Malleus Maleficarum
A very deadly book. (The Bus 6.29)
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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED (2.9) 31 OCTOBER 2022
The Stop
Between 1450 and 1700, Western Europe was the scene of a 'witch-hunting hysteria’ which led to over 110,000 trials of men, women and children accused of sorcery or witchcraft. Identified by the Roman Catholic Church as the practice of harmful black or maleficent magic intimately connected to the Devil through pacts and ritual offerings, witchcraft was believed to be not only evil in nature, but to occur in various forms. During these years, over 60,000 of these trials resulted in the executions of supposed witches with the majority involving burning the condemned alive - a direct result of one of the deadliest books ever published.1
The Malleus Maleficarum2 was a detailed ‘legal and theoretical’ handbook produced around 1486 by two Dominican monks and Inquisitors for the Catholic Church - Johann Sprenger (Dean of the University of Cologne) and Heinrich Kraemer (Professor of Theology at the University of Salzburg). Authorised in 1484 by Pope Innocent VIII to eradicate the scourge of witchcraft by whatever means necessary, the two scholars produced what became the ‘standard handbook on witchcraft, including its detection and extirpation, until well into the 18th century.’ Though initially intended as a technical guide for Church authorities, a rapidly growing European hysteria about witches and witchcraft combined with Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press to produce a work which spread wildly throughout the continent.
The handbook - ‘dedicated to the implementation of Exodus 22:18 (‘You shall not permit a sorceress to live’) - is divided into three parts. Part I focuses upon the ‘reality and depravity’ of witches and witchcraft while concurrently providing a theological basis for this belief, equating ‘disbelief in demonology’ with heresy.3 Witches were believed to have direct links with the Devil and the power to perform harmful magical acts. Consequently, because of the (literally) Satanic nature of the enemy and the belief that witches were possessed by (literal) evil which could take any form, the book decreed that ‘any witness, no matter what his credentials, may testify against an accused.’ A shift in the legal system from an accusatory to inquisitory system4 combined with a move from ecclesiastical to secular courts as the setting for the trials,5 meant this insistence on the reality of witchcraft set the scene for what became over two centuries of terror.
Part II concerns the power of witches and serves as a ‘compendium of fabulous stories’ about their activities. Ranging from tales of ‘diabolic compacts, sexual relations with devils (incubi and succubi),6 transvection (night riding) and metamorphosis’ to those of sacrificing unbaptised infants to Satan or ‘many pathological fantasies, including a witch feeding oats to a nest of castrated male members,’ the lurid stories and images - presented as theologically-backed facts - proved to readers that witchcraft and its adherents were dangers to ‘nature and the human race’ that needed to be exterminated. Part III therefore provides the solution to the problem through a detailed outline of the legal procedures to be followed in witch trials, including the sanction of torture as a means of uncovering ‘concealed crimes’ and as a way of securing confessions.7
Between 1486 and 1600, the Malleus Maleficarum went through 28 editions. Accepted by the Roman Catholic Church and Protestants alike as the ‘authoritative source of information concerning Satanism and as a guide to Christian defence,’ the text is undeniably misogynistic. The overwhelming majority of victims of the witch hunts were unmarried women who were believed to be more carnally and sexually indulgent than married women who were controlled by their husbands. While there is obviously a lot more to unpack about this belief, it remains an irony that - though the witch hunters believed women’s emotions were proof of their weakness and susceptibility to corruption - a woman who didn’t cry at her trial was automatically determined to be guilty.
The Detour
Today’s Detour is to a video (14:16) compilation of the best of the Halloween Heist episodes of Seasons 1-7 of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. A police procedural comedy which follows the ‘exploits of Det. Jake Peralta and his diverse, loveable colleagues as they police the NYPD’s 99th Precinct,’8 each series contains a Halloween episode in which a seemingly impossible challenge is set that has to be accomplished before midnight. It’s a brilliant, very well-written series - I’d suggest checking Brooklyn Nine-Nine out in full.
'Halloween Heists' (Seasons 1-7/Brooklyn Nine-Nine)
The Recommendation
Today’s recommendation is Ray Bradbury’s short story, ‘The October Game.’ First published in the March 1948 edition of Weird Tales, it’s a very dark tale of revenge and horror which works by manipulating the reader’s imagination. A story which takes at heart the adage ‘It isn’t enough to just punish someone; the suffering must be prolonged …’ it’s stuck with me since I first read it over 40 years ago. I’ve provided a link to a pdf version so you can read it. A Halloween treat!
Ray Bradbury, 'The October Game' (PDF)
The Sounds
Today’s playlist is a collection of five tracks that, while they have nothing to do specifically with Halloween, either have or reference a Halloween atmosphere, sentiment or creature: ‘I Got 5 On It’ (Luniz, 1995), ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’ (Rockwell, 1984), ‘Zombie’ (The Cranberries, 1994), ‘Werewolves of London’ (Warren Zevon, 1978) and ‘Poison’ (Alice Cooper, 1989). Enjoy.
The Thought
Today’s Thought is from Washington Irving, author of the classic short story, ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ (1820):9
‘Villainy wears many masks; none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.’
If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:
And that’s the end of this Stop - I hope you enjoyed the diversion!
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Until the next stop …
As it’s Halloween, I thought it was time for some witchery! Sources for today’s Stop include Malleus Maleficarum, Malleus Maleficarum (Britannica), Malleus Maleficarum (QMUL) and (mostly) Steinmetz, David. ‘Witchcraft 1450-1700.’ CH 14: Modern European Christianity, Duke University. 22 March 1994.
Latin: ‘Hammer of Witches.’
There’s an interesting logic at play: as the Devil was believed to be real, witches must also be real and to deny otherwise was to go against the teachings of the Church - and this was heresy. And as heresy was punished with some pretty serious penalties (usually torture and death by burning), belief in witches became, well, common sense.
In which the accuser is no longer given the burden of proof or faced with a false accusation charge, but rather the accused is required to prove his or her innocence - which was very difficult, considering the nature of the witchcraft charges.
Secular courts were far harsher than ecclesiastical courts as they tended to opt for punishment of the wrong-doer rather than, as in the case of the church courts, a conversion back to Christianity away from witchcraft.
An incubus is a male demon/spirit believed to seek sex with a sleeping female. A succubus is a female demon/spirit believed to seek sex with a sleeping male.
After a long absence, in the 13th century torture as a legitimate means of obtaining information was revived and commonplace in many European legal systems when witch hysteria arrived. Though there were initially rules of application (England, for instance, never officially allowed it), as time went on and the intensity of the hunt grew, it began to be applied without any of its safeguards. It’s a truly horrific history - which, if you’re so inclined, is thoroughly examined in Mannix, Daniel P. The History of Torture. Cheltenham: History Press Ltd., 2003.
IMDB.
You can read this story here: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
I was obliged to read that thing and some others of the same ilk some years ago. It went on for some months, these advisories on the search for witches' marks and other more loathsome excrescences; demonologies and the like. The really diseased mind can be very diseased indeed. Toward the end there I was slipping into a state of what the ancients, guys like Cotton Mather, called the droopings. They're lovely writers but they think of such ghastly things to say. From his dad, Increase: "The devill is in it! All superstition is from him."