The Malleus Maleficarum

by The Malleus Maleficarum (lit)

  Innocent VIII only canonized one Saint, the Margrave Leopold of Austria, who was raised to the Altar 6 January, 1485. However, on 31 May, 1492, he received from Sultan Bajazet the precious Relic of the Most Holy Lance with which Our Redeemer had been wounded by S. Longinus upon the Cross. A Turkish emir brought the Relic to Ancona, whence it was conveyed by the Bishop to Narni, when two Cardinals took charge of it and carried it to Rome. On 31 May Cardinal Hiulino della Rovere solemnly handed it in a crystal vessel to the Pope during a function at S. Maria del Popolo. It was then borne in procession to S. Peter's, and from the loggia of the protico the Holy Father bestowed his blessing upon the crowds, whilst the Cardinal della Rovere standing at his side exposed the Sacred Relic to the veneration of the thronging piazza. The Holy Lance, which is accounted one of the three great Relics of the Passion, is shown together with the Piece of the True Cross and S. Veronica's Veil at S. Peter's after Matins on Spy Wednesday and on Good Friday evening; after High Mass on Easter Day, and also several times during the course of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. The Relics are exposed from the balcony over the statue of S. Veronica to the left of the Papal Altar. The strepitaculum is sounded from the balcony and then all present venerate the Lance, the Wood of the Cross, and the Volto Santo.

  One of the most important exterior events which marked the reign of Innocent was undoubtedly the fall of Granada, the last stronghold of the Moors in Spain, which city surrendered to Ferdinand of Aragon, who thereby with his Queen Isabella won the name of “Catholic,” on 2 January, 1492. The conquest of Granada was celebrated with public rejoicings and the most splendid fêtes at Rome. Every house was brilliant with candles; the expulsion of the Mohammedans was represented upon open stages in a kind of pantomime; and long processions visited the national church of Spain in the Piazza Navona, San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli, which had been erected in 1450.

  On 25 July, 1492, Pope Innocent, who had long been sickly and ailing so that his only nourishment for many weeks was woman's milk, passed away in his sleep at the Vatican. They buried him in S. Peter's, this great and noble Pontiff, and upon his tomb, a work in bronze by Pollaiuolo, were inscribed the felicitous words: Ego autem in Innocentia mea ingressus sum.

  The chroniclers or rather scandalmongers of the day, Burchard and Infessura, have done their best to draw the character of Innocent VIII in very black and shameful colours, and it is to be regretted that more than one historian has not only taken his cure from their odious insinuations and evil gossip, but yet further elaborated the story by his own lurid imagination. When we add thereto and retail as sober evidence the venom of contemporary satirists such as Marullo and the fertile exaggerations of melodramatic publicists such as Egidio of Viterbo, a very sensational grotesque is the result. During his youth Giovanni Battista Cibò had, it seems, become enamoured of a Neapolitan lady, by whom he was the father of two children, Franceschetto and Teodorina. As was proper, both son and daughter were provided for in an ample and munificent manner; in 1488 his father married Franceschetto to Maddalena, a daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici. The lady Teodorina became the bride of Messer Gherardo Uso de’ Mare, a Genoese merchant of great wealth, who was also Papal Treasurer. The capital that has been made out of these circumstances is hardly to be believed. It is admitted that this is contrary to strict morality and to be reasonably blamed. But this intrigue has been taken as the grounds for accusations of the most unbridled licentiousness, the tale of a lewd and lustful life. So far as I am aware the only other evidence for anything of the kind is the mud thrown by obscure writers at a great and truly Christian, if not wholly blameless, successor of S. Peter.

  In spite of these few faults Innocent VIII was a Pontiff who at a most difficult time worthily filled his Apostolic dignity. In his public office his constant endeavours for peace; his tireless efforts to unite Christendom against their common foe, the Turk; his opposition to the revolutionary Hussites in Bohemia and the anarchical Waldenses, two sources of the gravest danger, must be esteemed as worthy of the highest praise. Could he have brought his labours to fruition Europe would in later ages have been spared many a conflict and many a disaster.

  Roscoe in reference to Innocent remarks: “The urbanity and mildness of his manners formed a striking contrast to the inflexible character of his predecessor.” And again: “If the character of Innocent were to be impartially weighed, the balance would incline, but with no very rapid motion, to the favourable side. His native disposition seems to have been mild and placable; but the disputed claims of the Roman See, which he conceived it to be his duty to enforce, led him into embarassments, from which he was with difficulty extricated, and which, without increasing his reputation, destroyed his repose.” We have here the judgement of a historian who is inclined to censure rather than to defend, and who certainly did not recognize, because he was incapable of appreciating, the almost overwhelming difficulties with which Innocent must needs contend if he were, as in conscience bound, to act as the chief Pastor of Christendom, a critical position which he needs must face and endeavour to control, although he were well aware that humanly speaking his efforts had no chance of success, whilst they cost him health and repose and gained him oppugnancy and misunderstanding.

  Immediately upon the receipt of the Bull, Summis desiderantes affectibus, in 1485, Fr. Henry Kramer commenced his crusade against witches at Innsbruck, but he was opposed on certain technical grounds by the Bishop of Brixen, nor was Duke Sigismund so ready to help the Inquisitors with the civil arm. In fact the prosecutions were, if not actually directed, at least largely controlled, by the episcopal authority; nor did the ordinary courts, as is so often supposed, invariably carry out the full sentence of the Holy Office. Not so very many years later, indeed, the civil power took full cognizance of any charges of witchcraft, and it was then that far more blood was spilled and far more fires blazed than ever in the days when Kramer and Sprenger were directing the trials. It should be borne in mind too that frequent disturbances, conspiracies of anarchists, and nascent Bolshevism showed that the district was rotted to the core, and the severities of Kramer and Sprenger were by no means so unwarranted as is generally supposed.

  On 6 June, 1474, Sprenger (Mag. Jacobus Sprenger) is mentioned as Prior of the Dominican house at Cologne, and on 8 February, 1479, he was present, as the socius of Gerhard von Elten, at the trial of John von Ruchratt of Wesel, who was found guilty of propagating the most subversive doctrines, and was sentenced to seclusion in the Augustinian monastery at Mainz, where he died in 1481.

  Unfortunately full biographies of these two remarkable men, James Sprenger and Henry Kramer, have not been transmitted to us, but as many details have been succinctly collected in the Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum of Quétif and Echard, Paris, 1719, I have thought it convenient to transcribe the following accounts from that monumental work.

  F. Jacobus Sprenger (sub anno 1494). Fr. James Sprenger, a German by birth and a member of the community of the Dominican house at Cologne, greatly distinguished himself in his academic career at the University of that city. His name was widely known in the year 1468, when at the Chapter General of the Order which was held at Rome he was appointed Regent of Studies at the Formal House of Studies at Cologne, and the following is recorded in the statutes: Fr. James Sprenger is officially appointed to study and lecture upon the Sentences so that he may proceed to the degree of Master. A few years later, although he was yet quite a young man, since he had already proceeded Master, he was elected Prior and Regent of this same house, which important offices he held in the year 1475, and a little after, we are told, he was elected Provincial of the whole German Province. It was about this date that he was named by Sixtus IV General Inquisitor for Germany, and especially for the dioceses of Cologne and Mainz. He coadjutor was a Master of Sacred Theology, of the Cologne Convent, by name Fr. Gerard von Elten, who unfortunately died within a year or two. Pope Innocent VIII confirmed Fr. Sprenger in this office, and appointed Fr. Henry Kramer as his socius. Fr. Sprenger
was especially distinguished on account of his burning and fearless zeal for the old faith, his vigilance, his constancy, his singleness and patience in correcting novel abuses and errors. We know that he was living in our house at Cologne at least as late as the year 1494, since the famous Benedictine Abbot John Trithemus refers to him in this year. It is most probable that he died and was buried among his brethren at Cologne. The following works are the fruit of his pen.

  1. The Paradoxes of John of Westphalia, which he preached from the pulpit at Worms, disproved and utterly refuted by two Masters of Sacred Theology, Fr. Gerard von Elten of Cologne and Fr. James Sprenger. Printed at Mainz, 1479.

  2. Malleus Maleficarum Maleficat & earum haeresim, ut framea potentissima conterens per F. Henricum Institoris & Jacobum Sprengerum Ord. Praedic. Inquisitores, which has run into many editions (see the notice of Fr. Henry Kramer). This book was translated into French as Le Maillet des Sorcières, Lyons, Stephanus Gueynard, 4to. See the Bibliothèque Françoise du Verdier.

  3. The institution and approbation of the Society of Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary which was first erected at Cologne on 8 September in the year 1475, with an account of many graces and Miracles, as also of the indulgences which have been granted to this said Confraternity.

  I am uncertain whether he wrote and issued this book in Latin or in German, since I have never seen it, and it was certainly composed for the instruction and edification of the people. Moreover, it is reported that the following circumstances were the occasion of the found of this Society. In the year 1475, when Nuess was being besieged by Charles, Duke of Burgunday, with a vast army, and the town was on the very point of surrender, the magistrates and chief burghers of Cologne, fearing the danger which threatened their city, resorted in a body to Fr. James, who was then Prior of the Convent, and besought him that if he knew of any plan or device which might haply ward off this disaster, he would inform them of it and instruct them what was best to be done. Fr. James, having seriously debated the matter with the senior members of the house, replied that all were agreed there could be no more unfailing and present remedy than to fly to the help of the Blessed Virgin, and that the very best way of effecting this would be if they were not only to honour the Immaculate Mother of God by means of the Holy Rosary which had been propagated several years ago by Blessed Alan de la Roche, but that they should also institute and erect a Society and Confraternity, in which every man should enrol himself with the firm resolve of thenceforth zealously and exactly fulfilling with a devout mind the obligations that might be required by the rules of membership. This excellent plan recommended itself to all. On the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady (8 September) the Society was inaugurated and High Mass was sung; there was a solemn procession throughout the city; all enrolled themselves and were inscribed on the Register; they fulfilled their duties continually with the utmost fervor, and before long the reward of their devotion was granted to them, since peace was made between the Emperor Frederick IV and Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgandy. In the following year, 1476, Alexander Nanni de Maltesta, Bishop of Forli and legatus a latere from Sixtus IV, who was then residing at Cologne, solemnly approved the Confraternity and on 10 March enriched it with many indulgences. And this is the first of those societies which are known as the Rosary Confraternirty to be erected and approved by the Apostolic authority. For in a short time, being enriched with so many indulgences, and new privileges and benefice being bestowed upon them almost daily, they have spread everywhere and they are to be found in almost every town and city throughout the whole of Christendom. It is worthy of remark that on the very same day that this Confraternity was erected at Cologne, Blessed Alan de la Roche of blessed memory, the most eminent promoter of the devotion of the Holy Rosary, died at Rostock; and his beloved disciple, Fr. Michel François de l’Isle, who was sometime Master of Sacred Theology at Cologne, gave Fr. Sprenger the most valuable assistance when the Rosary was being established, as we have related above. The works of Fr. James Sprenger are well approved by many authors as well as Trithemius; since amongst others who have praised him highly we may mention Albert Leander, O.P.; Antony of Siena, O.P.; Fernandez in his Concert. & Isto. del Rosar, Lib. 4, cap. 1, fol. 127; Fontana in his Theatro & Monum. published at Altamura, 1481; and, of authors not belonging to our Order, Antonius Possevinus, S.J., Miraeus, Aegidius Gelenius in his De admirance Coloniae Agrippinae urbi Ubiorum Augustae magnitudine sacra & ciuli, Coloniae, 1645, 4to, p. 430; Dupin, and very many more.

  Of Henry Kramer, Jacques Quétif and Echard, Scriptores Ordini Praedicatorum, Paris, 1719, Vol. 1, pp. 896-97, sub anno 1500, give the following account: Fr. Henry Kramer (F. Henricus Institorus) was of German nationality and a member of the German Province. It is definitely certain the he was a Master of Sacred Theology, which holy science he publicly professed, although we have not been able to discover either in what town of Germany he was born, in what Universities he lectured, or in what house of the Order he was professed. He was, however, very greatly distinguished by he zeal for the Faith, which he most bravely and most strenuously defended both by his eloquence in the pulpit and on the printed page, and so when in those dark days various errors had begun to penetrate Germany, and witches with their horrid craft, foul sorceries, and devilish commerce were increasing on every side, Pope Innocent VIII, by Letters Apostolic which were given at Rome at S. Peter's in the first year of his reign, 1484, appointed Henry Kramer and James Sprenger, Professors of Sacred Theology, general Inquisitors for all the dioceses of the five metropolitan churches of Germany, that is to say, Mainz, Cologne, Trèves, Salzburg, and Bremen. They showed themselves most zealous in the work which they had to do, and especially did they make inquisition for witches and for those who were gravely suspect of sorcery, all of whom they prosecuted with the extremest rigour of the law. Maximilian I, Emperor of Germany and King of the Romans, by royal letters patent which he signed at Brussels on 6 November, 1486, bestowed upon Fr. Kramer and Fr. Sprenger the enjoyment of full civil powers in the performance of their duties as Inquisitors, and he commanded that throughout his dominions all should obey the two delegates of the Holy Office in their business, and should be ready and willing to help them upon every occasion. For several years Fr. Henry Kramer was Spiritual Director attached to our Church at Salzburg, which important office he fulfilled with singular great commendation. Thence he was summoned in the year 1495 to Venice by the Master-General of the Order, Fr. Joaquin de Torres, in order that he might give public lectures, and hold disputations concerning public worship and the adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament. For there were some theologians about this date who taught that the Blessed Sacrament must only be worshipped conditionally, with an implicit and intellectual reservation of adoring the Host in the tabernacle only in so far as It had been duly and exactly consecrated. Fr. Kramer, whose disputations were honoured by the presence of the Patriarch of Venice, with the utmost fervour publicly confronted those who maintained this view, and not infrequently did he preach against them from the pulpit. The whole question had recently arisen from a certain circumstance which happened in the vicinity of Padua. When a country fellow was collecting wood and dry leaves in a little copse hard by the city he found, wrapped up in a linen cloth beneath some dry brambles and bracken and dead branches of trees, two pyxes or ciboria containing particles which some three years before had been stolen from a neighbouring church, the one of which was used to carry the Lord's Body to the sick, the other being provided for the exposition of the Sanctissimum on the feast of Corpus Christi. The rustic immediately reported what he had discovered to the parish priest of the chapel hard by the spinnery. The good Father immediately hastened to the spot and saw that it was exactly as had been told him. When he more closely examined the vessels he found in one pyx a number of Hosts, and so fetching thither from the church a consecrated altar-stone which it was the custom to carry when the Viaticum was taken to the dying in order that the ciborium might be decently set thereon, he covered the stone with a c
orporal or a friar linen cloth and reverently placed it beneath the pyx. He built all around a little wooden baldaquin or shrine, and presently put devout persons to watch the place so that no indignity might be done. Meanwhile the incident had been noised abroad and vast throngs of people made their way to the place where the thicket was; candles were lighted all around; “Christ's Body,” they cry, “is here”; and every knee bent in humblest adoration. Before long news of the event was reported to the Bishop of Padua, who, having sent thither tow or three priests, inquired most carefully into every detail. Since in the other ciborium they only found some corrupted particles of the Sacramental Species, in the sight of the whole multitude the clerics who had come from the Bishop broke down the tiny tabernacle that had been improvised, scattered all the boughs and leafery which were arranged about it, extinguished the tapers, and carried the sacred vessels away with them. Immediately after it was forbidden under severest penalties of ecclesiastical censures and excommunication itself for anyone to visit that spot or to offer devotions there. Moreover, upon this occasion certain priests preached openly that the people who resorted thither had committed idolatry, that they had worshipped nothing else save brambles and decay, trees, nay, some went so far as to declare that they had adored the devil himself. As might be supposed, very grave contentions were set astir between the parish priests and their flocks, and it was sharply argued whether the people had sinned by their devotion to Christ's Body, Which they sincerely believed to be there, but Which (it seems) perhaps was not there: and the question was then mooted whether a man ought not to worship the Blessed Sacrament, ay, even when Christ's Body is consecrated in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and elevated and carried as Viaticum in procession to the sick, only conditionally, that is to say, since he does not perhaps know if It is actually Christ's Body (or whether some accident may not have occurred), since no mane can claim to be individually enlightened to by God on this point and desire to have the Mystery demonstrated and proved to him. It was much about the same thing that Fr. Kramer undertook to refute and utterly disprove the bold and wicked theories put forward by another preacher who at Augsburg dared to proclaim from the pulpit that the Catholic Church had not definitely laid down that the appearances of Christ in His human body, and sometimes bleeding from His Sacred Wounds, in the Blessed Sacrament are real and true manifestations of Our Saviour, but that it may be disputed whether Our Lord is truly there and truly to be worshipped by the people. This wretch even went so far as to say that miracles of this kind should be left as it were to the good judgement of God, inasmuch as with regard to these miraculous appearances nothing had been strictly defined by the Church, nor yet do the Holy Fathers or Doctors lay down and sure and certain rule. These doctrines Fr. Kramer opposed with the utmost zeal and learning, delivering many an eloquent sermon against the innovator and utterly condemning the theories which had been thus put forth and proclaimed. Nay, more, by virtue of his position and his powers as delegate of the Holy Office he forbade under the pain of excommunication that anyone should ever again dare to preach such errors. Fr. Kramer wrote several works, of which some have been more than once reprinted: