[Himagain]

This topic is reposted from http://www.cathinfo.com/catholic.php/Life-as-a-Seminarian-was-like-movie-Platoon "into a NEW THREAD" per the instructions of Matthew:


Posted Aug 22, 2014, 6:15 am by Columba
Columba said:
Scions of multi-generational Satanic families are genetically bred for elite qualities, like the extincted Catholic aristocracy of the past. These scions are educated using traditional satanic methods, scientifically advanced techniques, and combinations thereof kept secret under the National Security Act.

All significant modern centers of power are personally led or substantially controlled by members of these families. Emergent centers of power are targeted and almost always successfully compromised. Therefore, any successor to the SSPX gaining traction would certainly be targeted. Gutman/Krah influence and the liberalization cited by +Williamson indicate successful penetration and compromise of the SSPX, in my opinion.

This is my current understanding based upon my research. Catholics of the Fifteenth Century had a similar understanding relevant to their conditions and time period. The Church traditionally views families exhibiting possible Marrano qualities with greater suspicion than others even though saints might certainly emerge from such families.

Catholics who understand that religious organizations are routinely targeted and compromised by highly competent satanic agents are prepared to resist such compromise. Organizations led without such an understanding are almost certain to be compromised.

I never suggested torture and so I do not see why you keep raising the topic. Torture is no more associated with Inquisition than it is with any other form of Western governance during the middle ages. It is still widely used in most parts of the world and in the West, at least, by criminal organizations. Extraordinary rendition is torture.

Unlike the XSPX, an uncompromised Trad society could directly oppose the Satanic power structure like Catholic institutions of the past. Believe it or not, this was once a primary purpose of the Church in the world.

For centuries, the Malleus Maleficarum was the most widely published book in Christendom after the Bible, but it is no longer studied or taken seriously. Classic works such as these should be restored and modern anti-satanic texts should be written for teaching in classes of high-schoolers and adults. Anti-satanic resistance would invite persecution, but exposing the truth would enable Catholics to once again start landing some defensive blows instead of continuing to flail away blindly.

Such a restoration would be rejected by most Catholics today because we have not yet "hit bottom."  However, formation of an initial core could, if God wills it, strike the sparks necessary for bringing about a raging conflagration.


Private Messenger 3 (Himagain) said:
On page 25 of the thread "Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon" you mention the Malleus Maleficarum as what was once "the most widely published book in Christendom after the Bible".  I'd not remembered hearing of that before, so looked it up.  I find sources ranging from dubious to diabolical.
There seems to be some agreement that it was banned by the  Vatican within a few years of it's original publication.

What is your sourcing for it's legitimacy as a generally accepted Catholic text?

And, do you have any suggestion(s) on where online one may read a true copy, faithfully translated to English?

And any other sources with faithful commentary on the text you care to share?

Thank you for any information you might conveniently forward, and for bringing this docuмent to my attention.

Columba Post in reference to above:
Private Messenger 3, you are the third person to send me a private message regarding my quoted post above. I will begin by answering your request since it was the most specific and doing so will partially address requests of the other two private messengers.

A PDF version of the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches) was put out by a self-described "pagan" Wicasta Lovelace in 2000. It is an online transcription of the 1928 English translation made by English Catholic researcher Montague Summers. Wicasta Lovelace's Malleus Maleficarum website was taken down a few days ago. I don't know if there is any connection to my mentioning the anti-witchcraft manual in an August 16 post on this thread, but the last Wayback Machine archive of the site was taken August 14 and now the site appears gone for good: http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org . The PDF is archived and downloadable from here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140711174303/http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/downloads/MalleusAcrobat.pdf

If it ever becomes unavailable from the archive, I have a copy saved for upload to Cathinfo.

The authors, Dominican Fathers Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, were authorized by Pope Innocent VIII's bull Summis Desiderantes Affectibus to serve as high inquisitors against witchcraft and heresy two years before publishing Malleus Maleficarum.

Malleus Maleficarum was certified for orthodoxy by a Letter of Approbation from the theological faculty of University of Cologne in 1487.

"The argument was made in the nineteenth century by a scholar hostile to what the Malleus stood for that the approbation was a forgery by Institoris and that Sprenger had nothing to do with the composition. The evidence for this is in my view very tenuous (and the main argument is clearly invalid). Nonetheless, once the argument was put forward, it took on a life of its own, and people continue to advance arguments in favor of the idea that Sprenger's involvement was a falsification perpetrated by Institoris, despite the fact that this argument was vitiated from the start."

http://johnwmorehead.blogspot.com/2008/04/mackay-malleus-maleficarum-in.html

It is widely reported that the book was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1490, but that is not possible since '[t]he first Roman "Index of Prohibited Books" (Index librorum prohibitorum) [was] published in 1559 under Paul IV.'

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07721a.htm

I cannot find a listing of Malleus Maleficarum on any official Index Librorum Prohibitorum. If anyone can, please post that information.

The book goes to great length proving the existence of witches and offensively alleges that women are weak in certain ways making them more susceptible to the temptation of witchcraft. Indeed the Malleus Maleficarum contains much to offend refined sensibilities such that many Catholics consider it to be a grave embarrassment best covered up, denied, and forgotten about. The Catholic Encyclopedia lambasts the book as "disastrous," but nevertheless does reluctantly admit that "the pope must no doubt be considered to affirm the reality of these alleged phenomena."

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15674a.htm

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Posted Aug 22, 2014, 5:54 pm by Himagain

Columba, Thanks for this information!

I went ahead and put this on my hard drive - there've been interesting docuмents turning up absent from the 'Net recently, so better safe than sorry.

726 Pages!!! Whoa! And to think that the witch who put this up actually transcribed the text and coded the HTML links by hand rather than OCR scanning - amazing - particularly since she has apparently seen fit to pull it down now.
Maybe she'll just use another site to post this for the purpose of pushing back against the oppression of the poor witches and queers in this 21st century.

However, I'm still not sure of the status of this text in the church of the 15th Century and thereafter, so I think that's worth looking into more.

Thanks again!

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Posted 8/23/2014, 3:26 pm by Columba

Himagain said:
However, I'm still not sure of the status of this text in the church of the 15th Century and thereafter, so I think that's worth looking into more.

I have found much false rumor mongering and casting of aspersion against the Malleus Maleficarum from those anxious about the acceptance of Catholics by the world and by enemies of the Faith, but I have found no legitimate charge against this first non-Bible blockbuster, bestseller in history. See below the the papal bull confirming the heroic, indispensable, and selfless mission of authors Frs. Kramer and Sprenger, Hammers of Witches.


THE BULL OF INNOCENT VIII
Innocent, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, for an eternal remembrance.

Desiring with the most hearfelt anxiety, even as Our Apostleship requires, that the Catholic faith should especially in this Our day increase and flourish everywhere, and that all heretical depravity should be driven far from the frontiers and bournes of the Faithful, We very gladly proclaim and even restate those particular means and methods whereby Our pious desire may obtain its wished effect, since when all errors are uprooted by Our diligent avocation as by the hoe of a provident husbandman, a zeal for, and the regular observance of, Our holy Faith will be all the more strongly impressed upon the hearts of the faithful.

It has indeed lately come to Our ears, not without afflicting Us with bitter sorrow, that in some parts of Northern Germany, as well as in the provinces, townships, territories, districts, and dioceses of Mainz, Cologne, Tréves, Salzburg, and Bremen, many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sɛҳuąƖ act and women from conceiving, whence husbands cannot know their wives nor wives receive their husbands; over and above this, they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls, whereby they outrage the Divine Majesty and are a cause of scandal and danger to very many. And although Our dear sons Henry Kramer and James Sprenger, Professors of Theology, of the Order of Friars Preachers, have been by Letters Apostolic delegated as Inquisitors of these heretical pravities, and still are Inquisitors, the first in the aforesaid parts of Northern Germany, wherein are included those aforesaid townships, districts, dioceses, and other specified localities, and the second in certain territories which lie along the borders of the Rhine, nevertheless not a few clerics and lay folk of those countries, seeking too curiously to know more than concerns them, since in the aforesaid delegatory letters there is no express and specific mention by name of these provinces, townships, dioceses, and districts, and further since the two delegates themselves and the abominations they are to encounter are not designated in detailed and particular fashion, these persons are not ashamed to contend with the most unblushing effrontery that these enormities are not practised in these provinces, and consequently the aforesaid Inquisitors have no legal right to exercise their powers of inquisition in the provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, and territories, which have been rehearsed, and that the Inquisitors may not proceed to punish, imprison, and penalize criminals convicted of the heinous offences and many wickednesses which have been set forth. Accordingly in the aforesaid provinces, townships, dioceses, and districts, the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished not without open danger to the souls of many and peril of eternal damnation.

Wherefore We, as is Our duty, being wholly desirous of removing all hindrances and obstacles by which the good work of the Inquisitors may be let and tarded, as also of applying potent remedies to prevent the disease of heresy and other turpitudes diffusing their poison to the destruction of many innocent souls, since Our zeal for the Faith especially incites us, lest that the provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, and territories of Germany, which We had specified, be deprived of the benefits of the Holy Office thereto assigned, by the tenor of these presents in virtue of Our Apostolic authority We decree and enjoin that the aforesaid Inquisitors be empowered to proceed to the just correction, imprisonment, and punishment of any persons, without let or hindrance, in every way as if the provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, territories, yea, even the persons and their crimes in this kind were named and particularly designated in Our letters. Moreover, for greater surety We extend these letters deputing this authority to cover all the aforesaid provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, territories, persons, and crimes newly rehearsed, and We grant permission to the aforesaid Inquisitors, to one separately or to both, as also to Our dear son John Gremper, priest of the diocese of Constance, Master of Arts, their notary, or to any other public notary, who shall be by them, or by one of them, temporarily delegated to those provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, and aforesaid territories, to proceed, according to the regulations of the Inquisition, against any persons of whatsoever rank and high estate, correcting, mulcting, imprisoning, punishing, as their crimes merit, those whom they have found guilty, the penalty being adapted to the offence. Moreover, they shall enjoy a full and perfect faculty of expounding and preaching the word of God to the faithful, so often as opportunity may offer and it may seem good to them, in each and every parish church of the said provinces, and they shall freely and lawfully perform any rites or execute any business which may appear advisable in the aforesaid cases. By Our supreme authority We grant them anew full and complete faculties.

At the same time by Letters Apostolic We require Our venerable Brother, the Bishop of Strasburg (Albrecht von Bayern, 1478-1506 - ed.), that he himself shall announce, or by some other or others cause to be announced, the burthen if Our Bull, which he shall solemnly publish when and so often as he deems it necessary, or when he shall be requested so to do by the Inquisitors or by one of them. Nor shall he suffer them in disobedience to the tenor of these presents to be molested or hindered by any authority whatsoever, but he shall threaten all who endeavour to hinder or harass the Inquisitors, all who oppose them, all rebels, of whatsoever rank, estate, position, pre-eminence, dignity, or any condition they may be, or whatsoever privilege or exemption they may claim, with excommunication, suspension, interdict, and yet more terrible penalties, censures, and punishment, as may seem good to him, and that without any right of appeal, and if he will he may by Our authority aggravate and renew these penalties as often as he list, calling in, if so please him, the help of the secular arm. Non obstantibus... Let no man therefore... But if any dare to do so, which God forbid, let him know that upon him will fall the wrath of Almighty God, and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

The Bull of Innocent VIII Given at Rome, at S. Peter's, on the 9 December of the Year of the Incarnation of Our Lord one thousand four hundred and eighty-four, in the first year of Our Pontificate. The translation of this Bull is reprinted by permission from "The Geography of Witchcraft," by Montague Summers, pp. 533-6 (Kegan Paul).

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Posted 8/23/2014, 6:31 pm by Matthew (Admin)
Columba, and anyone else talking about the Malleus Malificarum --

Please copy-paste these posts into a NEW THREAD as soon as possible.

I'll give you to the end of the day Sunday to do this, then I'm purging this thread.

It's been totally hijacked and derailed.

I'm going to clean it up, but I'd hate to lose the information about the Malleus which seems interesting at the very least.

I don't have time (or at least I don't want to spend the time) moving/re-posting, so I'll ask someone here to do it.

Anyhow, at the stroke of midnight after Sunday, consider a bunch of the off-topic material in this thread as good as gone. I want to keep it focused on the matter at hand.

Just to be clear: The Malleus Maleficarum is perfectly suitable material for CathInfo. In its own thread.

*************************************************

PM to Columba From Himagain 8/24/2014, 10:57 am
Bull of Innoc. III

Matthew is annoyed that we are discussing this in his thread, so I'll avoid agitating him further by directly PM'ing my response on this matter.  

The Bull you publish does not even contemplate the publication of Malleus, let alone commission, authorize or in any way affirmatively sanction it.  
The faculties granted were for the purposes of conducting Inquisition in the areas described by the parties mentioned.  It is clear to me that historical and contemporary figures misuse that Bull by inferring authorization it does not contain.  That misuse seems to have misled people through the centuries to conclude that Malleus has an authority which it seems never to have been granted.  

Malleus may not have made a List of Forbidden Books that did not exist yet, but neither have I seen any particular docuмentation conferring any status as an authoritative docuмent of the Church.  
If you could direct me to any such docuмent, I would be glad to know of it.  

[BTNYC]

This topic is reposted from http://www.cathinfo.com/catholic.php/Life-as-a-Seminarian-was-like-movie-Platoon "into a NEW THREAD" per the instructions of our Dear Leader who did not appreciate anyone changing the subject as his thread was dying.  

 

Forty-five posts into your tenure here and you're already making a snarky, barely-veiled comparison of the forum's owner to Kim Jong-il?

Luckily for you, Matthew's not nearly as thin-skinned as the petty dictator mods of CAF (a place where such comparisons are fer less out of line).

[Columba]

Luckily for you, Matthew's not nearly as thin-skinned as the petty dictator mods of CAF (a place where such comparisons are fer less out of line).

Everyone at Cathinfo is so fortunate.

[Columba]

Himagain, thanks for saving me the work re-posting this thread.

PM to Columba From Himagain 8/24/2014, 10:57 am
Bull of Innoc. III

Matthew is annoyed that we are discussing this in his thread, so I'll avoid agitating him further by directly PM'ing my response on this matter.  

The Bull you publish does not even contemplate the publication of Malleus, let alone commission, authorize or in any way affirmatively sanction it.  
The faculties granted were for the purposes of conducting Inquisition in the areas described by the parties mentioned.  It is clear to me that historical and contemporary figures misuse that Bull by inferring authorization it does not contain.  That misuse seems to have misled people through the centuries to conclude that Malleus has an authority which it seems never to have been granted.  

Malleus may not have made a List of Forbidden Books that did not exist yet, but neither have I seen any particular docuмentation conferring any status as an authoritative docuмent of the Church.  
If you could direct me to any such docuмent, I would be glad to know of it.  

While the Bull of Innocent III does not specifically authorize the publication of Malleus, it does indicate that the authors are eminently qualified to produce such a work. The pope describes how Dominican Professors Kramer and Sprenger have already been working for some length of time on an assignment to deter and punish "the abominations and enormities" perpetrated by the soldiers of Satan's army.

However in many provinces, these papal servants have been thwarted by apparently influential people who "are not ashamed to contend with the most unblushing effrontery that these enormities are not practised in these provinces." Here the modern reader observes that there even in the heyday of Inquisition, there were always powerful interests inhibiting the work of the Church in this regard.

There is a Letter of Aprobation (endorcement) from the Doctors of the University of Cologne specific to the Malleus included in the PDF publication:


OFFICIAL LETTER OF APPROBATION OF THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM FROM THE FACULTY OF THEOLOGY OF THE HONOURABLE UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE
(PARTIAL TRANSCRIPTION )

THE official Docuмent of Approbation of the treatise Malleus Maleficarum, and the subscription of the Doctors of the most honourable University of Cologne, duly set forth and recorded as a public docuмents and deposition.

IN the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Know all men by these presents, whosoever shall read, see or hear the tenor of this official and public docuмent, that in the year of our Lord, 1487, upon a Saturday, being the nineteenth day of the month of May, at the fifth hour after noon, or thereabouts, in the third year of the Pontificate of our most Holy Father and Lord, the lord Innocent, by divine providence Pope, the eighth of that name, in the very and actual presence of me Arnold Kolich, public notary, and in the presence of the witnesses whose names are hereunder written and who were convened and especially summoned for this purpose, the Venerable and Very Reverend Father Henry Kramer, Professor of Sacred Theology, of the Order of Preachers, Inquisitor of heretical depravity, directly delegated thereto by the Holy See together with the Venerable and Very Reverend Father James Sprenger, Professor of Sacred Theology and Prior of the Dominican Convent at Cologne, being especially appointed as colleague of the said Father Henry Kramer, hath on behalf both of himself and his said colleague made known unto us and declared that the Supreme Pontiff now happily reigning, lord Innocent, Pope, as hath been set out above, hath committed and granted by a bull duly signed and sealed unto the aforesaid Inquisitors Henry and James, members of the Order of Preachers and Professors of Sacred Theology, by His Supreme Apostolic Authority, the power of making search and inquiry into all heresies, and most especially into the heresy of witches, an abomination that thrives and waxes strong in these our unhappy days, and he has bidden them diligently to perform this duty throughout the five Archdioceses of the five Metropolitan Churches, that is to say, Mainz, Cologne, Trèves, Salzburg and Bremen, granting them every faculty of judging and proceeding against such even with the power of putting malefactors to death, according to the tenor of the Apostolic bull, which they hold and possess and have exhibited unto us, a docuмent which is whole, entire, untouched, and in no way lacerated or impaired, in fine whose integrity is above any suspicion.

And the tenor of the said bull commences thus: “Innocent, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, for an eternal remembrance. Desiring with the most heartfelt anxiety, even as Our Apostleship requires, that the Catholic Faith should be especially in this Our day increase and flourish everywhere, . . .” and it concludes thus: “Given at Rome, at S. Peter's, on the 9 December of the Year of the Incarnation of Our Lord one thousand, four hundred and eighty-four, in the first Year of Our Pontificate.”

[Columba]

THE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM
INTRODUCTION TO 1948 EDITION

It has been observed that “it is quite impossible to appreciate and understand the true and inner lives of men and women in Elizabethan and Stuart England, in the France of Louis XIII and during the long reign of his son and successor, in Italy of the Renaissance and the Catholic Reaction - to name but three European countries and a few definite periods - unless we have some realization of the part that Witchcraft played in those ages amid the affairs of these Kingdoms. All classes were affected and concerned from Pope to peasant, from Queen to cottage girl.”

Witchcraft was inextricably mixed with politics. Matthew Paris tells us how in 1232 the Chief Justice Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, (Shakespeare's “gentle Hubert” in King John), was accused by Peter do Roches, Bishop of Winchester, of having won the favour of Henry III through “charms and incantations”. In 1324 there was a terrific scandal at Coventry when it was discovered that a number of the richest and most influential burghers of the town had long been consulting with Master John, a professional necromancer, and paying him large sums to bring about by his arts the death of Edward II and several nobles of the court. Alice Perrers, the mistress pf Edward III, was not only reputed to have infatuated the old King by occult spells, but her physician (believed to be a mighty sorcerer) was arrested on a charge of confecting love philtres and talismans. Henry V, in the autumn of 1419, prosecuted his stepmother, Joan of Navarre, for attempting to kill him by witchcraft, “in the most horrible manner that one could devise.” The conqueror of Agincourt was exceedingly worried about the whole wretched business, as also was the Archbishop of Canterbury, who ordered public prayers for the King's safety. In the reign of his son, Henry VI, in 1441, one of the highest and noblest ladies in the realm, Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, was arraigned for conspiring with “a clerk”, Roger Bolingbroke, “a most notorious evoker of demons”, and “the most famous scholar in the whole world in astrology in magic”, to procure the death of the young monarch by sorcery, so that the Duke of Gloucester, Henry's uncle and guardian, might succeed to the crown. In this plot were further involved Canon Thomas Southwell, and a “relapsed witch”, that is to say, one who had previously (eleven years before) been incarcerated upon grave suspicion of black magic, Margery Jourdemayne. Bolingbroke, whose confession implicated the Duchess, was hanged; Canon Southwell died in prison; the witch in Smithfield was “burn'd to Ashes”, since her offence was high treason. The Duchess was sentenced to a most degrading public penance, and imprisoned for life in Peel Castle, Isle of Man. Richard III, upon seizing the throne in 1483, declared that the marriage of his brother, Edward IV, with the Lady Elizabeth Grey, had been brought about by “sorcery and witchcraft”, and further that “Edward's wife, that monstrous witch, has plotted with Jane Shore to waste and wither his body.” Poor Jane Shore did most exemplary penance, walking the flinty streets of London barefoot in her kirtle. In the same year when Richard wanted to get rid of the Duke of Buckingham, his former ally, one of the chief accusations he launched was that the Duke consulted with a Cambridge “necromancer” to compass and devise his death.

One of the most serious and frightening events in the life of James VII of Scotland (afterwards James I of England) was the great conspiracy of 1590, organized by the Earl of Bothwell. James with good reason feared and hated Bothwell, who, events amply proved, was Grand Master of more than one hundred witches, all adepts in poisoning, and all eager to do away with the King. In other words, Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, was the centre and head of a vast political plot. A widespread popular panic was the result of the discovery of this murderous conspiracy.

In France as early as 583, when the infant son and heir of King Chilperic, died of dysentery, as the doctors diagnosed it, it came to light that Mumolus, one of the leading officials of the court, had been secretly administering to the child medicines, which he obtained from “certain witches of Paris”. These potions were pronounced by the physicians to be strong poisons. In 1308, Guichard, Bishop of Troyes, was accused of having slain by sorcery the Queen of Philip IV of France (1285-1314), Jeanne of Navarre, who died three years before. The trial dragged on from 1308 to 1313, and many witnesses attested on oath that the prelate had continually visited certain notorious witches, who supplied him philtres and draughts. In 1315, during the brief reign (1314-1316) of Louis X, the eldest son of Philip IV, was hanged Enguerrand de Marigny, chamberlain, privy councillor, and chief favourite of Philip, whom, it was alleged, he had bewitched to gain the royal favour. The fact, however, which sealed his doom was his consultation with one Jacobus de Lor, a warlock, who was to furnish a nostrum warranted to put a very short term to the life of King Louis. Jacobus strangled himself in prison.

In 1317 Hugues Géraud, Bishop of Cahors, was executed by Pope John XXII, who reigned 1316-1334, residing at Avignon. Langlois says that the Bishop had attempted the Pontiff's life by poison procured from witches.

Perhaps the most resounding of all scandals of this kind in France was the La Voison case, 1679-1682, when it was discovered that Madame de Montespan had for years been trafficking with a gang of poisoners and sorcerers, who plotted the death of the Queen and the Dauphan, so that Louis XIV might be free to wed Athénais de Montespan, whose children should inherit the throne. The Duchesse de Fontanges, a beautiful young country girl, who had for a while attracted the wayward fancy of Louis, they poisoned out of hand. Money was poured out like water, and it has been said that “the entire floodtide of poison, witchcraft and diabolism was unloosed” to attain the ends of that “marvellous beauty” (so Mme. de Sévigné calls her), the haughty and reckless Marquise de Montespan. In her thwarted fury she well nigh resolved to sacrifice Louis himself to her overweening ambition and her boundless pride. The highest names in France - the Princesse de Tingry, the Duchesse de Vitry, the Duchesse de Lusignan, the Duchesse de Bouillon, the Comtesse de Soissons, the Duc de Luxembourg, the Marguis de Cessac - scores of the older aristocracy, were involved, whilst literally hundreds of venal apothecaries, druggists, pseudo-alchemists, astrologers, quacks, warlocks, magicians, charlatans, who revolved round the ominous and terrible figure of Catherine La Voisin, professional seeress, fortune-teller, herbalist, beauty-specialist, were caught in the meshes of law. No less than eleven volumes of François Ravaison's huge work, Archives de la Bastille, are occupied with this evil crew and their doings, their sorceries and their poisonings.

During the reign of Urban VIII, Maffeo Barberini, 1623-1644, there was a resounding scandal at Rome when it was discovered that “after many invocations of demons” Giacinto Contini, nephew of the Cardinal d'Ascoli, had been plotting with various accomplices to put an end to the Pope's life, and thus make way for the succession of his uncle to the Chair of Peter. Tommaso Orsolini of Recanate, moreover, after consulting with certain scryers and planetarians, readers of the stars, was endeavouring to bribe the apothecary Carcurasio of Naples to furnish him with a quick poison, which might be mingled with the tonics and electuaries prescribed for the ailing Pontiff, (Ranke, History of the Popes, ed. 1901, Vol. III, pp. 375-6).

To sum up, as is well observed by Professor Kittredge, who more than once emphasized “I have no belief in the black art or in the interference of demons in the daily life of mortals”, it makes no difference whether any of the charges were true or whether the whole affairs were hideous political chicanery. “Anyhow, it reveals the beliefs and the practices of the age.”

Throughout the centuries witchcraft was universally held to be a dark and horrible reality; it was an ever-present, fearfully ominous menace, a thing most active, most perilous, most powerful and true. Some may consider these mysteries and cantrips and invocations, these sabbats and rendezvous, to have been merest mummery and pantomime, but there is no question that the psychological effect was incalculable, and harmful in the highest degree. It was, to use a modern phrase, “a war of nerves”. Jean Bodin, the famous juris-consult (1530-90) whom Montaigne acclaims to be the highest literary genius of his time, and who, as a leading member of the Parlement de Paris, presided over important trials, gives it as his opinion that there existed, no only in France, a complete organization of witches, immensely wealthy, of almost infinite potentialities, most cleverly captained, with centres and cells in every district, utilizing an espionage in ever land, with high-placed adherents at court, with humble servitors in the cottage. This organization, witchcraft, maintained a relentless and ruthless war against the prevailing order and settled state. No design was too treacherous, no betrayal was too cowardly, no blackmail too base and foul. The Masters lured their subjects with magnificent promises, they lured and deluded and victimized. Not the least dreaded and dreadful weapon in their armament was the ancient and secret knowledge of poisons (veneficia), of herbs healing and hurtful, a tradition and a lore which had been handed down from remotest antiquity.

Little wonder, then, that later social historians, such as Charles Mackay and Lecky, both absolutely impartial and unprejudiced writers, sceptical even, devote many pages, the result of long and laborious research, to witchcraft. They did not believe in witchcraft as in any sense supernatural, although perhaps abnormal. But the centuries of which they were writing believed intensely in it, and it was their business as scholars to examine and explain the reasons for such belief. It was by no means all mediæval credulity and ignorance and superstition. MacKay and Lecky fully recognized this, as indeed they were in all honesty bound to do. They met with facts, hard facts, which could neither have been accidents nor motiveless, and these facts must be accounted for and elucidated. The profoundest thinkers, the acutest and most liberal minds of their day, such men as Cardan; Trithemius; the encylcopædic Delrio; Bishop Binsfeld; the learned physician, Caspar Peucer; Jean Bodin; Sir Edward Coke, “father of the English law”; Francis Bacon; Malebranche; Bayle; Glanvil; Sir Thomas Browne; Cotton Mather; all these, and scores besides, were convinced of the dark reality of witchcraft, of the witch organization. Such a consensus of opinion throughout the years cannot be lightly dismissed.

The literature of the subject, discussing it in every detail, from every point of view, from every angle, is enormous. For example, such a Bibliography as that of Yve-Plessis, 1900, which deals only with leading French cases and purports to be no more than a supplement to the Bibliographies of Græsse, the Catalogues of the Abbé Sépher, Ouvaroff, the comte d'Ourches, the forty-six volumes of Dr. Hoefer, Shieble, Stanislas de Guaita, and many more, lists nearly 2,000 items, and in a note we are warned that the work is very far from complete. The Manuel Bibliographique, 3 vols., 1912, of Albert L. Caillet, gives 11,648 items. Caillet has many omissions, some being treatises of the first importance. The library of witchcraft may without exaggeration be said to be incalculable.

It is hardly disputed that in the whole vast literature of witchcraft, the most prominent, the most important, the most authorative volume is the Malleus Maleficarum (The Witch Hammer) of Heinrich Kramer (Henricus Institoris) and James Sprenger. The date of the first edition of the Malleus cannot be fixed with absolute certainty, but the likeliest year is 1486. There were, at any rate, fourteen editions between 1487 and 1520, and at least sixteen editions between 1574 and 1669. These were issued from the leading German, French and Italian presses. The latest reprint of the original text of the Malleus is to be found in the noble four volume collection of Treatises on Witchcraft, “sumptibus Claudii Bourgeat”, 4to., Lyons, 1669. There is a modern German translation by J.W.R. Schmidt, Der Hexehammer, 3 vols., Berlin, 1906; second edition, 1922-3. There is also an English translation with Introduction, Bibliography, and Notes by Montague Summers, published John Rodker, 1928.

The Malleus acquired especial weight and dignity from the famous Bull of Pope Innocent VIII, Summis desiderantes affectibus of 9 December, 1484, in which the Pontiff, lamenting the power and prevalence of the witch organization, delegates Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger as inquisitors of these pravities throughout Northern Germany, particularly in the provinces and dioceses of Mainz, Cologne, Tréves, Salzburg, and Bremen, granting both and either of them an exceptional authorization, and by Letters Apostolic requiring the Bishop of Strasburg, Albrecht von Bayern (1478-1506), not only to take steps to publish and proclaim the Bull, but further to afford Kramer and Sprenger every assistance, even calling in, if necessary, the help of the secular arm.

This Bull, which was printed as the Preface to the Malleus, was thus, comments Dr. H.C. Lea, “spread broadcast over Europe”. In fact, “it fastened on European jurisprudence for nearly three centuries the duty of combating” the Society of Witches. The Malleus lay on the bench of every magistrate. It was the ultimate, irrefutable, unarguable authority. It was implicitly accepted not only by Catholic but by Protestant legislature. In fine, it is not too much to say that the Malleus Maleficarum is among the most important, wisest, and weightiest books of the world.

It has been asked whether Kramer or Sprenger was principally responsible for the Malleus, but in the case of so close a collaboration any such inquiry seems singularly superflous and nugatory. With regard to instances of jointed authorship, unless there be some definite declaration on the part of one of the authors as to his particular share in a work, or unless there be some unusual and special circuмstances bearing on the point, such perquisitions and analysis almost inevitably resolve themselves into a cloud of guess-work and bootless hazardry and vague perhaps. It becomes a game of literary blind-man's-bluff.

Heinrich Kramer was born at Schlettstadt, a town of Lower Alsace, situated some twenty-six miles southwest of Strasburg. At an early age he entered the Order of S. Dominic, and so remarkable was his genius that whilst still a young man he was appointed to the position of Prior of the Dominican House at his native town, Schlettstadt. He was a Preacher-General and a Master of Sacred Theology. P.G. and S.T.M., two distinctions in the Dominican Order. At some date before 1474 he was appointed an Inquisitor for the Tyrol, Salzburg, Bohemia, and Moravia. His eloquence in the pulpit and tireless activity received due recognition at Roma, and for many years he was Spiritual Director of the great Dominican church at Salzburg, and the right-hand of the Archbishop of Salzburg, a munificent prelat who praises him highly in a letter which is still extant. In the late autumn or winter of 1485 Kramer had already drawn up a learned instruction or treatise on the subject of witchcraft. This circulated in manuscript, and is (almost in its entirety) incorporated in the Malleus. By the Bull of Innocent VIII in December, 1484, he had already been associated with James Sprenger to make inquisition for and try witches and sorcerers. In 1495, the Master General of the Order, Fr. Joaquin de Torres, O.P., summoned Kramer to Venice in order that he might give public lectures, disputations which attracted crowded audiences, and which were honoured by the presence and patronage of the Patriarch of Venice. He also strenuously defended the Papal supremacy, confuting the De Monarchia of the Paduan jurisconsult, Antonio degli Roselli. At Venice he resided at the priory of Santi Giovanni e Paolo (S. Zanipolo). During the summer of 1497, he had returned to Germany, and was living at the convent of Rohr, near Regensburg. On 31 January, 1500, Alexander VI appointed him as Nuncio and Inquisitor of Bohemia and Moravia, in which provinces he was deputed and empowered to proceed against the Waldenses and Picards, as well as against the adherents of the witch-society. He wrote and preached with great fervour until the end. He died in Bohemia in 1505.

His chief works, in addition to the Malleus, are: Several Discourses and Various Sermons upon the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist; Nuremberg, 1496; A Tract Confuting the Errors of Master Antonio degli Roselli; Venice, 1499; and The Shield of Defence of the Holy Roman Church Against the Picards and Waldenses; an incunabulum, without date, but almost certainly 1499-1500. Many learned authors quote and refer to these treatises in terms of highest praise.

James Sprenger was born in Basel, 1436-8. He was admitted a novice in the Dominican house of this town in 1452. His extraordinary genius attracted immediate attention, and his rise to a responsible position was very rapid. According to Pierre Hélyot, the Fransican (1680-1716), Histoire des Ordres Religieux, III (1715), ch. XXVI, in 1389 Conrad of Prussia abolished certain relaxations and abuses which had crept into the Teutonic Province of the Order of S. Dominic, and restored the Primitive and Strict Obedience. He was closely followed by Sprenger, whose zealous reform was so warmly approved that in 1468 the General Chapter ordered him to lecture on the sentences of Peter Lombard at the University of Cologne, to which he was thus officially attached. A few years later he proceeded Master of Theology, and was elected Prior and Regent of Studies of the Cologne Convent, one of the most famous and frequented Houses of the Order. On 30 June, 1480, he was elected Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the University. His lecture-room was thronged, and in the following year, at the Chapter held in Rome, the Master General of the Order, Fra Salvo Cusetta, appointed him Inquisitor Extraordinary for the Provinces of Mainz, Trèves, and Cologne. His activities were enormous, and demanded constant journeyings through the very extensive district to which he had been assigned. In 1488 he was elected Provincial of the whole German Province, an office of the first importance. It is said that his piety and his learning impressed all who came in contact with him. In 1495 he was residing at Cologne, and here he received a letter from Alexander VI praising his enthusiasm and his energy. He died rather suddenly, in the odour of sanctity - some chronicles call him “Beatus” - on 6 December, 1495, at Strasburg, where he is buried.

Among Sprenger's other writings, excepting the Malleus, are The Paradoxes of John of Westphalia Refuted, Mainz, 1479, a closely argued treatise; and The Institution and Approbation of the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary, which was first erected at Cologne on 8 September in the year 1475, Cologne, 1475. Sprenger may well be called the “Apostle of the Rosary”. None more fervent than he in spreading this Dominican elevation. His zeal enrolled thousands, including the Emperor Frederick III, in the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary, which was enriched with many indulgences by a Bull of Sixtus IV. It has been observed that the writings of Father James Sprenger on the Rosary are well approved by many learned men, Pontiffs, Saints and Theologians alike. There can be no doubt that Sprenger was a mystic of the highest order, a man of most saintly life.

The Dominican chroniclers, such as Quétif and Echard, number Kramer and Sprenger among the glories and heroes of their Order.

Certain it is that the Malleus Maleficarum is the most solid, the most important work in the whole vast library of witchcraft. One turns to it again and again with edification and interest: From the point of psychology, from the point of jurisprudence, from the point of history, it is supreme. It has hardly too much to say that later writers, great as they are, have done little more than draw from the seemingly inexhaustible wells of wisdom which the two Dominicans, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, have given us in the Malleus Maleficarum.

What is most surprising is the modernity of the book. There is hardly a problem, a complex, a difficulty, which they have not foreseen, and discussed, and resolved.

Here are cases which occur in the law-courts to-day, set out with the greatest clarity, argued with unflinching logic, and judged with scrupulous impartiality.

It is a work which must irresistibly capture the attention of all mean who think, all who see, or are endeavouring to see, the ultimate reality beyond the accidents of matter, time and space.

The Malleus Maleficarum is one of the world's few books written sub specie aeternitatis.

Montague Summers.
7 October, 1946.
In Festo SS. Rosarii.