Wicca History, Lesson 3

Malleus maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches)

Nothing is more linked to hunting of Witches than the “Malleus Maleficarum” therefore we must look at this handbook for hunting witches.

The handbook follow on the earlier “Canon Episcopi” Pope Innocent VIII issued a papal bull “Desiring with Supreme Ardor in 1484 stating that witch hunts were a necessity and emphasizing the realities of witchcraft. The “Malleus maleficarum was published in 1486 taking from “Canon Episcopi” and rather than saying that the “Canon Episcopi” was wrong the church stated that there now a far more dangerous army of witches than before!

It was to become the most influential and widely used handbook on witchcraft. Namely because the handbook enormous influence  because of impact owing to its authoritative appearance but also to its extremely wide distribution that the church gave it

It is interested to note that it was one of the first books to be printed on the newly invented printing press and appeared in no fewer than 20 editions.The Malleus Maleficarum is debatably one of the most infamous books ever written, due primarily to It serveing as a handbook for Inquisitors during the Inquisition, and was indeed designed to aid them in the identification, prosecution, and dispatching of Witches.

It also more importantly set forth, as well, many of the modern misconceptions and fears concerning witches and the influence of witchcraft that the media still has today!

The questions, definitions, and accusation it set out in regarding witches, which were reinforced by its use during the Inquisition, cameto be extensively regarded as unquestionable truth.

These beliefs are held even today by a mainstream of Christians in regard to practitioners of the modern  religion of Witchcraft, or Wicca. And while the Malleus itself is largely unfamiliar in modern times, its effects have proved long lasting and is still echo in films and popular newspapers.

At the time of the writing of The Malleus Maleficarum, there were many voices within the Christian community  such as scholars and theologians who doubt the existence of witches and largely regarded such belief as superstition.

By writing the handbook it was stated if you did not believed in witches than you were not a proper Christian.  It made very real the threat of one being branded a heretic, simply by virtue of one’s probing of the existence of witches and, thus, the weight of the Inquisition.  It set into the general Christian consciousness, for all time, a belief in the existence of witches.

The estimate of the death toll during the witch craze  worldwide range from 600,000 to as high as 9,000,000 (over its 250 year long course); either is a chilling number when one realizes that nearly all of the accused were women, and consisted primarily of outcasts and other suspicious persons.

The Malleus itself cannot be held responsible for the witch craze; it certainly played an important role in that its existence toughened and validate Catholic beliefs which led to the prosecution, torture, and murder, of tens of thousands of innocent people.

Homework

After lesson 4 there will be exam on the Witchcraze.