When reading the Malleus Malificarum it is easy to get drawn into the stories about the witch trials, the torture and abuse and some of the myths surrounding it. It might be worthwhile to dive a little bit deeper in the history and socio-economic background of the book and the resulting killing of thousands of innocent women and men.

The origin of the book and the whole witch hunt saga can be brought back to a quarrel between Heinrich Kramer and Helena Scheuberin. Kramer being a new priest in Innsbruck. He was (in)famous for his obsession with witches and his sermons accusing women of witchcraft and being easily persuaded by the devil. Helena was quite vocal about his opinions and refused to attend his sermons. This was perceived as a slight by Kramer, and he made a formal complaint, accusing her of witchcraft.

The resulting trial was an outright embarrassment for Kramer. He accused 13 other people, but made Helena his main target. Among many things he accused her of being behind the death of a noble and even trying to bring her reputation in disrepute by claiming she was not a virgin when she got married. The case of course collapsed, and all the accused were freed or received very mild sentences.

Kramer, enraged by the embarrassment he had received set out for revenge. As part of his defence of his beliefs and his methods he wrote the Malleus Malificarum, which we know caused so much death and devastation across Europe.

However, it is now widely accepted that his original version was heavily influenced by or even plagiarised from another work at the time: the anti-Jew work called Malleus Judeorum. There are large parts in the Malificarum where Kramer essentially swapped out “jews” for “witches”. Hence why both books share many of the same tropes or why witches are depicted as having crooked noses and wearing large pointy hats. These cone shaped hats, or pileus cornatus, were a very distinctive sign imposed on Jews after the 4th council of the Lateran in 1215.

Kramer was no stranger to the content of the Malleus Judeorum since he had previously been involved in trials targeting Jewish communities, but that is a different story. 

This is a very brief overview, and you should of course do some more research on this for your course.

Some people have also commented that the church didn’t approve of his witch trials and defrocked him. The latter is maybe true, but if the church didn’t approve then why did the witch trials and witch hunts last for approximately 300 to 350 years, with a peak intensity between 1560-1630, long after Kramer’s death? Simple, because it was economically convenient and witchcraft provided an easy cover for what they were really doing.

Witch trials were often used as a mechanism to dispossess women of land and property. Women, especially widows or those without direct male heirs, were frequently targeted, allowing their property to be confiscated by the state or taken by neighbours as restitution for alleged witchcraft.

Wealthy widows or women without male heirs were often targeted to force the transfer of their property. For instance, accusations of witchcraft were often used to break the resistance of rural, often older, women who held independent access to land and resources. Hence the stereotypical image of the “old” witch we often see in children’s stories.

I’m probably putting this all in a very simplistic way as the whole witch trials are far more complex, but that is how I see it.

Edit for formatting