Episode 19: The Malleus Maleficarum (Part 1)
Hammer of Witches
One-leaf print on a witch burning in Derenburg (County Reinstein), 1555
Tonight on the podcast, we’re burning books!
Well. Just one book. And I promise, it started it.
The early modern witch hunts represent one of the darkest chapters in European history. The latest episode of Paranormal Pajama Party cracks opn the Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches, a 15th-century treatise on identifying, trying, and punishing witches.
We get into the origins of the book and its misogynistic zealot of an author, Heinrich Kramer. Did the book’s anti-woman messaging cause Europe’s early modern witch-hunts? Or was it a more complex socio-political situation, with a healthy dollop of climate change mixed in? I bet you can guess.
The Malleus Maleficarum: a tool of misogyny
One of the primary causes of the witch hunts was the pervasive misogyny and patriarchal structures of the time. Women who deviated from societal norms or who were seen as threats to male authority were often accused of witchcraft.
The Malleus Maleficarum is an infamous book that provided a framework for identifying, prosecuting, and executing witches, building a bizarre case about why women were particularly susceptible to seduction by Satan himself. It’s a stark example of how one person’s misogyny can legitimise society’s violent actions against women given the right circumstances.
Religious and social upheaval
Unfortunately, the Malleus Maleficarum resonated with people living through a period of significant upheaval.
The Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation created an atmosphere of religious tension and paranoia. Religious authorities promoted the belief in witches as agents of the devil, using these fears to consolidate power and control over communities. This religious fervour, combined with widespread superstition, provided fertile ground for the persecution of alleged witches.
Economic and political factors
On top of the already tense atmosphere, the early modern period was also a time of economic hardship and political instability.
In some parts of Europe, monasteries and convents were closed, forcing nuns to return to their families, which significantly increased the number of older single women in communities. But the Little Ice Age’s colder-than-usual climate meant that food was in shorter supply.
In such harsh conditions, older single women were often viewed as non-contributors and burdens. Communities struggling to allocate limited resources saw these women as less deserving of support. Perhaps convicting them as witches provided a convenient justification for eliminating these “extra mouths to feed”.
Kramer and the incels
Next week on Paranormal Pajama Party, we’ll get into the chilling connections between Heinrich Kramer’s tactics in the Malleus Maleficarum and the present-day methods used by incel communities to perpetuate misogynistic beliefs and violence against women. We’ll unravel these disturbing parallels and discuss how we can combat these toxic ideologies today.
Until then, remember: Ghosts have stories. Women have voices. Dare to listen.
Sources
Clack, B. (1999). Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger 1486. In B. Clack (Ed.), Misogyny in the Western Philosophical Tradition: A Reader (pp. 83–92). Routledge.
Feminist interpretations of witch trials in the early modern period – Wikipedia
Heenan, N. (2017, November 5). Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch. Progress in Political Economy (PPE).
Oster, E. (2004). Witchcraft, Weather and Economic Growth in Renaissance Europe. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18 (1), 215–228.