by
Edo Nyland
Excerpted from “The
Witch Burnings - Holocaust Without Equal” by Edo Nyland.
“The Malleus
Maleficarum” was transcribed by
Wicasta Lovelace and Christie Rice
from
MalleusMaleficvarum Website
The Dominican monks Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger
assembled many fairy tales and magic stories, nightmares, hearsay,
confessions and accusations and put this all together as factual
information in what became the handbook for the witch hunters,
examiners, torturers and executioners, called the Malleus
Maleficarum, a title which was translated as Hammer of
Witches. It was published in 1487, but two years previously the
authors had secured a bull from Pope Innocent VIII,
authorizing them to continue the witch hunt in the Alps which
they had already instituted against the opposition from clergy and
secular authorities. They reprinted the bull of December 5, 1484 to
make it appear that the whole book enjoyed papal sanction.
Anybody with a grudge or suspicion, very young children included,
could accuse anyone of witchcraft and be listened to with attention;
anyone who wanted someone else’s property or wife could accuse; any
loner, any old person living alone, anyone with a misformity,
physical or mental problem was likely to be accused. Open hunting
season was declared on women, especially herb gatherers, midwives,
widows and spinsters. Women who had no man to supervise them were of
course highly suspicious.
It has been estimated by
Dr. Marija Gimbutas, professor of archaeology at the
University of California, that as many as 9 million people,
overwhelmingly women, were burned or hanged during the
witch-craze. For nearly 250 years the Witches’ Hammer was the
guidebook for the witch hunters, but again some of the
inquisitioners had misgivings about this devilish book. In a
letter dated November 27, 1538 Salazar advised the
inquisitioners not to believe everything they read in Malleus
Maleficarum, even if the authors write about it as something
they themselves have seen and investigated (Henningson p.347)
The
Malleus Maleficarum
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