a gross affront to both the omnipotence</p><p>and justice of God. To understand the alternative explanations for magical</p><p>harm and witchcraft propounded by Institoris and Sprenger and their col-</p><p>leagues, we need therefore first to take a more general look at medieval</p><p>conceptions of magic and misfortune.</p><p>There was never a single, universally applicable explication of misfortune in</p><p>the Middle Ages. Instead, circumstances dictated the conceptual model appro-</p><p>priate to the beliefs of the observer. In any given instance, a substantial number</p><p>of interpretations were possible, witchcraft being one and never the most</p><p>prevalent. Misfortune, as Rodney Needham observes, can be explained in any</p><p>number of ways:</p><p>If misfortune strikes, you can blame an inscrutable god or capricious spirits;</p><p>you can concede that it is the just retribution of your sin, or else that it is the</p><p>automatic consequence of some unintended fault; you can put it down to bad</p><p>luck . . . , or more calculating you can ascribe it to chance.2</p><p>During the Middle Ages, all of these possible explanations for sudden misfor-</p><p>tune (with the possible exception of chance) were available alongside witch-</p><p>craft, making for overlapping and competing patterns of considerable</p><p>complexity.</p><p>For instance, the Franciscan chronicler Salimbene de Adam reported that</p><p>in 1287 a large crowd of Pisans had gathered in a square to watch a great bell</p><p>being hung. Then, “just as it was being lifted off the platform, it tipped over</p><p>and fell to the ground. But it injured no one, save for a young man whose</p><p>foot it cut off.”3 Human life was full of such unexpected mischances, but to</p><p>Salimbene, as to all knowledgeable clerics, it was misleading to call such an</p><p>unfortunate accident an “evil,” for God had so ordered his creation that events</p><p>which were injurious or harmful from one perspective always contributed to</p><p>some ultimate good. Men might be made to suffer either toward some</p><p>inscrutable end known only to God, or for their own just punishment and</p><p>correction as, it so happened, in the case of the maimed youth:</p><p>For he had once kicked his father with this foot and therefore did not escape</p><p>with impunity. Thus, by a misfortune of this kind, God demonstrated his</p><p>justice.4</p><p>For Salimbene, the cause of the young man’s punishment lay directly in his sin.</p><p>Such an explanation did not necessarily rule out subsidiary factors – the</p><p>workmen may have been careless, the platform may have been unstable, or a</p><p>demon may have pushed over the bell – but it did establish why this man was</p><p>harmed and no other, and explained the precise nature of his injuries.</p><p>MISFORTUNE, WITCHCRAFT, AND THE WILL OF GOD 67</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 67</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>The basis for Salimbene’s understanding of this incident was provided by</p><p>Augustine’s thorough delineation of the problems posed by misfortune and</p><p>material evil in the world. According to Augustine, divine providence dictated</p><p>all the injuries suffered by man, although for a number of potentially quite dif-</p><p>ferent reasons. Some punishments were purificatory, intended to “discipline</p><p>and correct” the sinner and to guide him along the path to salvation. All other</p><p>misfortunes and injuries, Augustine believed, were</p><p>imposed either in retribution for sins, whether past sins or sins in which the</p><p>person so chastised is still living, or else to exercise and to display the virtues</p><p>of the good.5</p><p>God did not, however, administer correction directly, but relied instead upon</p><p>the agency of men and of angels, both evil and good. Through them, all were</p><p>made subject to the consequences of Adam’s sin; even the innocent were con-</p><p>demned to suffer the countless miseries of human life due simply to their own</p><p>fallen natures and life in a now fallen creation. For Augustine, storms, tem-</p><p>pests, earthquakes, fire, flood, famine – in short the entire gamut of possible</p><p>calamities – were “not directed to the punishment of the wickedness and law-</p><p>lessness of evil man, but are part of our common condition of wretchedness.”6</p><p>Hence, even infants newly baptized and free from any possible culpability had</p><p>to suffer disease, accidents, and even the assaults of demons, because they were</p><p>doomed to live in a world made dangerous by the sins of their fathers. God</p><p>did not, however, harm the innocent in any absolute sense, despite the physi-</p><p>cal miseries he might inflict: true, demons were allowed to torment innocent</p><p>children, but, “we must never think that these sufferings can do them real</p><p>harm, even if they grow so severe as to cut off the soul from the body,” since</p><p>death would merely hasten the journey of blameless souls to paradise.7</p><p>Augustine argued that although divine providence was the ultimate cause</p><p>of misfortunes and injuries, only human sin was to blame.To look outside one’s</p><p>self, and place responsibility for catastrophes on fallen angels or evil men, was</p><p>both misguided and, at worst, a dishonest evasion of responsibility. Instead,</p><p>when good Christians considered the suffering wrought by some sudden or</p><p>unexpected injury,</p><p>First, they consider in humility the sins which have moved God’s indignation</p><p>so that he has filled the world with dire calamities. And although they are free</p><p>from criminal and godless wickedness, still they do not regard themselves as so</p><p>far removed from such wrongdoing as not to deserve to suffer from temporal</p><p>ills which are the recompense for sin.8</p><p>This did not mean, of course, that ill-doers should not be punished, still less</p><p>that criminals were not culpable for their crimes, since they freely willed the</p><p>68 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 68</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>evils they committed. Augustine differentiated,</p><p>however, between the crimes</p><p>of men and the seemingly random hazards of the world. In the case of the</p><p>latter, it was pointless to rail against the angel that carried out God’s will,</p><p>whether evil or no, since never in the least degree could they exceed the</p><p>freedom allowed them by God.</p><p>Augustine’s interpretation of misfortune as the collective product of</p><p>God, demons, and human sin, was echoed repeatedly during the Middle Ages.</p><p>Isidore of Seville, for example, writes that “When God visits his wrath he sends</p><p>apostate angels as his ministers, but limits their powers, so that they do not</p><p>do the evil they wish.”9 Similarly, Gregory the Great reminds readers of his</p><p>Moralia in Job that</p><p>You see that one and the same spirit is both called the Lord’s spirit and an evil</p><p>spirit; the Lord’s, that is, by the concession of just power, but evil, by the desire</p><p>of an unjust will, so that he is not to be dreaded who has no power but by per-</p><p>mission; and, therefore, that Power is the only worthy object of fear, which is</p><p>when It has allowed the enemy to serve the purpose of a just judgment.10</p><p>And so, too, in the tenth century, Rather of Verona comments that the power</p><p>to punish or correct belonged to God alone, and only “those who are deceived</p><p>by this power ascribe it to the deceiver himself.”11Thus all punishment, all mis-</p><p>fortune, all the evils of the world were ultimately the work of God, who infu-</p><p>riated the devil by turning his malice to good ends: such was the traditional</p><p>Christian interpretation of misfortune, until the end of the thirteenth century,</p><p>when several factors conspired to modify this understanding, and to shift</p><p>responsibility for misfortune away from God and towards his ministers.</p><p>Of course, monastic writings had long been filled with demons of an</p><p>appearance quite different from those of the theologians and canonists. Athana-</p><p>sius, for example, represented the life of St. Anthony as a continuous and quite</p><p>personal struggle with the devil. Temptations rose to torment the saint not as</p><p>a consequence of his fallen nature, but from the machinations of the fiend,</p><p>whose “commission” it was in every case to waylay pious youth.12 When temp-</p><p>tation failed, the devil resorted to more physical methods and assaulted the</p><p>saint with blows and fearful visions of wild beasts.Yet, although Anthony lived</p><p>with daily and direct intercourse with demons, Athanasius always imparts the</p><p>clear sense that the saint’s victory was inevitable and that the devil was pow-</p><p>erless before God: Anthony mocks the demons that assail him, telling them</p><p>that “it is a sign of your helplessness that you ape the form of brutes,” and that</p><p>they tire themselves needlessly, “for faith in our Lord is a seal to us and a wall</p><p>of safety.”13</p><p>Anthony’s career provided a paradigm for the monastic life that was repli-</p><p>cated faithfully many times, both in the vitae of saints and in the experiences</p><p>MISFORTUNE, WITCHCRAFT, AND THE WILL OF GOD 69</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 69</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>of humbler monks. Like Anthony, monks conceived of themselves as constantly</p><p>beset by temptations orchestrated by the devil, for whom the purity of their</p><p>lives acted as irresistible bait. Consistently referring to these inner struggles</p><p>in terms of combat and battle with an exterior foe, their war stories are inhab-</p><p>ited by aggressive, formidable opponents, who, if ultimately answerable to</p><p>divine will, had to appear self-willed and independent for cogent dramatic</p><p>reasons.14 Numerous examples reminded monks constantly that they lived in</p><p>an environment in which the power of Satan was incessantly at work, in which</p><p>any stray thought or mischance was a manifestation of the devil’s immediate</p><p>presence.</p><p>It was possible, indeed easy, for this view of the world to be taken to</p><p>extremes. Peter Damian tells of a monk named Marinus, who daily encoun-</p><p>tered the devil in various forms: he appeared as an angel of light to trick</p><p>Marinus into minor sins, and, in less pleasant guise, the devil joined mock-</p><p>ingly in the celebration of opus Dei.15 Still more remarkable was the case of</p><p>Ricalmus, a thirteenth-century Carthusian monk and the abbot of Schönthal,</p><p>who, by special grace, could see the normally invisible demons that swarmed</p><p>about him, and who recorded his experiences for posterity. Ricalmus’ world</p><p>was filled with demons who were responsible not only for interior temptation</p><p>but also for all the other petty annoyances which distracted him from proper</p><p>concentration on the divine office:</p><p>The devils, without a particle of respect for his character or his years used to</p><p>call him a “dirty hairless rat;” afflicted him with bloating of the stomach and</p><p>with diarrhea, with nausea and with giddiness; so benumbed his hands that he</p><p>could no longer make the sign of the cross; caused him to fall asleep in the choir</p><p>and then snored so as to make the other monks think that it was he who was</p><p>snoring.They would speak with his voice, make him cough, force him to expec-</p><p>torate, hide themselves in his bed and stop his nostrils and his mouth so that he</p><p>could not breathe, compel him to urinate, or bite him like fleas; and if, endeav-</p><p>oring to fight off drowsiness, he exposed his hands to the cold air, they would</p><p>draw them back under the coverlet and warm them again . . . All the noises</p><p>that proceed from the human body, all those that issue from inanimate things</p><p>are simply the work of evil spirits, except the sound of bells, which is the work</p><p>of good spirits. Hoarseness, toothache, partial loss of voice, errors committed</p><p>in reading, the whims and impulses of the sick, gloomy thoughts, and the thou-</p><p>sand petty accidents of the body and the life of the soul are due to diabolic</p><p>powers.16</p><p>Admittedly, Ricalmus is an extreme case. For one thing, it is painfully appar-</p><p>ent in his account that diabolic power has become an excuse for embarrassing</p><p>personal lapses; for another, his is an altogether dualist world, permeated by</p><p>the forces of darkness. Yet the assumptions about the role of demons in this</p><p>70 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 70</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>world that lay behind his tale were readily understood, and accepted, by his</p><p>peers.</p><p>Provided that such accounts were confined to a monastic milieu, it was</p><p>possible to interpret them quite traditionally, as examples of an old and</p><p>respected genre of narrative.With the twelfth century, however, and especially</p><p>with the expansion of preaching that followed on the heels of the Fourth</p><p>Lateran Council, many of these stories were distributed in sermons further</p><p>afield, where they may well have helped to disseminate the image of a power-</p><p>ful, self-willed, and physically concrete devil, operating with minimal divine</p><p>oversight.17 Moreover, in some of these exempla, which competed in sermons</p><p>side by side with more edifying accounts of divine judgment, monastic demons</p><p>merged with the destructive spirits of folk tradition to emphasize diabolic</p><p>responsibility for misfortune at the expense of the divine.18</p><p>To take one example, the Dominican preacher Thomas of Cantimpré</p><p>wrote in 1258 that during a demonically inspired storm, the vines of a noto-</p><p>rious usurer were left intact, and that aerial demons were even heard to cry</p><p>out, “Cave, cave,” when an overzealous member of their company approached</p><p>his lands too closely.19 Thomas intended, of course, to illustrate that material</p><p>prosperity is no sure indication of spiritual merit as well as the diabolic nature</p><p>of usury, but in the process he created a group of free-wheeling demons, to</p><p>all appearances acting very much of their own accord. Nor were such tales</p><p>repeated only in sermons for the laity. Gerald of Wales told essentially the</p><p>same anecdote but in a rather different context in his Itinerarium Kambriae.20</p><p>In Gerald’s version, a terrible storm had one evening destroyed the crops of</p><p>a Cistercian monastery,</p><p>to focus upon this text, and to determine how its authors arrived at</p><p>their particular conception of witchcraft, how the idea of witchcraft func-</p><p>tioned within wider cognitive fields, and where the witch of the Malleus fit into</p><p>the learned discourse of fifteenth-century witchcraft.7</p><p>First, however, we must understand the basic arguments of the text, its</p><p>origins, structure, and methods. This study, taken up in chapter 2, locates the</p><p>text and its authors in space and time, as the products of both Dominican and</p><p>German experience. The arguments of the Malleus are a response to failure</p><p>and an answer to critics both numerous and hostile.They aim in the first place</p><p>to demonstrate the existence and prevalence of witchcraft and the terrible</p><p>threat it poses. Secondly, the text provides sufferers from witchcraft with a</p><p>broad range of remedies, both legal and spiritual, of proven effectiveness.</p><p>INTRODUCTION: CONTESTED CATEGORIES 3</p><p>TMM1 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 3</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Finally, the text is a guide for civil and ecclesiastical authorities to the suc-</p><p>cessful detection and prosecution of witches. In the course of these prolonged</p><p>discussions, Institoris and Sprenger provide a remarkably complete picture of</p><p>their witch, along with descriptions of her origins, habits, and powers.</p><p>Before this image could be plausible, even intelligible, to a theologically</p><p>sophisticated audience, however, Institoris and Sprenger had to define appro-</p><p>priate relationships between witchcraft and established conceptual fields. This</p><p>problem was pressing because, as will be argued throughout, the authors’ con-</p><p>ception of witchcraft was ultimately grounded in traditional beliefs and prac-</p><p>tices, neither of which had an inherent theological component. In order to</p><p>construct a category of “witch” on the basis of such beliefs, theoreticians were</p><p>obligated to make it compatible with a learned, theologically informed world-</p><p>view. An examination of the relationships between witchcraft, God and the</p><p>devil, the projects of chapters 3 and 4, follows in the inquisitors’ footsteps,</p><p>and reveals how they reconciled data from testimony and experience with their</p><p>assumptions about the nature of the universe.</p><p>That witchcraft was necessary in the first place seems much the product</p><p>of a peculiarly late-medieval way of looking at the devil and diabolic power.</p><p>Many witch-theorists, Institoris and Sprenger prominent among them,</p><p>embraced an oddly bifurcated devil, a being of transcendent but mechanical</p><p>power for evil, and a creature whose physical presence was more often of an</p><p>almost trivial appearance. This disjunction between impressive diabolic power</p><p>and minimal diabolic presence demanded a mediator who could channel and</p><p>direct disordering and harmful forces on earth. The witch neatly filled this</p><p>void. A comparison of the beliefs of various fifteenth-century witch-theorists</p><p>reveals that those who held different, more unitary, conceptions of the devil</p><p>conceived of witches that were correspondingly less powerfully threatening.</p><p>Their witches remained firmly subordinate to devils, fully dependent upon</p><p>their masters for leadership and agenda.</p><p>A second problem faced by all witch-theorists was to explain why a just</p><p>God would grant permission for witches to wreak such havoc upon the world.</p><p>Here again, the belief in a powerful, aggressive, threatening witch corre-</p><p>sponded to a mechanical and liberal view of divine permission. Where God</p><p>provided meaningful oversight to demons, witchcraft was not particularly</p><p>threatening. If, however, God was so offended by human sin that virtually all</p><p>diabolic requests to visit punishment upon it were approved, witches were free</p><p>to utilize the power of the devil almost automatically. This was a view of dia-</p><p>bolic and divine power that was intensely anthropocentric; although the source</p><p>of power was ultimately supernatural, it was deployed only by the will and</p><p>effort of men and for their own purposes.</p><p>4 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM1 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 4</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>In a universe where God and the devil had to such an extent abandoned</p><p>their traditional roles, learned theologians had plenty of space in which to</p><p>carve out the new category of witchcraft. In the Malleus, the witch becomes</p><p>the effective agent of diabolic power, a living, breathing, devil on earth in</p><p>respect to those around her. On the other hand, the witch’s power was to some</p><p>extent balanced by the power of the Church, which could deploy divine power</p><p>in the form of sacraments and sacramentals for the protection of the faithful.</p><p>While God and the devil retreated into mechanical passivity the efforts of their</p><p>human followers became increasingly important. For this reason, the argu-</p><p>ments of the Malleus focus as much upon spiritual remedies as upon the power</p><p>of witches, and upon the thin but critical line that separates the diabolic power</p><p>from the divine.</p><p>Although the broad contours of late-medieval learned conceptions of</p><p>witchcraft were determined by basic metaphysical assumptions, the specific</p><p>form these conceptions took was primarily the result of the evidence and</p><p>experience available to various authors. In chapter 5 I take up the epistemo-</p><p>logical problems posed by belief in witchcraft. In the case of Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger, their category “witch” responded to their experience as inquisitors,</p><p>experience which included extensive familiarity with the oral testimony of</p><p>victims of witchcraft and of accused witches themselves. Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger did not preside over the trials of learned individuals or even of locally</p><p>prominent ones; their witches were the common people’s witches, those</p><p>unpleasant and unpopular individuals held responsible for damaging crops,</p><p>souring milk, and causing illness out of petty malice. In their trials, rumor,</p><p>hearsay, and legend played an important part. Moreover, because of their</p><p>Dominican training, the authors were predisposed to accept almost any con-</p><p>sistent body of testimony at face value.They repeatedly report as fact anything</p><p>authenticated by the testimony of “reliable witnesses.” As a result, Institoris</p><p>and Sprenger’s notion of witchcraft retained a congruence with traditional</p><p>beliefs lacking in the constructions of authors with different experience or</p><p>epistemological orientations.</p><p>For all theorists, late-medieval witchcraft was a composite – a combina-</p><p>tion of motifs derived from a number of quite different traditions: those asso-</p><p>ciated with monstrous female spirits, animal transformation, demonolatrous</p><p>heresy, maleficent magic, and superstition are among the most prominent.</p><p>Chapters 5 and 6 set these categories in relation to one another, and show how</p><p>witch-theorists combined them according to the evidence available to them</p><p>and their assumptions about the world. The resulting composite figures were</p><p>in no way haphazard; rather, each theorist used one of these established cate-</p><p>gories as a kind of conceptual template to provide the underlying principles</p><p>INTRODUCTION: CONTESTED CATEGORIES 5</p><p>TMM1 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 5</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>around which his version of witchcraft was ordered and constructed. In the</p><p>Malleus, as in some other German texts, the witch was defined through her</p><p>maleficium and practice of magic.Throughout southern Europe authors tended</p><p>to center witchcraft around those traditions earlier associated with the bonae</p><p>res and other female spirits. Many French models of witchcraft depicted the</p><p>witch more as a demonized heretic – a being defined by her willing entry into</p><p>the demonic pact and her worship of the devil. In every case, however, the</p><p>template originally chosen by the witch-theorist both defined and restricted</p><p>the field of his inquiry and the scope of his investigation, while determining</p><p>but had spared the fields of a neighboring knight, with</p><p>whom the monks had been embroiled in a protracted boundary dispute. The</p><p>knight insolently and publicly proclaimed that by the just judgment of God</p><p>this misfortune manifestly demonstrated that he was in the right. The abbot</p><p>would have none of this, however, and replied that on the contrary the calamity</p><p>was simply in accord with the usual practice of demons, who spared their</p><p>friends and afflicted their enemies. The account is interesting because here we</p><p>have two competing interpretations of misfortune set side by side, although,</p><p>doubtless, had the situation been reversed the witty abbot would have been</p><p>quick to seize the alternative explanation.Yet the ease with which demons are</p><p>transformed from the scourge of sinners to the enemies of the just is striking.</p><p>Nor are these demons simply straw men to be overcome by Christian faith,</p><p>even that of pious monks; they are instead formidable foes, whose assaults must</p><p>be endured.</p><p>Neither of these authors would have seen anything particularly incon-</p><p>gruous in his respective exempla, since he would have interpreted them with a</p><p>similar understanding of the relationship between God, sin, and misfortune.</p><p>MISFORTUNE, WITCHCRAFT, AND THE WILL OF GOD 71</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 71</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Of course that is not to say that less learned folk would necessarily have</p><p>grasped the unspoken consistency among them, but that while the clergy</p><p>endorsed a thoroughly Augustinian demonology there was a limit to how much</p><p>freedom they allowed the devil. Although demons in exempla might appear</p><p>to act freely, their behavior was theoretically under close divine supervision.</p><p>But even as the demons in ecclesiastical narratives marshaled their strength,</p><p>scholastic theologians were setting about to refine and systematize their rela-</p><p>tionships with God, just as they were doing with demonic origins and nature.</p><p>The result of this investigation was a marked loosening of the bonds by which</p><p>the devil was confined and controlled, and a kind of theological sanction for</p><p>enhanced diabolic power and responsibility.</p><p>The contribution of Thomas Aquinas to the problem of misfortune lay in</p><p>two principal areas: the causes of evil and the extent of divine supervision of</p><p>demons. Of these, the most basic and abstract was his discussion of the cause</p><p>of evil, which was in turn based on two fundamental sets of ideas. The first,</p><p>taken from Augustine and ultimately Plato, assumed that evil was a species of</p><p>privation, the lack of some native or otherwise appropriate good; the second</p><p>was the Aristotelian theory of fourfold causation – material, formal, efficient,</p><p>and final.21 In short, Aquinas argued that God, who was wholly good, could</p><p>not be the cause of any evil of any kind whatsoever, except accidentally, because</p><p>privation could only result from a deficient cause which could not be God.22</p><p>Certainly God permitted evils to happen, because they were necessary to the</p><p>goodness of his creation, but he did not in any sense cause them to happen.</p><p>Even if his justice demanded that a man die, God was only the cause of justice,</p><p>and not of death.23 But since, as Aquinas clearly says, all evils must have a cause</p><p>(“omne malum aliqualiter causam habeat”), whence comes evil? The answer is</p><p>that one simply has to look for the last defective cause in the chain of efficient</p><p>causes; to use Aquinas’s example, when a boat sinks due to the carelessness of</p><p>a sailor, that particular evil may be traced back only to the sailor in whom the</p><p>defect lay and not to God.</p><p>This line of analysis extended to the injuries caused by demons. Cer-</p><p>tainly, everything that demons did, they did only with the permission of</p><p>God, but it was much more difficult to say exactly what this permission meant,</p><p>and how and why it was granted. For Aquinas, the key consideration was the</p><p>difficult distinction between divine permission and divine will. Demons</p><p>attacked men in two ways: first, by instigating them to sin through tempta-</p><p>tion, and, second, more directly through punishment. God ordered both</p><p>kinds of attack for the higher good, but, while God’s just judgments sent</p><p>demons to punish certain men, temptation was sometimes permitted even</p><p>though God did not will it.24 But for this distinction to have meaning, God’s</p><p>permission must be a more generous form of oversight, a kind of passive</p><p>adjunct to God’s active will; hence Aquinas’s demons appear to have had much</p><p>72 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 72</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>more latitude over the manner and subjects of temptation than they did over</p><p>direct punishment.</p><p>Still worse for unfortunate sinners, in Aquinas’s mind, temptation could</p><p>lead directly to punishment. In his discussion of the effects of Christ’s passion,</p><p>he explains that the devil may legitimately be said to have power over mankind:</p><p>To the first point it should be said that the devil is not found to have had power</p><p>over people to such a degree that he could harm them without God’s permis-</p><p>sion, but that he was justly permitted to injure people whom by tempting he</p><p>had induced to give consent.25</p><p>If the devil, in other words, was allowed to tempt a man of his own choosing,</p><p>and if that man succumbed, the devil might also be allowed to punish him, not</p><p>because God willed it, but because by sinning the man had placed himself in</p><p>the devil’s power. In this way, Aquinas allowed a considerable expansion of</p><p>both the devil’s power to make trouble and his responsibility for it.To be sure,</p><p>it was not that the devil had ceased to be God’s slave, or that he was no longer</p><p>ultimately answerable to divine will; rather, Aquinas perceived the nature of</p><p>divine oversight to be more flexible and more remote.</p><p>By the end of the thirteenth century, popular beliefs, monastic narra-</p><p>tives, and theological speculation had thus converged around a more auto-</p><p>nomous conception of the devil’s power. Contributing to this trend, perhaps,</p><p>were also anxieties felt by the Church about diabolically inspired heresy, as</p><p>well as the widespread dissemination of dualist beliefs. To many people, it</p><p>seemed as if God were no longer so intent on the micro-management of his</p><p>demons, and that now demons held a correspondingly greater share of the</p><p>responsibility for worldly misfortune.26 Thus, especially after Aquinas had</p><p>seemingly exculpated God of any share in the actual production of misfortune,</p><p>late-medieval scholarly and ecclesiastical interest tended to focus on demons</p><p>as the efficient cause of misfortunes in the world, and it was within this context</p><p>that magic was understood.</p><p>While the devil was still constrained closely by divine will and defeated easily</p><p>by Christian faith, malign magic was a relatively minor concern, for while</p><p>neither Augustine nor his successors ever denied the existence of harmful</p><p>magic, the restrictions they placed upon the devil’s freedom of operation</p><p>placed serious limitations upon its use.27 Indeed, a battery of arguments, all of</p><p>which depended ultimately upon the power and justice of God, opposed the</p><p>need for serious persecution of sorcerers.</p><p>In the first place, to allow malefici to usurp the administration of divine</p><p>justice would be unseemly at best. As Rather of Verona remarked irritably, if</p><p>you believed that the world was full of witches flying around at night, and that</p><p>misfortunes were due to their evil magic, what became of the lessons of Job?</p><p>MISFORTUNE, WITCHCRAFT, AND THE WILL OF GOD 73</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 73</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Who I say, of people being deceived like this, seeing a man being whipped like</p><p>the admirable Job . . . would urge him to say, and would believe it justly</p><p>said, “The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, as the Lord pleases, so it is done?”</p><p>No, he would ascribe it to wicked angels or to certain pitiable men and would</p><p>urge that some controller – or “rainmaker” as he is called – be summoned and</p><p>begged with gifts to deign to cure it . . . For not to mention the loss of such</p><p>glory as was Job’s, would they not do this about a mere trifle, a penknife or a</p><p>shoelace.28</p><p>Since demons cannot do any harm without the Lord’s direct and explicit</p><p>permission, the victim of a magical attack would be better advised to spend</p><p>his time searching his own conscience rather than ferreting out witches.</p><p>Rather’s position was simple, clear, and unmistakably Augustinian: misfortune</p><p>came ultimately from God; and so, like Job, we should bear it with patience.</p><p>To most educated Christians of late antiquity, magic was a subspecies</p><p>of pagan idolatry, and just as God permitted demons to impersonate pagan</p><p>deities, he also occasionally allowed demons to give efficacy to magical oper-</p><p>ations. In both cases, his motive was the same: to lead the souls of supersti-</p><p>tious operators to perdition: hence, the principal victims of magic were the</p><p>magicians themselves, who, like pagans, properly could be punished, but,</p><p>better still, should be converted.29 Denigrating magicians as virtual pagans also</p><p>led early theologians to be skeptical of their powers. Indeed, again according</p><p>to Augustine, much of what magicians appeared to do was simply an illusion</p><p>of the devil, and Augustine invariably referred to magic as a lie, a deceit, or a</p><p>deception.30 Superstitious diviners, he claims, were “subjected to illusion and</p><p>deception as a reward for their desires”; the supposedly benign magic of</p><p>theurgy was “all the invention of lying demons.”31</p><p>From this perspective, all works of the devil were kinds of deceit: magic,</p><p>superstition, paganism, were all, by this way of thinking, at bottom empty of</p><p>substance; they were delusions. This was a tradition enshrined in a number of</p><p>influential early-medieval canons, most notably the canon Episcopi, but also a</p><p>decision of the Council of Braga that demons could not control the weather.32</p><p>Pastoral concern to limit the scope of demonic power kept it alive. Hence</p><p>early-medieval penitentials denounced those who believed that enchanters</p><p>were able to summon storms, or use demons to sway the people’s minds, or</p><p>that some women could magically inspire love and hatred, or steal one’s</p><p>goods.33 In precisely the same way, German penitentials of the late fifteenth</p><p>century continue to condemn those who believe in the reality and efficacy of</p><p>weather-witches, werewolves, broomstick-riders, “and other such heathen,</p><p>nonsensical impostures.”34</p><p>Although this conception of magic would have a lasting influence upon</p><p>ecclesiastical thinking, it was never fully accepted. On the one hand, a popular</p><p>74 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 74</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>belief in the efficacy of magic was simply too strong to be dispelled. Augus-</p><p>tine himself, for instance, gave grudging credence to “that pernicious and</p><p>abominable science by which, as the tale goes, one man’s crops could be trans-</p><p>ferred to another’s land.”35 On the other, most authors acknowledged that,</p><p>given their natural powers, demons could do much more than work mere illu-</p><p>sions. Thus in his little treatise, De Magicis Artibus, Hrabanus Maurus (d. 857)</p><p>argued that magic per se had no power at all, unless the magician had made a</p><p>pact with a demon and unless God in his wisdom permitted the demon to act</p><p>in accordance with the magician’s wishes.36 This being the case, however, real</p><p>effects could follow upon magical operations. When scholastics analyzed the</p><p>devil’s nature, irrespective of the question of divine permission, logic com-</p><p>pelled them to enlarge considerably the range of his powers: simply by virtue</p><p>of their angelic natures, demons could confound the senses, create illusions,</p><p>delude the mind, cause bodily infirmity, illness and death, control the weather,</p><p>move with preternatural speed, transport physical objects, and so on.37</p><p>Yet even so, traditionally minded writers insisted that God would never</p><p>permit demons to use these powers freely. It would, for one thing, be dan-</p><p>gerously impractical. In the thirteenth century, William of Paris allowed that</p><p>harmful magic was effective occasionally because demons were permitted</p><p>sometimes to chastise men in this way, but he did not permit his readers to</p><p>suppose that this happened often:</p><p>For when it has become clear to you how much care there is in the wisdom</p><p>and goodness of the creator for people and human affairs, it will plainly dawn</p><p>on you that he does not commit the government of them to images, or to stars,</p><p>or to the luminaries, or even to the heavens, nor in any way expose them to</p><p>the will of magicians or acts of harmful magic.38</p><p>To William, this was a matter of common sense, “For no beautiful woman</p><p>would remain undefiled, no prince and no magnate would remain safe, if</p><p>demons were permitted to appear and to give satisfaction to the evil will of</p><p>men.”39</p><p>William’s argument reflects an ancient confidence in Christ’s triumph</p><p>over Satan; because magic was a tool and invention of the devil, his defeat</p><p>logically gave his followers immunity. As Peter Brown puts it, “the Church was</p><p>the community for whom Satan had been bound: his limitless powers had been</p><p>bridled to permit the triumph of the Gospel; more immediately, the practic-</p><p>ing Christian gained immunity from sorcery.”40 Early medieval discussions of</p><p>magic regularly took such protection for granted. For example, Isidore of</p><p>Seville provided the Middle Ages with its standard exposition of magic in a</p><p>vastly influential and much quoted précis of Augustine’s views. According to</p><p>Isidore,</p><p>MISFORTUNE, WITCHCRAFT, AND THE WILL OF GOD 75</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 75</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Magicians are those who are commonly called malefici [evil-doers] on account</p><p>of the magnitude of their crimes. These persons excite the elements, disturb</p><p>the minds of men, and without any draught of poison, with violence only</p><p>through their incantations, they kill . . . For having summoned demons they</p><p>dare to boast that each destroys his enemies by the evil arts. And these men</p><p>also make use of blood and victims, and often take the bodies of the dead . . .</p><p>and the blood of a cadaver is scattered to arouse [demons], for demons are said</p><p>to love blood. And so, as often as necromancy is performed, water is mixed</p><p>with gore so that by the color of blood they are more easily excited.41</p><p>Although Isidore grants that sorcerers could readily effect material harm</p><p>through their magic, he makes it plain, following Augustine, that he speaks</p><p>here of pagan magicians: his sources are Lucan,Vergil, and Varro, and he nestles</p><p>“De magis” comfortably between “De Sibyllis” and “De paganis.” When later</p><p>commentators quoted this passage, they modified Isidore’s text to adapt his</p><p>meaning to a fully Christian society. Burchard of Worms, Ivo of Chartres, and</p><p>Gratian all included variations on Isidore’s definition of magicians in their col-</p><p>lections of canons, although mistakenly attributing it to Augustine himself.</p><p>Magicians, they reported, could excite the elements only with divine permis-</p><p>sion, and their magic could harm only those men “who have little trust in</p><p>God.”42</p><p>Just who these faithless men were, though, was not entirely clear. While</p><p>Augustine and Isidore had conceived of magic as a kind of adjunct paganism,</p><p>a scourge afflicting those who had not yet embraced Christianity, later writers</p><p>viewed magical harm instead in more general terms as a punishment for</p><p>sinners. This made perfect sense, since if, following Aquinas, demons could</p><p>punish sinners of their own accord, they should equally have the power to</p><p>work diabolic magic. In this vein Jacques de Vitry encouraged his readers to</p><p>remember that,</p><p>In truth, diviners and witches are unable to harm</p><p>those who are confessed and</p><p>penitent, nor are they able to delude those who place their hope in God; they</p><p>are accustomed, however, to delude sinners, because God permits this for the</p><p>expulsion of sins.43</p><p>By the late Middle Ages, then, there was a substantial and authoritative</p><p>body of opinion highly skeptical of the ability of magicians to inflict injuries</p><p>as they wished. For many, this traditional view of magic and misfortune</p><p>remained entirely sufficient: among the most spiritually inclined – those whose</p><p>attention was focused single-mindedly upon the divine – harmful magic, like</p><p>misfortune of any kind, was a matter of small concern since a man’s fate lay</p><p>wholly in the hands of God. Thus Henry Suso, a fourteenth-century German</p><p>Dominican and mystic, enjoined his friends to embrace all suffering as a gift</p><p>of God:</p><p>76 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 76</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>A suffering man should remember [the martyrdom and glory of the saints] and</p><p>rejoice that God has deigned, by means of suffering, to associate him with his</p><p>dearest friends.44</p><p>Preachers, whose main concern was the spiritual welfare of laymen, likewise</p><p>often took a traditionalist line, emphasizing the impotence of the devil before</p><p>the omnipotence and goodness of God. Although finding forthright denials of</p><p>magicians’ power to harm the innocent is not so easy after 1300, still, preach-</p><p>ers often spoke of magic in generally Augustinian terms, as a deceit or illusion</p><p>and not the object of fear.45</p><p>Scholars trained in the via moderna, who in large part rejected the Thomist</p><p>conception of the universe, were also generally little interested in the problem</p><p>of witchcraft. Not viewing the sensible world as the lowest emanation of a</p><p>unified hierarchical system, Nominalists tended to focus their investigation of</p><p>physical, earthly effects on observable secondary causes.46Without doubt, God</p><p>was the first and final cause of all things, but because material effects could</p><p>not be conceived as a direct expression of rational (and so comprehensible)</p><p>divine thought, it was pointless to look to heaven for causes which could be</p><p>found more easily and more reliably here on earth.47 Witchcraft, from this</p><p>perspective, could never be a necessary cause of a given effect, because human</p><p>and demonic (or angelic) realms were not deterministically linked. Nor could</p><p>one of Ockham’s followers ever arrive at an absolutely valid determination</p><p>of witchcraft, because on purely epistemological grounds, one could admit</p><p>a cause and effect relationship only if both terms were known; causation</p><p>could never be determined only by effects.48 For these reasons, most late-</p><p>medieval nominalists remained comparatively unconcerned by the physical</p><p>dangers posed by witchcraft and seldom wrote witch-treatises. A rare excep-</p><p>tion was Samuel de Cassini, who, in the early sixteenth century, attacked the</p><p>reality of witches’ flight in conventionally nominalist terms. There was no</p><p>cause, Samuel maintained, which produced an effect directly, except as “natu-</p><p>rally ordained,” meaning that the agent possessed the natural and intrinsic</p><p>power to carry it out.49 Demons, furthermore, despite their powers of local</p><p>motion, lacked the natural ability to move corporal bodies through the air;</p><p>and, if they should by some chance happen to do so, the result, properly speak-</p><p>ing, would be a miracle, and a miracle could never be the occasion for sin.50</p><p>Hence, Samuel concluded, the flight of witches was merely a delusion, and</p><p>those who felt otherwise offended against both the omnipotence and the</p><p>justice of God.</p><p>Even among demonologists, authors who embraced this more traditional</p><p>view of divine oversight, and the consequent limitations on demonic power,</p><p>the persecution of witches seemed less necessary, even when they accepted</p><p>the reality of a devil-worshiping sect. Ulrich Molitor, for example, admitted</p><p>MISFORTUNE, WITCHCRAFT, AND THE WILL OF GOD 77</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 77</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>that witches existed, and that they were deservedly punished for giving</p><p>homage to the devil, but he also stressed that whatever else they might do,</p><p>witches could not be in any sense the efficient cause of misfortune. While</p><p>demons could, when God permitted, bring about worldly evils, “sometimes</p><p>as punishment, for the correction of the wicked, sometimes as temptation, for</p><p>the increase of merit, and sometimes as a foreshadowing of a future action of</p><p>grace,” witches themselves had nothing to do with any of this.51 Witches</p><p>believed that they could bring about misfortune only because they were</p><p>deluded by the devil. Storms, for instance, were caused by natural agencies,</p><p>such as the movement of the stars or planets, or by demons if God willed it.</p><p>In either case, though,</p><p>when [the devil] knows beforehand of a future calamity of this kind, he then</p><p>stirs up the minds of Malckiesae mulieres, sometimes by persuading them himself;</p><p>sometimes on account of envy, which such wicked women bear toward a neigh-</p><p>bor, he inspires them to a deed of vengeance, as if he were teaching the women</p><p>to provoke storms of this kind and disturbances of the air.52</p><p>There was no reason, then, to fear old women when they brewed potions or</p><p>cast water into the air, because whatever calamity ensued was destined by</p><p>divine providence to happen anyway. Maleficium was not, to Molitor, a visible</p><p>and efficient sign of the devil, but a useless and meaningless gesture, designed</p><p>only to impress and delude the simple-minded.53</p><p>Molitor’s views were shared by other learned men. Around 1475, Jean</p><p>Vincent, the prior of Les Moustiers, wrote a tract in which he argued that</p><p>witches were deluded into accepting the destruction caused by the devil as</p><p>their own. Witches, he writes, were those who believed that they were car-</p><p>ried to the Sabbat by a demon, while they actually slept in their beds. At the</p><p>Sabbat, they burned alive children taken from their mothers’ breasts. But by</p><p>his knowledge of causes, the devil could predict which children would sicken,</p><p>which vines would wither, and where and when storms would strike. He sug-</p><p>gested these things to the sleeping women, who then sincerely claimed respon-</p><p>sibility for them when they occurred.54 More assertive yet was the famous</p><p>Dominican reformer and theologian, Nicholas of Cusa. In a sermon on the</p><p>pervasive belief in witches, Nicholas wondered why it was, if the devil had a</p><p>free hand, that where faith in Christ and his saints was cultivated, the land was</p><p>most blessed.</p><p>Where, however, men believe those maleficia to be done effectually, there more</p><p>witches are discovered, nor can they be extirpated with fire and sword, because</p><p>the more diligently this kind of persecution is carried out, the more the delu-</p><p>sion grows. For persecution argues that the devil is more to be feared than God,</p><p>78 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 78</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>and that he can heap up evils in the midst of evils, and so, at last, the devil, who</p><p>is so feared, is sated and so his purpose is achieved.55</p><p>For this reason, and to spare the blood of innocents, Nicholas urged his audi-</p><p>tors to abandon the fruitless persecution of old women and turn their minds</p><p>instead to God, the real arbiter of their fate.56</p><p>To argue, on the contrary, that witches used their magic to cause harm</p><p>freely, and that they were personally and immediately responsible for the</p><p>injuries that ensued, required theorists to address the problem of divine per-</p><p>mission. Simply to assert that all that witches did, they did with the permis-</p><p>sion of God, was insufficient. Though late-medieval demonologists seem</p><p>endlessly to repeat the phrase, “with the permission of God,” whenever they</p><p>discussed the powers of witches and demons, almost as a polite</p><p>gesture in the</p><p>direction of divine omnipotence, the phrase explains nothing precisely because</p><p>it could explain anything at all. As Petrus Mamoris points out, to say that</p><p>something happened with divine permission is to state the patently obvious,</p><p>“since there is nothing in the world which God does not permit, either good</p><p>or evil.”57 Nor was God’s wholesale grant of power to demons a palatable</p><p>prospect: only a few authorities, such as the early-sixteenth-century witch-</p><p>theorist,Vincente Dodo, went down this path.</p><p>Dodo, however, held that, with the permission of God, the devil was</p><p>responsible for the flight of witches, their amazing transformations, and their</p><p>malevolent magic, but that, “in consequence, divine permission is to be under-</p><p>stood negatively.”58 That is, God permitted demons to do anything they</p><p>pleased, provided he did not specifically prohibit it: Dodo maintained that God</p><p>normally allowed all created beings, including demons, the free use of their</p><p>natural powers, unless, as sometimes happened, he should intervene. In this,</p><p>Dodo’s argument was a logical extension of scholastic principles, but for most</p><p>of his colleagues such a broad-ranging capitulation by the heavenly host was</p><p>difficult to accept. Even in the Malleus God was not so passive; Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger were careful to remind their readers that demons were merely</p><p>agents, whom God employed to castigate sinners: “For God is accustomed to</p><p>inflict the evils which are done for the exaction of our sins on earth, through</p><p>demons acting as though they were his torturers.”59</p><p>Perhaps prompted by such difficulties, by the mid-fifteenth century, the-</p><p>orists had begun to explore an alternative explanation of magical harm.</p><p>Because God allowed demons to lend efficacy to superstitious observances</p><p>in order to punish the operator, so the argument ran, divine permission</p><p>depended more upon the magician’s sin than that of his victim. The theory</p><p>probably had its genesis in statements such as that of the early-fourteenth-</p><p>century theologian,William of Ware, who declared that “magicians are unable</p><p>MISFORTUNE, WITCHCRAFT, AND THE WILL OF GOD 79</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 79</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>to disturb the minds of good men who do not believe such things, but only</p><p>the minds of infidels and evil men.”60 Although perfectly orthodox and tradi-</p><p>tional,Ware’s statement could easily be misinterpreted to mean that the effi-</p><p>cacy of magic is dependent upon belief, and this is, in fact, precisely what one</p><p>finds in a contemporary devotional treatise on the Ten Commandments,</p><p>Robert of Brunne’s Handlyng Synne. There, a witch explains to a bewildered</p><p>bishop why he is unable to emulate her magic and animate her magic milking</p><p>bag:</p><p>Ye beleue nat as y do:</p><p>wold ye beleue my wordys as y,</p><p>Hyt shulde a go, and sokun ky.61</p><p>In other words, if the witch is to be trusted, her maleficium depends upon her</p><p>own sinful belief and not presumably upon the sins of her victims.62</p><p>A little more than a century later, Johann Nider developed and refined</p><p>this idea in his own examination of the decalogue, the Praeceptorium. In a ques-</p><p>tion devoted to the power of malefici to injure men, Nider argues that, with</p><p>the devil’s aid, they can cause harm to external things – to property, person,</p><p>and reputation – but not to the soul.63 As proof he adduces standard exempla</p><p>showing the power of the devil to torment Job and Anthony. Nonetheless,</p><p>Nider insists that sinners are much more afflicted by magic than the good, both</p><p>because the demons are defenseless before the power of the cross and because</p><p>the devil has greater power over sinners. For this reason, Nider adds an impor-</p><p>tant qualification to his explanation of image magic: when a witch strikes a</p><p>man’s image, “a demon invisibly harms the bewitched person in the same way,</p><p>with God’s permission, if the guilty person merited it.”64 At the same time,</p><p>though, the sins of the witches are relevant to Nider: when he asks why witches</p><p>employ sacraments and other divine things in their magic, he responds that “as</p><p>God is more gravely offended by men . . . the greater the power he gives to</p><p>a demon over bad people.”65 It is quite possible that the homines malos in this</p><p>phrase are the witches themselves and not their victims, but regardless of his</p><p>intentions it was easy to read Nider otherwise, as implying that a demon’s</p><p>power to do evil was at least in part a function of the magnitude of the witch’s</p><p>sin.66 If so, witchcraft was understandable as a kind of economy of effort,</p><p>whereby two sinners were punished at one time.</p><p>Writing not long after Nider, Martin of Arles developed and combined</p><p>these ideas in his tract against witchcraft and superstition. Martin argues that</p><p>just as God works miracles on account of Christian belief and faith, so false</p><p>and evil beliefs lead God to permit bad things to happen. When God recog-</p><p>nizes excessive adherence to vain observances, he allows the devil to give them</p><p>efficacy:</p><p>80 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 80</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Just as true and Christian faith works miracles on those of good faith, so an evil</p><p>and false belief, God permitting, sometimes works, or rather earns, misfor-</p><p>tunes. For we have daily experience of people of bad faith whom God thus pun-</p><p>ishes on account of bad faith; indeed, God knows that some people adhere</p><p>excessively to vain observances, permits some events to happen, and so, in</p><p>consequence they are led to hold this belief even more strongly, so that their</p><p>blindness becomes greater and they fall into the snare that they have made for</p><p>themselves.67</p><p>So, the more superstitious people are, the more their superstitions seem well</p><p>founded.</p><p>God, however, Martin suggests, does not restrict himself to punishing</p><p>the individual sinner alone; sometimes he is so angered by sin that he punishes</p><p>collectively, so that in profligate communities the good are punished along with</p><p>the wicked.68 When a community is saturated with superstitious beliefs, God</p><p>permits demons to punish that community collectively through witchcraft.</p><p>Thus, Martin writes that</p><p>for the worthy flagellation and punishment of these crimes, God permits so</p><p>many infirmities, pestilences, and storms, sterilities of the earth and of har-</p><p>vests, the death of cattle and beasts of burden to happen.69</p><p>This notion corresponds to a general tendency in late-medieval religion to look</p><p>at both sin and salvation in collective terms: just as an individual’s good works</p><p>redounded to the credit of his confraternity, so his sins could bring punish-</p><p>ment upon them all.70 And such punishment could be disturbingly severe.</p><p>A popular exemplum in late-medieval sermons reported that after a drunken</p><p>soldier knocked over the pyx with a beer pot, God’s justice required that</p><p>the entire region should be devastated. In the version of Johannes Herolt,</p><p>a fifteenth-century Dominican preacher,</p><p>[the sea] passed beyond its bounds and flooded the land of many provinces,</p><p>destroying villages and exterminating such a host of men that in all a hundred</p><p>thousand perished.71</p><p>The destruction finally abated, though only after the specific sin responsible</p><p>had been discovered and proper collective atonement had been made. If Jean</p><p>Delumeau is right that “The Europeans who lived between the advent of the</p><p>Black Death and the end of the religious wars had an acute sense of an accu-</p><p>mulation of misfortune,” then finding the source of such evils would be a press-</p><p>ing concern.72 The sin of witchcraft was in many ways the perfect explanation:</p><p>heinous enough to warrant the most awful punishment and secret enough</p><p>to exist anywhere, it enabled all the calamities of the world to rest on the</p><p>shoulders of socially marginal women.</p><p>MISFORTUNE, WITCHCRAFT, AND THE WILL OF GOD 81</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 81</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com</p><p>at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Working from this established relationship between sin and retribution,</p><p>late-medieval demonologists were gradually able to expand the limits of divine</p><p>permission. Petrus Mamoris, like Martin of Arles, explains that the power of</p><p>witchcraft depends upon the sins of the operators themselves:</p><p>for the execrations of the devil have efficacy among those who believe or adhere</p><p>to such cursed diabolical machinations, or doubt and fret in some article of the</p><p>faith, or wickedly desire to test, or from some wonder or curiosity want to try</p><p>or to see, these maleficia, or to assist those who make them: all of which is</p><p>dangerous to the faith.73</p><p>But, whereas for Martin the efficacy of witchcraft depends only upon igno-</p><p>rance and superstition, Mamoris is more liberal. He argues that magical harm</p><p>could stem from either excessive credulity or excessive erudition, for while</p><p>the former might lead to superstition, the latter leads to skepticism.74 Mamoris</p><p>felt that not to believe in the power of witchcraft was as bad, and just as likely</p><p>to incur punishment, as vana credulitas. Similarly, Nicholas Jacquier remarks</p><p>that the devil was especially liable to injure skeptics through witchcraft:</p><p>Whence a few ignorant people boast very foolishly, asserting that they do not</p><p>fear demons or witches, nor their witchcraft, unless the witches themselves</p><p>personally approach those who are boasting after this fashion and administer</p><p>some poisonous substance to them in their drink or food, whence they can be</p><p>harmed.75</p><p>To Mamoris and Jacquier, witchcraft was not a problem largely confined to the</p><p>rural lower classes: anyone (hypothetically) could be a witch, and anyone could</p><p>be bewitched. This was especially true, if, as Jacquier argued, defenses which</p><p>might be adequate against the devil alone, failed against witch and demon com-</p><p>bined. Although the natural power of demons was sufficient to carry out any</p><p>act of witchcraft, Jacquier maintained that demons were frequently prevented</p><p>from the full exercise of their power by the ministry of good angels or by spir-</p><p>itual defenses in human hands. In such cases, however, witches could more</p><p>easily approach their victims and do them harm, since under some circum-</p><p>stances divine permission was more liberal with respect to witchcraft than if</p><p>the devil had acted directly.76</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger use these ideas about the relationship between</p><p>divine permission and witchcraft in their own complicated model of misfor-</p><p>tune. Once again, the authors foreground the active role of the witch at the</p><p>expense of both God and the devil: in their view, sudden misfortune is almost</p><p>always the result of witchcraft, and not the work of angels or demons alone.</p><p>Their explanation for this is neither logically nor literally consistent: the</p><p>degree of autonomy they allow to the devil, to the witch, and even to God,</p><p>82 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 82</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>varies according to context, and they can devise no rule that is not immedi-</p><p>ately contradicted by exceptions. But, no matter: what counts is that they</p><p>devise an explanation for the prevalence of witchcraft in the world which is</p><p>consistent with conventional orthodox assumptions.</p><p>In good scholastic fashion, Institoris and Sprenger begin by considering</p><p>the nature of misfortune analytically. Injuries, they maintain, are of four kinds:</p><p>ministeriales (beneficial misfortune), noxiales (merited punishment), maleficiales</p><p>(malicious harm, or witchcraft), and naturales (natural harm).77 Although these</p><p>terms denote intentions or motives behind mischance, Institoris and Sprenger</p><p>are really concerned with their agents: beneficial harm is the work of angels;</p><p>merited injuries are carried out by demons, presumably under the supervision</p><p>of God; natural injuries are due simply to natural causes, such as droughts</p><p>caused by the motion of the stars and planets; and, finally, “Effects are said</p><p>to arise from harmful magic when the devil works through witches and</p><p>sorcerers.”78</p><p>Maleficiales were of special interest because they were the most common</p><p>and the most dangerous form of harm. Demons always prefer to work through</p><p>the agency of witches, in part for the damnation of their souls, but more</p><p>importantly because God permits them to do more harm through witchcraft</p><p>than he would otherwise allow:</p><p>But because they seek to work through witches of this kind, in order to insult</p><p>and offend the Creator and at the same time to bring about the loss of souls,</p><p>knowing that in such a way, as God is more angered so he permits them more</p><p>power to rage, and because innumerable acts of witchcraft are perpetrated</p><p>which the devil would not be allowed to inflict on humans if he alone were</p><p>working to harm people, but which the just, hidden judgment of God permits</p><p>to be done through witches, on account of their perfidy and denial of the</p><p>Catholic faith, accordingly such maleficia, by just judgment, are imputed sec-</p><p>ondarily to [witches], however much the devil might be the primary actor.79</p><p>Thus, witches are directly responsible for witchcraft, because it is their sin that</p><p>gives the devil his power to injure in their name. In this way, Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger carry the arguments proposed by earlier theorists to their logical</p><p>conclusion: if God punishes men collectively on account of sin, and if the inten-</p><p>sity of punishment is proportional to divine anger, then the more God is</p><p>offended, the more he grants the devil latitude to harm the guilty and inno-</p><p>cent alike. There is no sin more offensive to God than witchcraft, so malefi-</p><p>cium itself provokes God to grant the devil permission to make it work: “just</p><p>as because of the sins of the parents the innocent are punished, so now are</p><p>many innocent people damned and bewitched on account of the sins of the</p><p>witches.”80 Demons could, of course, injure without the permission of the</p><p>MISFORTUNE, WITCHCRAFT, AND THE WILL OF GOD 83</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 83</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>witch, but, because they were loath to do so, this happened only when they</p><p>were specifically commanded by God to do so.</p><p>The mechanical nature of this conception of diabolic power is particu-</p><p>larly evident in Institoris and Sprenger’s discussion of superstitious methods</p><p>of identifying a witch. Even practices which rely upon the implicit participa-</p><p>tion of the devil are reliable, they argue, because demons are prohibited from</p><p>harming the innocent. Thus, if a devil is doing some witch’s bidding in animal</p><p>form and is wounded in process, it is the witch – and only the witch – who</p><p>bears a corresponding wound.</p><p>For it is one thing to be harmed by the devil through a witch, and another to</p><p>be harmed by the devil himself, without a witch. Because when the devil in the</p><p>form of an animal receives blows, he then inflicts them upon another who is</p><p>joined to him through a pact . . . Accordingly, he can harm only the guilty and</p><p>those joined to him through a pact, and in no way the innocent. When demons</p><p>seek to do harm through witches, however, then even the innocent are often</p><p>afflicted, by divine permission, in revenge of so great a crime.81</p><p>Oddly enough, then, the limitations of demonic power could be reliably</p><p>exploited to identify guilty witches, precisely because demons themselves are</p><p>mere passive agents, strictly bound by the terms of their pacts with witches</p><p>and subordination to God.</p><p>Through this argument, Institoris and Sprenger aligned the causes and</p><p>agencies of misfortune to give the widest possible scope to witchcraft. Unfor-</p><p>tunately, however well this model may have reflected contemporary fifteenth-</p><p>century conditions, it fits the traditional pattern of Christian beliefs quite</p><p>poorly. For example, the inquisitors’ argument becomes quite seriously</p><p>muddled when they attempt to explain the trials of Job. The problem is</p><p>that</p><p>Job’s afflictions were carried out by the devil in person; they were, then, nox-</p><p>iales and not maleficiales. But Job was also an innocent man, and when injuries</p><p>happen to the innocent, they are maleficiales and not “merited.” Some trouble-</p><p>maker must have asked for an explanation, for Institoris and Sprenger reply</p><p>with open annoyance:</p><p>If, indeed, someone with too great a curiosity were to insist on knowing, just</p><p>as often this material permits a strange insistence on the part of the defenders</p><p>of witches, always lashing the air about the outer shells of words, and never</p><p>penetrating to the marrow of truth, why Job was not persecuted by the effects</p><p>of harmful magic through a demon, as he was by injuries.To these curious sorts</p><p>it can be answered that Job was persecuted by the devil alone and not through</p><p>the mediation of a male or female witch, either because this kind of supersti-</p><p>tion had not yet been discovered, or, if it had been discovered, then divine</p><p>84 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 84</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>providence desired that the power of the devil be made known to the world,</p><p>for the glory of God, as a warning of his plot.82</p><p>Job, in the minds of the authors was clearly an exception: under normal cir-</p><p>cumstances, demons caused injuries only through witches, and usually had to</p><p>do so if their victims were otherwise innocent.</p><p>This, then, was why witchcraft was so dangerous: God was so offended</p><p>by the existence and practices of witches that he gave the devil more latitude</p><p>to use his power for the affliction of men, affliction manifested in the magic</p><p>of witches.This argument assumed that divine permission was a kind of sliding</p><p>scale, automatically contingent upon circumstances: some actions, such as sin</p><p>or the magic of witches, allowed greater applications of demonic power,</p><p>others, such as prayer or Christian countermagic, allowed less. Hence, God’s</p><p>pervasive distaste for sex gave witches and the devil correspondingly greater</p><p>power over human and animal sexuality.83 For this reason, witches character-</p><p>istically destroyed fertility because such magic was more likely to work as</p><p>planned than was weather magic or demonic obsession. Similarly, some species</p><p>of maleficium were inherently less permissible, and were only efficacious if the</p><p>victim was stained with sin. For example, although witches could make the</p><p>penis of a sinner appear to vanish, they could not so delude anyone in a state</p><p>of grace.84 Because God granted permission to harm according to these estab-</p><p>lished rules (exactly as the devil participated in witchcraft), Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger conceived of witchcraft as very much a personal duel between the</p><p>witch and her victim, each trying through his or her actions to slide the scale</p><p>of permission in his or her own favor.</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger held a view of the world that was both extremely</p><p>mechanistic and highly anthropocentric. Because the beneficent power of God</p><p>and the destructive power of the devil both functioned mechanically, the</p><p>importance of the human operators who could successfully manipulate these</p><p>powers was necessarily increased. Institoris and Sprenger also saw, however,</p><p>that in the supernatural battle between witches and the Church, the Church</p><p>was sadly overmatched: sacramental magic alone could not wipe out the</p><p>scourge of witchcraft, only ameliorate its effects; to destroy witchcraft, it was</p><p>necessary to destroy the witches.</p><p>Notes</p><p>1 Although it is dangerous to generalize about medieval folk-beliefs, evidence from</p><p>modern and early-modern sources suggests a more or less consistent traditional</p><p>European understanding of witchcraft and misfortune. See Gábor Klaniczay, “Witch-</p><p>Hunting in Hungary: Social or Cultural Tensions?” in Klaniczay, The Uses of Supernatural</p><p>Power, trans. Susan Singerman, ed. Karen Margolis (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990),</p><p>167. For modern folk conceptions of misfortune, see Bente Gullveig Alver and Torunn</p><p>MISFORTUNE, WITCHCRAFT, AND THE WILL OF GOD 85</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 85</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Selberg, “Folk Medicine as Part of a Larger Concept Complex,” ARV 43 (1987), 21–44;</p><p>David Rheubottom, “The Seeds of Evil Within,” in David Perkin, ed., The Anthropology</p><p>of Evil (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 77–91.</p><p>2 Rodney Needham, Primordial Characters (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press,</p><p>1978), 31.</p><p>3 Salimbene de Adam, The Chronicle of Salimbene de Adam, ed. and trans. Joseph L. Baird</p><p>(Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1986), 640–1.</p><p>4 Ibid.</p><p>5 Augustine, City of God, 21.13, 990.</p><p>6 Ibid., 22.22, 1066.</p><p>7 Ibid., 21.14, 992.</p><p>8 Ibid., 1.9, 14–15.</p><p>9 Isidore of Seville, Sententiae, 1.1, c. 10, 17–18, in Lea, Materials, 1:69.</p><p>10 Gregory the Great, Morals on the Book of Job, ed. James Bliss (Oxford: John Henry Parker,</p><p>1844), 2.17.</p><p>11 Rather of Verona, The Complete Works of Rather of Verona, ed. and trans. Peter L.D. Reid</p><p>(Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991), 1.8.</p><p>12 Athanasius, The Life of St. Antony, trans. Robert T. Meyer (Westminster, Maryland: The</p><p>Newman Press, 1950), c. 9, p. 28.</p><p>13 Ibid.</p><p>14 Examples abound, but see especially Gregory the Great, Dialogues, trans. O.J.</p><p>Zimmerman (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1959), 3.19.</p><p>15 Peter Damiani, De Castitate, 3.4, Patrologia Latina 145, 713.</p><p>16 Antonio Graf, The Story of the Devil, trans. Edward Noble Stone (New York: MacMillen,</p><p>1931), 97–8. See also Lea, Inquisition, 3:381–2; and Peter Dinzelbacher, “Der Realität</p><p>des Teufels im Mittelalter,” in Segl, Der Hexenhammer, 151–75. I have not been able to</p><p>obtain the text of Ricalmus’ book, the Liber Revelationum de Insidiis et Versutiis Daemonum</p><p>adversus Homines; Dinzelbacher’s reference is Bernardus Pezius, Thesaurus Anecdotorum</p><p>Novissimus, I/2 (Augusta Vindelicorum [Augsburg], 1721), 373–472.</p><p>17 A suggestion of Edward Peters, who observes that for a monastic audience the terror</p><p>of this devil was considerably mitigated by the formidable spiritual defenses which</p><p>monks could deploy. For laymen and perhaps even secular clerics who were not so well</p><p>fortified, the devil would then naturally appear as a relatively more threatening figure.</p><p>Peters, 92–3.</p><p>18 Similarly, as the Church grew more inclusive after 1200, theological discourse began</p><p>increasingly to reflect traditional popular beliefs. See Jacques Le Goff, “The Learned and</p><p>Popular Dimensions of Journies in the Otherworld in the Middle Ages,” in S.L. Kaplan,</p><p>ed., Understanding Popular Culture (Berlin: Mouton, 1981), 31; and Alan Bernstein, “The-</p><p>ology between Heresy and Folklore:William of Auvergne on Punishment after Death,”</p><p>Traditio 38 (1982): 4–44; 5–6, and passim.</p><p>19 Thomas of Cantimpré, Bonum Universale de Apibus (NP: 1627) book 2, c. 57.3.</p><p>20 Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerarium Kambriae, in Opera, vol. 6, ed. James F. Dimock</p><p>(London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1866), 1.12, p. 91.</p><p>21 For an in-depth study of Thomist theories of causation, see Francis X. Meehan, Efficient</p><p>Causality in Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas,The Catholic University of America Philosoph-</p><p>ical Studies 56 (Washington, D.C.:The Catholic University of America Press, 1940).</p><p>22 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, pt. 1, qu. 49.</p><p>23 Aquinas, Summa. Theologiae, pt. 1, qu. 49, art. 2.</p><p>24 “To the first point, it should be said that bad angels attack people in two ways. First, by</p><p>inciting them to sin. In this they are not sent by God to attack people, but are some-</p><p>times permitted to do so according to God’s just judgments. Sometimes, however, they</p><p>attack men by punishing them, and in this they are sent by God.” (“Ad primum ergo,</p><p>dicendum quod mali angeli impugnant homines dupliciter. Uno modo, instigando ad</p><p>86 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 86</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019</p><p>11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>peccatum. Et sic non mittuntur a Deo ad impugnandum, sed aliquando permittuntur</p><p>secundum Dei justa judicia. Aliquando autem impugnant homines puniendo. Et sic mit-</p><p>tuntur a Deo.”) Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 114, art. 1, ad. 1.</p><p>25 “Ad primum ergo dicendum quod non dicitur sic diabolus in homines potestatum</p><p>habuisse, quasi posset eis nocere, Deo non permittente; sed quia juste permittebatur</p><p>nocere hominibus, quos tentando ad suum consensum perduxerat.” Ibid., pt. 3, qu. 49,</p><p>art. 2. Lest one suppose that this situation has been somehow altered with Christ’s</p><p>passion, Aquinas immediately adds that, although Jesus has indeed provided a remedy</p><p>to damnation, “the devil can still tempt men’s souls and harrass their bodies.” Ibid.</p><p>26 The growth of a more powerful, more terrible conception of the devil is discussed in</p><p>Russell, Lucifer, 159–207 and passim; see also Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages,</p><p>101–32, and Peters, 91–8.</p><p>27 For Augustine’s own views on the powers of demons to inflict maleficia on a magician’s</p><p>behalf, see his refutation of Apuleius in City of God, 8.19, in which he asserts that “all</p><p>the marvels of sorcery are achieved by means of the science taught by the demons and</p><p>by their operations.”</p><p>28 Rather of Verona, 1.10, 32–3.</p><p>29 Flint, 146–57.</p><p>30 Demons could not, for example, create real substances out of nothing or effect real</p><p>transformations, although their powers over the human mind created illusions to this</p><p>effect; many other marvelous things demons did by virtue of the natural characteristics</p><p>of their spiritual bodies. Augustine, City of God, 18.18, 782–4.</p><p>31 Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, 23.35; City of God, 10.10, 385.</p><p>32 See Lea, Materials, 1:143.</p><p>33 Burchard of Worms, Corrector, in Hanson, Quellen, 41.</p><p>34 Stephen of Lanskrana, provost of St. Dorothy’s in Vienna, Himmelstrasse (1484). Quoted</p><p>in Johannes Janssen, History of the German People after the Close of the Middle Ages, trans.</p><p>A.M. Christie (New York: AMS Press, 1966), 16:231.</p><p>35 Augustine, City of God, 8.19, 325.</p><p>36 Hrabanus Maurus, De Magicis Artibus, Patrologia Latina 110, 1095–108.</p><p>37 See, for example, Thomas Aquinas, Expositio in Job, 1.3: “It should be understood . . .</p><p>that with the permission of God demons can cause disturbances in the air, excite winds,</p><p>and make fire fall from heaven” (“Considerandum est . . . quod deo permittente dae-</p><p>mones possunt turbationem aeris inducere, ventos concitare et facere ut ignis de coelo</p><p>cadat”). All this, and much more, they did through the power of local motion which was</p><p>natural to both good and evil angels.</p><p>38 “Cum enim innotuerit tibi, quanta cura sit sapientiae, et bonitati creatoris de hominibus,</p><p>et rebus humanis, elucescet tibi evidenter, quia nec imaginibus, nec stellis, nec lumi-</p><p>naribus, aut etiam coelis committit gubernationem eorum, nec eos exponit ullo modo</p><p>voluntatibus magorum, aut maleficiis.” William of Paris, De Universo, pt. 1, c. 46, in</p><p>Opera Omnia (Paris, 1674; reprint, Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1963), 666.</p><p>39 “Nulla enim mulier speciosa incorrupta remaneret, nullus principum, nullus magnatum</p><p>incolumnis persisteret si daemones malis voluntatibus hominum adesse et satisfacere</p><p>permitterentur.” Ibid.</p><p>40 Peter Brown, “Sorcery, Demons, and the Rise of Christianity from Late Antiquity into</p><p>the Middle Ages,” in Mary Douglas, ed., Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations (London:</p><p>Tavistock Publications, 1970), 15.</p><p>41 “Magi sunt, qui vulgo malefici ob facinorum magnitudinem nuncupantur. Hi [permissu</p><p>Dei] elementa concutiunt, turbant mentes hominum [minus confidentium in Deo] ac</p><p>sine ullo veneni haustu, violentia tantum carminis interimunt . . . Demonibus enim</p><p>adcitis audent ventilare, ut quisque suos perimat malis artibus inimicos. Hi etiam</p><p>sanguine utuntur et victimis, et saepe contigunt corpora mortuorum . . . Ad quos</p><p>suscitandos cadaveris sanguis adjicitur. Nam amare daemones sanguinem dicitur.</p><p>MISFORTUNE, WITCHCRAFT, AND THE WILL OF GOD 87</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 87</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Ideoque quoties necromantia fit, cruor aqua miscetur, ut colore sanguinis facilius pro-</p><p>vocentur.” Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, De Magis, 8.9. Ivo of Chartres, Decreti, “De</p><p>Incantoribus . . . ,” 11.67, Patrologia Latina 161, 760–1.</p><p>42 “Hi permissu Dei elementa concutiunt, turbant mentes hominum minus confidentium</p><p>in Deo ac sine ullo veneni haustu, violentia tantum carminis interimunt.” Ivo of</p><p>Chartres, loc. cit. The passage is headed “Ex dictis Augusti.”</p><p>43 “Vere enim confitentibus et penitentibus nocere nequeunt malefici et divinatores, nec</p><p>illudere eis qui spem suam ponunt in Deo, peccatoribus autem illudere solent, quia</p><p>Deus, exigentibus peccatis, permittit.” Jacques de Vitry, The Exempla of Jacques de Vitry,</p><p>ed. Thomas Frederick Crane (London : David Nutt, 1890), no. 262.</p><p>44 Henry Suso, The Exemplar, ed. Nicholas Heller, trans. Ann Edward (Dubuque:The Priory</p><p>Press, 1962), 5.2, p. 176. See also Richard Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth Century</p><p>Saints and Their Religious Milieu (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 50–</p><p>88.</p><p>45 See Larrisa Taylor, Soldiers of Christ: Preaching in Late Medieval and Reformation France</p><p>(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 117–19, and as a good example, Jean Gerson,</p><p>De Erroribus circa Artem Magicam, in Oeuvres complètes, ed. Palemon Glorieux (Paris:</p><p>Desclee, 1969), 7:80.</p><p>46 Heiko Oberman, “The Shape of Late Medieval Thought:The Birthpangs of the Modern</p><p>Era,” in Oberman, The Dawn of the Reformation: Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reforma-</p><p>tion Thought (Edinburgh:T. & T. Clark, 1986): 18–38; 27.</p><p>47 Gordon Leff, The Dissolution of the Medieval Outlook (New York: Harper and Row, 1976),</p><p>57–9; Francis Oakley, Omnipotence, Covenant, and Order (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,</p><p>1984), 80–1.</p><p>48 Leff, 29, 76–7.</p><p>49 “quod nulla causa agit immediate ad effectum aliquem in passo nisi naturaliter ordinata</p><p>ad illum producendum.” Samuel de Cassini, Questio Lamiarum, in Hansen, Quellen, 266.</p><p>50 Ibid., 267, 264.</p><p>51 “Quandoque talia permittit, in poenam correctionis peiorum, quandoque in tentationem</p><p>augmentandorum meritorum, quandoque in prodigium futurae gratiarum actionis.”</p><p>Ulrich Molitor, Tractatus de Pythonicis Mulieribus, in Institoris and Sprenger, Malleus Malefi-</p><p>carum (Frankfurt am Main, 1580), 695, 712–13.</p><p>52 “Ita ut huiusmodi plagam praenoscit futuram, ex tunc commovet mentes huiusmodi</p><p>Malckiesarum mulierum, aliquando eisdem persuadendo: aliquando ob invidiam, quam</p><p>tales sceleratae mulieres adversus proximum gerunt, in vindictam mouendo easdem</p><p>sollicitat, quasi ipsas mulieres doceat huiusmodi tempestates, et aeris turbationes</p><p>prouocare.” Ibid., 698.</p><p>53 Ibid. Molitor was equally skeptical of Aquinas’s theory that incubus demons could sire</p><p>human children with stolen semen. Ibid., ch. 10.</p><p>54 Jean Vincent, Liber adversus Magicas Artes et eos qui dicunt artibus eisdem nullam inesse</p><p>efficiam, in Hansen, Quellen, 229.</p><p>55 “Vbi autem homines credunt ista maleficia effectualiter fieri: ibi reperiuntur plures mal-</p><p>efici: nec possunt extirpari igne et gladio, quia quanto diligentius huiusmodi persecutio</p><p>fit: tanto plus crescit delusio. Nam persecutio arguit quod diabolus plus timetur quam</p><p>deus: et quod possit medio malorum mala ingerere, et demum placatur diabolus qui sic</p><p>timetur: et sic optinet intentum.” Nicholas of Cusa, Opera (Paris, 1514; facsimile reprint,</p><p>Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1962), vol. 2, bk. 9, fol. 172.</p><p>56 Other skeptics had similar qualms. See for example the echoes of William of Paris in</p><p>work of the sixteenth-century Florentine Jurist, Gianfrancesco Ponzinibio, who argues</p><p>that although witches might injure men through their maleficium, their power to do</p><p>harm was strictly limited since otherwise all men might seem to be in the hands of</p><p>demons, which since the advent of the Savior was certainly not true. Tractatus de Lamiis</p><p>et Excellentia Juris Utriusque, in Paulus Grillandus,</p><p>Tractatus de Sortilegiis (Frankfurt am</p><p>Main: 1592), 279.</p><p>88 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 88</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>57 “Ad quod respondent praedicti quod hoc est ex permissione divina: sed sic respondere</p><p>ridiculum est, quoniam nihil fit in mundo quod Deus fieri non permittat, sive bonum</p><p>sit, sive malum.” Mamoris, 12.</p><p>58 “Diabolus potest de facto hominem localiter movere (permittente deo) ad maleficium</p><p>perpetrandum adque obscenos actus explendos. Permissio divina in ista conclusione</p><p>intelligitur negative.”Vincente Dodo, Apologia, in Hansen, Quellen, 277.</p><p>59 “Mala enim que nostris exigentibus [peccatis] in mundo fiunt, deus velut per suos tor-</p><p>tores iuste per demones solet infligere,” quoting Nider, Formicarius, 5.4 (who supplies</p><p>the missing peccatis). Malleus, pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 15, p. 145. Similarly, “punishments are</p><p>often brought about through the ministry of demons,” (sepius tamen ista ministerio</p><p>demonum exercent), pt. 1, qu. 1, p. 11.</p><p>60 “Et idcirco magi nequeunt turbare mentes bonorum qui talia non credunt, sed mentes</p><p>infidelium et malorum.” Guillermus Vorillongus, Super Quatuor Libris Sententiarum, dist.</p><p>34, in Lea, Materials, 1:167.</p><p>61 Robert of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, ed. F.J. Furnivall (London: Early English Text Society,</p><p>1901), ln. 544–6, p. 20. The treatise is an English translation of William of Wadington’s</p><p>Manuel des Pechiez; this exemplum, however, was an addition of Robert’s own, and replaced</p><p>one of Gregory the Great’s tales.</p><p>62 The bishop’s perfectly understandable, if illogical, response was that the witch should</p><p>at once cease to believe in her magic.</p><p>63 Nider, Praeceptorium, 1.11, y.</p><p>64 “Invisibiliter demon maleficiatum hominem eodem modo ledit dei permissione si</p><p>demeruit reus.” Ibid., v.</p><p>65 “Secundo ut deus sic grauiter per homines offensus . . . demoni maiorem potestatem in</p><p>homines malos tribuat.” Ibid., z.</p><p>66 Later witch-theorists, such as Martin of Arles discussed below, certainly did so.</p><p>67 “Quod sicut vera et Christiana fides mirabilia operatur in bene credentibus, sic mala et</p><p>falsa credulitas, Deo permittente, euentus malos interdum operatur, vel potius demere-</p><p>tur. Nam experimus quotidie in male credulis, quos ita Deus punit propter malam</p><p>fidem, imodum [sic] cognoscit Dominus nimium adhaerere aliquibus vanis obseruantiis,</p><p>permittit aliquos euentus contingere, et ita eos plus consequenter firmari in tali opin-</p><p>ione, ut maior fiat caecitas eorum, et in laqueum cadant, quem sibi fecerunt.” Martin</p><p>of Arles, Tractatibus de Superstitionibus, printed in Jacquier, 437.</p><p>68 See Augustine, City of God, 1.9.</p><p>69 “Quod ad dignam flagellationem et punitionem horum flagitiorum permittit Deus tot</p><p>infirmitates, pestilentias, et tempestates, sterilitates quoque terrae, nascentium fruc-</p><p>tuum, et interitum pecorum et iumentorum euenire.” Martin of Arles, 438. Martin’s</p><p>views were not unique: St. Bernardino of Siena, for example, announced in a sermon</p><p>that “Another sin which derives from pride is the sin in regard of charms and of div-</p><p>inations, and because of this God many times doth send his scourges into cities.” See</p><p>Bernardine of Siena, Sermons, ed. Nazareno Orlandi, trans. Helen Josephine Robins</p><p>(Siena:Tipografie sociale, 1920), 26.2, p. 165.</p><p>70 For the importance of community to late-medieval conceptions of salvation and late-</p><p>medieval religion in general, see A.N. Galpern, “The Legacy of Late Medieval Religion</p><p>in Sixteenth Century Champagne,” in Charles Trinkhaus and Heiko A. Oberman, eds,</p><p>The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974),</p><p>141–76; and John Bossy, Christianity and the West 1400–1700 (Oxford: Oxford Univer-</p><p>sity Press, 1985), 35–75.</p><p>71 Johannes Herolt, Miracles of the Blessed Virgin (1435–40), trans. C.C. Swinton Bland</p><p>(London: George Routledge and Sons, 1928), c. 10, pp. 27–9; the exemplum is a retelling</p><p>of Caesarius of Heisterbach, 7.3, although with a new moral: “From this may be seen</p><p>that sometimes the whole community is punished for the fault of one.”</p><p>72 Jean Delumeau, Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture, 13th–18th Centuries,</p><p>trans. Eric Nicholson (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990), 302.</p><p>MISFORTUNE, WITCHCRAFT, AND THE WILL OF GOD 89</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 89</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>73 “Nam apud illos diabolicae execrationes efficaciam habent qui credunt vel adhaerent</p><p>talibus execratis machinationibus diabolicis, vel dubitant et formidant in articulo fidei,</p><p>vel experiri nequiter volunt, vel ex quadam admiratione seu curiositate volunt hec mal-</p><p>eficia tentare, sive videre, vel facientibus assistere: quae omnia sunt periculosa in fide.”</p><p>Mamoris, 58.</p><p>74 Ibid., 31.</p><p>75 “Unde valde stulte se iactant nonnulli ignari, asserentes, se non timere Daemones vel</p><p>maleficos, nec eorum maleficia, nisi malefici ipsi appropinquantes personaliter huius-</p><p>modi se iactantibus aliquam rem venenatam eis ministrauerint, in potu vel cibo, unde</p><p>laedi possint.” Jacquier, 93.</p><p>76 Ibid., 111, 117. Perhaps because in Jacquier’s mind, a witch’s maleficium resembled a</p><p>kind of poison, against which supernatural defenses might prove unreliable.</p><p>77 Malleus, pt. 1, qu. 2, pp. 15–16.</p><p>78 “Et Maleficiales effectus dicuntur quando demon per maleficos et per magos operatur.”</p><p>Ibid., 16.</p><p>79 “Sed quia in contemptum et offensam creatoris simul et in perditionem animarum</p><p>querunt huiusmodi per maleficas exercere scientes quod per talem modum sicut deus</p><p>amplius irritatur ita et amplius permittit eis potestatem seuiendi; quia et de facto innu-</p><p>mera malificia perpetrantur que non permitterentur diabolo inferre hominibus si per se</p><p>solum affectaret homines ledere que tamen permittuntur iusto et occulto dei iudicio</p><p>per maleficas propter perfidiam et catholice fidei abnegationem. Unde et eis iusto iudicio</p><p>talia maleficia imputantur secundario quantumcunque diabolus sit actor principalis.”</p><p>Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 11, pp. 131–2.</p><p>80 “Unde de sicut innocentes puniuntur ex culpis parentum, ita et iam plures innoxii</p><p>damnificantur et maleficiuntur propter peccata maleficorum.” Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 14, p. 71.</p><p>This is a curious argument, and the authors admit that it is not for everyone: they advise</p><p>preachers, for example, to explain misfortune with a simpler, if still unsatisfying propo-</p><p>sition: “Sine culpa nisi subsit causa non est aliquis puniendus.” Ibid., 76.</p><p>81 “Quia aliud est a demone per maleficam ledi, et aliud per ipsum demonem absque</p><p>malefica, quia demon per se in effigie animalis tunc verbera suscipit quando alteri sibi</p><p>per pactum coniuncto infert. [Et quando cum eius consensu ad talem apparitionem sub</p><p>tali forma et modo se ingessit.] Unde sic tantummodo noxios et sibi per pactum coni-</p><p>unctos nocere potest et nullo modo innocentes. Per maleficas autem ubi demones ledere</p><p>querunt tunc etiam innocentes permissione diuina in ultionem tanti criminis sepe affli-</p><p>gunt.” Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 9, p. 124.</p><p>82 “Si quis vero curiosius insistaret sicut plerumque hec materia curiosas patitur a malefi-</p><p>carum defensoribus instantias: semper in cortice verborum aerem verberantes et medul-</p><p>lam veritatis numquam penetrantes. Cur Job non maleficiali effectu per demonem sicut</p><p>noxiali percussus fuit. His curios[is] etiam responderi potest quod Job fuit percussus a</p><p>diabolo solum et non mediante malefico vel malefica. Quia hoc genus superstitionis</p><p>vel nondum erat inuentum vel si erat inuentum diuina tamen praeuidentia voluit ut</p><p>potestas demonis mundo ad precauendum eius insidias pro dei gloria innotesceret.” Ibid.,</p><p>pt. 1, qu. 2, p. 16.</p><p>83 “Plus permittit deus super hunc actum per quem primum peccatum diffunditur quam</p><p>super alios actus humanos.” Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 6, p. 114. Although to modern readers</p><p>this makes very little sense, Institoris and Sprenger apparently assumed that God’s</p><p>motives in this case would be so obvious as to</p><p>require no further explanation.</p><p>84 This protection, however, extended only to the perception of the just of their own</p><p>bodies: although the devil could not delude them into believing that their own bodies</p><p>had been mutilated, he could still deceive them with illusions of absent penises in others.</p><p>Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 7, p. 117.</p><p>90 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM4 8/30/03 5:39 PM Page 90</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>5</p><p>Witchcraft:</p><p>the formation of belief</p><p>– part one</p><p>Ambrosius de Vignate was a well-respected magistrate and legal scholar, a</p><p>doctor of both canon and civil law, who lectured at Padua, Bologna, and Turin</p><p>between 1452 and 1468. On several occasions he participated in the trials of</p><p>accused witches: he tells us that he had heard men and women alike confess</p><p>– both freely and under torture – that they belonged to the sect of witches</p><p>(“secta mascorum seu maleficorum”) and that they, and others whom they</p><p>implicated, had done all sorts of strange and awful things. The presiding</p><p>inquisitors at these trials accepted this testimony as substantially true, and</p><p>began prosecutions on this basis. Ambrosius, however, had grave doubts as to</p><p>whether such bizarre crimes were plausible or even possible. In the twelfth of</p><p>his twenty-one questions concerning the prosecution of heresy, he wonders</p><p>What, therefore, do we say about women who confess that they walk at night</p><p>over great distances in a moment’s time, and enter the locked rooms of others,</p><p>with the assistance of their diabolic masters (as they say), with whom they</p><p>speak, to whom they make payment, and with whom (as they say) they have</p><p>carnal intercourse, and by whose persuasion (as they say) they deny God and</p><p>the Virgin Mary, and with their feet trample the holy cross, and who, with the</p><p>help of demons (as they say), kill children and kill people, and make them fall</p><p>into various injuries, and who say that they do many things like these, and say</p><p>that they sometimes transform themselves into the form of a mouse, and some-</p><p>times, they say, the devil transforms himself into the form of a dog, or some</p><p>other animal? Are these and similar things possible, or likely, or credible?1</p><p>In this passage, Ambrosius describes the “cumulative concept of witchcraft” as</p><p>he encountered it – a combination of traditional legendary motifs, demonola-</p><p>trous heresy, and maleficent magic that some of his learned colleagues con-</p><p>sidered the definitive characteristics of a very real and very dangerous sect. As</p><p>aspects of a coherent and supposedly quite real whole, this particular arrange-</p><p>ment of heterogeneous elements was new to the fifteenth century, and many</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 91</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>people were openly skeptical. Ambrosius, for one, refused to accept the reality</p><p>of the composite model of witchcraft and insisted upon treating each element</p><p>individually. While men and women might indeed be guilty of working mal-</p><p>eficium, their transformation into animals, he believed, was impossible. There-</p><p>fore, when magistrates were faced with the confessions of accused witches, he</p><p>required that they distinguish carefully between testimony which was possible</p><p>and probable and that which was not.2</p><p>Like his counterparts in the Inquisition, Ambrosius was faced with two</p><p>basic problems of belief: was witchcraft in fact real, and if so, what, precisely,</p><p>was it? These two questions were intimately related: witchcraft so constituted</p><p>as to be implausible either on empirical or theological grounds was more likely</p><p>to be considered a delusion or an illusion than a representation of objective</p><p>reality. In order for witch-beliefs to be persuasive, they first had to make sense</p><p>in the context of what fifteenth-century people knew about the world. Of</p><p>course, different people “knew” quite different things, and constructed their</p><p>notions of witchcraft accordingly. To make sense of these diverse opinions, to</p><p>understand the learned late-medieval discourse of witchcraft, we first need to</p><p>comprehend the evidence and assumptions out of which categories of witch-</p><p>craft were constructed, and then determine why some conceptions of witch-</p><p>craft appear to have made more sense, and been more widely persuasive, than</p><p>others.</p><p>Assessing the evidence</p><p>All learned theorists based their models of witchcraft upon data of similar</p><p>kinds. First, there were their own personal and immediate experiences of</p><p>witchcraft, meager though these usually were. Second, there were the narra-</p><p>tive accounts of others – the testimony of witnesses, the confessions of</p><p>witches, and tales of more general provenance – for most authors, but espe-</p><p>cially for inquisitors and magistrates, a much larger and more significant cat-</p><p>egory. Finally there were authoritative Latin texts, the Bible above all, but also</p><p>the narratives and pronouncements of a diverse assemblage of past authorities.</p><p>Virtually all of this material came provided with its own interpretive frame;</p><p>narratives about witchcraft were constructed in accordance with a prior</p><p>understanding of the phenomenon, and reflected the beliefs of authors and</p><p>narrators past and present. In this way, witch-theorists were exposed to ide-</p><p>alized models of witchcraft of varying degrees of specificity, sophistication, and</p><p>comprehensiveness. Variance between pre-existing interpretive models, or</p><p>between models and evidentiary experience or accepted authority, was the</p><p>driving force behind the late-medieval learned discourse on witchcraft.</p><p>92 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 92</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Ambrosius de Vignate, for example, urged caution when descriptions of witch-</p><p>craft contradicted the evidence; in turn, just such skepticism inspired Insti-</p><p>toris and Sprenger to compose a rebuttal. More specifically, however, the</p><p>dimensions of the category “witch” in the Malleus were determined by an</p><p>apparent contradiction of a different sort, between notions of witchcraft</p><p>authorized by learned texts, and more popular representations of witchcraft</p><p>evinced by the testimony of witnesses. As Dominicans, the authors were</p><p>trained to accept the authority of the text, their own sensible experience, and</p><p>the testimony of reliable witnesses; any valid proposition should be verifiable</p><p>by each of these means. As inquisitors, however, they found that their experi-</p><p>ence in the courtroom seemed to contradict accepted authorities. Because they</p><p>had no mechanism by which to discount experiential evidence, they were faced</p><p>with a contradiction between two equally valid epistemological standards in a</p><p>matter of considerable importance. Since such a contradiction could not be</p><p>allowed to stand, they constructed new models which could reconcile the</p><p>competing demands of experience and traditional authority.3</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger worked out this problem within an intellectual</p><p>framework provided by the teaching of Aquinas, and though this debt is</p><p>obvious, it must not be taken for granted. Although Aquinas was the canoni-</p><p>cally accepted theologian of the Dominican Order, for the rest of Europe, and</p><p>even for many Dominicans, he was not quite the dominant intellectual force</p><p>of the late Middle Ages that he is sometimes thought to be.4 Quite the con-</p><p>trary, at most schools the most popular, vigorous, and influential intellectual</p><p>trend of the fifteenth century was the nominalist, Franciscan, via moderna.5</p><p>In many places Aquinas still suffered from his association with the extreme</p><p>Aristotelianism condemned at Paris almost two hundred years before. The</p><p>Malleus, though, was written at the University of Cologne, the most doggedly</p><p>Thomist school in Europe. There the faculty did not even bother to teach</p><p>the via moderna, and had, in fact, banned it from the curriculum in 1425.</p><p>Lambertus de Monte Domini, one of Sprenger’s most</p><p>distinguished colleagues</p><p>at Cologne, and the man whose name appears first on the faculty endorsement</p><p>of the Malleus, even went so far as to lead an abortive drive to obtain beatifi-</p><p>cation for Aristotle.6</p><p>This rigorously Thomist background affected Institoris and Sprenger’s</p><p>interpretation of witch-beliefs in ways that went well beyond the conventional</p><p>association of Aquinas with the theory of the diabolic pact. The Thomist uni-</p><p>verse was characterized by a strong sense of integration: there was no sharp</p><p>separation between the natural and supernatural realms. For this reason it was</p><p>possible to derive valid, albeit speculative, knowledge of the higher orders of</p><p>creation from sense-experience, because, in Heiko Oberman’s words, “in</p><p>Thomas’ metaphysical ontology the natural and supernatural realms are organ-</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 93</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 93</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>ically joined by the Being of God.”7 In this system, the world of sensible expe-</p><p>rience was simply one rung on a hierarchy of creation that ascended at last to</p><p>God, and which, in its entirety, was an expression of God. For this reason, and</p><p>particularly because the chain of cause and effect relationships extended down</p><p>the hierarchy of being through various mediating agents, it was possible to</p><p>apprehend, at least partially, the higher realms through the observation of</p><p>earthly effects.</p><p>Such an exalted view of rational knowledge was possible in turn because</p><p>of a particular kind of epistemological optimism. For Aquinas, all rational</p><p>knowledge was located in this realm of the sensible: to know something ration-</p><p>ally was invariably the result of the application of reason to sensory experi-</p><p>ence.8 Unless one had cause to think otherwise, sensory experience had to be</p><p>a reliable indicator of the actual state of the world, since it was inherently</p><p>unlikely that God would have made beings who would be chronically mis-</p><p>taken.9 For this reason, one might ordinarily accept a given proposition as epis-</p><p>temologically valid simply because it was accepted as such by large numbers</p><p>of people.10 In absolute terms, this rule was applied only to knowledge of first</p><p>principles, propositions which were perceived as true the moment their terms</p><p>were apprehended. Even for more complex propositions, though, the intel-</p><p>lect was never mistaken in any absolute sense, but only “accidentally,” due to</p><p>errors in the formulation of a proposition (a faulty definition of “man,” for</p><p>example, would lead the intellect to erroneous conclusions about the nature</p><p>of men). With due care, then,Thomist scholastics had every reason to believe</p><p>that what large numbers of people believed about the world essentially</p><p>reflected reality. Aquinas, for example, accepted the existence of minor</p><p>demonic spirits, since</p><p>Many persons report that they have had the experience, or have heard from</p><p>such as have experienced it, that Satyrs and Fauns, whom the common folk call</p><p>incubi, have often presented themselves before women . . . Hence it seems</p><p>folly to deny it.11</p><p>This relationship between knowledge and experiential reality privileged</p><p>the argument from personal observation and from personal experience,</p><p>whether direct or based upon the testimony of reliable witnesses, over argu-</p><p>ments based solely upon the dictates of authorities. Thus, Albert the Great</p><p>remarked that “Every accepted proposition which is established by sense per-</p><p>ception is better than that which contradicts the senses; and a conclusion which</p><p>contradicts sense perception is not credible.”12 The Church, however, placed</p><p>an important restriction upon such arguments. As Albert explained, although</p><p>in other cases the argument from authority was weak, in theology the argu-</p><p>ment from authority was pre-eminent, since, “in theology, the argument from</p><p>94 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 94</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>authority is from the inspired teaching of the Spirit of Truth.”13 The difficulty</p><p>was to find out exactly where the realm of theology began and the realm of</p><p>mundane experience came to an end. Since this was by no means an easy or</p><p>an obvious distinction, contradictions between authority and experience</p><p>inevitably arose. Late medieval theorists were faced with a problem of this kind</p><p>when they considered the problem of witches, because a long line of ecclesi-</p><p>astical authorities had dismissed the practices of alleged witches as largely</p><p>delusional.</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger addressed this problem head on: they maintained</p><p>that regardless of what authorities might seem to say, regardless of the plain</p><p>sense of canons, the evidence of one’s own senses, of manifest experience, had</p><p>to take precedence:</p><p>Who is so stupid that he would affirm on that account that all their bewitch-</p><p>ments and magically inspired harms are fantastic and imaginary when the con-</p><p>trary is apparent to everybody’s senses?14</p><p>In this respect, the authors of the Malleus are nothing like the popular image</p><p>of medieval scholastics, hopelessly dependent upon their authorities; they rely</p><p>instead upon what they perceive as empirical evidence. What Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger and other scholastic demonologists did take as a matter of faith,</p><p>however, is that the universe operated according to rules, or, rather, by the</p><p>natural laws of creation. Witchcraft, like the devil himself, was a part of this</p><p>creation and operated only by its laws. Hence, there was nothing necessarily</p><p>“supernatural” about witchcraft, and educated observers could devise a</p><p>detailed, systematic, and comprehensive description of the phenomenon from</p><p>a knowledge of natural law and the observation of witchcraft’s material effects,</p><p>even if it was not amenable to direct observation. Thomist scholastics sup-</p><p>posed, simply, that an investigator could follow the trail of cause and effect up</p><p>and down the hierarchy of being, and that theologically determined truths</p><p>about the nature of creation would accurately inform his understanding of sen-</p><p>sible, earthly events. In this way, a metaphysically higher cause could be</p><p>adduced from a particular mundane effect. In the case of witchcraft, for</p><p>example, reported impotence could be used as evidence for a whole range of</p><p>otherwise hidden causes: the pact between the witch and the devil, diabolic</p><p>powers, and the ultimate justice of divine judgments.</p><p>Thomistically oriented demonologists thus seamlessly joined the mate-</p><p>rial world with higher metaphysical realms, making possible an easy move from</p><p>the human to the diabolic, and, ultimately, the divine. Strangely enough, this</p><p>conception of the world was remarkably compatible with that of traditional</p><p>European communities. If we can visualize the former as a vertically oriented</p><p>chain of being, extending upward from the material world to the supernatu-</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 95</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 95</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>ral, we can think of the latter as a horizontal field in which the realm of normal</p><p>experience extends outward into the supranormal.15 For peasants and inquisi-</p><p>tors both, spirits and magic were not so much supernatural as preternatural:</p><p>they exceeded the common bounds of experience, but were not in any sense</p><p>beyond nature itself. For this reason, narratives informed by a traditional</p><p>understanding of the supranormal world could make sense to Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger provided they were reoriented to fit their hierarchically structured</p><p>conception of creation.</p><p>An example of this process appears in Institoris and Sprenger’s account</p><p>of a town that was ravaged by the plague. There was a rumor that a woman</p><p>recently buried “was gradually swallowing the shroud in which she had been</p><p>buried, and that the plague could not cease until the entire shroud was swal-</p><p>lowed and consumed</p><p>at</p><p>the same time the inherent plausibility of his definition of “witch” and “witch-</p><p>craft” and the extent to which these categories could be used to drive witch-</p><p>craft persecutions.</p><p>I will argue that the strength of the category “witchcraft” in the Malleus</p><p>was that the narrative paradigms by which evaluations of witchcraft and the</p><p>identification of witches were made on the local level in daily life informed its</p><p>construction. In villages, witchcraft was created within a discursive field of</p><p>“words and deeds,” in narrative accounts of unexpected or otherwise unex-</p><p>plainable harm.8 In these narratives, the various threads that comprised</p><p>maleficium were woven together to decide the identity of witches beyond rea-</p><p>sonable doubt. In the Malleus, Institoris and Sprenger raised these explanatory</p><p>mechanisms to the level of learned discourse, by integrating them (however</p><p>uncomfortably) into a more theologically sophisticated conception of the</p><p>world. In essence, the authors provided their audience with a window onto</p><p>the discursive field in which their informants constructed witchcraft them-</p><p>selves, and in so doing gave their own construction of witchcraft a utility and</p><p>persuasive force not found in its competitors.</p><p>Necessary to the success of this model was the close identification of the</p><p>theorists’ witches with the persons of reputed local maleficae, and to make this</p><p>identification stick, Institoris and Sprenger had to admit that an astonishingly</p><p>wide array of practices and behaviors were tantamount to witchcraft: magic</p><p>of almost any kind, rumors of animal transformation, stories of fairies or</p><p>changelings, magical flight, the evil eye, all could be interpreted as direct evi-</p><p>dence of witchcraft. Moreover, for this same reason it is plausible to assume</p><p>that the description of the persons of witches themselves in the Malleus cor-</p><p>responded closely to Institoris and Sprenger’s actual experience; hence the</p><p>final chapter of this study argues that their much noted emphasis upon women</p><p>as the overwhelming practitioners of witchcraft is quite probably descriptive</p><p>rather than prescriptive in nature. Nonetheless, Institoris and Sprenger’s inter-</p><p>pretation of this apparent fact was very much their own, and depended closely</p><p>upon their intense fear of the disordering power of female sexuality. Just as</p><p>the person of the witch is closely identified with that of the devil in the Malleus,</p><p>6 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM1 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 6</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>so too does unbridled female sexuality come to be all but indistinguishable</p><p>from demonic power.</p><p>The conception of witchcraft which emerges from this examination of</p><p>the Malleus is idiosyncratic, one of a large number of competing notions of</p><p>what witchcraft was all about in the late fifteenth century.Yet within fifty years</p><p>of the text’s publication, the learned definition of witchcraft had stabilized,</p><p>and a category of witchcraft that closely resembled that in the Malleus was</p><p>widely accepted. In large part, I would suggest that this growing consensus</p><p>was due to the accord between the witch of the Malleus and perceived reality.</p><p>In all probability, to most learned observers, “witches” and “witchcraft” in the</p><p>world about them would look more like those described in the Malleus than</p><p>those in similar texts. Nor was the conception of witchcraft in the Malleus as</p><p>vulnerable to criticism as were witches modeled after notions of heresy or</p><p>night-flying women. Perhaps as important, though, was Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger’s explicit claim to the status of authority combined with the ready</p><p>availability of their text.The authors of witch-treatises were men with an acute</p><p>sensitivity to the value of textual authority, yet prior to 1500, authoritative</p><p>texts on witchcraft were not widely available.There are virtually no references</p><p>to contemporary texts on witchcraft in fifteenth-century witch-treatises,</p><p>except to Nider’s Formicarius, which was not, in any case, really a witch-</p><p>treatise at all. This complete absence of textual references allowed authors to</p><p>give full reign to their own experience, with consequent regional variations.</p><p>The publication of the Malleus changed this picture dramatically. By 1500,</p><p>eight editions of the Malleus had been published, and there were five more by</p><p>1520. By the time of Institoris’ death around 1505, his work could be found</p><p>in many libraries and judicial reference collections throughout Europe,</p><p>although especially in Germany.9 The simple presence of a comprehensive,</p><p>authoritative guidebook created a certain uniformity of discourse in subse-</p><p>quent witchcraft debate. Almost immediately, authors of witch-treatises began</p><p>to refer to Institoris and Sprenger as accepted authorities on the subject. In</p><p>an extensive treatise written in the early sixteenth century, the Dominican</p><p>inquisitor Sylvester Prieras treats the Malleus throughout as the authoritative</p><p>witchcraft text, and refers to Institoris as a vir magnus.10 At about the same</p><p>time, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola praises the Malleus at length in his</p><p>dialogue on witchcraft, and lists its authors along with Augustine and Gregory</p><p>the Great as authorities on the subject.11 Furthermore, as Wolfgang Behringer</p><p>has pointed out, “Although throughout Europe between 1520 and 1580 no</p><p>new edition of the Hexenhammer was published, it remained the authoritative</p><p>work and was present in regional libraries.”12</p><p>When the witchcraft debate heated up again in the second half of the six-</p><p>teenth century, authors no longer bothered to argue about what witchcraft</p><p>INTRODUCTION: CONTESTED CATEGORIES 7</p><p>TMM1 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 7</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>was; instead, they argued over whether it existed. Almost everyone accepted</p><p>the basic terms of the category “witch,” a category substantially similar to that</p><p>presented in the Malleus and in subsequent texts. When, for example, Johann</p><p>Weyer attacked the reality of witchcraft in his De Praestigiis Daemonum, he</p><p>argued explicitly against the witch of the Malleus.13 When Jean Bodin prepared</p><p>his counter-blast, Démonomanie des sorciers, he did nothing to alter the terms of</p><p>the debate; he simply refuted Weyer’s argument.14 At this time, too, the Malleus</p><p>enjoyed a second surge of popularity, as sixteen new editions were produced</p><p>between 1576 and 1670. George Mora estimates that between thirty and fifty</p><p>thousand copies were distributed during this time by publishers in Frankfurt</p><p>and the Rhineland, Lyon, Nuremburg,Venice, and Paris.15</p><p>It is this shift from idiosyncratic text to generally accepted reference</p><p>work that is most perplexing. Even granting that the Malleus offered one of</p><p>the most persuasive constructions of late-medieval witchcraft, this does not</p><p>explain its continued popularity a century later. Moreover, by the late six-</p><p>teenth century there were a number of more recent works, notably those of</p><p>Bodin and Delrio, in which the treatment of witchcraft was as comprehensive</p><p>as the Malleus. To an extent, however, the very antiquity of the Malleus made</p><p>it an attractive text.The Malleus was in this sense a kind of classic of the genre,</p><p>a text whose rough edges were dulled by age. Because of it, sixteenth and</p><p>seventeenth-century authors were no longer compelled to write of the new</p><p>sect of witches; their witches had a short, but well-documented history. The</p><p>Malleus was an agreed-upon starting point for the discourse of witchcraft, a</p><p>position graphically illustrated by the collections of demonological texts that</p><p>began to be produced in the 1580s. These texts were usually multi-volume</p><p>collections of sources drawn from a variety of periods, but all began with the</p><p>Malleus. Thus for generations of scholars, investigations into the problem of</p><p>witchcraft began quite literally with Institoris and Sprenger’s famous text, and</p><p>appropriately too, since the very notion of “witchcraft” owed so much</p><p>in her stomach.”16 When the body was exhumed, half of</p><p>the shroud was indeed found to have disappeared into the gullet of the corpse,</p><p>and the horrified magistrates at once had the body decapitated, and the head</p><p>thrown from the grave, at which time the plague ceased. This narrative is</p><p>intensely traditional: a spirit of the dead is causing disease, which will abate</p><p>only when the corpse is mutilated or destroyed.17 Such an interpretation,</p><p>however, was completely at odds with the accepted teachings of the Church,</p><p>and generations of clerics had condemned such beliefs and practices as super-</p><p>stitious nonsense. Institoris and Sprenger accept the story nonetheless as being</p><p>essentially accurate, provided that the dead woman had been a witch, and that</p><p>the plague was due to divine anger over the town’s earlier willingness to let</p><p>her live and die unmolested, so that when her body was exhumed and muti-</p><p>lated, and her misdeeds exposed in the subsequent inquiry, God’s wrath was</p><p>allayed.18 Although Institoris and Sprenger understand the immediate cause of</p><p>the plague as the anger of a vengeful God rather than the traditional malice of</p><p>a spirit, their world was as fully anthropocentric as that of traditional peasant</p><p>communities: for both, just as disease could be caused by human behavior and</p><p>the violation of normative social boundaries, so a cure might be effected</p><p>through a ritual, communal performance. Further, as Institoris and Sprenger</p><p>suggest, discrepancies between a dead person’s putative social position and</p><p>hidden, rumored, behaviors could result in unwanted post-mortem activity</p><p>until the “secret” was brought to light and the ambiguity was resolved. Thus,</p><p>the authors were able to recast an episode grounded in a traditional under-</p><p>standing of the relationship between the living and the dead in ways accept-</p><p>able to their own understanding of creation, while keeping the underlying</p><p>structures and meanings of the story intact.</p><p>Perhaps the most striking aspect of this account, though, is Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger’s willingness to accept a supernatural cause for an outbreak of the</p><p>plague on the basis of a local “rumor.”This faith in the substantial accuracy of</p><p>96 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 96</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>common reports of cause and effect relationships was necessary, because if the</p><p>inquisitors were not prepared to accept that particular misfortunes were</p><p>caused by witchcraft, prosecutions based upon reports of maleficium would be</p><p>impossible. Institoris and Sprenger, however, had faith not only in a deter-</p><p>ministic model of causation that transcended all boundaries between quotid-</p><p>ian experience and the diabolic and divine, but also in the native ability of man</p><p>to recognize such relationships when they were encountered. They write that</p><p>witchcraft is known by its effects, “for from the effects one arrives at knowl-</p><p>edge of the cause.”19 The effects of witchcraft were so remarkable, so clearly</p><p>not of the mundane material world, that they could not be caused by man</p><p>alone:</p><p>The power of corporal man cannot extend itself to the causation of works of</p><p>this kind, which always has this quality, that the cause along with its natural</p><p>effect is known naturally and without wonder.20</p><p>The appearance of supernatural or preternatural phenomena, then, was suffi-</p><p>cient to warrant the assumption of a supernatural or preternatural cause; in</p><p>essence, Institoris and Sprenger argue that the perception of supranormal</p><p>effects indicates the real presence of the preternatural or supernatural agen-</p><p>cies. Knowledge of witches was gained through an intuitive apprehension of</p><p>what was and was not within the normal bounds of human experience: if illness</p><p>or misfortunes were perceived to be “wonderful” in their scope, severity, or</p><p>swiftness of onslaught, the presence of maleficium, and consequently of witches,</p><p>was all but certain.</p><p>The assumed authority of personal perceptions, eyewitness experience,</p><p>and the testimony of witnesses pervades the arguments of the Malleus. When</p><p>the authors confidently assert that witches were more often women than men,</p><p>they remark that “it is not expedient to deduce arguments to the contrary,</p><p>since experience itself, in addition to verbal testimonies and the witness of</p><p>trustworthy men, makes such things credible.”21 They establish that witches</p><p>have frequent sexual relations with demons, because this has “been seen or</p><p>heard in personal experience or by the relations of trustworthy men.”22 There</p><p>can also be no doubt that some witches “work marvels over the male member,”</p><p>since this, too, “is established by the sight and hearing of many, and from</p><p>common report itself.”23 In these, and many other instances, Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger consistently privilege the argument from experience: the most per-</p><p>suasive arguments were those supported by the greatest weight of experien-</p><p>tial evidence, either in terms of quantity or quality.</p><p>This reliance upon actual experience dictated in turn the forms which</p><p>evidence had to take. Personal experience of witchcraft was not generally</p><p>recorded in propositional statements of belief, but in narratives which related</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 97</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 97</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>the experience itself.24 Narratives of this kind do not normally contain explicit</p><p>statements about the beliefs of the storyteller, which must be inferred by</p><p>readers or auditors. When narratives circulate in fairly restricted, homoge-</p><p>neous communities, the underlying belief systems are easily apprehended; this</p><p>is not at all the case, however, when narratives circulate more widely, and when</p><p>narrator and auditor hold quite different assumptions about the nature of the</p><p>world. Unlike many previous ecclesiastical commentators, who either dis-</p><p>missed popular narratives as fabulous or reinterpreted them beyond recogni-</p><p>tion, Institoris and Sprenger combined a trust in the substantial accuracy of</p><p>such tales with an interpretive system that preserved much of their essential</p><p>meaning. In this way, narrative evidence provided the basis for a conception of</p><p>witchcraft that bridged traditional folk-beliefs and ecclesiastical erudition;</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger created a model of witchcraft which could be expressed</p><p>propositionally in scholastic style, but which rested upon their interpretation</p><p>of a very large number of narrative examples. Indeed, the greater part of the</p><p>evidence in the Malleus consists of their interpretations of narrative. André</p><p>Schnyder counts 279 different exempla in the Malleus, most of which involve</p><p>witchcraft or the devil.25Yet the Malleus is not precisely a collection of exempla,</p><p>because unlike traditional medieval tale collections, such as Nider’s Formicar-</p><p>ius, it does not use narratives chiefly as illustrative moral examples, but as</p><p>proofs sufficient in themselves.</p><p>For instance, Institoris and Sprenger advise that persons whose minds are</p><p>turned toward love or hatred by witchcraft should fortify themselves with daily</p><p>invocations of their guardian angel and frequent visits to the shrines of the</p><p>saints. After two examples of the efficacy of these procedures, the authors are</p><p>quite satisfied that they have supplied sufficient proof of their claims:</p><p>Wherefore it deserves to be concluded that the aforesaid remedies are most</p><p>certain against a disease of this kind, and thus whosoever uses these weapons is</p><p>most certain to be freed.26</p><p>So much does the Malleus depend upon evidence of this kind that the logic of</p><p>the inquisitors becomes at times completely indistinguishable from the logic</p><p>of their stories. When they set out to prove that the regular application of</p><p>sacramentals may reliably ward off the evil powers of witches, they marshal a</p><p>long series of narratives as evidence.27 In particular they mention the mayor</p><p>of Wiesenthal who fortified himself every Sunday</p><p>with holy water and blessed</p><p>salt. One Sunday, however, in his haste to attend a wedding, he neglected this</p><p>precaution and was immediately and painfully bewitched. This coincidence</p><p>proved to the mayor, and to the inquisitors, the efficacy of his customary sacra-</p><p>mental defenses and the reality of witchcraft: the mayor’s malady was known</p><p>to be witchcraft because it struck when he was not sacramentally protected;</p><p>98 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 98</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>the sacramentals were known to be an effective defense against witchcraft for</p><p>exactly the same reason.</p><p>Although such an argument was not strictly logical because a syllogism</p><p>cannot provide proof of its premise, Institoris and Sprenger accepted the logic</p><p>of personal experience and its narratives as a fully sufficient arbiter of truth.</p><p>In their minds, as in the narratives to which they appealed, the appearance</p><p>of causal connections demonstrated their existence, and by accepting such</p><p>narrative episodes as valid evidence in themselves, Institoris and Sprenger</p><p>were able to elevate the discourse of village magic to the level of learned</p><p>disputation.</p><p>In this discourse, the voice of collective opinion or common report was</p><p>every bit as important as specific eyewitness accounts, and so Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger were singularly sensitive to the value of rumor. 28 Indeed, local</p><p>rumors provided such a reliable indication of the presence of witchcraft that</p><p>when such rumors reached the authorities, they were sufficient in themselves</p><p>to warrant an investigation. Most investigations, Institoris tells us, begin in this</p><p>way, without any specific accusations.29 His sample declaration which would</p><p>formally initiate the inquisitorial process testifies to the centrality of rumor in</p><p>the hunt for witches:</p><p>It often comes to the ears of such and such official or judge, of such and such</p><p>a place, borne by public gossip and produced by noisy reports, that such and</p><p>such a person from such and such a place has done such and such things per-</p><p>taining to maleficia against the faith and the common good of the state.30</p><p>When rumors coalesced around particular individuals, they could lead to spe-</p><p>cific charges. Much of the evidence Institoris assembled against Helena</p><p>Scheuberin at Innsbruck amounted to very little more than rumor. The first</p><p>charge against her states that she is</p><p>defamed particularly regarding the death of a certain knight, Spiess by name,</p><p>and this not even in Innsbruck but all over the place throughout the surround-</p><p>ing regions, and especially among the noble and powerful.Whether he perished</p><p>by poison or witchcraft there remains some doubt. However it is generally</p><p>rumored that it was from maleficium because the witch had been devoted to</p><p>evil-doing from her youth.31</p><p>Having a bad reputation, mala fama, was almost a requirement for real witches</p><p>as far as Institoris was concerned, and provided an important link between</p><p>moral delinquency and maleficent magic. A bad reputation might encompass</p><p>a wide range of moral failings and social deviance, and provided the necessary</p><p>ground for more sinister rumors of witchcraft to take root.32</p><p>Rumors provided witch-hunters with the perfect narrative basis for their</p><p>inquiries. It is often said that accusations of witchcraft came principally from</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 99</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 99</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>the lower ranks of society and not from the elite, and in a general sense this</p><p>seems to be true; but in an environment where vague rumors of maleficia were</p><p>swirling around, it may also be that concrete accusations were constructed by</p><p>prosecutors through the examination of rumor-bearing informants.33 It is a</p><p>characteristic of rumor narratives that they become more detailed, more</p><p>rooted in local conditions, and more attached to specific points of reference,</p><p>as they are challenged and interrogated.34 Further, as witnesses are required</p><p>to supply increasing levels of detail, they become increasingly amenable to the</p><p>guidance of the interrogator, and begin to look to the forms and subtext of</p><p>the examiner’s questions to provide the bases for their answers.35 The avail-</p><p>ability of rumor legends, then, may have determined the extent to which an</p><p>investigator was able to impose his own conception of witchcraft upon locally</p><p>divergent cases. If this were the case, then the activities of the inquisitor begin</p><p>to assume familiar contours: he becomes the catalyst which transforms suspi-</p><p>cion and diverse experience into an actionable charge focused upon a single</p><p>person. In modern rural France, this role is assumed by the “unwitcher” who</p><p>occupies a crucial position between the bewitched victim and the alleged</p><p>witch.36 As authorities agitate the community, and the level of anxiety rises,</p><p>the amount of rumor in circulation rises as well; eventually, such “hot” legends</p><p>may become reified into a set of consistent, specific accusations.37</p><p>From rumors, memorates, and denunciations and confessions couched</p><p>in traditional terms, Institoris and Sprenger constructed their image of witch-</p><p>craft. As inquisitors and priests they were uniquely well positioned to hear an</p><p>astonishing range of opinion and narrative concerning witches, and were</p><p>equally obliged to make sense of it all. The witch-beliefs of the Malleus draw</p><p>heavily upon traditional beliefs and previously constituted categories which</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger reinterpreted in a manner consistent with a theologi-</p><p>cally Thomist view of the world. The success of this project was due less to</p><p>their theological sophistication and rigorous logic (neither of which is espe-</p><p>cially evident), than to their sensitivity to the world picture of their inform-</p><p>ants. They did not simply demonize popular belief, but tried instead to</p><p>reconstruct it for their own purposes. Their picture of witchcraft was suc-</p><p>cessful precisely because it corresponded so closely with the ideas of the less</p><p>well educated. Other demonologists treated witchcraft as a sect, worse than,</p><p>but otherwise similar to, other heresies; because of their epistemological and</p><p>metaphysical assumptions, however, Institoris and Sprenger understood witch-</p><p>craft much more as did the common man, as part of a spectrum of human</p><p>interaction with preternatural and supernatural powers. For this reason,</p><p>although the model of witchcraft in the Malleus is certainly a composite, con-</p><p>structed from several different but interrelated idea-clusters, the fit between</p><p>this model and supranormal events as they were reported was closer than the</p><p>100 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 100</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>competing models of other learned observers, and was thus more persuasive.</p><p>Edwin Ardener has proposed that categories have a center of gravity, a zone</p><p>most characteristic of their qualities, and that the “density gradients” of cate-</p><p>gories are related in some way to frequency of association or interaction</p><p>with reality.38 If this is the case, Institoris and Sprenger’s vision of witchcraft</p><p>was more successful than those of their competitors because its center of</p><p>gravity was more closely aligned with the perceived reality of their</p><p>contemporaries.39</p><p>To go beyond this sort of general statement, and to try to see exactly</p><p>how Institoris and Sprenger constructed their categories of “witch” and “witch-</p><p>craft” is more difficult. Like all learned witch-theorists of the late Middle Ages,</p><p>they worked with reference to rules, evidence, and already extant symbols and</p><p>categories: first, they accepted a set of more or less rigid assumptions about</p><p>the world and its creator with which any construction of witchcraft had to be</p><p>consistent; second, they had evidence, principally in narrative form, about a</p><p>number of identifiable</p><p>individuals whose antisocial behavior or normative</p><p>boundary transgressions were defined by reference to maleficia and related</p><p>categories; third, to make sense of this evidence, they had available a quite</p><p>nebulous cluster of symbols, beliefs, and narrative structures associated with</p><p>magic and supranormal beings which could be reordered in terms of any</p><p>number of new categorical constructs. This is, of course, too schematic a map</p><p>of the field of late-medieval witchcraft, but nevertheless an attempt to analyze</p><p>late-medieval witchcraft in terms of its constituent categories and symbols</p><p>seems worthwhile.40 Not only is this a reasonably clear path to tread, but the</p><p>late-medieval debate over witches centered upon just such problems of cate-</p><p>gory ascription and definition. In the analysis that follows, we will look at five</p><p>interrelated categories in turn, each of which appears repeatedly in late-</p><p>medieval demonological discourse: the processions of spectral women, heresy</p><p>and the diabolic cult, maleficium, superstition, and gender.</p><p>“Good women” and bad: strigae, lamiae, and the bonae res</p><p>Of all the beliefs out of which constructions of witchcraft were formed, the</p><p>most unfamiliar to modern readers are quite probably those associated with</p><p>various sorts of nocturnal female spirits. These beings inhabited the world of</p><p>medieval peasants, for whom they were part of an extensive traditional lore</p><p>with antecedents that reached well back into the pre-Christian past. To edu-</p><p>cated clerics of the Middle Ages, such traditions were almost as alien as they</p><p>appear to the modern researcher, and so they, like us, sought out interpreta-</p><p>tions which would make sense of them, some of which were gradually assim-</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 101</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 101</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>ilated with notions of maleficium and heresy, and ultimately provided paradigms</p><p>by which the larger phenomenon of witchcraft was understood.</p><p>Scattered throughout a variety of medieval sources are tantalizing hints</p><p>of a widespread tradition about the fantastic nocturnal escapades of women</p><p>and female spirits. According to the disapproving accounts of churchmen,</p><p>some women believed that they secretly left their homes at night to attend the</p><p>court of a goddess or spirit, often identified as Diana, and rode with her on</p><p>lengthy processions, traveling great distances in the blink of an eye.These ideas</p><p>smacked of paganism, idolatry, or worse, and are accordingly condemned in</p><p>the canon Episcopi, first recorded in the early tenth century in the penitential</p><p>of Regino, abbot of Prüm.41 In the following century, a well-known canonist,</p><p>Burchard, bishop of Worms, repeated Regino’s warnings in his confessional</p><p>interrogatory, Corrector et Medicus:</p><p>Have you believed or participated in that infidelity, which some wicked women,</p><p>turned back after Satan, seduced by illusions and phantoms of demons, believe</p><p>and confess: that with Diana, goddess of the pagans, and an innumerable mul-</p><p>titude of women, they ride on certain beasts and traverse great distances of the</p><p>earth in the silence of the dead of night, obey her commands as if she were their</p><p>mistress, and on certain nights are called to her service?42</p><p>If anyone believes such things, and, Burchard adds, “an innumerable multitude,</p><p>deceived by this false opinion, believe these things to be true,” then she must</p><p>do penance for two years.</p><p>Burchard, Regino, and other early-medieval ecclesiastics were all agreed</p><p>that there was nothing substantial behind these tales of rustic women, and that</p><p>nobody actually left their homes at night to gad about with spirits. It was rather</p><p>the deceptions of the devil that were to blame: at the same time as he walked</p><p>abroad at night with his fellows in the guise of Diana and her train, he sent</p><p>dreams to poor ignorant women so that they would believe themselves to be</p><p>traveling in the place of the demons. Nonetheless, this clerical skepticism</p><p>should not be interpreted as tolerance because it was also quite clear that these</p><p>beliefs were sinful, superstitious, and diabolically inspired. Insofar as these</p><p>women believed themselves to go voluntarily, they participated in the demons’</p><p>designs.Thus, although the nocturnal processions of spectral women were illu-</p><p>sory, they were also quite clearly linked to the devil, a link that could be</p><p>expanded in different contexts.</p><p>Exactly what constituted this traditional belief is difficult to say, since the</p><p>evidence available is scattered and contradictory, and suggests a group of more</p><p>or less related components rather than a single, coherent belief-system.43 It is</p><p>remotely possible that the consistent references to Diana indicate the presence</p><p>of a relict pagan cult, but it seems more likely that the perception of broadly</p><p>102 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 102</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>similar motifs in a variety of traditions provided the attractive force neces-</p><p>sary to create an amalgam of beliefs, roughly centered around the nocturnal</p><p>activities of women and female spirits.44 Certainly the variety of names by</p><p>whom the leader of this host was known suggests conflation of this sort, since</p><p>Herodias, Abundia, Satia, Holda, Perchta, and others, all supervised proces-</p><p>sions of night-traveling women, exactly as did Diana.</p><p>Neither is it entirely certain just what these beings and their followers</p><p>were wont to do on their evening rides. Some accounts suggest simply that</p><p>they rode to some gathering place where they danced and feasted, and then</p><p>returned home. In the thirteenth century, however,William of Paris (d. 1249),</p><p>added that Domina Abundia and her ladies were believed to enter houses at</p><p>night and bring abundance and riches when they found offerings prepared for</p><p>them.45 In his Corrector, Burchard mentioned a similar belief connected with</p><p>the Fates or “the sisters,” who were said to come into houses at certain times</p><p>of the year and bring good luck if they found food and drink waiting for them.46</p><p>Neither Burchard nor William identified these ladies with Diana and her train,</p><p>but other authors made this connection explicit. In the Romance of the Rose</p><p>(c. 1270), Nature remarks that since women are credulous and emotional, they</p><p>are especially susceptible to illusions and phantoms:</p><p>As a result, many people in their folly think themselves sorcerers by night, wan-</p><p>dering with Lady Abundance. And they say that in the whole world every third</p><p>child born is of such disposition that three times a week he goes just as destiny</p><p>leads him; that such people push into all houses; that they fear neither keys nor</p><p>bars, but enter by cracks, cat-hatches, and crevices; that their souls leave their</p><p>bodies and go with good ladies into strange places and through houses.47</p><p>John of Frankfurt, writing in the early fifteenth century, provides a similar,</p><p>albeit more detailed, warning against the dangers of these beliefs. He advises</p><p>that a Christian should most especially flee, lest he should come to believe this,</p><p>what old women report at people’s births: that certain goddesses come and</p><p>place a destiny of good or bad fortune upon a father’s offspring and predict a</p><p>death by hanging or by the sword, or great honor, or something similar which</p><p>shall definitely come about . . . And certain people say that if a boy is born with</p><p>a caul, that he is one of those who traverse great distances in the space of one</p><p>night, vulgarly, “die farn leude” [the wayfarers]. In short, people afflicted by this</p><p>insanity give the service which ought to be God’s alone to those who are really</p><p>demons, falsely believing them to be the dispensers of good things. So some</p><p>even do on the five feast days of the four seasons and on the night preceding</p><p>the ember days.48</p><p>Although they are scattered over several centuries, taken together these</p><p>accounts suggest a reasonably consistent body</p><p>of belief, closely related to the</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 103</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 103</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>rural European “fairy cults” described by nineteenth and twentieth-century</p><p>folklorists. In its medieval form, the tradition centered upon a belief in troops</p><p>of spectral women, led by some specific but variously named mistress, which</p><p>visited houses at certain times of the year and brought either good fortune or</p><p>ill, depending upon their reception.49 These beings might also determine a</p><p>person’s fate at birth, and claimed a certain number of people, sometimes up</p><p>to a third of humanity, as their own.50 Those chosen, who appear to have been</p><p>mainly women, accompanied the trouping “fairies” on their rounds, paid court</p><p>to their mistress, and attended their revels. According to most accounts, these</p><p>women believed that they participated bodily in such activities, although some,</p><p>like Jean de Meun, represent the night-travelers as entering trance-like</p><p>dreams, knowing full well that they accompanied the goddess in spirit only.</p><p>Like their mistress, these peripatetic female specters were known by many</p><p>names – fays, fates, good women, and good sisters – but for the sake of con-</p><p>venience, and to avoid the anachronistic connotations of the word “fairy,” I will</p><p>subsequently refer to them as the bonae res, the “good things,” a term used by</p><p>the Dominican inquisitor, Stephen of Bourbon (d. 1261), in his description of</p><p>the phenomenon.51</p><p>The full range of traditions with which the bonae res were associated was,</p><p>however, considerably more extensive than this generalized overview would</p><p>suggest. Sometimes the restless dead accompanied the bonae res on their nightly</p><p>rounds, and both Holda and Perchta were occasionally known to lead the</p><p>Furious Horde.52 The nocturnal processions of women were also related to a</p><p>set of more sinister beliefs – legends of female spirits who stole into houses</p><p>to kill children and work other crimes. Such beings were often called lamiae,</p><p>their name derived conventionally from laniare (to rend) and their distressing</p><p>habit of tearing children into bits. In the thirteenth century, Johannes de Janua</p><p>gave this etymology in his widely read Catholicon, and added that “old women</p><p>pretend that lamiae enter houses through closed doors, kill infants and tear</p><p>them to pieces, and afterwards restore them to life, and they have the faces of</p><p>people but the bodies of beasts.”53 Such beings had clear literary antecedents</p><p>in the classical Roman figure of the strix, the malevolent, bird-like, female</p><p>monsters of Ovid and Apuleius, but medieval authors often associated lamiae,</p><p>in less monstrous forms but with equally sinister intent, with the troupes of</p><p>bonae res.54 William of Paris, for example, discusses lamiae immediately after</p><p>his account of Abundia and her ladies, and explains that both are essentially</p><p>beings of the same type:</p><p>You ought to understand in the same manner those other evil spirits which the</p><p>vulgar call stryges and lamiae and which appear at night in houses in which there</p><p>are nursing babes, which they seem to tear to pieces when snatched from their</p><p>104 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 104</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>cradles or to roast in the fire. They appear in the form of old women; however,</p><p>they are neither true old women, nor is it possible that children are truly</p><p>devoured.55</p><p>William states further that although these monsters appeared in the guise of</p><p>old women, they were really demons who, as spirits, could not truly consume</p><p>infants. They were, however, occasionally permitted to kill children to punish</p><p>their parents. Demons were happy to oblige, because in so doing they inspired</p><p>fear which led to superstitious idolatry – for exactly the same reason as the</p><p>demon impersonating Domina Abundia provided good luck.</p><p>Several centuries earlier, Burchard had made the same connection</p><p>between the monstrous lamiae and the more benign bonae res.With words iden-</p><p>tical to those he applied to the followers of the bonae res, he condemns the</p><p>belief of women who think that they go out at night on murderous errands in</p><p>spectral form:</p><p>Have you believed what many women, turned back to Satan, believe and affirm</p><p>to be true: do you believe that in the silence of the quiet night when you have</p><p>gone to bed and your husband lies on your bosom, that while you remain in</p><p>bodily form you can go out by closed doors and are able to cross the spaces of</p><p>the world with others deceived by the same error, and without visible weapons</p><p>slay persons who have been baptized and redeemed by the blood of Christ, and</p><p>cook and eat their flesh, and in place of their hearts put straw or wood or some-</p><p>thing of the sort and having eaten them make them live again and give an inter-</p><p>val of life?56</p><p>Quite clearly, both Burchard and William of Paris interpreted belief in lamiae</p><p>and similar creatures under the general rubric provided by the canon Episcopi,</p><p>and with good reason. Given the devil’s well-attested power to produce noc-</p><p>turnal delusions and phantoms, and his desire to provoke superstitious, idol-</p><p>atrous belief, the canon provided a useful conceptual template through which</p><p>a great many vaguely similar beliefs could be understood and condemned.</p><p>Such learned incredulity, although common, was not universal. At least</p><p>a few observers found it difficult to dismiss widespread and persistent tes-</p><p>timony as the result of diabolically inspired delusions, especially as the</p><p>canon Episcopi did not seem to bear directly upon tales of lamiae and the like.</p><p>Gervaise of Tilbury (d. 1235) was perhaps the most credulous of thirteenth-</p><p>century writers: he declared that many women, like the women of Diana’s</p><p>company, claimed that they went out at night in the company of lamiae</p><p>and flew across remote parts of the world.57 Unlike the more benign night-</p><p>travelers, however, they did not bring good luck when they entered houses at</p><p>night; instead they oppressed sleepers, moved infants from place to place,</p><p>drank human blood, and caused serious illness.58 Although Gervaise acknowl-</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 105</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 105</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>edged that some claimed that “these nocturnal fancies arise from timidity and</p><p>melancholy, as in the insane,” while others “assert that they have seen such</p><p>imaginations in dreams so vividly that they seemed to be awake,” he could</p><p>accept neither explanation because the weight of his personal experience told</p><p>against it. He knew reliable women, his neighbors, who had seen these beings</p><p>abroad at night; he had heard women confess that they went out at night with</p><p>the lamiae and molested infants; he had seen women bearing wounds which</p><p>corresponded exactly with those given to nocturnal apparitions in the form of</p><p>cats by vigilant watchmen. All of which told strongly against the delusional</p><p>nature of such creatures, which should accordingly be combated by pious</p><p>means.59 The grounds for Gervaise’s credulity should be noted: he was not</p><p>simply “superstitious,” but rather convinced by the weight of experiential evi-</p><p>dence that these beings were real, an epistemological stance identical to that</p><p>of later witch-hunters.</p><p>Originally, perhaps, these several different species of night-travelers, the</p><p>lamiae and the bonae res, had been relatively distinct. It is also possible that both</p><p>destructive strigae and more benign spirits were once logical counterparts</p><p>within a more comprehensive system of belief, much as the benandanti appear</p><p>to have had the malandanti as their perpetual foes. Among learned clerics,</p><p>Stephen of Bourbon taught that while strigae and the bonae res were equally</p><p>imaginary, they were otherwise well differentiated: strigae rode wolves at night</p><p>and killed children, but</p><p>the bonae res had less fierce steeds and were, at worst,</p><p>petty vandals. The name “Holda” may also point to such a distinction, for it</p><p>suggests those positive attributes associated with the words “kind,” or “gra-</p><p>cious”; indeed, the medieval Holda was so well considered as to be occasion-</p><p>ally identified with the Virgin Mary.60 Likewise, the common German word</p><p>for witch in the Middle Ages was unholda, the good spirit’s inverted counter-</p><p>part. Unfortunately, more concrete evidence for such a system is hard to find,</p><p>and the evidence provided by names is ambiguous since it is also true that</p><p>words such as holda or bilwis might stand equally for fairies or for malevolent</p><p>witches.61 In any event, for most learned clerics, and probably for most</p><p>common folk as well, the various spectral trains of nocturnal women had</p><p>obvious similarities and were very easily conflated. John of Salisbury, writing</p><p>in the mid-twelfth century, provides an early example of exactly this kind of</p><p>assimilation, when he writes about those women who say that they followed</p><p>“a certain woman who shines by night, or Herodias, or the mistress of the</p><p>night” to assemblies and banquets. There, these women assert that</p><p>they are employed with the tasks of various kinds of service: some are handed</p><p>over for punishment, some others are elevated for their renown, each as they</p><p>deserve. Moreover, infants are exposed to lamiae, and some having been indis-</p><p>106 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 106</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>criminately torn to pieces are added to those already thrown into the stomach</p><p>by ravenous maws; while some are tossed back by the mercy of the ruler and</p><p>replaced in their cradles.62</p><p>By the fifteenth century, this failure to discriminate between different</p><p>types of night-going women had become general: instead of describing the</p><p>lamiae and the bonae res as different but related components of peasant belief,</p><p>learned commentators constructed a single complex, containing elements</p><p>drawn from both traditions. It is this conflation of strigae with the more benign</p><p>followers of Diana or Abundia that informs the witch debates of the late Middle</p><p>Ages. Martin of Arles provides a fairly typical fifteenth-century account of the</p><p>nefarious activities of these night-flying women in his catalogue of rustic super-</p><p>stitions. Among these, Martin describes the Broxae, women who claimed to fly</p><p>through the air at night and transform themselves into animals. He acknowl-</p><p>edges that these are the women whose beliefs are condemned by the canon</p><p>Episcopi, but he goes on to emphasize the criminal nature of their imaginary</p><p>excursions. Any distinction between the bonae res and the malevolent striga is</p><p>completely invisible to Martin:</p><p>Whence some little women, devoted to Satan, seduced by the illusions of the</p><p>devil, believe and confess that they ride during the hours of the night with</p><p>Diana, goddess of the pagans, or Venus, in company with a great multitude of</p><p>women, and do other abominations, for example, tear away babes from the</p><p>breasts of their mothers, carry them off and eat them, enter houses through</p><p>chimneys or windows, and disturb the inhabitants in various ways, all of which</p><p>happens exclusively in their imaginations.63</p><p>The common people greatly feared these women, and rang bells and lit fires</p><p>at crossroads and in the fields on the night of St. John’s day, lest witches fly</p><p>overhead and cause thunder and storms. This, Martin remarks, “I have seen</p><p>with my own eyes.”64</p><p>The beliefs surrounding the troupes of night-traveling women thus</p><p>occupy a somewhat paradoxical place in the late-medieval witch debate. As</p><p>Norman Cohn recognized, elements drawn from this tradition were necessary,</p><p>if the newly (re)constructed witch category was to be truly threatening.</p><p>Without the ability to travel at preternatural speed, it was just not possible to</p><p>envision hundreds or thousands of women assembling at night and carrying</p><p>out their nefarious deeds without causing an obvious commotion.65 In addi-</p><p>tion, although both heretics and malefici could certainly be alarming, there</p><p>were recognized and effective procedures for dealing with them. Assimilation</p><p>with the monstrous striga and lamia of folklore, however, resulted in hosts of</p><p>newly demonic witches whose terrible occult powers and ruthlessly destruc-</p><p>tive agenda required new and more energetic measures to combat them.</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 107</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 107</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>The contrary, however, was also true: where this assimilation was incom-</p><p>plete, as was the case especially in southern Europe, maleficae remained well</p><p>differentiated from the spectral women of the night, and “witchcraft” did not</p><p>become a critical problem. It was equally the case that constructions of witch-</p><p>craft in which these night-travelers were too centrally placed were not con-</p><p>vincing, both because they ran squarely counter to the always troublesome</p><p>canon Episcopi, and because the testimony of suspect “witches” themselves</p><p>strained credulity.66</p><p>These difficulties are best seen in the witch-treatises themselves. At one</p><p>end of the spectrum, Alphonso de Spina tried, probably harder than anyone</p><p>else, to push the traditional category distinctions of the canon Episcopi far</p><p>enough to accommodate fully diabolized witches.67 In his opinion, the Bruxae</p><p>or Xorguinae of popular superstition were demons who deceived old women</p><p>in their dreams, making them think that they traveled by night, killed children,</p><p>and did other evil deeds. Although these women were deceived, Alphonso</p><p>makes it plain they readily participated in this evil, and would commit their</p><p>crimes in reality if only they could:</p><p>The truth of the matter, however, is that when these evil persons wish to use</p><p>these most wicked fictions they consecrate themselves with words and unguents</p><p>to the devil, and the devil immediately receives them in his work and takes the</p><p>form and the imagination of every one of them and leads them to the places</p><p>which they wish, although their bodies remain insensible and covered by the</p><p>shadow of the devil so that no one can see them, and when the devil sees in</p><p>their imaginations that they have completed all they wish, not withdrawing from</p><p>their imaginations the diabolical fancies which they see, he leads back their</p><p>imaginations, joining them with their own moving bodies.68</p><p>In this account, Alphonso comes very close to endorsing the very belief he</p><p>purports to condemn, since the process he describes – in which the “imagi-</p><p>nations” of women wander about with the devil – sounds suspiciously like the</p><p>actual separation of body and soul. Instead of harmless delusions created by</p><p>the devil, women created their own monstrous fantasies, which Satan gave the</p><p>semblance of reality. He not only transported their figura et fantasia to remote</p><p>places, he also thoughtfully concealed their dreaming bodies while he did so,</p><p>so that annoying nay-sayers could not point to the obvious evidence of snoring</p><p>women to discredit their stories. But, for Alphonso, these women do no real,</p><p>concrete harm; instead their crime is heresy. Thus, the women of the canon</p><p>Episcopi who assert that they follow Diana at night are not merely supersti-</p><p>tious; rather, they are devil-worshiping heretics who are justly consigned to</p><p>the stake, since their heresy consists not only of the invocation to the devil</p><p>which precedes their dreams, but also of the dreams themselves, for which</p><p>108 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 108</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>they are apparently fully liable. For example, Alphonso remarks that in</p><p>Gascony and Dauphiné there are great numbers of these perverse women who</p><p>say that they assemble at night in a deserted place “where there is a boar on a</p><p>rock</p><p>which is commonly called ‘el Boch de Biterne,’ and that they meet there</p><p>with lighted candles and adore the boar, kissing him on his anus.”69 For this,</p><p>he continues, many had been arrested by the inquisition and burned – there</p><p>was even a painting commemorating the event in the house of the inquisitor</p><p>of Toulouse, which Spina had personally admired.</p><p>Alphonso de Spina gave the delusions of night-traveling women their</p><p>greatest practical significance. It was, in his view, no longer sufficient simply</p><p>to condemn as superstitious those who believed that their dreams were real;</p><p>the dreams themselves were criminal and deserved severe punishment. It is</p><p>difficult to see, however, how such a model of witchcraft could be especially</p><p>threatening to the populace at large, since no matter how much these heretics</p><p>were responsible for their fantasies, they were still just fantasies, and not the</p><p>cause of real harm. Furthermore, witchcraft so defined could neither be sep-</p><p>arated from notions about nor the persons of the women who believed that</p><p>they rode with the bonae res, and there is no indication that medieval people</p><p>in general found either particularly threatening or bothersome.</p><p>The experience of Nicholas of Cusa, the great reformer and theologian,</p><p>provides a case in point. In 1457, while traveling through the French Alps, he</p><p>met two old women who had been imprisoned for witchcraft and threatened</p><p>with the stake.They told him that they were in the service of Domina Abundia,</p><p>and went with her to revels where there was laughing, dancing, and celebra-</p><p>tions, and where hairy wild men devoured unbaptized children. By their own</p><p>admission these women were apostate Christians, since they had vowed them-</p><p>selves to “Richella” in return for good fortune and had promised to abstain</p><p>from all Christian observances. Nicholas at once recognized that these women</p><p>had been deceived by the devil in their dreams, and that, although grievous</p><p>sinners, they were not maleficae. In the Lenten sermon in which he gives this</p><p>account, he concludes that sometimes the devil</p><p>deludes some old and infatuated woman, and leads her on so that she is cap-</p><p>tured and tortured as a witch, and God permits this on account of her sins, and</p><p>then very great evils follow, because of the death of an innocent. Therefore</p><p>beware, lest wanting so much to be rid of evil, yet more evil is garnered.70</p><p>Accordingly, Nicholas arranged for these “decrepit and delirious” women to</p><p>receive penances and be released. Their dreams, no matter how bizarre, did</p><p>no real harm; the women were not, therefore, maleficae, and so their perse-</p><p>cution was both pointless and wrong. It is true that they had made an unholy</p><p>bargain with the devil, but they had been tricked into doing so, and were, in</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 109</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 109</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>any case, less than fully culpable by reason of their age, poverty, gross igno-</p><p>rance, and failing mental health.</p><p>Despite their differences, Alphonso de Spina and Nicholas of Cusa both</p><p>accepted an essentially conservative and traditional view of witchcraft, in</p><p>which the experiences of women who followed the bonae res were basically</p><p>imaginary. For others, this kind of faith in ecclesiastical tradition seemed no</p><p>longer possible. Alonso de Madrigal, bishop of Ávila, was one prominent</p><p>churchman whose initial stance of traditional skepticism was shaken, and</p><p>finally demolished, by the weight of circumstantial evidence. In his Commen-</p><p>tary on Genesis (c. 1436),Alonso had remarked that in his region of Spain there</p><p>were women who through certain superstitious observances and unguents</p><p>believed themselves transported to sumptuous feasts in distant places.71 Upon</p><p>investigation, however, it was determined that while these women thought</p><p>they were abroad, they were really lying motionless in a stupor, completely</p><p>insensible of their actual surroundings and conscious of neither words, nor</p><p>heavy blows, nor even burns.Thus, their journeys were nothing but the deceits</p><p>of the devil. Several years later, in his Commentary on Matthew (c. 1440),Alonso</p><p>had completely changed his mind. He now maintained</p><p>that what is said of certain women who run about through many places at night</p><p>is true. For this has often been discovered and judicially punished. And some,</p><p>wanting to imitate their infamous ceremonies, have incurred great distress. Nor</p><p>can it be said that this happens in sleep, since not only those who have them-</p><p>selves undergone this, but many others, too, have testified to this thing. Nor is</p><p>there any reason that this should be doubted, though it is true that among the</p><p>simple much that is false has been mixed up with some truth, because demons</p><p>desire to do harm not only to morals, but also to faith.72</p><p>In this passage,Alonso tries explicitly to convince his readers that his dramatic</p><p>about face was justified, and that women really do fly through the air at night.</p><p>Like Gervaise of Tilbury, his newfound credulity rested upon the value of tes-</p><p>timony and personal experience, which had finally become too compelling for</p><p>him to dismiss. For example, although he acknowledges that there are theo-</p><p>logical arguments to the contrary, he argues that demons have the power to</p><p>carry people from place to place since “this is so manifest, that it would be</p><p>imprudent to deny it, when we have met a thousand witnesses who have been</p><p>made aware of this.”73 Rather than dismiss the unanimous verdict of so many</p><p>witnesses, it was now easier for Alonso to revise the meaning of the canon</p><p>itself, such that it now forbade only the belief that women rode with Diana</p><p>and similar spirits, and not belief in the night ride itself.</p><p>For many other witch-theorists, such a deliberate misreading of the</p><p>canon was just as unacceptable as was complete skepticism, which created a</p><p>110 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 110</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>serious problem for those more inclined to consider arguments on both sides</p><p>of the issue. Around 1460, in a treatise dedicated to Francesco Sforza, the</p><p>Dominican theologian Girolamo Visconti took time to ponder whether</p><p>“lamias, which the vulgar call strias” go to the ludus in fact or in imagination</p><p>only.74 As he had encountered it, witchcraft was a composite of beliefs drawn</p><p>from popular traditions, maleficia, and demonic heresy, although the various</p><p>parts of this whole were so poorly integrated in his mind that he never quite</p><p>convinces himself, or his readers, of its objective reality. Witches go to their</p><p>assemblies, or ludi, riding on broomsticks or demons in the shape of wolves;</p><p>they do this for base, material motives, in order to gain money, revenge, or</p><p>success in love; once there, they adore the “lady of the game” as a goddess, kill</p><p>baptized infants, work black magic, and feast upon oxen which their mistress</p><p>then magically restores to life.75 To determine how much of this is real,</p><p>Visconti marshals evidence and arguments, both for and against. On one side</p><p>there is the testimony of the accused witches themselves and of witnesses who</p><p>have seen these women abroad, the evidence of undeniable magical harm, and</p><p>the undoubted power of the devil to do marvelous things. On the other, there</p><p>is the testimony of canonical authorities and numerous respected churchmen,</p><p>the fact that the women can be seen sleeping even while they claim to be riding</p><p>at night, and the incredible nature of their claims.</p><p>Visconti’s solution is interesting. The evidence of authority, and of the</p><p>physical bodies of sleeping women, is irrefutable, and such “witches” do not</p><p>really go to the ludus, rather, they, and those who think that they see them, are</p><p>deceived by the devil. At the same time, because demons have the power to</p><p>transport people from place to place at fantastic speeds, and because theolo-</p><p>gians are agreed that incubi and succubi are</p><p>real, it is possible that women might</p><p>attend these nocturnal assemblies and mingle physically with demons,</p><p>“because, following logic, many things are possible, which are nonetheless</p><p>false.”76 This is an extremely half-hearted endorsement of the canon Episcopi,</p><p>but Visconti will not go further. He does not seem able to reject the validity</p><p>of the canon out of hand, because his understanding of witchcraft is so firmly</p><p>rooted in testimony and narratives concerning the bonae res and their fol-</p><p>lowers, as his “witches” are still recognizably the same as the women con-</p><p>demned by the canon. Nonetheless, despite Girolamo’s reluctance to do away</p><p>with the canon completely, he provides the intellectual basis for that move, for</p><p>once the reality of the Sabbat was accepted as a possibility, a sufficient quan-</p><p>tity of circumstantial evidence would establish it as fact.</p><p>The crux of the problem was the power of the devil: did he give sub-</p><p>stance to the claims of alleged night-travelers, or merely defraud their minds</p><p>and senses? Confusion on this score was nothing new. Back in the thirteenth</p><p>century, in another of Stephen of Bourbon’s stories, a priest was invited out</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 111</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 111</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>for a ride with the bonae res, and rode a wooden beam to a great feast attended</p><p>by many beautiful people. When he made the sign of the cross, the glorious</p><p>party vanished, and the naked priest was discovered in the wine cellar of a</p><p>local lord and narrowly avoided being hanged as a thief.77 Stephen’s expressed</p><p>purpose was to mock superstitious belief, but this same exemplum could also</p><p>demonstrate the real power of the devil to transport people invisibly into</p><p>locked rooms while at the same time deceiving their senses. In other words,</p><p>Stephen’s narrative made exactly the same point as did Girolamo Visconti: such</p><p>things are possible, even if they do not usually happen.78</p><p>Around 1470 the Dominican theologian Jordanes de Bergamo took</p><p>Girolamo’s argument to its logical conclusion in his Questio de Strigis.79 “Strigae</p><p>or strigones,”, he writes, are “men and women who run about at night over long</p><p>distances or enter houses by the power of demons, who also are said to bewitch</p><p>children.”80 Once again, this conception of witchcraft centers around the com-</p><p>panies of night-traveling women, and so, like Girolamo, Jordanes must address</p><p>the problem of the canon Episcopi head on. His solution is simple: where the</p><p>canon specifically forbids belief, in animal transformations for example, the</p><p>devil accomplishes this through illusions; in all other cases, witches may do</p><p>things in reality or in their dreams, depending upon the mood of the devil.</p><p>Thus, when baleful strigae suck the blood of children at night, this may be the</p><p>devil acting in some woman’s stead, or it may be the woman herself, trans-</p><p>ported and otherwise abetted by Satan.</p><p>This “half-a-loaf ” approach to witchcraft, in which, as Jordanes remarks,</p><p>“some things pertaining to witches should be rejected from the hearts of the</p><p>faithful, while some, in fact, should be firmly held,” satisfied apparently no one</p><p>else.81 In particular the issue of maleficium proper was entirely peripheral to</p><p>the subject of strigae, and for this reason his witches continued to resemble</p><p>evil, heretical, fairies – the lamiae of Gervaise of Tilbury’s and Stephen of</p><p>Bourbon’s exempla made real – more than they did the maleficial witches of</p><p>the Malleus.</p><p>Elsewhere, definitions of witchcraft took rather different directions and</p><p>the whole issue of the bonae res and the canon remained of secondary impor-</p><p>tance. North of the Alps, especially, writers were on the whole disinclined to</p><p>attach the label “witch” to the woman who rode with the bonae res, and accord-</p><p>ingly interpreted their beliefs in a more traditional manner. Nider’s Formicar-</p><p>ius, for example, a text which would remain one of the definitive sources for</p><p>information about witchcraft throughout the fifteenth century, treated the</p><p>women who believed they rode with Diana traditionally. One of his teachers,</p><p>Nider recalls, had told him of a woman who could not be cured of her super-</p><p>stitious beliefs until a Dominican persuaded her to let him, along with several</p><p>others, witness her flight.82 When the moment came, she put a large bowl on</p><p>112 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 112</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>a table, seated herself in it, and began to apply a salve to her body while saying</p><p>an evil charm. She fell at once into a deep sleep, in which she thrashed so vio-</p><p>lently that she fell from the table and hit her head.When she awoke she claimed</p><p>to have been out with Venus, but the protestations of the witnesses finally con-</p><p>vinced her of her error. Nider complements this account with other details of</p><p>medieval traditional lore. He tells the well-known incident from the life of St.</p><p>Germanus, in which the saint found lodging at a house where peasants had</p><p>set out a feast in expectation of a visit by the Good Women of the night.</p><p>Germanus stayed up to keep watch, and was not surprised when a horde of</p><p>demons in the likeness of women entered the house, sat down at the table,</p><p>and began to eat.83 Through these stories, Nider makes the point that while</p><p>demons are responsible for belief in Diana,Venus, and the Good Women, those</p><p>who believe in these things are not themselves demonic, merely superstitious,</p><p>stupid, and rather silly. They do not kill babies, cause storms, ride on wolves</p><p>or assume animal form; instead, these are all characteristics that Nider asso-</p><p>ciates with heretical malefici.</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger generally concurred. In the Malleus, they argue</p><p>that it is necessary to distinguish clearly between the women described in the</p><p>canon Episcopi and “real witches,” who committed real crimes and knowingly</p><p>devoted themselves to the devil.84 Where, however, Nicholas of Cusa and his</p><p>like could use this distinction to exculpate accused witches, for Institoris and</p><p>Sprenger the canon Episcopi describes a virtually empty set: they have no per-</p><p>sonal experience of such women, and seem to feel it rather unlikely that they</p><p>would ever meet them. If a woman was found who superficially resembled</p><p>those discussed in the canon, she would doubtless fall within their expansive</p><p>parameters of witch proper.</p><p>Nonetheless, Institoris and Sprenger incorporated many of the charac-</p><p>teristics of the malign cousins of the less savory night spirits into their own</p><p>conception of witches. Night flight, for example, was one of the definitive</p><p>characteristics of both the lamiae and the bonae res, and does not seem to have</p><p>been much associated with traditional representations of malefici. The Malleus,</p><p>however, routinely describes witches as having the power of flight.The authors</p><p>explain that when witches want to fly, they take an unguent made from the</p><p>limbs of slaughtered children and smear it over a chair or some other piece of</p><p>wood, at which signal an invisible devil will come and bear them away.85 Some-</p><p>times, Institoris and Sprenger admit, the devil actually appeared in the form</p><p>of an animal to carry the witch, but he far preferred her to fly by means of</p><p>the magical salve so that more children might be killed before baptism. In this</p><p>way, the authors brought the witch’s infanticide – another of the lamia’s most</p><p>obvious characteristics – alongside her powers of flight to form a new, logical</p><p>whole. They created a fusion of the lamiae with the malefica which effectively</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 113</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 113</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>replaced earlier conceptions of malign female spirits while remaining fully</p><p>compatible with them.</p><p>For this reason, Institoris and Sprenger can support this interpretation</p><p>with narratives that closely resemble those that had been told about lamiae and</p><p>their kin. They relate that in the same year that their book was begun, in the</p><p>city of Speyer, a pair of women had words which escalated, more muliercularum,</p><p>into an abusive quarrel.86 Since one of the women was rumored to be a witch,</p><p>the other went home fearing for her newborn child and scattered blessed</p><p>herbs, consecrated salt, and holy water around his cradle. Her fears were war-</p><p>ranted, because in the middle of the night she heard her son whimpering, and</p><p>when she went to comfort him, she found his cradle empty. Weeping for the</p><p>loss of her son, the poor woman lit a candle, and was relieved to find the baby</p><p>under a table in a corner, sniffling but unharmed. That the witch was unable</p><p>to do more than this, Institoris and Sprenger attribute to the mother’s good</p><p>sense and prompt deployment of sacramental defenses. It is impossible to tell</p><p>whether the authors have reworked this very traditional account of the depre-</p><p>dations of lamiae to fit their ideas about witchcraft, or whether such stories</p><p>were beginning to influence the discourse of village magic.87 In either case,</p><p>the story illustrates how a clear occasion for maleficia – a mundane quarrel</p><p>between two women, one with reputed malign occult powers – could evoke</p><p>a much more monstrous and diabolical conception of witchcraft.</p><p>Similarly, Institoris and Sprenger incorporated the trance-like dream</p><p>state of women who ride with the bonae res into their image of the witch.They</p><p>had once asked a women whether witches could travel in their imaginations,</p><p>through illusion, or bodily, and she had replied that both ways were possible.</p><p>When they wanted to go to the assembly of witches, either a devil could trans-</p><p>port them, or, if that were inconvenient, they could invoke the devil and go</p><p>to sleep; a bluish vapor would then proceed from their mouths by which they</p><p>were clearly aware of everything that was done there.88 Again, this narrative</p><p>does not appear grounded in learned conventions (the mist issuing from</p><p>a sleeper’s mouth is too obviously suggestive of the soul leaving the body),</p><p>but in a more popular representation of the dream trance. Nonetheless, it fits</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger’s purposes well, since it makes clear that it is the witch</p><p>herself, more than any devil, who is responsible for her dreams. In the Malleus,</p><p>when a witch dreams of the Sabbat, she does so accurately, as a valid, if still</p><p>inferior, substitute for her actual presence at the event.</p><p>In this way, Institoris and Sprenger transformed the motifs of folk tradi-</p><p>tions into substantial truths about witchcraft. All that the canon Episcopi and</p><p>Burchard of Worms held to be delusions, they found to be the awful truth. All</p><p>evidence to the contrary was either irrelevant, because it did not apply to</p><p>witches, or it was erroneous. Sometimes it was both. For example, the popular</p><p>114 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 114</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>stories of obviously slumbering women who claimed to fly at night might</p><p>either refer to stupid, deluded women who were not witches, or to witches</p><p>who were actually abroad at night, while demons assumed their forms in their</p><p>husbands’ beds.89 Thus, where Alphonso de Spina’s devil made dreaming</p><p>women invisible in order that his deceits might appear more real, the devil in</p><p>the Malleus used his illusions to conceal the reality of their absence. Similarly,</p><p>perceptions of the bonae res merely masked the real presence of demons or</p><p>witches:</p><p>There was an error arising from the demons of the night or, as old women say,</p><p>die seligen [the fairies], but who are witches or demons in the form of witches,</p><p>have to consume everything so that afterwards they may give back more</p><p>abundantly.90</p><p>This substitution of witches for demons blurred the stark division</p><p>between the diabolic fantasies of the canon and the diabolic “realities” of the</p><p>Malleus such that fairy beliefs could be interpreted as just one more manifes-</p><p>tation of witchcraft. Institoris and Sprenger could do this because they</p><p>embraced a concept of the witch that was simultaneously concrete and dia-</p><p>bolic, able to incorporate both dreaming old women and the devils from whom</p><p>their dreams came. In this way, Institoris and Sprenger functionally legislated</p><p>the superstitious women of the canon, along with their fantasies, out of exis-</p><p>tence, to be replaced in their entirety by the shockingly real presence of the</p><p>witch.</p><p>Notes</p><p>1 “Quid ergo dicimus de mulieribus, quae confitentur nocturno tempore ambulare per</p><p>longa locorum intervalla in momento temporis, et intrare cameras alienas clausas, coa-</p><p>diuvantibus earum magistris daemonibus (ut dicunt), cum quibus loquuntur, quibus</p><p>praestant censum, et cum quibus (ut dicunt) habent copulam carnalem, et quibus per-</p><p>suadentibus (ut dicunt) abnegant deum et virginem Mariam, et cum pedibus conculcant</p><p>sanctam crucem, et quae daemonibus coadiuvantibus (ut dicunt) interficiunt pueros et</p><p>interficiunt homines, et faciunt eos cadere in infirmitates diversas, et quae dicunt</p><p>se multa his similia facere, et aliquando se transformare in formam muscipulae, et</p><p>diabolum dicunt se aliquando transformare in formam canis, vel alterius animalis? An</p><p>haec et his similia sint possibilia, vel versimilia, vel credenda?” Ambrosius de Vignati,</p><p>Tractatus de Haereticis, in Hansen, Quellen, 216.</p><p>2 Ibid., 225.</p><p>3 See Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System,” in Geertz, The Interpretation of Cul-</p><p>tures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 100–1.</p><p>4 The Dominican Order accepted St. Thomas as their definitive theologian in 1329.</p><p>Hinnebusch, 2:159.</p><p>5 Heiko Oberman, “Via Antiqua and Via Moderna: Late Medieval Prolegomena to Refor-</p><p>mation Thought,” Journal of the History of Ideas 48 (1987): 23–40.</p><p>6 Ibid., 28.</p><p>7 Author’s italics. Heiko Oberman, “Fourteenth Century Religious Thought:A Premature</p><p>Profile,” in Oberman, The Dawn of the Reformation, 6.</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 115</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 115</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>8 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, qu. 87, arts. 6 and 8.</p><p>9 See Scot MacDonald, “Theory of Knowledge,” in Norman Kretzmann and Eleanor</p><p>Stump, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University</p><p>Press, 1993), 160–95; 185.</p><p>10 Ibid., 170–85; see also Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, qu. 85, art. 6.</p><p>11 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, pt. 1, qu. 51, art. 3, quoting Augustine, City of God, 15.23.</p><p>See also the Malleus, pt. 1, qu. 3.</p><p>12 “Omnis enim acceptio, quae firmatur sensu, melior est quam illa quae sensui contradicit,</p><p>et conclusio, quae sensui contradicit, est incredibilis.” Albertus Magnus, Physica, lib.</p><p>8, tract. 2, c. 2, in Opera Omnia, ed. Paulus Hossfeld (Aschendorf: Monasterium</p><p>Westfalorum, 1993), vol. 4, pt. 2, p. 587; cf. Hinnebusch, 2:127.</p><p>13 “Ad quartum dicendum, quod in theologia locus ab auctoritate est locus ab inspiratione</p><p>spiritus veritatis. Unde Augustinus . . . In aliis autem scientiis locus ab auctoritate</p><p>infirmus est et infirmior ceteris, quia perspicacitati humani ingenii innititur, quae</p><p>fallibilis est.” Albertus Magnus, Summa Theologiae tract. 1, qu. 5, ch. 2, in Opera Omnia,</p><p>ed. Dionysius Siedler et al. (Aschendorf: Monasterium Westfalorum, 1978), 18; cf.</p><p>Hinnebusch, 2:127.</p><p>14 “Quis tam stolidus vt propterea omnia eorum maleficia et nocumenta esse fantastica et</p><p>imaginaria affirmaret cum ad sensum omnibus appareat contrarium.” Malleus, pt. 2, qu.</p><p>1, ch. 3, p. 105.</p><p>15 Kvideland and Sehmsdorf, 9.</p><p>16 “ubi fama volabat quod quedam mulier sepulta lintheamen in quo sepulta erat succes-</p><p>siue deglutiret et quod pestis cessare non posset nisi ex integro lintheamen deglutiendo</p><p>ad ventrem consumpsisset.” Malleus, pt. 1, qu. 15, p. 75.</p><p>17 Similar stories were told by Saxo Grammaticus and William of Newburgh; for discus-</p><p>sion of the medieval ghost in folk</p><p>and clerical traditions, see Claude Lecouteux,</p><p>Geschichte der Gespenster und Wiedergänger im Mittelalter (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 1987),</p><p>and Jean-Claude Schmitt, Les Revenants (Paris: Gallimard, 1994).</p><p>18 Women with reputations for malign occult powers were notoriously restless after death;</p><p>for the best known example see the tale of the witch of Berkeley in William of Malmes-</p><p>bury, De Gestis Regum Anglorum, ed. William Stubbs (London: Longmans, Green, Reader</p><p>and Dyer, 1887–89), 1:253–5.</p><p>19 “Nam ex effectibus deuenit in cognitionem cause.” Malleus, pt. 1, qu. 5, p. 36.</p><p>20 “[Ex quibus elicitur quod] virtus corporalis hominis ad huiusmodi opera causanda non</p><p>se extendere potest que semper hoc habet ut causa cum suo effectu naturali nota sit nat-</p><p>uraliter absque admiratione.” Ibid. In a fine example of the application of scholastic exclu-</p><p>sionary categories to practical problems, Institoris and Sprenger explain that if a man</p><p>could be found who did have the power to create such marvels, he could not really be</p><p>called a “man” at all. Of course, if this being were not a man, he must necessarily be</p><p>either a devil or an angel, since these are the only rational beings in creation. See ibid.,</p><p>pt. 2, qu. 2, ch. 8, p. 183.</p><p>21 “et quidem in contrarium in argumenta deducere non expedit cum ipsa experientia</p><p>preter verborum et fidedignorum testimonia talia facit credibilia.” Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 6,</p><p>p. 40.</p><p>22 “Constant ergo omnia aut visus vel auditus propria experientia aut fide dignorum relat-</p><p>ibus.” Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 4, p. 108.</p><p>23 “Nulli dubium quin malefice quedam mira operantur circa membra virilia vt ex visis et</p><p>auditis plurimorum imo et ex ipsa publica fama constat.” Ibid., pt. 1, qu. 9, p. 56.</p><p>24 As is true of all supra-normal encounters. See Lauri Honko, “Memorates and the Study</p><p>of Folk Belief,” in Reimund Kvideland and Henning K. Sehmsdorf, eds., Nordic Folklore</p><p>(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 100–9.</p><p>25 Kommentar, 351–408. Although approximately four fifths of these are drawn from liter-</p><p>ary sources, in comparison with contemporary texts using comparable numbers of</p><p>116 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 116</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>exempla, Institoris and Sprenger include an extraordinarily high number of narratives</p><p>drawn from their personal experience.</p><p>26 “Quare et merito concluditur praefata remedia contra huiusmodi morbum esse certis-</p><p>sima ita quod certissime ita liberantur quicumque his armis vtuntur. Malleus, pt. 2, qu.</p><p>2, ch. 3, p. 165.</p><p>27 Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, p. 88.</p><p>28 Similarly in the nineteenth century, J. Lecœur reported that when peasants in the Bocage</p><p>began to suspect that their misfortunes were due to witchcraft, “They worry, they mull</p><p>it over, and look at what is happening around them with distrust. The talk continues;</p><p>soon one name is mysteriously on everyone’s lips.” Esquisses du bocage normand (Condé-</p><p>sur-Noireau, 1887), 2:38; cited in Judith Devlin, The Superstitious Mind: French Peasants</p><p>and the Supernatural in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1987),</p><p>102.</p><p>29 This procedure, the diffamatio, was not unique to inquisitorial investigations of witch-</p><p>craft.When an inquisitor suspected the presence of heretics but denunciations were not</p><p>forthcoming, he could require persons generally acknowledged to be respectable and</p><p>trustworthy to denounce those who failed to live as good Catholics. A.S. Turberville,</p><p>Medieval Heresy and the Inquisition (1920; reprint, London:Archon Books, 1964), 142–3,</p><p>190–1.</p><p>30 “Ad aures talis officialis aut iudicis talis loci pervuenit pluries fama publica referente ac</p><p>clamosa insinuatione producente quod talis de tali loco dixit vel fecit talia ad maleficia</p><p>pertinentia contra fidem ac communem vtilitatem reipublice.” Malleus, pt. 3, qu. 1,</p><p>p. 196.</p><p>31 “diffamata insuper plurimum super mortem cuiusdam militis Spiess et hoc nedum in</p><p>Ysbruck sed et circumquaque per vicinas terras et presertim apud nobiles et potentes.</p><p>An autem toxico vel maleficio ipsum interemit, manet sub dubio, communiter tamen</p><p>famatur, quod maleficio eo quod a iuventute maleficiis servivit.” Ammann, 39.</p><p>32 See David Gentilcore, 243–4.</p><p>33 For example Robin Briggs, Witches and Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context of</p><p>European Witchcraft (New York:Viking, 1996), 398.</p><p>34 Georgina Boyce, “Belief and Disbelief: An Examination of Reactions to the Presentation</p><p>of Rumor Legends,” in Paul Smith, ed., Perspectives on Contemporary Legend (Sheffield:</p><p>CECTAL Conference Papers Series no. 4, 1984), 64–78; 75.</p><p>35 Gorden W. Allport and Leo Postman, The Psychology of Rumor (New York: Henry Holt,</p><p>1947), 52.</p><p>36 Jeanne Favret-Saada, Deadly Words:Witchcraft in the Bocage, trans. Catherine Cullen (Cam-</p><p>bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 9 and passim. Modern American Satanism</p><p>“experts” offer a similar and in many ways more exact parallel. See Linda Dégh, “Satanic</p><p>Child Abuse in a Blue House,” in Linda Dégh, Narratives in Society:A Performance-Centered</p><p>Study of Narration, Folklore Fellows Communication 255 (Helsinki: Academia Scien-</p><p>tiarum Fennica, 1995), 358–68.</p><p>37 Dégh, 360–3. See also Allport and Postman, 34 and 36.</p><p>38 Edwin Ardener, “Social Anthropology, Language and Reality,” in Semantic Anthropology,</p><p>ASA monograph 22 (London: Academic Press, 1982): 1–14; 8.</p><p>39 See also Donald P. Spence, “The Mythic Properties of Popular Explanations,” in Joseph</p><p>de Rivera and Theodore Sarbin, eds., Believed-In Imaginings:The Narrative Construction of</p><p>Reality (Washington, D.C.: APA, 1998): 217–28.</p><p>40 Neither this method nor this insight is my own, and the following discussion owes an</p><p>obvious debt especially to Norman Cohn and Joseph Hansen. See also Cohn, Europe’s</p><p>Inner Demons (New York: Basic Books, 1975), Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle</p><p>Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), and Andreas Blauert, Frühe Hex-</p><p>enverfolgungen (Hamburg: Junius, 1989).</p><p>41 Regino of Prüm, De Ecclesiasticis Disciplinis, ii, c. 364, Patrologia Latina 132, 352.</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 117</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 117</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>42 Burchard of Worms, Decreta, xix, Patrologia Latina 140, 963. For English translation see</p><p>John T. McNeill and Helena M. Gamer, trans., Medieval Handbooks of Penance (New York:</p><p>Columbia University Press, 1938).</p><p>43 Contra Carlo Ginzburg, who posits the existence of an inclusive “mythic complex,” based</p><p>loosely upon the models provided by Eurasian shamanism. See Ginzburg, “Deciphering</p><p>the Sabbath,” trans. Paul Falla, in Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen, eds., Early</p><p>Modern European Witchcraft (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990): 121–37; however, see also</p><p>Robert Muchembled, “Satanic Myths and Cultural Reality,” in Ankarloo and Henningsen,</p><p>139–60;Wolfgang Behringer, Chonrad Stoekhlin und die Nachtschar (Munich: Piper, 1994);</p><p>and Claude Lecouteux, Fées, sorcières et loups-garous au Moyen Âge: histoire du double (Paris:</p><p>Imago, 1992).</p><p>44 A genuinely persuasive interpretation of the evidence for a medieval cult of Diana (or</p><p>whomever) is difficult to find; see, however, Flint, 122–5; Duerr, 15; Carlo Ginzburg,</p><p>The Night Battles, trans. John and Anne Tedeschi (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Uni-</p><p>versity Press, 1992), 40–50, and Ecstasies:Deciphering the Witches’Sabbath, trans. Raymond</p><p>Rosenthal (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991), 89–121; Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons,</p><p>210–24.</p><p>45 William of Paris, 1066.</p><p>46 Burchard of Worms, 971.</p><p>47 Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, The Romance of the Rose, trans. Charles Dahlberg</p><p>(Hanover: University Press of New England, 1971), lines 18411–60, 305–6.</p><p>48 “[Sequitur quinto,] quod christiano permaxime fugiendum est, ne fidem adhibeat huic,</p><p>quod vetule referunt in nativitatibus hominum quasdam deas venire et necessitatem</p><p>geniti proli imponere fortunium aut infortunium, suspendium, occisionem</p><p>gladialem</p><p>aut dignitatem magnificam vel consimile prenunciare, que necessario eveniant. [Unde</p><p>eciam si quis submergatur aut suspendatur, dicunt consolatorie se exhortantes tales nec-</p><p>essario tamquam prenunciatum evenisse.] Et quidem si puer nascitur in pellicula, dicunt</p><p>ipsum esse de illis, qui magna spacia in una nocte per transeunt, vulgariter ‘die farn</p><p>leude’ etc. Denique homines in hanc labuntur demenciam, ut cultum soli deo debitum</p><p>ipsis, qui vere demones sunt, exhibeant quosque largitores bonorum false existimant.</p><p>Sic eciam quidam faciunt in quintis feriis Quatuor temporum et in nocte precedenti</p><p>quarte ferie Cinerum.” John of Frankfurt, Questio, utrum potestas cohercendi demones . . .</p><p>in Hansen, Quellen, 76.</p><p>49 For the medieval cult of the fairies, see Gustav Henningsen, “ ‘The Ladies from the</p><p>Outside’: An Archaic Pattern of the Witches’ Sabbath,” in Ankarloo and Henningsen,</p><p>191–215; for the European fairy cult generally, see Éva Pócs, Fairies and Witches at the</p><p>Boundary of South-Eastern and Central Europe, Folklore Fellows Communication 243</p><p>(Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1989), and Briggs, The Vanishing People.</p><p>50 This belief is also found in Burchard, who refers to the women concerned simply as</p><p>“Fates” (parcae). Corrector, Patrologia Latina 140, 971.</p><p>51 Étienne de Bourbon, Anecdotes historiques, ed. A. Lecoy de la Marche (Paris: Libraire</p><p>Renouard, 1877), exempla 368–9. Stephen uses the word to distinguish the good women</p><p>of the night from the evil strigae.</p><p>52 Ginzburg, The Night Battles, 44–55.</p><p>53 Cited in Lea, Materials, 1:112; the etymology is from Isidore; Gregory the Great</p><p>describes the lamia with a human face and a bestial body as a metaphor for heresy and</p><p>for hypocrites (Magna Moralia, in Lea, 1:110–11). It is worth noting that Johannes’ con-</p><p>temporary, Albertus Magnus, gave a far more prosaic description of the lamia: “an enor-</p><p>mous fierce animal which emerges from the forest at night and skulks into orchards</p><p>where it slashes and uproots trees.” Albertus Magnus, De Animalibus, trans. James J.</p><p>Scanlan (Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1987), 22.112,</p><p>p. 155.</p><p>118 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 118</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>54 For a discussion of Roman literary witches, see Eugene Tavenner, “Canidia and Other</p><p>Witches,” reprinted in Witchcraft in the Ancient World and Middle Ages, ed. Brian Levack</p><p>(New York: Garland Publishers, 1992), 2:14–39; and Baroja, The World of the Witches,</p><p>17–40.</p><p>55 “Idem et eodem modo sentiendum est tibi de aliis malignis spiritibus, quas vulgus stryges</p><p>et lamias vocant, et apparent de nocte in domidus in quibus parvuli notriuntur, eosque</p><p>de cunabulis raptos laniare, vel igne assare videntur. Apparent autem in specie vetularum</p><p>videlicet, quae nec vere vetulae sunt, nec vere pueros devorare.”William of Paris, 1066.</p><p>56 “Credidisti quod multae mulieres retro Satanam conversae credunt et affirmant verum</p><p>esse, ut credas inquietae noctis silentio cum te collocaveris in lecto tuo, et marito tuo</p><p>in sinu tuo jacente, te dum corporea sis januis clausis exire posse, et terrarum spacia</p><p>cum aliis simili errore deceptis pertransire valere, et homines baptizatos, et Christi san-</p><p>guine redemptos, sine armis visibilibus et interficere, et decoctis carnibus eorum vos</p><p>comedere, et in loco cordis eorum stramen aut lignum, aut aliquod huiusmodi ponere,</p><p>et commestis, iterum vivos facere, et inducias vivendi dare?” Burchard, 973. See also</p><p>Katharine Morris, Sorceress or Witch? The Image of Gender in Medieval Iceland and Northern</p><p>Europe (Lanham: University Press of America, 1991), 160–2.</p><p>57 Gervaise of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, ed. Felix Liebrecht (Hanover: Carl Rümpler, 1856),</p><p>c. 93, p. 45.</p><p>58 Ibid., c. 86, pp. 39–40.</p><p>59 Ibid., c. 93, pp. 45–46.</p><p>60 See Edgar A. List, “Holda and the Venusberg,” Journal of American Folklore 73 (1960):</p><p>307–11 and “Is Frau Holda the Virgin Mary?” German Quarterly 32 (1953): 80–4.</p><p>61 Duerr, 169, n. 29, citing the Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, c. 1314.The gloss</p><p>on the Lex Salica gives fara or “the one who goes” for striga, which may also suggest an</p><p>early association of nocturnal witches with night-traveling women.</p><p>62 “Quare est quod noticulam quamdam vel Herodiadem vel praesidem noctis dominam</p><p>concilia et conventus de nocte asserunt convocare, varia celebrari convivia, ministerio-</p><p>rum species diversis occupationibus exerceri, et nunc istos ad poenam trahi promeri-</p><p>tis, nunc illos ad gloriam sublimari. Praeterea infantes exponi lamiis, et nunc frustatim</p><p>discerptos, edaci ingluvie in ventrem trajectos congeri, nunc praesidentis miseratione</p><p>rejectos in cunas reponi.” John of Salisbury, Polycraticus, sive de Nugis Curialium et Vestigiis</p><p>Philosophorum, 2.17, cited in Lea, Materials, 1:172–3. John firmly believed that no edu-</p><p>cated person should give credence to such “empty and senseless falsehoods.”</p><p>63 “Unde quaedam mulierculae inseruientes Satanae, daemonum illusionibus seductae,</p><p>credunt et profitentur nocturnis horis cum Diana Paganorum Dea, vel Venere, in magna</p><p>mulierum multitudine equitare, et alia nephanda agere, puta paruulos a lacte matris</p><p>auellere, assare, et comedere, domus per caminos seu fenestras intrare, et habitantes</p><p>variis modis inquietare, quae omnia et consimilia solum fantastice accidunt eis.” Martin</p><p>of Arles, 363.</p><p>64 Ibid.</p><p>65 Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons, 205. One must admit, though, that there is an element of</p><p>circular reasoning in this argument since the notion that women assembled in vast</p><p>throngs at night was surely drawn from the traditions of the bona res and company to</p><p>begin with.</p><p>66 Compare the experiences of Nicholas of Cusa, below.</p><p>67 Alphonso de Spina (c. 1420–91) was a baptized Jew who became a Franciscan theolo-</p><p>gian at Salamanca, the confessor of King John II of Castile, and bishop of Orense.</p><p>Compare Hansen, Quellen, 145.</p><p>68 “Veritas autem huius facti est quod quando iste male persone volunt uti his pessimis fic-</p><p>tionibus consecrate se cum verbis et unctioribus diabolo, et statim dyabolos recipit eos</p><p>in opere suo et accipit figuram earum et fantasiam cuiuslibet earum ducitque illas per</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 119</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 119</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>illa loca per que desiderabant corpora vero earum remanent sine aliqua sensibilitate et</p><p>cooperit illa dyabolus umbra sua ita quod nullus illa videre possit, et cum dyabolus videt</p><p>in fantasiis earum quod impleuerant que volebant non amouendo ad [sic] earum fantasiis</p><p>diabolicas fantasias que viderunt reducit illas imaginationes coniungens cum suis pro-</p><p>priis motibus et corporibus.” Alphonso de Spina, consid. 10.</p><p>69 “ubi est aper quidam in rupe qui vulgariter dicitur el boch de biterne et quod ibi conu-</p><p>eniunt cum candelis accensis et adorant illum aprum osculantes eum in ano suo.” Ibid.</p><p>70 “Et ideo infatuatam mulierem aliquam vetulam deludit, et ducit ut quasi malefica</p><p>capiatur et trucidetur, et deus permittit ob peccata ista, et tunc sequuntur maxima mala</p><p>ob mortem innocentis sanguinis. Ideo cauendum est valde ne volendo malum eiicere:</p><p>malum accumuletur.” Nicholas of Cusa, IX, fol. clxxii, “Haec omnia tibi dabo.”</p><p>71 Alphons Madrigal Tostatus, Commentary on Genesis, Hansen, Quellen, 109, n. 1.</p><p>72 “Quod dicitur de mulieribus, quae per noctem discurrunt per diversa loca, etiam verum</p><p>est. Nam saepe hoc inventum est et iudicialiter punitum. Et aliqui volentes imitari</p><p>earum nefandas caeremonias, magna incommoda incurrerunt. Nec potest dici illud per</p><p>somnium accidere, cum non solum ipsi, qui passi sunt, sed etiam plures alii huius rei</p><p>testes erant. Nec est aliqua causa de his dubitandi. Verum est autem, quod apud sim-</p><p>plices aliquibus veris multa falsa circa haec admixta sunt, quia daemones non solum in</p><p>moribus, sed etiam in fide nocere cupiunt.” Commentary on Matthew, qu. 47, Hansen,</p><p>to their</p><p>fertile imaginations.</p><p>Notes</p><p>1 Although the trial records themselves have been lost, detailed notes of the proceedings</p><p>were made for Bishop Golser, and survive in Brixen’s episcopal archives; they have</p><p>been partially edited by Hartmann Ammann, “Der Innsbrucker Hexenprocess von</p><p>1485,” Zeitschrift des Ferdinandeums für Tirol und Vorarlberg 34 (1890): 1–87. See also Eric</p><p>Wilson, “Institoris at Innsbruck: Heinrich Institoris, the Summis Desiderantes and the</p><p>Brixen Witch-Trial of 1485,” in R.W. Scribner and Trevor Johnson, eds., Popular</p><p>Religion in Germany and Central Europe, 1400–1800 (New York: St. Martin’s Press,</p><p>1996): 87–100.</p><p>2 “Pfie dich, du sneder minch, daz dich das fallend übel etc.” Ammann, “Innsbrucker</p><p>Hexenprocess,” 40.</p><p>3 When Institoris asked her to explain her remark, Helena replied that she had said it</p><p>“because you preach nothing except heresy” (“Ideo dixi, quia nunquam predicatis nisi</p><p>heresim”). And when Institoris asked, “how so?” she continued “because you do not</p><p>8 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM1 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 8</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>preach except against witches” (“Quia non predicatis nisi contra maleficas”). Ibid.,</p><p>36.</p><p>4 Ammann, “Innsbrucker Hexenprocess,” 36; Heide Dienst, “Lebensbewältigung durch</p><p>Magie: alltägliche Zauberei in Innsbruck gegen Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts,” in Alfred</p><p>Kohler and Heinrich Lutz, eds., Alltag im 16. Jahrhundert (Vienna:Verlag für Geschichte</p><p>und Politik, 1987): 91–3. Scheuberin had a reputation for folk medicine and had lent</p><p>the knight, one Leopold von Spiess-Friedberg, her expertise. When he did not recover,</p><p>he turned instead to a learned Italian physician, who also failed to effect a cure, but did</p><p>apparently induce the dying knight to accuse Scheuberin of witchcraft.</p><p>5 “per oppositum personam male fame et inhonestam in fidei moribus de heresi faciliter</p><p>infamari, ymo et regula generalis est, quod omnes malefice a iuventute carnalitatibus</p><p>et adulteriis servierunt variis, prout experiencia docuit.” Ammann, “Innsbrucker</p><p>Hexenprocess,” 39–40.</p><p>6 For the interrogation of Helena Scheuberin and the response of the episcopal commis-</p><p>sioners, see ibid., 65–72.</p><p>7 In a general sense, this approach to the problem of late-medieval witchcraft is inspired</p><p>by Stuart Clark’s ground-breaking work and, in particular, Thinking with Demons:The Idea</p><p>of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); more</p><p>specifically, the ideas of semiotic and symbolic anthropologists informs my emphasis</p><p>upon the conceptual power of category construction. See especially the work of</p><p>Clifford Geertz, Edwin Ardener, James Fernandez, Rodney Needham, Malcolm</p><p>Crick, George Lakoff, and Dan Sperber.</p><p>8 Since witchcraft, as Institoris and Sprenger observe, invariably comes to light through</p><p>the witch’s “words and deeds.” “Hoc enim est maleficarum proprium concitare adver-</p><p>sum se, vel verbis inutilibus aut factis, puta quam petit sibi praestari aliquid, aut infert</p><p>ei damnum aliquod in orto [sic] et similia hoc ut occasionem recipiant et se manifestant</p><p>in verbo vel in opere.” Henricus Institoris and Jacobus Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum</p><p>(1487; facsimile reprint, Göppingen: Kümmerle Verlag, 1991), pt. 3, qu. 6, p. 201.</p><p>9 André Schnyder, “Der Malleus Maleficarum: Fragen und Beobachtungen zu seiner Druck-</p><p>geschichte sowie zur Rezeption bei Bodin, Binsfeld und Delrio.” Archiv fur Kulturgeschichte</p><p>74 (1992): 325–64; Sigrid Brauner, Fearless Wives and Frightened Shrews:The Construction</p><p>of the Witch in Early Modern Germany, ed. Robert H. Brown (Amherst: University of</p><p>Massachusetts Press, 1985), 32. Although not translated into German until the eigh-</p><p>teenth century, the message and ideas in the Malleus were disseminated to those unversed</p><p>in Latin. “For example,” writes Brauner, “at the request of the city of Nuremburg,</p><p>Kramer provided a manuscript with trial instructions in both Latin and German” for the</p><p>benefit of municipal judges with no knowledge of Latin (33).</p><p>10 Sylvester Prieras (c. 1456–1523), De Strigimagarum, Daemonumque Mirandis, Libri Tres</p><p>(Rome: 1521), a.1.</p><p>11 Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, Strix (Argentoratum [Strassburg]: Carole</p><p>Weinrichius, 1612), 131–2.</p><p>12 “Obwohl in ganz Europa zwischen 1520 und 1580 keine Neuauflagen des</p><p>Hexenhammers gedruckt wurden: er blieb das maßgebende Werk und war in den</p><p>regionalen Bibliotheken vorhanden.” Wolfgang Behringer, Hexenverfolgung in Bayern</p><p>(Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1988), 82. Behringer also observes that knowledge of the</p><p>Malleus informed the composition of interrogatories in late-sixteenth-century German</p><p>trials (132).</p><p>13 Although Weyer quotes a variety of witch-treatises, he relies most extensively upon the</p><p>Malleus to provide him with erroneous notions of witchcraft. See George Mora, intro-</p><p>duction to Johann Weyer, Witches, Devils, and Doctors in the Renaissance, trans. John Shea</p><p>(Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991), li–lvi.</p><p>14 Gerhild Scholz Williams, Defining Dominion:The Discourses of Magic and Witchcraft in Early</p><p>Modern France and Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), 68.</p><p>15 Mora, lxxxiv.</p><p>INTRODUCTION: CONTESTED CATEGORIES 9</p><p>TMM1 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 9</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>2</p><p>Origins and arguments</p><p>The Malleus is an idiosyncratic text, reflective of its authors’ particular expe-</p><p>riences and preoccupations. It is, in the first place, an expression of a distinc-</p><p>tively clerical worldview, the product of two lifetimes of academic, spiritual,</p><p>and pastoral experience within the Church. But more than this, it is also the</p><p>result of a peculiarly Dominican encounter between learned and folk tradi-</p><p>tions, an encounter determined in part by the demands of inquisitorial office,</p><p>and in part by the requirements of effective preaching and pastoral care. Yet</p><p>although the Malleus is certainly a Dominican text, it is not necessarily repre-</p><p>sentative of Dominican or even inquisitorial thought as a whole. Dominicans</p><p>in France, Spain, and, to a lesser extent, in Italy had quite different notions of</p><p>what witches were all about, and of the means required to curb their spread.</p><p>Despite the book’s subsequent popularity throughout the continent, the</p><p>Malleus is very much a book written by and about people living in southern</p><p>Germany and the Alps, and reflects this more or less coherent cultural tradi-</p><p>tion. Finally, the authors themselves were unusual figures in their own right,</p><p>whose personal histories – especially that of Institoris – manifest themselves</p><p>in their writing.</p><p>When Henry Institoris began to compose the Malleus, some time in</p><p>1485–86, he was well into his fifties, in other words, by medieval standards,</p><p>he was already an old man.1 Indeed, early in 1486, after a particularly unpleas-</p><p>ant encounter with the inquisitor’s zeal, Georg Golser wrote to a friend that</p><p>Institoris seemed “completely childish on account of his age.”2 Yet Golser’s</p><p>appraisal was almost certainly wrong: despite his age, Institoris was not senile.</p><p>Rather, he was a man capable of inspiring profound animosity in those he met,</p><p>and his “childishness” seems to have been a permanent feature of his person-</p><p>ality, perhaps exacerbated by, but not the result of, his advancing years. The</p><p>casual insult does, however, make the point that despite a career that left him</p><p>exceptionally well qualified to tackle his subject, Institoris was not someone</p><p>who was so well respected by his peers that his views on witchcraft would be</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 10</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>accepted without question. Quite the contrary, he was widely (and perhaps</p><p>even charitably) regarded as being somewhat eccentric.</p><p>Undeniably, Institoris was a well-educated man. At a young age he had</p><p>entered the Dominican convent in his</p><p>Quellen, 107.</p><p>73 “Et istud ita manifestum est, quod imprudentia sit, illud negare, cum mille nobis testes</p><p>occurrant, qui sibi horum conscii sunt.” Hansen, Quellen, 106.</p><p>74 “Utrum lamie que uulgari nomine strie nuncupantur vere et non fantastice siue appar-</p><p>enter ad ludum eant.” Girolamo Visconti, Lamiarum sive Striarum Opuscula (Milan:</p><p>Leonardus Pachel, 1490), a ii. Visconti was a professor of logic at the University of</p><p>Milan, and later Domincan Provincial of Lombardy, a position he probably held until his</p><p>death in 1477. See Hansen, Quellen, 200–1.</p><p>75 Girolamo Visconti is unusual in his insistence that the devil and his allies killed only bap-</p><p>tized infants. His conclusion, which is very typical of his thinking, is that divine justice</p><p>normally allows only baptized Christians to be killed because such children are led</p><p>immediately to heaven. When, on occasion, an unbaptized child is slain, then doubtless</p><p>he was destined for a life of sin, in which case the limbo of children is a better alterna-</p><p>tive to hell. Visconti, b. iii.</p><p>76 “Quia secundum logicos multa sunt possibilia, que tamen sunt falsa.” Ibid., a viii.</p><p>77 Étienne de Bourbon, 97. The same principle lies behind a story of William of Paris,</p><p>in which a man thinks that he is attending a feast in glorious castle, attended by beau-</p><p>tiful women, but awakes to find himself in a puddle embracing mud. William of Paris,</p><p>1065.</p><p>78 Because Stephen is writing moral exempla, and not a theoretical treatise, logical contra-</p><p>dictions trouble him little, if at all. In later stories, he states the contrary position, that</p><p>women cannot magically enter locked rooms at night, and one suspects that this would</p><p>be his considered opinion. Étienne de Bourbon, 368 and 369.</p><p>79 Hansen, Quellen, 195–200.</p><p>80 “Apud fere omnes per strigas sive strigones intelliguntur mulieres aut viri, qui de nocte</p><p>sive domos aut per longa spatia virtute demonis discurrunt, qui etiam parvulos fascinare</p><p>dicuntur.” Ibid., 196.</p><p>81 “Aliqua quidem abicienda sunt de ipsis strigis a cordibus fidelium, nonnulla vero firmiter</p><p>sunt tenenda.” Ibid., 200.</p><p>82 Nider, Formicarius, 2.4, 71.</p><p>83 Ibid., 72.</p><p>84 Malleus, pt. 1, qu. 1, p. 10. This is also the tack chosen by Ulrich Molitor, who devotes</p><p>the ninth chapter of his witch-treatise to the problem of whether women really go to</p><p>the feast at night, or whether this occurs only in dreams. He cites the usual authorities</p><p>120 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 120</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>and pronounces the whole affair nothing but a delusion of the devil. As in the Formicar-</p><p>ius, though, these beliefs are not really central to his concept of witchcraft. See Molitor,</p><p>705–8.</p><p>85 Malleus, pt. 2, qu. 1, ch. 3, p. 104.</p><p>86 Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 1, p. 88.</p><p>87 Gervaise of Tilbury, for example, had told an almost identical story about lamiae over</p><p>two hundred years earlier; see 3.86, 40. The tale can also be found in modern German</p><p>folklore: see no. 89, “Watching Out for the Child,” in Jacob Grimm, The German Legends</p><p>of the Brothers Grimm, ed. and trans. Donald Ward, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Institute for the</p><p>Study of Human Issues, 1981), 1:99.</p><p>88 “Ex tunc quasi vapor quidam glaucus ex eius ore praecederet, unde singula que ibi ager-</p><p>entur perlucide consideraret.” Malleus, pt. 2, qu. 1.3, p. 105.</p><p>89 Ibid.</p><p>90 “Error erat vt venientes de nocte demonibus aut vt vetule dicunt die seligen sed sunt</p><p>malefice vel demones in earum effigiis debent omnia consumere vt post abundantius</p><p>tribuant.” Ibid., pt. 2, qu. 2, ch. 8, p. 183.</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 1 121</p><p>TMM5 8/30/03 5:40 PM Page 121</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>6</p><p>Witchcraft:</p><p>the formation of belief</p><p>– part two</p><p>In the previous chapter we examined how motifs drawn from traditional beliefs</p><p>about spectral night-traveling women informed the construction of learned</p><p>witch categories in the late Middle Ages.Although the precise manner in which</p><p>these motifs were utilized differed between authorities, two general mental</p><p>habits set off fifteenth-century witch-theorists from earlier writers. First, they</p><p>elided the distinctions between previously discrete sets of beliefs to create a</p><p>substantially new category (“witch,” variously defined), with which to carry</p><p>out subsequent analysis. Second, they increasingly insisted upon the objective</p><p>reality of their conceptions of witchcraft. In this chapter we take up a rather</p><p>different set of ideas, all of which, from the clerical perspective, revolved</p><p>around the idea of direct or indirect commerce with the devil: heresy, black</p><p>magic, and superstition. Nonetheless, here again the processes of assimilation</p><p>and reification strongly influenced how these concepts impinged upon cate-</p><p>gories of witchcraft.</p><p>Heresy and the diabolic cult</p><p>Informed opinion in the late Middle Ages was in unusual agreement that</p><p>witches, no matter how they were defined, were heretics, and that their activ-</p><p>ities were the legitimate subjects of inquisitorial inquiry.1 The history of this</p><p>consensus has been thoroughly examined, and need not long concern us here.2</p><p>Instead, let us examine how the witch-theorists of the fifteenth century used</p><p>ideas associated with heresy and heretics to construct their image of witches.</p><p>This is a problem of several dimensions, involving both the legal and theolog-</p><p>ical approaches to heresy and to magic, and the related but broader question</p><p>of why heretics were conflated with magicians, malefici, and night-travelers in</p><p>the first place.</p><p>TMM6 8/30/03 5:37 PM Page 122</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>WITCHCRAFT: THE FORMATION OF BELIEF 2 123</p><p>Part of the solution to this problem is related to the idea of the demonic</p><p>pact. Magic, from a very early point in Christian history, was closely related</p><p>to idolatry: magicians received their powers in return for their worship of</p><p>pagan idols, who were, of course, really devils. So Pharaoh’s magicians were</p><p>able to work their wonders. With paganism dead or dying, demons could, at</p><p>times, afford to eliminate their now extraneous idols, and insist that they</p><p>receive service directly in return for their magical gifts. In the endlessly</p><p>popular story of Theophilus, the devil required the unfortunate man to</p><p>produce a written pact in which he explicitly repudiated the Christian God.</p><p>Like Theophilus, a given magician might come by his power either through an</p><p>explicit pact, or, like the sorcerers of Pharaoh, through some pagan observance</p><p>in which the devil was not directly named. This distinction, between an open</p><p>or manifest pact, in which the operator made an explicit bargain with the devil,</p><p>and a tacit pact, in which the participation of the devil was concealed, was</p><p>important, but in either case the devil was always involved.</p><p>Augustine himself had strongly suggested that any accommodation</p><p>between man and devil implied some kind of pact and the denial of God. In</p><p>De Doctrina Christiana, he concludes a lengthy denunciation of various magical</p><p>and superstitious observances with a passage critical to the medieval under-</p><p>standing of magic:</p><p>Therefore all arts pertaining to this kind of trifling or noxious superstition con-</p><p>stituted on the basis of a pestiferous association of men and demons as if through</p><p>a pact of faithless and deceitful friendship should be completely repudiated and</p><p>avoided by the Christian, “not that the idol is anything,” as the Apostle says, but</p><p>because “the things which heathens sacrifice they sacrifice to devils, and not to</p><p>God.”3</p><p>The practice of magic, then, was very close to apostasy in Augustine’s opinion,</p><p>as it would be for most churchmen throughout the Middle Ages. There were</p><p>exceptions, but not many: in Aquinas’s view all magic accomplished through</p><p>“invocations, conjurations, sacrifices, fumigations, and adorations” implied a</p><p>pact with</p><p>home town of Schlettstadt, a house well</p><p>known for its excellent library and provincial school.3 There, Institoris</p><p>received training in the humanities before matriculating to the four-year</p><p>course in the arts required of all Dominicans.4 The curriculum of the</p><p>Dominican studium artium centered upon rational philosophy, and above all</p><p>upon the works of Aristotle. Students began with grammar and logic, and</p><p>then proceeded to natural philosophy, metaphysics, and moral philosophy. But</p><p>at the same time they were also prepared for their work in the ministry by</p><p>attending courses of practical lectures on basic theology, scriptural interpre-</p><p>tation and effective preaching. Graduates of these schools could then claim</p><p>the title of Master of Arts, and a rank comparable to that of graduates of the</p><p>universities.</p><p>The most promising of students, however, among whom Institoris was</p><p>plainly numbered, were encouraged to continue their education at a school</p><p>for advanced theology; and Institoris probably studied theology at the studium</p><p>generale at Cologne, which, after St. Jacques in Paris, was the most prestigious</p><p>Dominican school in fifteenth-century Europe. There he would have studied</p><p>and lectured on sacred scripture, the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and the the-</p><p>ology of Thomas Aquinas. All in all a degree of Master of Theology required</p><p>at least fourteen years of higher education, but, since friars were required to</p><p>teach as lectors at provincial schools for between five and seven years before</p><p>they could be awarded their degrees, all of this time need not have been spent</p><p>at the university. Hence, Institoris probably spent at most three or four years</p><p>at Cologne, before leaving with the titles of Master of Arts and Lector in</p><p>Theology, and, though his subsequent career would seem to have left him</p><p>scant time for further study, he nonetheless continued to lecture, eventually</p><p>receiving his doctorate in theology at Rome in 1479.5</p><p>Institoris’ most important pursuit, however, was always a vigorous,</p><p>zealous and uncompromising war against the enemies of the faith, whomever</p><p>he might perceive them to be. Heretics and witches had this much in common</p><p>with the emperor and reforming clergy: all were the objects of Institoris’ righ-</p><p>teous wrath. This aggressive zeal for the faith, combined with his considerable</p><p>personal ambition, secured rapid advancement for Institoris within the Order.</p><p>Although little is known of his early career, we do know that in 1467, at about</p><p>the age of 37, he received an important position in the papal commission</p><p>assigned to combat the Hussites in Bohemia and central Germany. Institoris’</p><p>job was to preach against heresy and to collect money to assist the campaign;</p><p>in October of 1467, we find the head of the commission, Rudolf, bishop of</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 11</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 11</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>Wratislava and papal legate, writing to encourage and assist Institoris by del-</p><p>egating to him the power to remit sins and the authority to grant plenary indul-</p><p>gences.6 In another letter, written four years later, Institoris agreed to lift the</p><p>interdict he had placed upon the town of Lipczk in retaliation for the contin-</p><p>ued presence of “supporters of Bohemian heretics,” which would indicate that</p><p>he had also been provided with a corresponding stick with which to beat the</p><p>intransigent.7</p><p>Institoris’ success and apparent popularity in Rome obtained an appoint-</p><p>ment for him as inquisitor in 1474, with all of the privileges of a preacher-</p><p>general of the Order. His appointment was unusual, however, in that instead</p><p>of being appointed to a particular province, Institoris was authorized “to carry</p><p>out the office of the Inquisition, either where there is no inquisitor, or, where</p><p>there is, by [that inquisitor’s] permission and pleasure.”8 By the terms of this</p><p>assignment, Institoris was now free to choose his own residence and move</p><p>about as he pleased, an unusual honor for one so new to the Holy Office. In</p><p>the Inquisition Institoris found his calling, and soon received additional pro-</p><p>motion for his successful prosecution of heretics and witches. In 1478, Pope</p><p>Sixtus IV appointed him inquisitor to upper Germany, a position to which</p><p>he was reappointed in 1482 with Jacob Sprenger as colleague. In the mean-</p><p>time, as Schlettstadt’s most famous son, he had been elected prior of the</p><p>Dominican convent there in 1481, although just two and one half years later</p><p>he was released from the obligations of that office, possibly to allow him to</p><p>devote his energies more fully to the Inquisition.</p><p>By 1485 Institoris was easily the most experienced inquisitor in</p><p>Germany, and was held in high esteem in Rome: in the letter confirming his</p><p>position as inquisitor for upper Germany, Pope Sixtus was unstinting in his</p><p>praise, commending him as a man notable for his “zeal for religion, knowledge</p><p>of letters, integrity of life, constancy of faith, and other praiseworthy virtues</p><p>and merits.”9 Nonetheless, there was also a sharply contrasting side to Insti-</p><p>toris’ life and character, hard to reconcile with such a glowing endorsement,</p><p>unless we see Brother Henry as one of those people adept at ingratiating them-</p><p>selves with their superiors while systematically alienating their subordinates</p><p>and peers.</p><p>Certainly Institoris was widely disliked, and the belligerence, self-</p><p>righteousness, and refusal to compromise that served him so well on the</p><p>inquisitor’s bench caused him difficulty in other contexts. For example, at</p><p>exactly the same moment as he was receiving his first appointment to the</p><p>Inquisition in 1474, Institoris was facing a lengthy prison sentence, the result</p><p>of his typical inability to restrain himself when fired with zeal for a just cause.</p><p>In a sermon defending the temporal powers of the pope against imperial</p><p>infringement, Institoris had allowed himself to make several personal and slan-</p><p>12 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 12</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>derous remarks about the emperor himself.The emperor was not amused and</p><p>nor was the Dominican general chapter, which ordered Institoris to be jailed</p><p>for detracting from the majesty of the emperor.10 Indeed, only the interven-</p><p>tion of the master-general of the Order saved Institoris from prison: the same</p><p>letter that gave him his promotion suspended his sentence, a suspension that</p><p>was eventually made permanent in 1479.</p><p>But if it was easy to pardon an excess of enthusiasm on behalf of the</p><p>papacy, it was less simple to excuse Institoris’ frequent quarrels and mis-</p><p>adventures within his own Order. In April of 1475, the master-general was</p><p>again compelled to intervene in Institoris’ affairs, this time to authorize the</p><p>prior of the convent at Basel to settle a dispute between Institoris and two</p><p>other Schlettstadt friars, each of whom had charged the other with the theft</p><p>of a sum of money.11 The matter was settled, apparently in Institoris’ favor, but</p><p>it is indicative of his ability to carry a grudge that four years later the unfor-</p><p>tunate prior at Basel was still receiving instructions from the master-general,</p><p>this time authorizing him to resolve Institoris’ charges of slander against his</p><p>opponents.12</p><p>A more serious matter arose in 1482, when Institoris had been given the</p><p>job of collecting money donated for the war against the Turks, and was strongly</p><p>suspected of embezzling funds. On March 26th he was summoned to present</p><p>himself in Rome within nine days or face “the gravest penalties,” including, but</p><p>not limited to, the loss of all goods, privileges, offices and rank, to be followed</p><p>by expulsion from the Order, excommunication and imprisonment.13 Nor was</p><p>Rome entirely convinced of the effectiveness of its draconian threats, for just</p><p>six days later a papal commission also wrote to the bishop of Augsburg, asking</p><p>him to determine “as secretly and cautiously as could be done” whether</p><p>Insti-</p><p>toris was still in the city and ordering him to be detained if he was. The com-</p><p>mission further specified that all money, silver, and jewels which Institoris had</p><p>deposited with “a certain widow” were to be recovered by any expedient means</p><p>and entrusted to someone of greater reliability.14 Although the conclusion of</p><p>the affair is undocumented, Institoris was evidently not convicted of anything</p><p>serious since he retained his position within the Inquisition, and was back in</p><p>papal good graces by the following summer. He was not, however, given</p><p>further financial responsibilities.</p><p>It is hard to know what to make of these scandals, but they dogged Insti-</p><p>toris’ career.15 Though Institoris never mentions his troubles in his writings, it</p><p>seems likely that they contributed to the keen hostility with which he greeted</p><p>any hint of criticism, and to his self-image as a man unjustly persecuted by</p><p>numerous enemies. To Institoris’ superiors, however, it seems that, when</p><p>weighed in the balance, Institoris’ devotion to the papacy and the Church – as</p><p>well as his capacity for hard work – counted for more than his occasionally</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 13</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 13</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>serious lapses in judgment. In consequence, despite his constant bickering</p><p>with his colleagues and his intermittent brushes with more serious discipli-</p><p>nary proceedings, Institoris retained his position as inquisitor for most of his</p><p>long life and he was still pursuing witches and heretics in Bohemia when he</p><p>died, probably in 1505.</p><p>For most of his life, then, Institoris was involved with the fight against</p><p>heresy. At the beginning of his career we find him participating in the trial and</p><p>execution of the Waldensian “bishop,” Frederick Reiser – an event which, Insti-</p><p>toris tells us, confirmed his belief in the ever-increasing power of heresy in</p><p>Christendom.16 Soon afterwards, Institoris was preaching against the Hussites,</p><p>and his experience with Utraquism goes far toward explaining his concern</p><p>with sacramental heresies of all kinds. Such were his chief concerns at least</p><p>through 1480, when, while in Augsburg, he perceived “a dangerous error con-</p><p>cerning the daily communion of the laity,” and initiated inquisitorial proceed-</p><p>ings accordingly.17 Indeed, a great deal of Institoris’ writing – even that on</p><p>witchcraft – is closely tied to his conceptions of the sacrament and the ways</p><p>in which a physical object can mediate between the natural and supernatural</p><p>worlds.The Malleus was Institoris’ only work on witchcraft, but he wrote about</p><p>the sacrament on several occasions, attacking eucharistic errors, great and</p><p>small.18</p><p>By 1480, however, Institoris had become concerned by the dangers of</p><p>witchcraft, and he accordingly began to prosecute suspected witches with</p><p>vigor. Unfortunately, the precise extent of the inquisitor’s campaign is not</p><p>clear. Though Institoris claimed extensive personal experience in witch pros-</p><p>ecutions both in the Malleus and his personal correspondence (for instance in</p><p>a report written in 1490 to the Nürnberg city council, he boasted of having</p><p>been responsible for the discovery and execution of more than two hundred</p><p>witches19), there is an almost complete lack of corroborating evidence. Indeed,</p><p>on the basis of contemporary documents, the only witch-trials in which</p><p>Institoris’ participation can be proven are those which took place in Ravens-</p><p>burg in 1484 and in Innsbruck in the following year.Though additional records</p><p>might easily have been lost, it seems certain that Institoris’ own account of</p><p>the extent of his personal experience in witchcraft prosecutions is greatly</p><p>exaggerated.</p><p>Whatever his previous experience, however, in the autumn of 1484 Insti-</p><p>toris arrived in Ravensburg and began at once to preach against witchcraft.20</p><p>In response to his request that Ravensburgers come forward to denounce</p><p>“hechsen ald unholden,” a number of suspects were arrested, and eventually</p><p>eight women were convicted and burned. Yet although Institoris seems here</p><p>to have had the support of the mayor and other civic officials, elsewhere he</p><p>met with opposition from local officials, both secular and ecclesiastical, who</p><p>14 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 14</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>resented the sudden expansion of inquisitorial activity against foes even more</p><p>nebulous than usual.</p><p>In response, Institoris went to Rome that winter, carrying a letter, signed</p><p>both by him and his colleague, Jacob Sprenger, asking for explicit authority to</p><p>prosecute witchcraft. By early December he had received an entirely satisfac-</p><p>tory reply in the form of the famous “witch-bull,” the Summis Desiderantes of</p><p>Innocent VIII, which recognized the existence of witches and the authority of</p><p>inquisitors to do what was necessary to get rid of them; Institoris and Sprenger,</p><p>the pope commanded, were neither to be molested nor hindered in any</p><p>manner whatsoever by any authority, under pain of excommunication and</p><p>worse.21 Further, the bishop of Strassburg was asked to enforce the provisions</p><p>of the bull, and to compel obedience, through excommunication if necessary,</p><p>or, failing that, through an appeal to the secular arm. Six months later, Inno-</p><p>cent supplemented this endorsement with personal letters to Archduke</p><p>Sigismund and the archbishop of Mainz, thanking them for their efforts, but</p><p>also urging them to be even more active in their support of the Inquisition.22</p><p>At the same time, Innocent wrote to the abbot of Weingarten, who had</p><p>apparently assisted Institoris’ campaign in Ravensburg the previous year, to say</p><p>that he had urged the Archduke to protect him from the retaliation of those</p><p>he had offended – some indication of just how unpopular Institoris’ efforts</p><p>had been.23</p><p>Meanwhile, Institoris had taken his campaign back to Germany, stopping</p><p>first in Tyrol and the town of Innsbruck.24 At the time, Innsbruck was a pros-</p><p>perous but unspectacular south German town, notable only for its proximity</p><p>to Italy (the source of its prosperity) and the presence of the archduke, who</p><p>had a permanent residence there since the early years of the century.25 Tyrol</p><p>was, Institoris tells us, a notorious hotbed of witches; but it is just as likely</p><p>that simple convenience, combined with his haste to begin prosecutions,</p><p>explains his choice of location – the diocese of Brixen, which included</p><p>Innsbruck, being the first territory within his jurisdiction on the road from</p><p>Rome.26</p><p>As was proper, Institoris first presented himself and his credentials to</p><p>Golser, the bishop, in order to obtain his consent and support (although with</p><p>the recent promulgation of the witch-bull, and with Innocent VIII still actively</p><p>promoting his inquisitors’ investigations, the bishop could hardly refuse). In</p><p>mid-July Golser circulated the witch-bull throughout his diocese with an open</p><p>letter to all ecclesiastical personnel, commanding them to assist Institoris’</p><p>investigations and offering an indulgence of forty days to all who would step</p><p>forward to denounce witches.27 In addition, Institoris had advertisements dis-</p><p>played prominently about town, most likely (as he recommends in the Malleus)</p><p>through notices on the walls of the parish church and town hall which invited</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 15</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 15</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>anyone with any knowledge of witchcraft whatsoever to come forward and</p><p>testify, under pain of severe ecclesiastical and secular penalties.28</p><p>Institoris knew his audience well, as the tenor of such an appeal shows.</p><p>There was no talk of devils, or diabolic pacts, or intercourse with Satan; at this</p><p>point in his investigation the emphasis was placed squarely upon concrete mis-</p><p>fortunes attributed to maleficium and rumors of malign occult powers. Further,</p><p>people were advised to come forward “if anyone knows, has seen or heard that</p><p>any person is suspected of being a heretic and witch, and particularly of prac-</p><p>ticing things which do harm to people, cattle or the fruits of the earth.”29 At</p><p>the same time, Institoris began a vigorous schedule of preaching, in an effort</p><p>to educate his audience about the dangers of witchcraft, its signs and telltale</p><p>characteristics, and to recommend permissible countermeasures. To all</p><p>appearances, Institoris’ campaign was immediately successful: soon he was</p><p>hearing an impressive stream of testimony – an extensive melange of direct</p><p>accusations, rumors, legends, and snippets of traditional witchcraft beliefs –</p><p>out of which, over the next five weeks, he was to cull sufficient evidence to</p><p>indict about fifty witches. At this point, however, something happened. The</p><p>proceedings were delayed for three weeks, at which time Institoris produced</p><p>a second, alternative list which indicted only fourteen suspects – seven from</p><p>the first list and seven altogether “new” witches, prominent among whom was</p><p>Helena Scheuberin.</p><p>By mid-September, Bishop Golser wrote to Institoris granting him full</p><p>episcopal jurisdiction, and authorizing him to conduct trials in the bishop’s</p><p>name.30 But once again Institoris’ proceedings were impeded, this time by</p><p>order of the archduke, who ordered Institoris to consult with a colleague – a</p><p>pastor from a nearby town whom the bishop named as commissioner. It was</p><p>not until October 14th that these two men, accompanied by witnesses and a</p><p>notary, began to hear formal testimony concerning the suspects. Although the</p><p>proceedings at Innsbruck did not conform to the neat patterns laid down in</p><p>inquisitorial manuals, this was not unusual for the period. As Richard</p><p>Kieckhefer has shown, in late-medieval Germany the activities of the papal</p><p>Inquisition (to say nothing of episcopal inquisitions) were very much ad hoc</p><p>affairs.Typically, inquisitors operated as independent autonomous agents; they</p><p>had little supervision outside the papal curia, and their objectives and juris-</p><p>dictions were only loosely defined.31 Often enough, such institutional short-</p><p>comings led to inertia, but where motivated inquisitors actively campaigned</p><p>against heresy, they led to disorganized and irregular proceedings.</p><p>Given the above, it is not altogether strange that Institoris’ investigations</p><p>ran into difficulties. Yet, even so, it is surprising that his investigation should</p><p>have suffered so sudden and so thorough a collapse: within a month, on</p><p>16 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 16</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>November 14th, Golser wrote another two letters – the first to Institoris</p><p>directly, complaining of the scandals and the dangers which his trials had gen-</p><p>erated and urging him to quit the town; the second, to a friend and priest in</p><p>Innsbruck, saying that,</p><p>if [Institoris] does not withdraw with all speed, you, father, should say to him</p><p>in my place that more than enough scandals have arisen because of his bad trial,</p><p>and that he should not remain in this place, lest anything worse should follow</p><p>from this or happen to him.32</p><p>Although Golser does not specify the precise scandal he has in mind, he</p><p>is probably referring to the interrogation of Helena Scheuberin with which we</p><p>began. He was apparently offended by the nuts and bolts of the inquisitor’s</p><p>case, since he later commented to a friend that the inquisitor had “clearly</p><p>demonstrated his foolishness” since “he presumed much that had not been</p><p>proved.”33 Institoris for his part could not disagree more, and maintained in</p><p>the Malleus that he would have needed an entire book to record all the instances</p><p>of malign magic reported in Innsbruck alone:</p><p>For how many of the blind, of the lame, of the withered, of those ensnared by</p><p>diverse infirmities, legally swear that they strongly suspect that infirmities of</p><p>this kind both in general and in particular have been caused by witches?34</p><p>An especially large number of alleged witches were suspected of love</p><p>magic, which Institoris blamed upon the high number of bitter, betrayed</p><p>women in the town.35Yet this connection between female sexuality and witch-</p><p>craft, so obvious to the inquisitor, was decisively rejected by the investigating</p><p>commission that so abruptly halted the proceedings.</p><p>Institoris, however, refused to let matters rest, and he spent the next</p><p>several months hanging around Innsbruck collecting evidence, harassing wit-</p><p>nesses, even briefly seizing a suspected witch or two on his own initiative, all</p><p>in all making of himself an insufferable nuisance. This independent foray into</p><p>witch-hunting, combined with the wretched outcome of the trial, induced the</p><p>bishop, a man who from the outset had been less than enthusiastic about the</p><p>campaign, to write his letters urging the inquisitor to quit the city and trouble</p><p>its citizens no more. This one-sided correspondence grew progressively more</p><p>insistent until in February 1486, his patience exhausted, the bishop wrote to</p><p>Institoris for the last time. He expressed astonishment that Institoris remained</p><p>in his diocese where his presence had brought errors, dissension, and scandal,</p><p>and ordered him to cease molesting the citizens of Innsbruck and to return at</p><p>once to his convent, lest the husbands and friends of the women whom Insti-</p><p>toris had persecuted lay hands on him and do him injury. Further, in language</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 17</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 17</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>unusually blunt for correspondence among ecclesiastics, Golser informed</p><p>Institoris that he was to do nothing further in his diocese save leave it.36 This</p><p>a disgruntled Institoris finally did, retiring to Cologne and leaving behind him</p><p>an enraged citizenry, annoyed officials, and a thoroughly perplexed archduke,</p><p>who hired two prominent doctors of law, Ulrich Molitor and Conrad Stürtzel,</p><p>to explain the whole witchcraft business to him once and for all.37</p><p>But by this time Institoris had also begun to write his treatise on witch-</p><p>craft as a rebuttal to his critics and as a program for further action. He began</p><p>with a short manual on technical matters: a series of instructions, advisories,</p><p>and model documents for judges presiding over witchcraft prosecutions.38</p><p>Soon afterwards he decided to write a more substantial and ambitious work,</p><p>one in which strictly judicial matters would comprise only the final part. This</p><p>was to become the Malleus Maleficarum, the work that he was to “co-author”</p><p>with his fellow inquisitor, Jacob Sprenger.</p><p>Institoris’ choice of Sprenger as his collaborator was both politic and</p><p>wise. Perhaps first and foremost, Jacob Sprenger was a man far more distin-</p><p>guished and far less contentious than Institoris; second, both as an academic</p><p>and within the Dominican Order, Sprenger’s career was exemplary. Having</p><p>established himself as an outstanding scholar at an early age, by 1468 Sprenger</p><p>was already lecturing on the sentences at the University of Cologne, even as</p><p>he was still working towards his master’s degree; ten years later, he was a pro-</p><p>fessor of theology; and, by 1480, Sprenger had been elected dean of the the-</p><p>ology faculty. Sprenger was also well known outside the schools as the “apostle</p><p>of the Rosary,” since his ardent devotion to the Virgin had been rewarded with</p><p>a vision in which he was exhorted to spread the cult of the rosary through-</p><p>out Germany. To this end, Sprenger had introduced rosarial brotherhoods</p><p>to Germany, which immediately enjoyed tremendous popularity. Finally,</p><p>Sprenger was active in Dominican politics as a champion of the Observantine</p><p>reform: he was elected prior of the prestigious convent at Cologne in 1472</p><p>while surprisingly young (probably no older than his mid-thirties), and just</p><p>two years later he won appointment as vicar to the Observant convents on the</p><p>upper Rhine; then in 1481 he</p><p>also became inquisitor to the same area, prin-</p><p>cipally Mainz, Trier, and Cologne. In short, Sprenger could boast of a career</p><p>as successful and as varied as any Dominican could hope for. Indeed, so</p><p>estimable were Sprenger’s intellectual and spiritual attainments, that some</p><p>have questioned the actual extent of Sprenger’s contribution to the Malleus.39</p><p>Although Sprenger certainly wrote the “Apologia auctoris” which prefaces the</p><p>Malleus, and did so in terms that strongly suggest his active participation in its</p><p>writing, nonetheless because the work is of one piece stylistically (and Insti-</p><p>toris definitely wrote the third part of the text single-handedly), and because</p><p>the Malleus throughout reflects Institoris’ known preoccupations, it is likely</p><p>18 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 18</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>that beyond lending the work the prestige of his name, Sprenger’s contribu-</p><p>tion was minimal.40</p><p>However it came into being, by 1487 Institoris had the manuscript of the</p><p>Malleus in hand, and the same desire to produce as authoritative a text as pos-</p><p>sible that had likely led him to seek Sprenger’s collaboration in the first place</p><p>now induced him to try to obtain the formal endorsement of the faculty of</p><p>Cologne.41 Institoris’ efforts resulted in two endorsements. The first, signed</p><p>by just four members of the theology faculty, allowed that the first two parts</p><p>of the text contained nothing contrary to sound philosophy and the Catholic</p><p>faith, and endorsed the third as a model for actual witchcraft prosecutions</p><p>(provided that nothing was done repugnant to canon law).The second boasted</p><p>twice as many signatories, but was also more general; not even mentioning</p><p>the Malleus, it simply commended the Inquisition for its zeal, acknowledged</p><p>the existence of witches, and encouraged all good Christians to assist in the</p><p>fight against this pestiferous sect.</p><p>Exactly how Institoris came by these approbations is a complex and con-</p><p>tentious question. Hansen has suggested that the second endorsement is, in</p><p>effect, a forgery committed by Institoris with the help of a compliant notary</p><p>after the first failed to meet his expectations.42 Schnyder, however, has recently</p><p>given new life to a simpler alternative – that the first endorsement was signed</p><p>only by those members of the faculty who could take the time to read and</p><p>review the entire book, while sympathetic but typically busy academicians</p><p>could sign the more general endorsement in good conscience.43 In any case,</p><p>however accomplished, the result was the same: the Malleus was now printed</p><p>with an impressive collection of credentials, prefaced first by the papal bull,</p><p>Summis Desiderantes, then by the two approbations, uncomfortably spliced</p><p>together, and finally by letters signed by Maximilian I in 1486, placing inquisi-</p><p>tors under his protection. In short, the text proclaimed itself to be as author-</p><p>itative as the authors’ ingenuity could make it.</p><p>That such a show of authority was needed demonstrates just how novel</p><p>the Malleus actually was. Certainly there had been witch-treatises before, but</p><p>these had either refrained from making sweeping judgments, had remained</p><p>agreeably obscure, or had avoided doctrinal pronouncements altogether. The</p><p>Malleus, on the other hand, was readily available in printed editions, addressed</p><p>thorny doctrinal problems without flinching from (or even acknowledging)</p><p>their problematic consequences, and looked at an old but always disturbing</p><p>subject in a new way. Witchcraft had for centuries remained on the periphery</p><p>of Church doctrine and, although always a grave sin and a serious concern, it</p><p>had never before been considered a cause for real alarm. In the Malleus though,</p><p>witchcraft was elevated to a pivotal position in the struggle between man and</p><p>the devil, and was given new responsibility for the world’s ever-increasing ills.</p><p>ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS 19</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 19</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>The Malleus, in other words, proposed a basic shift in the way in which the</p><p>Church should conceptualize evil, a shift which not all contemporaries were</p><p>prepared to accept.</p><p>Institoris and Sprenger wrote the Malleus with several stated objectives: first,</p><p>it was to refute critics who denied the reality of witchcraft and hindered the</p><p>persecution of witches; second, it was to provide arguments, exempla, and</p><p>advice for preachers who had to deal with witchcraft on the pastoral level;</p><p>and third, to lend detailed assistance to judges engaged in the difficult work</p><p>of combating witchcraft through legal prosecution. In broad terms, each of</p><p>the book’s three sections deals with one of these issues, while also addressing</p><p>the two problems central to the work: “what is witchcraft?” and “who is a</p><p>witch?”</p><p>Underlying this division, however, is a surprisingly sophisticated sense</p><p>that categories are in part determined by the fields of discourse to which they</p><p>pertain.44 Thus, whereas a legal determination of witchcraft depends upon a</p><p>sufficiency of evidence of a particular kind, derived from behavior observed</p><p>and conjectured, this is a kind of determination wholly inappropriate to the-</p><p>ological discourse. That Institoris and Sprenger understood this distinction is</p><p>readily demonstrated by their consideration of who should legitimately be</p><p>called a heretic: heresy, in the strict sense, was an error in understanding and</p><p>of faith, ultimately discernible by God alone. For this reason, the authors</p><p>submit, a theologian would never be willing to make a certain determination</p><p>of heresy because, no matter what a man’s behavior, it would be impossible to</p><p>know if he acted out of an error of faith. For a canonist (or an inquisitor), on</p><p>the other hand, a man was a heretic when he was so designated by the lawful</p><p>judgment of men.45 In other words, the definition of the category “heretic”</p><p>corresponded to the kind of discourse in which the term was used.</p><p>Similarly, the seemingly utilitarian arrangement of the Malleus responds</p><p>to more sophisticated epistemological considerations, as each section treats</p><p>its subject matter with changing rules of argumentation, types of evidence</p><p>and criteria for logical validity. Accordingly, the first section examines</p><p>witchcraft in largely theoretical terms, through the lenses of theology</p><p>and natural philosophy, by citation of authority, and by means of “scholastic”</p><p>argumentation.</p><p>But, in the second section, when the authors turn to matters of practice,</p><p>they begin by remarking:</p><p>Because we are now concerned with moral issues whence there is no need to</p><p>insist upon varied arguments and expositions in everything . . . therefore we</p><p>pray God that the reader should not seek a demonstration of all things where</p><p>20 THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM</p><p>TMM2 8/30/03 5:38 PM Page 20</p><p>Hans Peter Broedel - 9781526137814</p><p>Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/27/2019 11:17:42AM</p><p>via free access</p><p>a suitable probability suffices, the truth of which follows conclusively from our</p><p>own experience, seen and heard, and from the relations of witnesses worthy of</p><p>belief.46</p><p>Thus Institoris and Sprenger call attention to the fact that their argument,</p><p>which has up to this point tried to follow the rules of scholastic and theolog-</p><p>ical argumentation, will now be framed in what they conceive of as moral</p><p>terms; henceforth they will appeal to the rule of authority only to provide</p><p>context for reliable human experience. This differentiation between kinds of</p><p>discourse, however, cannot denote the presence of rigid boundaries between</p><p>different realms of human experience, since it is an essential characteristic of</p><p>the authors’ thought that the truth theologically determined must correspond</p><p>at some level with the reality of sensory experience and vice versa. Rather,</p><p>this distinction is necessary to illuminate the witch in all her aspects, which</p><p>indeed is the point of the Malleus:</p>