The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft

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by Hans Peter Broedel

Manchester University Press

Due/Published April 2004, 256 pages, paper

ISBN 0719064414

What was witchcraft? Were witches real? How should witches be identified? How should they be judged? Towards the end of the middle ages these were serious and important questions; what is more, they were new questions, without answers hallowed by time and authority. Between 1430 and 1500, a number of learned "witch-theorists" attempted to provide the answers, and of these perhaps the most famous are the Dominican inquisitors Heinrich Institoris and Jacob Sprenger, the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum, The Hammer of Witches. This study of the Malleus provides students and scholars with an introduction to this text and to the conceptual world of its authors. Ultimately, this book argues that although the Malleus was a highly idiosyncratic text, with a view of witches very different from that of competing authors, its arguments were powerfully compelling and so remained influential long after alternatives were forgotten.

Contents

Introduction
Authors and Arguments
The Inquisitors' Devil
Misfortune, Witchcraft and the Will of God
Witchcraft: The Formation of Belief, Part One--Evidence and Interpretation
Witchcraft: The Formation of Belief, Part Two
Witchcraft as an Expression of Female Sexuality
Bibliography