Synopses & Reviews
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 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, the first book-length study of the Malleus in English, 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.
Synopsis
Shows the Malleus, a very well known and widely quoted medieval text, to be highly idiosyncratic, and unusual in its ideas, even among the texts of other contemporary witch-theorists. The first book to deal with the discourse of witchcraft among fifteenth-century theorists in its full complexity. Attempts to understand witchcraft as part of the Malleus' authors' wider intellectual world. Shows how contemporary scholars engaged in a lively debate over the nature of witchcraft. A further addition to MUP's highly regarded collection of books on witchcraft.
Synopsis
The Malleus is an important text and is frequently quoted by authors across a wide range of scholarly disciplines. Yet it also presents serious difficulties: it is difficult to understand out of context, and is not generally representative of late medieval learned thinking. This, the first book-length study of the original text in English, provides students and scholars with an introduction to this controversial work and to the conceptual word of its authors. Like all witch-theorists, Institoris and Sprenger constructed their witch out of a constellation of pre-existing popular beliefs and learned traditions. Therefore, to understand the Malleus, one must also understand the contemporary and subsequent debates over the reality and nature of witches. This book argues that although the Malleus was a highly idiosyncratic text, its arguments were powerfully compelling and therefore remained influential long after alternatives were forgotten. Consequently, although focused on a single text, this study has important implications for fifteenth-century witchcraft theory. This is a fascinating work on the Malleus Maleficarum and will be essential to students and academics of late medieval and early modern history, religion and witchcraft studies.
About the Author
Hans Peter Broedel is Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Hamilton College.
Table of 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