Malleus Maleficarum
The Malleus Maleficarum, usually translated as the Hammer of Witches, is the best known treatise about witchcraft. It was written by the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer and first published in the German city of Speyer in 1486. Some describe it as the compendium of literature in demonology of the 15th century. Kramer presented his own views as the Roman Catholic Church's position. The book was condemned by top theologians of the Inquisition at the Faculty of Cologne for recommending illegal procedures, and for being inconsistent with Roman Catholic doctrines of demonology. However, Kramer was never removed and even enjoyed considerable prestige thereafter. The Malleus calls sorcery heresy, which was a crime at the time, and recommends that secular courts prosecute it as such. The Malleus suggests torture to get confessions and death as the only certain way to end the "evils of witchcraft." When it was published, heretics were often sentenced to be burned alive at the stake and the Malleus suggested the same for "witches." Despite, or perhaps because of, being condemned by some members of the church, the Malleus was very popular. In 1519, a new author was added, Jacob Sprenger. Historians have questioned why since this was 33 years after the book's first printing, and 24 years after Sprenger died. Kramer wrote the Malleus after he was expelled from Innsbruck by the local bishop. Kramer was accused of illegal behavior, and the tribunal was suspended because of Kramer's obsession with the sexual habits of the accused, Helena Scheuberin: the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus which formed the basis of the investigation permitted the investigation of heresy, not sexual impropriety.:160 The book was later revived by royal courts during the Renaissance, and contributed to the increasingly brutal prosecution of witchcraft during the 16th and 17th centuries.
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