THE HAMMER OF WITCHES
Malleus Maleficarum
The Hammer or Witches
INSTITORIS, Heinrich.
Lugduni (present-day Lyon): Ioannem Iacobi Iuntae, 1584
Photographed onsite between 2019 and 2024 by Dianna Frid.
The book is in the collection of the Burgoa Library and was photographed with permission.
[More on the Malleus Maleficarum below….]
The Malleus Maleficarum (“Hammer of Witches”), is one of the most infamous books in European history. It was written in the late 15th century, primarily by the German Dominican inquisitor Heinrich Kramer and first published in 1486–1487. For more than two centuries, the book was a best-seller.
The book served as a guide for locating, apprehending, and punishing suspected witches. In addition to offering theological and legal grounds for looking into suspected witches, it maintained that witchcraft posed a serious and pervasive threat to Christian society. One reason the book remains notorious is its intense misogyny. It repeatedly portrays women as especially susceptible to witchcraft, irrationality, temptation, and moral weakness. Many scholars see it as a key document in the history of European attitudes toward women, sexuality, and social control.
The text helped reinforce stereotypes that led to women—particularly widows, healers, midwives, and socially marginal women—being disproportionately accused of witchcraft.
As part of cultural history, it is less a book about witches than a book about how institutions, such as the Inquisition, create and justify persecution.
Read more about the Malleus… here.