The Malleus Maleficarum

P. G. Maxwell-Stuart

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780719064432
• eBook ISBN:
  9781847798053
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

The Malleus Maleficarum is one of the best-known treatises dealing with the problem of what to do with witches. It was written in 1487 by a Dominican inquisitor, Heinrich Institoris, following his failure to prosecute a number of women for witchcraft, it is in many ways a highly personal document, full of frustration at official complacency in the face of a spiritual threat, as well as being a practical guide for law-officers who have to deal with a cunning, dangerous enemy. Combining theological discussion, illustrative anecdotes, and useful advice for those involved in suppressing witchcraft, its influence on witchcraft studies has been extensive.

The only previous translation into English, that by Montague Summers produced in 1928, is full of inaccuracies. It is written in a style almost unreadable nowadays, and is unfortunately coloured by his personal agenda. This new edited translation, with an introductory essay setting witchcraft, Institoris, and the Malleus into clear, readable English, corrects Summers' mistakes and offers a lean, unvarnished version of what Institoris actually wrote. It will undoubtedly become the standard translation of this important and controversial late-medieval text.

I

The first Part of “The Hammer of Witches”, containing three conditions which go together to produce an act of harmful magic [maleficium], namely, an evil spirit [daemon], a worker of harmful magic [maleficus], and God’s acquiescence.

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS AN ACT OF HARMFUL MAGIC?

Question 1: Is it so much part of orthodox Catholic [doctrine] to maintain that workers of harmful magic do exist that stubbornly maintaining the opposite is in every respect and in all circumstances heretical?

It is argued that it is not orthodox Catholic [doctrine] to make any kind of assertion about these points: Canon Episcopi 26, question 5, ‘Anyone who believes it is possible for any created being to be changed into something better or worse, or to be transformed into another likeness or semblance other than the one it was given by the Creator of everything, is worse than a heathen or an infidel.’ When people report that such things are done by workers of harmful magic, their assertion is therefore not orthodox but heretical.

Moreover, nothing in the world is achieved by an act of harmful magic. The proof is that if it were, it would happen through the activity of evil spirits. But maintaining that evil spirits can either obstruct or bring about physical changes is not considered to be orthodox [doctrine], but heretical, because they would be able to destroy the entire world in this fashion.

Moreover, every physical alteration to the body, such as attempts to produce states of sickness or of health, comes down to local movement, as is clear from Physica, Book 7.¹ The most important of these [movements in space] is the movement of the sky. But evil spirits cannot alter the movement of the sky (Dionysius in his Letter to Polycarp),² because only God can do this. Therefore it appears they cannot bring about any real change in bodies at all, so that one must trace back this sort of change to some kind of hidden cause.³

Moreover, just as something which God does is stronger than something done by the Devil, so also is His creation. But if there were harmful magic in the world, in that case something done by the Devil would exist in opposition to God’s creation. Therefore, just as it is illicit to maintain that a superstitious⁴ creation of the Devil surpasses something made by God, so it is illicit to believe that created beings and various things made by God, in [the form of] humans and beasts of burden, can be damaged by things which are done by the Devil. Moreover, anything which is subordinate to physical power does not have the ability to exert pressure on physical objects. But evil spirits are subject to the powers of the stars,⁵ and so it clearly follows that certain enchanters [incantatores] pay close attention to the disposition of the heavenly bodies they have selected⁶ for the purpose of invoking evil spirits. Therefore they do not have the ability to exert pressure on physical objects, and so witches [maleficae]⁷ have even less.

Likewise, evil spirits do not operate except through technical expertise.⁸ But technical expertise cannot produce a form which is genuine. (Hence in a chapter of De mineris it is said, ‘Let writers on alchemy be aware that one type [of metal] cannot be changed into another’.)⁹ Therefore evil spirits operating through technical expertise cannot produce the real essential natures of health or illness; but if they are real, they have some other hidden cause apart from the operation of evil spirits and workers of harmful magic. Decretum 33, question 1, ¹⁰ however, says the opposite. ‘If, by the techniques of casting lots and those of harmful magic, the righteous and secret decision of God sometimes permitting, and the Devil making his preparations’, etc. [Gratian] is talking about an impediment caused by harmful magic in acts of sexual intercourse between husband and wife, in which three things are present at the same time, namely, a witch, the Devil, and God’s permission. Moreover, that which is stronger can act upon that which is less strong, of course. But the power of an evil spirit is stronger than that of a physical body. Job 40 [41.24]: ‘There is no power on earth which can be compared to him who has been created so that he may fear no one.’

Reply. There are three heretical errors in this, which need to be attacked. But when they have been refuted, the truth will be obvious. According to the teaching of St Thomas [Aquinas] in 4 dist. 24 where he deals with impediment [to sexual intercourse] caused by harmful magic,¹¹ certain people have tried to maintain that there is no such thing as harmful magic in the world except in the imagination [opinio] of people who attribute to acts of harmful magic natural outcomes whose causes are hidden. There are others who grant that workers of harmful magic do exist, but maintain that those people merely imagine the outcomes of their harmful magic, and that the outcomes take place in their fantasy. A third group says that the outcomes attributed to harmful magic are entirely fanciful and imaginary, although the evil spirit adds his efforts to those of the witch in reality.

One exposes and refutes these people’s errors as follows. First, they are identified as heretical in every respect by St Thomas in the passage cited above, especially in the third article where he says that that opinion runs entirely contrary to the authority of the saints, and grows out of the root of unbelief. The authority of Holy Scripture says that when they are permitted by God, evil spirits have power over physical objects and over people’s imaginative faculty – (this is noted in many passages of Holy Scripture) – and so those who say there is no such thing as harmful magic in the world other than that which people persuade themselves exists [aestimatio], do not believe there are evil spirits, either, except in the view [existimatio] of the common people. The result of this is that the superstitious beliefs a person creates for himself out of his own imagination, he ascribes to an evil spirit. His vivid imagination produces in his sense [of sight] the kind of images he is thinking about, and then he believes he is seeing (let us say) evil spirits, or even workers of harmful magic. Now, since the true Faith, through which we believe that angels fell from Heaven and are now evil spirits, rejects these notions, we therefore acknowledge that, because of the acuity of their nature [these spirits] are able to do things we cannot do; and those people who induce them to do such things are called “workers of harmful magic”. (Thus far, St Thomas.) What is more, because deviation from the Faith by someone who has been baptised is called “heresy”, such persons are guilty of heresy.

The other two errors [are these. Some people] do not deny the existence of evil spirits and the power they have by nature, but disagree with each other about the outcome of harmful magic and about the witch herself. That is to say, one concedes that the witch really does work in partnership with [the evil spirits] to produce an outcome which is not real but imaginary, while the other, by contrast, grants that the outcome produces a real harm, but that the witch only imagines she is working in partnership with [the spirits]. They have based this error on two passages of the Canon Episcopi 26, question 5 where women who believe they ride on horseback with Diana or Herodias during the hours of night are censured. (You may see it for yourself in the Canon.)¹² But because things such as these often take place only in fantasy and imagination, those who are in error come to the same conclusion about every other outcome.

Secondly, [the Canon says] that a person who believes or maintains that any created being can be changed into something better or worse, or be transformed into another likeness or semblance except by God, the Creator of everything, is an unbeliever and worse than a heathen. Consequently, the effect on someone who has been subject to harmful magic [maleficiatus] is not real but merely imaginary.

But I am going to demonstrate first by divine law, and then by ecclesiastical and civil law that these errors smack of heresy and fight against the reasonable meaning of the Canon, as well. First, however, this specific point. The words of the Canon have to be examined in close detail (although I shall also do this more plainly in Question 2.) Now, divine law in a good many places recommends not only that witches should be avoided, but also that they be wiped out, and it would not impose such penalties if [witches] did not actually make a combined effort with evil spirits to produce real outcomes and cause real injuries. For death is not inflicted on the body unless the body has committed a grave sin. But it is otherwise with the death of the soul, which can stem from an illusion in the mind, and also from temptation.

[Support for this is to be found in several sources, such as St Thomas Aquinas, Deuteronomy 18.10–12, Leviticus 19. 31 and 20. 27 and various of the Church Fathers including St Augustine. So anyone who thinks otherwise about these points is a heretic. Ecclesiastical law also maintains the real existence of witches. Impediment to sexual intercourse within marriage is not an illusory condition, and there are those who have been bewitched into this state which has been described by various commentators who entertain no doubts about whether it was being inflicted by a witch via the imagination or an illusion. ‘This kind of deficiency can really and truly be caused by the power of an evil spirit because [the witch] has entered into a pact with him, or even just by the spirit himself without the witch’. This last can happen among the heathen, but among Christians the Devil prefers to work through witches. Institoris says he will discuss this in further detail later on. Theologians and canon lawyers have also discussed how impotence can be cured and what one does if the witch who caused it is dead.]

This is why canon lawyers have set out the various penalties with such careful attention, distinguishing between secret and flagrant wrong-doing by workers of harmful magic – or perhaps I should say “diviners” [divinatores], since this noxious superstition takes various forms – with the result that if [the wrong-doing] is well-known and public, the practitioner should be denied Holy Communion. If it is done in secret, he or she is to do penance for forty days (De consecratione, distinctio 2, ‘pro dilectione’). Likewise, if he is in holy orders, he is to be deprived of them and imprisoned in a monastery. If he is a lay-person, he is to be excommunicated (26. question 5, ‘non oportet’). Likewise, discreditable persons of this kind ought to be censured, as well as those who resort to them, and must not be used as informers at all (2. 9. 8 ‘quisque nec’).¹³

[Civil law prescribes the same penalties. Institoris refers to and quotes from various statutes dating from Roman and Byzantine times to show that diviners and magicians were thereby sentenced to death. The laws also say that anyone may be used as an informer against them.]

Anyone is admissible as an informer in this case, just as in the crime of lese- majesty, because [magical practitioners] are more or less assaulting the majesty of God. Likewise, they should be questioned under torture. [The law] adds that anyone, regardless of his or her rank, may be put to torture; and whoever is found guilty, even if he lays bare his crime, should be surrendered to the rack, have his flanks torn open with hooks, and endure the penalties appropriate to his crime, as it says in [Justinian’s] Codex, the law ‘si ex’, etc. Please note: in the old days, such people were punished by means of a twofold penalty – by death and by [animals’] claws. Their body was torn to pieces or they were thrown to wild animals to be eaten. Nowadays, however, they are burned, perhaps because of the female sex.¹⁴

Likewise, [the laws] forbid association [with these people]. Consequently it is added that such people must not be allowed to cross another person’s threshold, otherwise his or her possessions will be burned. No one must protect or give them advice, otherwise he or she will be deported to an island and all his or her goods will be confiscated.¹⁵ When preachers [praedicatores]¹⁶ make these penalties known to them, the peoples and rulers of various countries become increasingly powerless in their opposition to witches than when they are dealing with other charges arising from the Scriptures.

Moreover, those who take a stand against these people’s acts of harmful magic are commended by the laws. (See ‘lege eorum’).¹⁷ Furthermore, others who do this so that people’s labours may not be flattened by the violent action of winds and hailstones, are worthy of reward rather than punishment. (As I said before, I shall explain later how such [magic] may be obstructed lawfully.) But how can denying any of this, or putting up frivolous arguments against it, be devoid of a small measure of heretical perversity? Each person must make up his mind, unless, perhaps, his ignorance is to make excuses for him. (What kind of ignorance provides an excuse I shall explain in a moment.)

The conclusion to be drawn from all the foregoing points is this: it is a claim which is made by orthodox Catholic [doctrine], and is entirely consistent with fact that there are workers of harmful magic who are able to produce real outcomes stemming from harmful magic with the help of evil spirits, because they have entered into a pact with them, and God allows this to happen; and one must not forget to say that, by using means which are themselves deceptive [praestigiosa],¹⁸ they have the power to produce outcomes which are deceptive [praestigiosos] and imaginary. But because this present investigation is focused on the outcomes produced by harmful magic which differ very much from others, nothing is added to the argument by this, since such people are known as “casters of lots” [sortilegi] and “enchanters” [incantatores] rather than “workers of harmful magic” [malefici].

[Institoris now proceeds to deal with three errors arising from a misunderstanding of the Canon Episcopi.
(a) The medium whereby harmful magic is effected is imaginary; the cause and effect of harmful magic are real. There are fourteen categories of the general type “superstition”. Casters of lots belong to a category known as Pythones, that is, women through whom the Devil speaks or performs extraordinary things. Workers of harmful magic belong to the category “malefici”].

Because there is a great difference between the categories, someone who does his or her work in one category should not be included in the other categories as well. The Canon mentions silly women [who think they ride with Diana], but not workers of harmful magic. So whoever wants to reduce this kind of bodily transport (made in the imagination) to the single type of superstition by reducing every category to a single type, is giving an erroneous interpretation of the Canon; and just as those women are conveyed from one place to another only in their imaginations, the same is true of all witches. Whoever may wish to use the Canon to prove that a sickness or disease produced by harmful magic is an entirely imaginary effect, is falsifying the Canon very badly. Furthermore, people who make mistakes of this kind are reprehensible, because they admit that the cause and effect – that is, the evil spirit who does the work, and the actual disease which is the outcome of his work – are real, but say that the mediating instrument (that is, t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• A Note on the Translation
• Introduction
• Part 1
• Part II
• Part III
• Index
• Footnotes