Malleus Maleficarum: Hammer of Witches (Unabridged‪)‬

The medieval witch-hunting manual with a new foreword

An actual witch-hunting manual, written in the Middle Ages.


Malleus is Latin for “hammer,” Maleficarum is Latin for “of witches.” Thus, the title tells you everything that is to come. Heinrich Kramer is attempting to forge a hammer made of paper and ink, and to bring it down upon the heads of those he believes to be practising witchcraft.

Heinrich was a Dominican Inquisitor traipsing around Germany in the 1480s, hunting for witches. When he was refused help by the local church authorities, he got Pope Innocent VIII to write an official papal bull affirming the existence of witches, affirming the authority of official Church inquisitors, specifically Heinrich himself, to hunt for them, and threatening non-cooperative persons with excommunication. Despite this, one of his trials in the town of Innsbruck was deemed to be too extreme by the Bishop of Brixen, who sent him packing.

Perhaps with wounded pride, he wrote Malleus Maleficarum soon after. The book has been interpreted as Heinrich defending himself and his methods, and also as a way of encouraging others to carry on his work.

It is hoped that this primary source, written by a real inhabitant of that world, and used by countless of his peers, will help to shed light on the fears and furies of our shadowy past.

This edition features a new foreword, to help set the historical context.