Malleus Maleficarum: The Witch Hammer - Paperback

by Henry Kramer (Author), Montague Summers (Translator), Vince Wilson (Editor)

This is the best known (i.e., the most infamous) of the witch-hunt manuals. Written in Latin, the Malleus was first submitted to the University of Cologne on May 9th, 1487. The title is translated as "The Hammer of Witches". Written by James Sprenger and Henry Kramer (of which little is known), the Malleus remained in use for three hundred years. It had tremendous influence in the witch trials in England and on the continent. This translation is in English and was translated by vampire expert Montague Summers The Malleus was used as a judicial case-book for the detection and persecution of witches, specifying rules of evidence and the canonical procedures by which suspected witches were tortured and put to death. Thousands of people (primarily women) were judically murdered as a result of the procedures described in this book, for no reason than a strange birthmark, living alone, mental illness, cultivation of medicinal herbs, or simply because they were falsely accused (often for financial gain by the accuser). The Malleus serves as a horrible warning about what happens when intolerence takes over a society.

Author Biography

Heinrich Kramer (also known under Latinised name Heinrich Institoris, c. 1430-1505) was a German churchman and inquisitor. James Sprenger (also Jacob, Jakob, Jacobus, 1436/1438 - 1494) was a Swiss priest. He was born near Basel. Augustus Montague Summers (10 April 1880 - 10 August 1948) was an eccentric English author and clergyman. He is known primarily for his 1928 English translation of the medieval witch hunter's manual, the Malleus Maleficarum, as well as for several studies on witches, vampires, and werewolves, in all of which he professed to believe. Vince Wilson is an author, freelance writer and paranormal researcher.